Gilles Tran wrote:

> Frankly, I have a hard time believing that anyone who has done a minimal 
> amount of reading on Apple or OSS never saw those names on screen or on 
> paper. Stallman is cited *** 13 times *** in the GPL article in Wikipedia. 
> Jobs is cited *** 55 times *** in the Apple article. These guys are legends 
> in computing, warts and all. And the names don't ring any sort of bell to 
> you?

I ignore people's names when I read about stuff?

[Most Wikipedia articles I completely skip the "history" section. It's 
just not a part that interests me very much.]

FWIW, I'm not really good with names anyway. I watched virtually the 
whole of the world darts championship this year - but I couldn't tell 
you the names of any of the players. I just watch the darts... [I'd 
probably recognise their faces though.]

> Jobs and Stallman have been major influential figures in your area of 
> business/trade/expertise/whatever for more than 20 years. What they say and 
> what they do has a direct influence in what you (and millions of other 
> people, developers or not) do and on the way you work. Understanding (or 
> trying to understand...) the philosophy that drives Stallman is a key to 
> understand the GPL and the open source movement. Ditto for Jobs and what 
> drives Apple. So yes, it does matter. I mean, I'm a specialist in cow and 
> pig feeding and it matters to me.

Interesting. I tend to think that actions rather than thoughts are what 
gets things done. I might for example look at what products Apple have 
on sale, but I wouldn't sit down and analyse "hmm, now why did they put 
an ATI card in here rather than an nVidia one? What was the underlying 
philosophical idea behind this move?" I'm just not that sort of person.

> In any case, the point is that showing your ignorance about things as basic 
> as those can make a potential employer wonder about your overall technical 
> and learning abilities, no matter how good those abilities actually are.

Allow me to put my argument concisely.

If you're saying "employers want people who know who Stallman is", then 
maybe you're right. I don't know. I haven't got a clue what employers 
actually look for. You probably know more about this than I do.

If you're saying "you're a ****ing idiot for not knowing who Stallman 
is", then I'm afraid I must disagree with you. I don't see it as being 
"morally wrong" to know of a technology and not know who invented it, in 
which year, and why they did it.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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