View Source: FlameWar - Waikato Linux Users Group

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An outspoken dispute in a public forum such as a news group or email list, with usually about half a dozen fierce combatants.

Reason and logic seem to go out the door, and "ad hominem" attacks are plentiful. GodwinsLaw is sometimes (unwittingly) adhered to.

Note that a FlameWar, which is defined by the manner of discussion, is not the same as a ReligiousWar, which is defined by the topic of conversation. Naturally, though, they frequently overlap.

One [famous flame war | http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/appa.html] was opened by AndrewTanenbaum (a well-known ComputerScience professor who wrote many books about, among other topics, OperatingSystem design, as well as writing much of [Minix]) by a posting with the subject "''LINUX is obsolete''". See if you can spot any hostile language in this brief quote from [Linus | LinusTorvalds]' first reply:''''

 <pre>
 Re 2: your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of a
 good excuse for some of the brain-damages of minix. I can only hope (and
 assume) that Amoeba doesn't suck like minix does.
 </pre>

!! See Also

* ReligiousWar
* GodwinsLaw
* [http://www.flamewarforum.com/], a site decicated to [FlameWar]s, where flaming is encouraged in the interest of passionate and entertaining debate.
* [http://hates-software.com/], a mailing list dedicated to flaming hateful software

4 pages link to FlameWar:

Last edited on Sunday, January 14, 2007 2:15:44 pm by AristotlePagaltzis

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