It's a pity they've let it spill so openly into the public eye. Personally I think that's very bad for the community, and the current publicity people are trying to generate about Perl. Having the "gurus" air their differencies publicly is simply embarrassing.

The fact that Randle took such umbridge over the "p-i-m-b" t-shirt idea (due to it being printed at the same time as the YAPC::Europe T-shirts) on a certain mailing list recently is laughable compared to this. One of the things that was really good about the conference last week was being able to listen to advice from the people who effectively run the show. By opening up warring factions is likely to lead to these authors being asked to not to represent the Perl community and not attend the conferences, if this goes too far. That would be a great shame.

I hope that both parties cease any further publicity over these private matters and sort it out personally without trying to engineer the Perl community to take sides.

Following the conference I have successfully got our Managing Director (equivilent to a CEO) to agree to help set up a local Perl Mongers, part of that was my ability to show him the "Perl success stories" booklet and tell him what a great and supportive community there is out there. Not just here in the UK but around the world. If this bickering perpetuates it will only harm this sort of sponsorship.

Boycotting Camel 3 would be a pointless exercise, as most people will still buy it to further their knowledge. Which IMHO is a good thing. If there is any litigation required talk to O'Reilly and/or lawyers. Don't bring it into the community.

END-OF-TRANSMISSION

Barbie
www.missbarbell.co.uk