Re: Is negative publicity always harmful? (was: Women and GNU and RMS)

[Brandon Invergo]

Dmitry Alexandrov writes:

> Sandra Loosemore <sandra@codesourcery.com> wrote:
>> The absolute worst thing the public-facing representative of *any*
>> organization can do is bring negative publicity to the organization
>> about things that are irrelevant or contrary to the organization's
>> mission.
>
> Iʼm afraid, you conflated two points.  Publicity that undermine the
> core competency of an organization — yes, is perhaps is the most
> harmful thing for it.
>
> While negative publicity on irrelevant topics is either much less
> harmful, or sometimes even beneficial.
>
>> As a result of RMS's comments, all of a sudden the public
>> conversation about the GNU project was not about how good our
>> software is and how free software is taking over the world and
>> beneficial to everybody
>
> Dr. Stallman has been always, in almost every his speech, pointed out,
> that in terms of publicity everything is still so bad, that he has to
> struggle to make it known that GNU and free software movement in
> general merely exist.  And that they are not the same as Linux® and
> ‘open source’, in particular.
>
> Under that conditions, any kind of public attention to GNU should be
> welcoming.
>
>> It's been a public relations disaster for the GNU project.  :-(
>
> Time will tell.

As I previously requested, please let's drop discussions of particular
people, especially when it comes to what they said or did outside of
GNU.  I know you are not attacking but standing in rms's defense,
however at this point it's only going to stir up dying embers.

Can we just leave it there?

--
-brandon