Speaking of Naomi Klein, she might appreciate this slant on “diversity of tactics”:

Eric S Raymond, the founder and godfatha of open source software (or Free Software as he angrily puts it) is angry at SCO. Not just in the general way he is angry at everything, but in a very directed, particular way. Which is not suprising, given that SCO has mounted a massive, unashamed and explicit attack on open source software. Any level of anger higher than his normal level of anger is pretty high, and he is, indeed, highly angry. Way back in late August – sorry for the reporting delay folks – he wrote about his anger in a rather angry way in an angry letter to SCO. You can read the letter which is appended to this article entitled Eric Raymond gets very mad at SCO.

In it he makes this interesting and probably good point:

Yes, one of the parties I talk with is, in fact, IBM. And you know what? They’re smarter than you. One of the many things they understand that you do not is that in the kind of confrontation SCO and IBM are having, independent but willing allies are far better value than lackeys and sock puppets. Allies, you see, have initiative and flexibility. The time it takes a lackey to check with HQ for orders is time an ally can spend thinking up ways to make your life complicated that HQ would be too nervous to use. Go on, try to imagine an IBM lawyer approving this letter.

As an aside, I recently came across this article by Mr. Raymond, pontificating on what he was going to do with the 36 million dollars he made overnight when VA Linux went public on the stock market. Notice the date of the article (Dec 10, 1999). Notice his mention that due to SEC custom, he would have to wait 6 months before actually getting access to the cash value of his shares, but that he wasn’t terribly concerned, you know, “unless VA or the U.S. economy craters before then. I’ll bet on VA; I’m not so sure about the U.S. economy :-)”. The Dot Com Bubble Burst on March 13th, 2000. Ahem. To his credit his recently published book, The Art of Unix Programming, is also freely available, suggesting he never got too attached to all that virtual wealth he must have watched dissapear on that fateful day in March. Good man.