User talk:Gronky

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[edit] BitTorrent

Not a vandalism. Something went wrong with the upload. Crazy stuff got inserted in the browser's POST stream, I think.

[edit] Soft hyphens

I'll agree with your removal of the overly long Dutch word from the article; (main reason being; it doesnt really do much for the text that the shorter long examples didn't). I just thought I should comment on the soft hyphen. They are defined in HTML but it's a longstanding request in the browsers you tried (bugzilla 9101 since 1999, Konqueror bug 33855 since 2001, and Dillo bug 486) Can't really call it a bug as ignoring them is allowed in the spec, but it's the little things like that you expect to work in the 'good' browsers. :\ They work properly in IE, Opera, and apparently Safari as well though. —Muke Tever 03:03, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Watergate

"Arraignment" was correct. Look it up. -- Dominus 04:28, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll wikify it so that others won't make the same mistake. Gronky 11:13, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] categories for deletion by day entries

Hi - The by day entries in WP:CFD are generally automatically created by a bot (User:NekoDaemon) that runs every day at midnight GMT (although it seems not to have run today). What it does is create a new subpage named for the day, and copies into this subpage a header with the date and the comment text you see if you edit any of the existing days. Then, it adds the {{Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/date}} line to WP:CFD. Referencing the subpage this way treats it like a template (includes the contents in the WP:CFD page when you look at it), and (I'd really consider this a bug) the "edit" links for subsections on the included page edit the included page rather than the including page (this is true for any template). This sort of mechanism is used on a number of high traffic pages to try to minimize edit collisions. I'll ask user:AllyUnion who is the bots creator what happened today. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:35, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Come to think of it, it's not midnight GMT yet so that's probably why it hasn't run. Let's just wait an hour or two and see if it does run. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:37, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
And, sure enough, the bot's done it's job now. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:19, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
It seems my confusion was caused by some delay in the edit/display cycle. When my change didn't appear after a few minutes, I looked at the page source. When I saw unusual mechanics, I figured my change must have been committed while, or just before, the nightly update was done. I figured my text got crunched by the machinery. Well, it's there now. Thanks for the explanation. Gronky 03:15, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)

[edit] Should æ be used in articles about Dublin

Articles on Wikipedia are written generally either in International English or American English. æ is used in IE, not in AE. Irish articles are written in IE. Changing spellings on Irish topics to American English is not acceptable on Wikipedia and is reverted. æ is used in IE and in Hiberno-English. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 01:08, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

æ is not used in IE. You're mistaken to have thought that I was trying to change IE to AE. I was changing some weird symbol to something meaningful. GroNKY\(caint) 01:12, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Under Wikipedia rules mediaeval, medieval or mediæval are all acceptable and I know many Irish writers — I am one of the many — do use mediæval, sometimes mediaeval but never medieval (which grates on me the same way as color for colour and check for cheque). Personally I was taught in both school and university in Ireland to write it as mediæval. It is an acceptable variant of English in British English and Hiberno-English so please do not replace it. Once the variant is accepted, and it is, it should not be replaced under Wikipedia MoS rules. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 02:01, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I disagree that mediæval is an accepted spelling. The Oxford Compact English Dictionary has no entry for that word. It has entries for mediaeval and medieval and neither of those mention mediæval.

æ is simply the original way of writing ae. The letters can be written either way and both are correct. æ declined in usage in the 20th century because it was difficult to type on old typewriters. With the appearance of wordprocessing æ can be typed easily using a standard key (alt " on macs, for example) æ is once again being used by many people rather than write ae. Both are valid.

