Ok, so I see it now. It’s not like I didn’t have some notion of it before, but now it’s really obvious.

It would seem as though I’ve become one of those mean and despised open source nut-case curmudgeons with nothing nice to say.

How soon we forget the lessons our mothers taught us.

While constructive criticism is essential for keeping in context the various actions and decisions of industry players, consistently taking on the role of the negative creep just doesn’t jive with the more powerful approach of positive reinforcement. Just because I’m personally disappointed or disagree with someone’s decision doesn’t mean that my way is right, nor does it mean I’ve got all the facts that I need in order to deliver a credible critique. Worse, all this negativity just gets people’s backs up — reinforcing the very walls that I’ve been trying to tear down!

Case in point?

Writing for CNET, Open Road columnist Matt Asay cites my post on Adobe’s Open Source Media Framework to demonstrate how open source advocates (acolytes?) are potentially doing more harm than good with