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Comment by ThrowawayR2 | Hacker News Reader

> "He screamed at people for using 'open source'..."

RMS has been literally all about Free Software from day one. The term "open source" originated as a competing philosophy from Bruce Perens. It's like going to the CEO of Coca-cola and asking about Pepsi.

RMS was also a fringy fanatic from day one. It took a lot of willpower and vision to advocate for Free Software, a movement that that flew in the face of the overwhelming proprietary software industry that existed back in the '80s. A lesser person would have given up long ago.

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In the South, "coke" is a generic term for soft drinks. Supposedly ordering "Pepsi coke" is a thing.

He can scream all he wants, but it's not a productive conversation.

They are productive, because they are literally different things.

I would equally be annoyed if someone called an Apple an Orange, because they are not the same thing.

This feels more like a banana/plantain scenario.

If the whole world is using "cola" as a word to describe your "pepsi" and you are (maybe even rightly so!) convinced they are literally different things here is a free tip:

It is up to you to convince the people that the difference is big enough that they should want to change their language. And you know how to make sure they won't want to do that? Speak down to them, paint them as stupid for not knowing and so on.

Do you think the CEO of Coca-Cola actually screams at waiters when they say, "we don't have Coke, will Pepsi be ok?"

The founder of Coca-Cola might. But either way, pointing out the flaws of a loose analogy adds nothing to the conversation.

and we we wouldn't let that founder do PR, right?

Well, as Scott Adams says, "Analogies are for fighting."

If an analogy is supposed to persuade me, but the internal premise of the analogy completely contradicts the purpose of the analogy, then perhaps it should be completely eliminated or at the very least it should be challenged.

Moreover, this contradiction within the analogy highlights the exact opposite. Likely, the CEO of Coca Cola experiences that "coke/pepsi" dialog with waiters all the time and merely shrugs it off --- because that is actually a reasonable response, unlike screaming at people over a tiny, unintentional slight.

For any decently structured argument, analogies are illustrative, not load-bearing. If you find that is not the case, usually the argument is not particularly sound.

Yes.

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