FearÉIREANN\(caint)

I'd like to note that ae isn't always from æ, so ae cannot always be used validly. Æ went to 'ae' and then in many words was further reduced to just 'e'... make sure you know that the word originally had æ in it before replacing! We don't need to see things like "ærated"! porges 08:42, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Your claim that you were taught "mediæval" in school conflicts with my experience being educated in Ireland. I was never even taught to write an "æ". Since you're in your 30s and I'm in my 20s, it could be that "æ" was once on the syllabus, but has been removed. Gronky 03:18, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Individual spellings are not a matter on or off a syllabus. It is a less used variant because of manual typewriting problems, so it had to be typed as ae but 100% legitimate to use and with the appearance of word processing, as I have mentioned, many users have returned to using æ. It is also fully legitimate to use on Wikipedia. So do not remove it. Such removals will simply be reverted by the many users who, quite correctly, use it. Users are perfectly entitled to use it here. You can write the letters ae separately if you wish, but people do not have to. It is up to them, not you, to decide to use it. (If you look at the insert box on your screen you will see that Wikipedia facilitates people who wish to use it by giving œ, Œ, Æ and æ as typing options.

FearÉIREANN\(caint) 04:59, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

It is cobblers, not to say insulting, to say that "no normal person" uses æ. They do. If you remove words with æ it will be treated as vandalism, reported as such as treated under Wikipedia rules as in cases where people willfully change BE to AE, or AE into BE, when it has been pointed out that the article is entitled to use the them. You clearly know less about language use and forms of spelling that can be used than you think you know. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 06:43, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

So, "no normal person" uses æ; perhaps not. I reverted your edit to restore æ. My comment was ‘revert in memory of George William Russell’. Perhaps he wasn’t normal; he wrote about ‘the færy world’ and those who ‘live only in the æther’, while others dwell ‘up the æry mountains’. Perhaps he wasn’t normal. He didn’t adhere to the spelling found in your Oxford Compact English Dictionary; he didn’t because he lived in Rathgar Avenue, at its junction with Kenilworth Square. I would appreciate it if you left words spelt as Dubliners would spell them, in articles about Dublin alone, rather than imposing your Oxford spelling. Thank you, --ClemMcGann 09:09, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't know what to make of you pair. I've given up on this, but your arguments are as bad FearÉIREANN's. You claim that current English usage can be learned by looking at a single person, and then you point at someone born in 1867! I wish my political opponents argued as limply as you do.
Mr. Russel might have been normal, I didn't know him, but according to Wikipedia he hasn't written anything in at least 70 years. (Being dead is similar to an extreme case of writers cramp.)
Dubliners, in general, don't use "æ". Please don't cite a special case in the mistaken belief that it proves the general case. You will find more uses of "brang" and "brung" in Dublin than you will of "æ", but neither are acceptable as modern standard English. The Oxford English Dictionaries are probably the best known dictionaries to todays residents of Rathgar Avenue anyway. Gronky 00:48, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
A bit over a month has now passed and the above discussion is not in progress, but I've since thought of two examples that are better than "brang" and "brung". They are "me" used for "my", and "giz" used for "give". Anyone that has never either heard or said "giz a go of yer bike", and "wouldya geroff me bleedin' bike!" either didn't grow up in Dublin, or didn't have a bike. But neither "giz" nor "me" (as a possesive adjective) have a place in Wikipedia. Gronky 21:36, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Edit summaries, reverting, and coherent article structure and language

Please bear the following in mind next time you're in the vicinity of the Proinsias De Rossa article, and indeed in general:

  1. You should write accurate edit summaries avoiding personal attacks. Your edit summaries on the Proinsias De Rossa article are not accurate and accuse me of apparent vandalism and random deletion of sentences. This is not true.
  2. I explained on the talk page why it was desirable to make some of the changes: you had introduced a section to the article on De Rossa's work as an MEP but left the material relating to that which was already in the article under another heading. Instead, under that heading, you included detailed information on how De Rossa voted on one of the hundreds of topics he has voted on during the course of his career as an MEP. (If the articles on members of parliaments included details on their voting or speaking on every issue that came up they would be unmanageably long.) I also fixed an ungrammatical sentence, which you then changed back to the ungrammatical version.
  3. You never responded to what I wrote on the talk page but made another revert with another questionable edit summary.
  4. When you're making significant changes (and the ones you made count as significant) you shouldn't label them as minor. See Wikipedia:Minor_edit Palmiro | Talk 16:42, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure how I missed it, but I didn't see your comments on the Talk page until now. If I had I would have replied. So that much is my fault.
  1. I wrote an accurate edit summary. Since you seemed to be a proper wikipedian (not a troll) I wrote that I was reverting "what looks like vandalism".
  2. Will reply to this on the Talk page
  3. see above
  4. I was reverting what looked like vandalism, that seems non-controversial/minor.

