Frankly, the older I get, the more respect I have for the guy.
A lot of folks would have responded with a lawyer or at least a legal nastygram. Zed didn't even mention the law, just asked (asked!) the guy to take it down, and took the time to refute and explain all the guy's misconceptions.
> Frankly, the older I get, the more respect I have for the guy.
I lost a great deal of respect for him over his Debian rant. He was making up really weird accusations and calling for actions completely out of proportion to the perceived "offenses".
I think it's easy to do the rant thing, but the older I get, the less I like it, and the more respect I have for people who display some civility and moderation, and save the real anger for those things in life that merit it (hint: they mostly don't involve computers).
I would ask the person to take it down and that would be it. Zed asked, then insulted. Insulting people is not a good way to win someone's cooperation.
"I think what you did was classless. I think you should try again, but with class"
If I said that to you, would you be insulted? I said nothing about your character, and if anything, he was being encouraging.
And then, you're pissed at Zed calling them hippies, after telling him "good fucking riddance" and displaying exactly the behavior that he defines as being a hippie ("all about the love, except when you're not" - conveniently defined in the same sentence)?
It would be one thing if the class thing was actually an insult, or if Zed hadn't made his wishes clear in the license.
So, seriously, what is so insulting about the whole 'class' line?
Of course, I didn't mean it - your statement is very well reasoned, but when Zed turned his interests towards the Python language and the largely civilized community around it, I worried that his behaviour could become, if not the norm, a trend. I have strong ties to this community and my work largely depends on its health.
Zed's divisive. No community needs divisive people. Code is less important than being able to play with others.
I'm probably not normal, but my first reaction was "uh oh, what did I say? Was this another comment I made on little sleep and without thinking?" I was actually a little disappointed that my response wasn't idiotic, because now I can't learn what was idiotic about it.
Ultimately, you are right that Zed is divisive, possibly because he's taken "you can't please everybody" too far, and I wouldn't want any significant number of people to have Zed's personality, even though I tend to take his side on topics I know anything about.
