Re: [Evolution] Outlook does not like .asc signature

[Eric Lambart <ximian nomeaning net>]

On Sat, 2002-12-14 at 21:25, Ian Scott wrote:

> Heh.  Thanks for the advice.  Again, great attitude here.  :) No more
> suggestions or issues from me.  One less person that will provide you
> with input.  And, while I'm at it, I'll cancel my subscription to
> Ximian, will not bother anymore with thoughts about recommending this to
> my corporate clients.  You're right.  There are other choices. 

No, you're just discussing things with the wrong guy.  Please don't take
Jeff's steadfast arrogance as Ximian's official position or policy. 
Most of the Ximian crew are open-minded, helpful, and usually polite,
rather than staunchly dogmatic and rude.  And as far as I can tell, all
of them (including Jeff) work hard and do the very best they can.  They
simply don't seem to have the resources to do everything that everyone
wants, right away, and some of them can get a little touchy when people
complain that Evolution, at the tender age of 1.2.1, is not yet perfect.

Ian, it would be a shame for Evolution to lose your support because of
the rudeness of one (admittedly important) member of the community, but
I seriously doubt you'd be the first one to do so.  In the past year and
a half, I've seen many hapless users get bullied and badgered on this
list (with few exceptions, by Jeff), never to poke their noses in here
again.  I've come very close to doing so myself, but I love and (at
least for now) _need_ the Evolution project (the monster that is Mozilla
is not an acceptable alternative for me, and what other one is there?). 
Besides, although there are a million things I wish Evolution did (or
did better), Evolution is still beautiful.  I generally just leave Jeff
alone, and never, _never_ suggest that he might be wrong about anything.

Jeff--I love the work you do but have long been saddened and sickened by
the way you approach "customer service."  The primary purpose of a
software mailing list, as far as I can see, is to help people to use a
certain piece of software, and to get feedback to see where that
software could be improved.  Why do you always feel so compelled to
attack anyone who doesn't see things your way?  You have offended me as
well in the past, in your comments on the list and in bug reports, but I
have generally chosen to ignore that.  Your attitude seems to have
softened minutely (yet noticeably) in the past year, but IMHO it would
do us _all_ good to be polite, mature, and, above all, _friendly_ to
each other.

Rarely does anyone come to this list that doesn't want to see Evolution
be the best, most useful program it can be.  Some people are arrogant,
some people are impatient, rude and presumptious (Ian, however, was in
my opinion none of these) and act as if they are paying customers even
when they are not, but I think rudeness is best dealt with patience and
courtesy.  Patience and courtesy are best dealt with in the exact same
way.

Please forgive me for getting some long-simmering thoughts off my
chest.  I want to see Evolution continue to grow and thrive, and I don't
want its developers get a reputation in the linux world like that of
MPlayer (which likewise succeeds, perhaps because it also has few viable
alternatives).  Lately I have seen several messages from other members
of the Ximian crew pointing out that Jeff Stedfast's attitude is not to
be taken as that of Evolution in general.  Well, that's good to know,
but I'm sure that for some people, that's the only taste of Evolution 

-- 
I have nothing against the American people... 
...but it is time for a regime change