Gronky 21:15, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] quality of GNU utilities

I see I am not the first person to take issue with your habit of making an edit, and then using the summary for that edit as a forum to reply to someone instead of summarizing what the edit is. Your edit had nothing to do with my edit, or the GNU toolchain which is what I edited. It doesn't seem appropriate to try to offer a rebuttal in the summary. If you have something to discuss, use the discussion page. Perhaps something like "mention that GNU utilties are more stable than proprietary unix" would have been a more accurate summary of your edit?

As to your actual edit, GNU utilities are not proven to be better than anything, "better" is a subjective term, and therefore cannot be proven. Since you decided to go with "stable", your summary rebuttal doesn't even make sense. None the less, I do not believe that the GNU utilties have been proven to be more stable. Your reference shows that 5 years ago, the GNU utilties were proven to handle random input better, but I don't think that is the same thing as "stable", and is nowhere close to "better". And of course they were only compared to the notoriously bad utilties in proprietary systems, not against any quality software. Personally, I think that paragraph sounds weird now with two seperate and different quality statements, maybe if you want to have information on the quality of GNU utilities we can come up with a whole seperate paragraph just for that info?

Also, you seem to have a very GNU-centric mindset, so please keep in mind that many people consider the GNU utilities to be junk and not worth using at all. In fact, people even go out of their way to create free, secure and reliable alternatives to GNU utilties, see the BSDs for instance, particularly OpenBSD. Remember that your personal opinion of the GNU software is not factual information about GNU software. So if you do want to keep quality information in the article, keep in mind that it will need to contain both points of view. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Generic Player (talk • contribs) 18:07, August 30, 2005.

The last person to take issue with my edit summaries turned out to be correct, and I issued an apology in a subsequent edit summary.
In this case, my edit summary was slightly imperfect, but I think you're over reacting. I didn't mention you by name, and I didn't say anything derogatory. The imperfection was that I appeared to be rebutting a previous edit, but in fact there was a slight difference in what I and the previous edit were talking about. Edit summary space is limited so a full explanation wasn't possible. The Edit summary should be read in at least one of two contexts: time (recent edits) and the edit itself. I don't think I'm significantly in the wrong here.
Regarding what you call my GNU-centric mindset, I disagree. I try to correct mistakes in Wikipedia, and many of my most researched topics centre on software freedom. It's one of the very few failings of Wikipedia's development model that widely held misconceptions are often given the same status as facts. So I often fix controversial mistakes, sometimes this requires discussions on Talk: pages, sometimes this can be avoided by writing detailed edit summaries, sometimes my corrections are wrongly reverted and I just have to move on. For Wikipedia to be high quality, widely held misconceptions must be dispelled outside in society too. So I spend time in the real world trying to build awareness of free software and the factual history and present of it.
If you have an actual problem with any of my edits (one that you can put in words instead of labeling them collectively as being "GNU-centric"), then do bring it up - here or on the pages Talk:page. I'll stand by my edits if I'm right and I'll apologise when I'm wrong. Gronky 21:27, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
I am pretty sure I did put it into words, you are replying to them even. Obviously cutting and pasting the same thing I already wrote isn't going to help, so I'll try to explain what the words mean.
Paragraph 1 is simply me asking you to summarize your edit instead of commenting on someone elses summary. You started your summary with "actually", clearly making it a reply. The fact that your edit didn't really involve mine just makes your reply out of place, its still a reply though, not an accurate summary of your edit. Summaries are for summaries, talk pages are for discussions.
Paragraph 2 is my actual problem with the article as it stands. Please read it again, you seem to have skipped this and headed straight for paragraph 3. Basically, the paragraph seems odd as it is, with 2 seperate mentions of quality issues, and not entirely balanced mentions at that. I think either removing the comments about quality altogether, or making a seperate paragraph to fully cover the quality issue would make the article better, that's all.
Paragraph 3 is just a friendly reminder that other people feel quite differently about GNU software, since I wasn't sure if you were aware of this. Its not a "problem with your edit". It just seems like your edit was added because you like GNU stuff and want the article to say its good, not because its important information. Maybe its just my imagination. Generic Player 00:11, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User:Njyoder

