I think SouthWest airlines proves that jokes have a place in the professional world. The one rule is that they cannot be grossly offensive. But it's impossible to avoid offending someone, so you have to use your judgement based on what you think is fair.

The joke about Windows is funny because everyone knows that the terminal in Windows behaves abnormally when compared to any other terminal.

What I think is missing is a follow-up to the punchline that puts it in context. Something like:

"Windows? Really? No worries, we'll give this terminal the upgrade it deserves :)"

I also propose adding lines for other systems as well. Such as for Linux.

"Linux. Good choice."

And for Mac OSX

"OSX. It's a unix system. I know this!"

My advice, don't sell out by dumping the jokes. They keep the world interesting, and keep Forge different.

-Dan

On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 3:42 PM, Paul Bakker <paul.bakker.nl@gmail.com> wrote:
What you guys like jokes? How unprofessional!

Unfortunately there is a large group of developers that thinks that way... I wish it were different, but it would probably be best to remove this stuff. We won't "win" any users by adding jokes, but we might piss some people off.

Paul

On Jul 24, 2012, at 21:31 , Marius Bogoevici wrote:

> I enjoy the joke quite a lot, however, we've got to be aware that
> our software often ends up being used in environments which are far
> less inclined towards the jocular, and where humorous is basically
> considered unprofessional.
>
> A pluggable fortune-like functionality, turned off by default should
> be ideal.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Lincoln Baxter, III" <lincolnbaxter@gmail.com>
>> To: "forge-dev List" <forge-dev@lists.jboss.org>
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 2:58:15 PM
>> Subject: [forge-dev] What to do about our little Windows joke...?
>>
>>
>> Hey everyone... we've recently gotten some critical feedback about
>> our little "Windows? Really? Ok..." joke.
>>
>> https://community.jboss.org/message/749952#749952
>>
>> What are your thoughts? Perhaps we could make this a little less
>> targeted by turning it into more of a pluggable feature, where
>> different messages show up randomly based on runtime conditions?
>>
>> Like sometimes it might say, "Just 32 bits?" or "Sun still makes
>> Java?" or "Linux... nice... does your family know?" or "OSX? What is
>> a lion, anyway?"
>>
>> Would like to hear ideas. But I certainly don't want to give up the
>> character :)
>>
>> --
>> Lincoln Baxter, III
>> http://ocpsoft.org
>> "Simpler is better."
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> forge-dev mailing list
>> forge-dev@lists.jboss.org
>> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/forge-dev
>>
> _______________________________________________
> forge-dev mailing list
> forge-dev@lists.jboss.org
> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/forge-dev


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--
Dan Allen
Principal Software Engineer, Red Hat | Author of Seam in Action
Registered Linux User #231597

http://google.com/profiles/dan.j.allen
http://mojavelinux.com
http://mojavelinux.com/seaminaction