Debate continues on whether open core business models are a winning strategy with a capital "w" or not, and whether customers care. I want to take a different approach to the discussion here.

"The problem with the Ruby on Rails community isn’t simply sexism, unprofessionalism, or ghetto-ism, but that Rails is, at its core, a culture which values individual ego more than community..." -- N.B: Rinari: Ruby on Rails Minor Mode for Emacs

"Just as the three quarters of oil engineers now agree that Peak Oil is in sight within the next decade (after that, oil production can only decline), can we also posit that we may have reached a moment of Peak Hierarchy, a moment in history in which it is no longer large centralized organizations that are most efficient or productive, but rather those that are organized as distributed networks an

"The fact that day by day, new people try to use free software or free operating systems (like GNU/Linux) is a good thing, and we all know that. [...] Though, this is also something really delicate, where everybody invloved should (IMHO) be careful in what is shown towards the new comers."

"...Remember that Ubuntu is built on Community and Community is the number one reason why it is successful. People like me and you building upon the shoulders of giants. Lets continue to improve the communities around us, celebrating what makes us all unique. Without Ubuntu and without community we are nothing."

On one hand, you may have a person that is disruptive to 95 percent of the other community members. Or that person may simply be a massive time sink for the leading developers on a project. On the other hand, what would those other 95 percent think if they saw a community member--even an obnoxious one--dumped from the forums?