Hi Gronky,

I noticed Njyoder (talk • contribs) hostile behaviour on the Richard Stallman article. I would like to point out that this user is on personal attack parole from a previous RfAr[1] for precisely this reason and if you feel he is unfairly making personal attacks against you, you can report him for such. Axon (talk|contribs) 09:38, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. Gronky 13:28, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dillo / Free Software

Thank you on correcting Dillo to be correct from a "GNU/FSF way". Let's continue making wikipedia a bit more aware of Free Software and the GNU project.Rvalles 23:23, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. One of the very few flaws in Wikipedia's model is that widely held misbeliefs often get treated as fact (or ethical items can be overshadowed by technical items). I do my best to correct articles that contains mistakes about free software. Gronky 14:26, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
(by that, in relation to the Dillo article, I mean that many people have seen the technical side of Dillo, but have not be informed about the ethical/social aspects of it - and so the article represented it purely as a technical project. Gronky 14:31, 20 October 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Unused fair use

There have been a few new candidates for speedy deletion added over the past month or two. A new CSD I5 allows for unused fair use or unfree images that have been on the site for seven days to be speedy deleted. So, if you re-upload the image and use it in an article, you should be okay. Thanks, JYolkowski // talk 01:20, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I was under the false impression that the image was actually used at the time. Gronky 01:22, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 1010804171.jpg

Thanks for reinserting it. I was partial to that picture myself. 172 | Talk 05:19, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

BTW, I just saw your userpage. Please try to get on better terms with Jtdirl. He is an extremely high regarded scholar who has taken out a considerable amount of his professional time from his schedule and spent large sums of cash (internet fees run up huge phone bills in Ireland and most of the most of the world outside the U.S.) for nearly three years in order to write and edit thousands of articles according to the highest standards of professional encyclopedias and sourcebooks. It would be a great loss if he did have to leave for good. So please comment on the specific actions that you question, not the person. 172 | Talk 05:27, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
It's certainly a hard situation to write about, and I'll try rewrite that section on Sunday. But I do place the establishment of a minimum standard of decency above the contributions of any Wikipedian, even a prolific one. Gronky 13:25, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I spent a lot of time working with him in 2003 and 2004. I'm sure that his intentions were good, with other editors baiting him the whole time... I'm glad to hear that you intend to rewrite the userpage post. 172 | Talk 14:21, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Black Box

I noticed you changed the phrasing in the Black box article from

The opposite of a black box (e.g. an open source program) is sometimes known as a white box, a glass box, or a clear box.

to

The opposite of a black box (e.g. a free software/open source program) is sometimes known as a white box, a glass box, or a clear box.

Could you please explain to me the difference between the two versions? - It seems to me that your addition is redundant. Thanks, Nihiltres 17:44, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

