The ad hominem way of discussion may or may not be present in technical debates in general. What actually doesn't surprise me is that this style surfaces on publications associated with Dotcom. If you happen to speak/understand German you (really!) should read this: http://arnold.babsi.de/KIMBLE.txt
Basically the file contains old newsgroup postings from de.org.ccc wherein Dotcom (Kimble) argues with or better harrasses the CCC guys. It's really "worthwhile" and and an eye-opener.
well, you know. i can see now why the ccc guys hate him. my coworkers said he was a douche. and I can also see how they would say he talks more sales than skill...
but the other side of it is, he's kinda right too. he's recruiting from the ccc. a good place to recruit from. and he's talking about ACTUALLY making money on stuff. it's kinda what my mother was saying when i was doing mainly opensource stuff. she said, why are you working for free, and I said you don't understand.
Germany is a kinda socialist country. I know, I grew up there. That's why there's a whole bunch of great open source projects coming out that place. And then the americans come, and make money on it.
I'm kinda derailing, and I could go on, but I'll just leave it at he's a douche, and he may be a fraud, but the guys he's trying to recruit from are not. And he kinda has a point.
And look at him now. He's got a shitload of funds, enough to pick a fight with a government, and where's the CCC? It's still hiding behind political correctness, still doing stuff years ahead of defcon, and yet everyone talks about defcon instead.
Your post include many different topics, but I will just try to address one of them. The anecdotal about open source and the implied socialist implication.
Many people only see programming as a job, and thus do not understand why anyone would ever program if they didn't get paid. That is the only aspect they see in it, and thus they think that their logic is without fault. But had one been spending time playing music, with that independent band in a an abandon factory and only playing music "for free" at charities and bars, that mother would not wonder why you where "working for free". We would also not call it a socialist thing to do.
There is of course political movements involved with programming, ie free software. But even there, the term socialism is hard to use when there is so many large companies involved. If one then take a look at music bands that refuse "the big labels", or who are anti-establishment, we would also there not call them socialistic just because they do stuff without getting paid.
In the end, one can not take a single economic model and apply it to open source or free software, or for that matter any other thing that people has as a both work and hobby.
germany is socialist. when you go to university, and you do something you are expected to do it for free. all the research is free. you attend university for free.
the flipside of it is that you are expected to give 50% or more of your salary for everyones and your own benefit. you have no say in it whatsoever. you cannot choose to have insurance, it was chosen for you. you are not supposed to get rich. when they wanted to get indian engineers to germany the indians said what do we get? and germany said, just the opportunity to work for us should be enough. It should give you a hint on the mindset.
i had this discussion with one of my professors, and he said yes. his salary is low, but the positive side is that he research anything he wants. he doesn't have to say what the industry wants him to say, because his funding depends on it.
it has good sides, and it has bad sides. of all the things I said, you chose to pick on the open source side of it. really.... ?
Where he surely has a point is the ability of the german economy to actually monetize on new and innovative technologies. Which is, to be frank, not so good no matter the german industry keeps telling. It used to be different, so.
So, first of all: Does that look like recruiting to you? Looks more like a personal vendetta to me. If you're trying to recruit someone, you're most likely not going to do it by saying "oi, look. I'm gonna be the next chancelor, don't you wanna work for me?". Not even ironically.
"ACTUALLY making money on stuff" is great, probably more people should do that. But making money out of something and then selling out your customers (if you can call them customers) is not at all the right way to do it. And that's exactly what happend with Dotcom and his BBS stuff, where he was actually selling warez and denouncing his customers to the authorities, afterwards working for von Gravenreuth.
The funny thing is: In the mid 90s he was making money out of surveiling other people's messages and posts on his own BBS.[1] By the way, that whole story makes me nervous when I think about people hosting their sensitive data with him. That can't be good.
Now, back to the recruiting thing: Would you like to be recruited by that kind of guy? I for one completely understand the CCC people.
What is it with him that people seem to trust him and his businesses? I mean, it's not that any of them have prevailed and not been closed down by authorities after some time.
