Believe it or not, I hadn't seen this thread till today. Thanks to the person on Twitter who posted a link to it.

I basically agree with the rant, though it is stated a bit strongly.

To those offended by the attack on the members of the community, I would point out that companies like Nokia often do their dirty work by using the best members of the community to help out. This site is no exception.

To me, Nokia's basic strategy is to cool things out and keep things as quiet as possible while pretending to be nice and slowly transition the N900 into the toilet so it can get on with its future projects.

To that end, it has encouraged projects like Brainstorm and did encourage things like Mer. They have the function of wasting time and seeming cool, until the victim, too late, notices that they don't accomplish anything significant. Some members of the Council who I respect greatly sometimes seem dedicated to long discussion, consensus-seeking, and amazingly little action. To me, this serves Nokia's ends, not those of this community.

To those who ask what the Council should do -- for starters, it should be more confrontational and strident, in the light of what is happening.

I helped hire many people for Quarterdeck, which was a major corporation for a long time, eventually purchased by Symantec. I wouldn't hesitate to hire many people participating in this thread, including qwerty12.

I can think of many people who insult others in practically every posting. qwerty12 was not one of them. He did let loose on this posting, but he was justifiably angry. One little angry posting and I can see that several are willing to throw him out the window. Not me.