It would be redundant if "free software" and "open-source software" were practically the same thing. This is something that I indeed think is the case, however, Wikipedia currently has seperate articles for each. "open-source software" is in fact simply a marketing term for free software (those are the words of the promoters of "open source", Open Source Initiative), and it's a term popularised 15 years after "free software"s original name (which is, "free software"). Unfortunately, the general public cannot be assumed to be aware of this, and there are many misconceptions arround "free software" and "open source", and this is further worsened by a number of companies heavily pushing the "open source" term upon general public. I believe these companies can write what they like in their press releases, but Wikipedia deserves better.
Fixing Wikipedia in a year is not practical, since Wikipedia is in part a reflection of the current beliefs of society - correct and incorrect. So I will not try to correct Wikipedia, which is why I didn't replace the reference to "open source" with one to "free software" (even though I think it would be correct, and I welcome others to do so). What I will do is whenever Wikipedia uses the marketing term, I'll put the original name beside it. Just so Wikipedia doesn't confuse people into thinking "free software" and "open source software" are different. Separating the two names with a slash, I think, shows they're two equivalents. Joining them with an and would make them seem like two compatible, but not necessarily linked, conditions. (I've written this in a hurry, I'll clarify anything if you ask.) (oh, and I fixed the "open source" link since the page open source used to be about software, but now information about software is on open-source software.) Gronky 23:57, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Font size

Egad. I'm using Firefox and the text on this page get progressively smaller with every FearEireann signature. -Joshuapaquin 01:46, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I've tried to fix his html. I haven't seen the problem you describe, despite using Firefox, so I can't check if I fixed everything. Can you let me know if the fonts are fine now? Thanks. Gronky 03:03, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] GNU

I must say I support you on your GNU-related edits. It's sad to see people calling Linux an operating system. Also, someone is trying to remove Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/GNU/kFreeBSD on the ground that it's not an operating system. Thought it'd be good to let you know.Geronimooo 13:19, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, I somehow forgot to add GNU/kFreeBSD to my watchlist. I've given my opinion on that Afd page now. Fixing Wikipedia will take years since Wikipedia is partly a reflection of society's views - correct and incorrect - but bit-by-bit, when everything is explained as it's being done, I'm glad to see that progress is being made in correcting the representation of GNU and similarly misunderstood topics. Gronky 14:04, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
As a note that both of you should take into account, Because of changing GNU/FreeBSD to GNU/kFreeBSD the article became even less relevent, because at that point it only applies to one system, where as at least before it could be said to include two GNU/FreeBSD hybridized systems. Janizary 06:16, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
The name is definitely not clear, and I think the solution is to step back and think about what the article is being written about. Rather than have seperate articles for each distro and flavour of GNU on BSD kernels, maybe it would be best to discuss them in one article where they can be compared and contrasted, and where duplicate information can be found and removed. I've left a more detailed comment on the Afd. Gronky 14:46, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Freely redistributable

NetBSD isn't Free Software, you shouldn't go randomly changing to FSFisms in the articles about systems that entirely do not agree with the FSF. You can't just go adding stuff that is GNU to articles, because that's adding point of view to them, which is really bad when it's not even the subject's point of view. Janizary 06:16, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

NetBSD is free software. There is no dispute over this, even NetBSD software that is covered by their license with the advertising clause is free software [2]. And I never said that NetBSD agrees with FSF.
Is your actual issue that you think Wikipedia's NetBSD article shouldn't say that NetBSD is free software because The NetBSD Foundation disagrees with FSF? If so, I think you should ask yourself if such an outside political disagreement is really a correct reason for selectively removing facts from Wikipedia. (I won't revert or re-edit.)
Maybe you would be happy if the article said NetBSD is "freely redistributable", which is their term for free software / open source software. ... The NetBSD Foundation does not use the term "free software" because it associates that term with Free Software Foundation, an organisation whose philosophy it does not agree with.
That would be factually correct, and proper. Gronky 14:00, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
Update: www.netbsd.org actually uses the term "free software" [3] [4] and it uses it in the free-as-in-freedom sense since it says "While most free software will compile on NetBSD 'out of the box" which would make no sense if "free" meant "zero-cost" (since zero-cost software is usually not compilable). Gronky 14:05, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hey

Hey, Gronky! I believe we have not yet finished our discussion. I had an "epiphany" recently, and I realized that perhaps, you should go ahead with your "overseas filipino communities" suggestion, or whatever title you see fit. Good luck, and Merry Christmas! :) --Noypi380 07:33, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi. I haven't forgot, but I've been busy. I will come back. Maligayang Pasko! ;-) Gronky 04:20, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Leprechaun

