FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) is a common ``marketing strategy'' to alienate customers
but also happens to evolve unintentionally.
``Unintentional'' FUD might arise beyond other factors from ``bad behavior'' not following
the Netiquette Guidelines (
RFC1855).
It is generated in the heads of people - being possible customers - that are not involved directly in the FUDDy communication but are able to follow it. Open discussions
as they happen in FOSSland are good as they make the things transparent
to everyone: for the project contributors but also for non-contributors, guys that
are simply interested to see what's going on. Let's call it ``SelfFUDDing'' whose effect
is still the same: deterrence. This is fatal when contributions to a project are free
and open as people simply go away if their altruism is overruled by the pain of
standing it. Needless pain, even more so if it stems from SelfFUDDing. As Linus writes
in his
Linux kernel management style (funny reading)
- don't call people d*ckheads (at least not in public)
- learn how to apologize when you forgot rule (1)
Even keep in mind
not to call people d*ckheads even if you are right (any suggestions
what the asterisk is). Not only be
creative in terms of coding but also in terms of communication: BUT don't
forget to code because code rulez in the end! What is your CODE/TALK-RATIO for today and are you happy with it? People start listening to your TALK if your CODE is good.
Needless to say that communication is important especially for the FOSSy way of
decentralized development, the very bottleneck of which is how good project members
are able to communicate efficiently & reducing the amount of unintentional
SelfFUDDing to a minimum that can be withstood. So I am not asking to calm all
waves as life should stay salted. But be carefull with what you say, man.
FUD happens if you simply don't get the facts right and still tend to follow honorable principles. Having some kind of principles in the back of your mind is important as they
feed your coding instincts. Failing to project some toplofty principles on the
right case by not getting the facts right is a culprit that comes back then. Be prepaired
to admit that you were wrong. If you fail to excuse you lose even more credit and
nobody will listen to you anymore, only those that have no access to your FOSS credit
account: most important customers. Ergo you end up SelfFUDDed all over the face and harming everybody else in the boat not floating.
Btw. TWikiFUD is an instance of SelfFUD commonly seen these days (/me angry).