Hi, I've been working a bit on the article recently and would like to get some feedback, could you let me know what you think needs adding/is missing etc. from the article. Thanks - FrancisTyers 17:11, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

You've certainly filled it out! It looks very complete and I have no suggestions right now, but I'll check back the next time something Leprechaun-related enters my mind. Gronky 04:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks :) Its going through peer review too, so if you have any thoughts, check out the peer review on the Talk page. - FrancisTyers 11:05, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Free Software

Why is Free Software not a subset of Open Source software? —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 02:42, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Here's a GNU page that agrees with what I said: [5] (look at the diagram). Also, according to FSF, the Netscape Public License is free software [6] but according to Open Source Iniative it is not an open-source software license.
These are not absolute proofs since they rely on interpretations by GNU, FSF, and Open Source Initiative - but then again, all such judgements rely on interpretations by someone, and those groups are the most accepted judges of the most authorative definitions of the terms we're talking about. Gronky 03:59, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A free software portal, I don't believe it!

Wow, I made that suggestion nearly half a year ago, and then completely forgotten about it (along with the ~1000 other posts I've made). And then, not haven't gotten a message since the summer, today it says "You have new messages." I'm glad you started the portal, I mean - since the German and French Wikipedia both have one, surely the English Wikipedia should have one (considering Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, ... all speak English). I'll try to contribute as much as I can, but I go college so that's why I mainly stopped contributing to Wikipedia since September. In fact, much of what I know about free software comes directly from Wikipedia articles. I put up a picture and "did you know" on Portal:free software. It's not much, but it's a start. Great job on what you did so far! -Hyad 06:33, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] My own rationale

You've probably seen me (admittedly) trolling on the Richard Stallman talk page. My own observation is tending to lead me to believe that your degree of regard for Richard Stallman is primarily emotionally based, and non-objective. I'm willing to acknowledge that my own dislike of some elements of his behaviour probably is also; but I've noticed that certain people's unreasoning worship of him is as much the cause of my dislike of him as his own attitudes/statements at times.

My primary grievances with him are that a) he seems very much to try and insist that his philosophy is the only one that can be legitimately followed, and that b) despite the size and number of his genuine contributions, as I noted on the talk page, for some inexplicable reason, he and his followers such as yourself continue to attempt to take credit for things for which credit does not honestly belong to him. Given that, on reflection I can see that my problems are with some specific behaviour here...I do not know the man personally, and would not try to claim that I do.

These are not reservations which I alone hold, either...I have seen them noted by a considerable number of other people in the past as well. I will also acknowledge having been gratuitously provocative on the talk page at times, but said provocation has been a product of genuine frustration and confusion; this man has genuinely done much to be respected for, but recognition for that which he genuinely has done on its own does not seem to be enough for him. I also do not understand why he seems to be so deeply threatened by the idea that other people wish to hold beliefs which are not necessarily in conformity with his own. That to me genuinely does not seem conducive to the kind of freedom which he claims to want people to have. I cannot help but assume that surely a part of any meaningful freedom would have to be the freedom to disagree with him. Petrus4 22:05, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't follow that article any more, so I hadn't seen your comments until now.
It's a topic I've done a lot of research on. I've read and listened to probably almost every available English-language article, essay, interview, and recording of his talks and the post-talk Q&A sessions. I also follow a number of mailing lists which he is active on. I've met him in person and talked to him 1-to-1, briefly, a number of times - despite doing my best to minimise such contact.
I know his philosophy quite well, and I know, in detail, a lot of things he's done, and I know many of his limits.
The reason I don't follow that article anymore is that no matter how much I rebut or clarify or explain, a new person just arrives the next month and the process has to start again, so I'm almost wasting my time when I do so - and because I know how inneffective my effort is, I hold back from putting in a full effort anyway.
If you've any specific, short questions which you'd like to ask of a person who knows Stallman well, here's a fine place, but I don't know how to fix that article's environment. (I ask for "short", not because I'm unwilling to devote the time for long questions, but because there are so many confusions that piecemeal is the best way to examine this topic.) Gronky 21:40, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Round Corner template up for deletion

Cyberjunkie has nominated for deletion the template that gives your portal round corners. He's trying to delete 3 templates I created. Please help maintain selective design amongst portals and support these three templates. Here's the link: Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion#Portal:Box-header-round. They are listed sequentially. There isn't much time left, and it's lucky I found out at all. --Go for it! 03:50, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you're welcome to comment. However, please disregard Go for it!'s inflamatory remarks and, more so, please understand that I am absolutely not "attacking" anything. Happy editing, --cj | talk 10:39, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for notifying me of this. I can see reasons to agree with both sides of the debate, so I've left a comment. Gronky 22:08, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GPL

I saw this edit - do you have an proove for this? Just a source would be enough for me. --Liquidat 14:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know of any publicly-accessible source. I also don't know of any publicly accessible source which supports the previous statement. For what it's worth, I'm certain my edit is correct. Gronky 20:36, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
So you have non publicly accessible sources? Does that mean, that there are closed ones? --Liquidat 00:52, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
That means they are private sources, ones which have not been published online and therefore cannot be accessed by the public. Gronky 12:03, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Slashdot provided a source today: A FOSDEM speech by Stallman (see the first line). I'll add this to the article as a source. Gronky 20:08, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Widespread misbeliefs held as truths

If a misunderstanding is held by a large enough section of society, it will sometimes be wrong in Wikipedia - and when someone tries to fix it, they may be out-numbered by people who are sure that their misunderstanding is correct.

One example that people talk about is that if Wikipedia was started hundreds of years ago, it's article about Earth would say that the Earth is flat.

There are many modern-day examples related to the GNU operating system, the GNU project, and free software.

Hi Gronky, I saw this on your user page, but I did not click the top right edit button there to say this: I am aware of this type of thing elsewhere in life and in Wiki. Like the origin of the name White Rhino, which I think I have fixed. Then while being a Wiki user I discovered that my long held belief that the maiden name of Simon van der Stel's wife form Stellenbosch was Bosch, is a misbelief. Then in 1986 I was tought about Groupthink and we see today that George Bush junior is guilty of allowing it to occur.Gregorydavid 07:19, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portal links

Don't links like this [7] belong on the Talk pages, not the actual articles themselves? AlistairMcMillan 20:46, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

They belong on the article pages, I'm sure of that, because they're part of the information/navigation/markup content of the encyclopedia, not part of the development project. I haven't been able to find any Wikipedia guide for what pages to add the tag to, or where on the page to put the tag, but adding the free software portal tag to pages about free software seemed obvious, and the "See also" section also seemed like the logical place. Gronky 21:21, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks!

Thanks for helping on the Chavez corrections ! Sandy 14:56, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] OSI Certified (tm)

I think you misread the article. OSI Certified is a strong trademark of the Open Source Initiative. Please do not disparage this mark further. Open Source, even though unregistered, and aruably currently unregisterable, is a weak trademark of the Open Source Initiative. We might not prevail in defending it in court, but there is no harm in our claiming it to be a trademark. RussNelson 03:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] question about your Alternative terms for free software request

No problem in adding my recent Talk:FOSS history discussion to Alternative terms for free software. However, were you asking me to reduce/compose/insert the info into the main article, or simply copy the gist of what I wrote in Talk:FOSS into Talk:Alternative terms for free software?

BTW, do I know you, as in "have we ever talked by phone or any other non-electronic-text medium?" No specifics needed, just some of your style of argment sounds familiar. I, stupidly yet gleefully (I clearly have masochistic tendencies), have decided to be me. Not enough experience in online role-playing in my background, I suspect.

I was amused by the aptness of your comments to the effect of "if you don't reply, the most negative interpretation ends up 'winning' the discussion... thus forcing a lot of self-defensive work instead of real composition and addition to Wikipedia." I have, um, discovered that the hard way lately... 8^) It's too bad, really, since the same amount of effort applied to adding to content would often be far more beneficial to everyone in the long term. It's not that different from free software: adding new code to fix problems in free software is in the long term a much more powerful approach than doing nothing but critiquing code and leaving the (often much harder) constructive work to be done by others. It also sort of conflicts with the original admonitions of Wikipedia to "be bold!" and "feel free to add!", doesn't it? Cheers, Terry Bollinger 04:25, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

The information should go into the article. The alternative terms for free software article was made because there was a growing number of articles about terms such as "open source software", "FLOSS", "FOSS", "Libre software". Reading the articles, I noticed there was not just innaccurate information but there was even conflicting information between each article. And of course, there was buckets of content duplication, usually at mediocre quality (presumably due to the divided contributor base). So putting these things into one article means the duplicate stuff can be removed (and the best version kept) and the conflicting stuff will be apparent and can be squared up.
Looking at the FOSS article, it seems it would be better if the content was merged into alternative terms for free software and made a redirect. What do you think?
Outside of Wikipedia, I don't think we've met, yet. I used to use my real name for many sites, but when a pest started bugging me on multiple sites, and when I started wondering about a contribution and how it might relate to organisations I'm affiliated with, I decided to start using nicknames for certain activities. Gronky 09:17, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Linux

I thought you might be interested. Best wishes, Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Code Sourcery article

You write:

Could you expand the Code Sourcery article a bit? Due to your connection, you probably shouldn't comment on how good or bad a company it is, but objective things such as:
  • how old it is
  • who are the top management
  • where is it based
  • how many staff does it have
  • how many developers does it have
  • Is all the software it develops released as free software, and if not, what approximate portion is
  • does it have a free software policy
  • what are it's main products or services, current and past
Thanks. Gronky 19:52, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

In view of the need for verifiability to cited public sources, I think that the same principles as in WP:AUTO apply here and I should not do more than correct obvious errors. But to answer some of your questions (and you'll need to find public sources for anything you wish to include), the article should be at CodeSourcery and personally I doubt the utility of leaving a redirect at the mis-spaced Code Sourcery, founded 1997, Chief Sourcerer Mark Mitchell (GCC Release Manager), "based" Granite Bay, California but this is hardly meaningful or significant for a completely distributed company, 19 staff (all technical) but I don't think you'll find a public source to cite for this figure, the bulk of Sourcery G++ is free software (there are proprietary debug stubs for connecting to proprietary interfaces on various boards, and proprietary Eclipse plugins) as is all of Sourcery VSIPL++ and QMTest (the C++ ABI Testsuite is the one purely proprietary product, and there is internal code not released at all), I don't know what you mean by a free software policy (all changes to the free software components are contributed upstream where acceptable upstream; we are an FSF Corporate Patron [8]). Joseph Myers 00:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In response to Tone down the sig html? on User_talk:TRAiNER4

I've taken the liberty of changing my sig html up a bit. Is this better for you?  — JT (TRAiNER4)  [T·C·E] 22:10, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Gnu-55x55.png listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Gnu-55x55.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 08:51, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's the default message for notifications on images for deletion. I would assume that it has a different color because an image you uploaded possibly being deleted is considered important. --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 14:26, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links

Sadly even that is no consensus. Rich Farmbrough, 12:49 5 October 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Fair use in portals

I created an amendment for fair use in portals, as well as submitted to village pump, see here: Wikipedia:Fair use/Amendment/Fair use images in portals#Also. It would be great if you could express your support there. ddcc 21:51, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] license vs. licence

Yeah, it was probably inappropriate. My bad. Neilc 11:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Karl Marx biography

dear gronky! i said something ok Karl Marx talk page about your concerns. you might want to read it. --Arash red 06:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

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