When you are dying, All rationality goes out the window.
Working on open source project is the last thing they worry about.
Let me ask you something. Whom do you respect?
Let me ask you something. Whom do you respect?
This is ALS. A progressive, multiple-year disease. Via Wikipedia[1]: Death usually occurs within two to five years of diagnosis.
I've met plenty of rational dying people. Except when it comes on extremely quickly, most everyone I've encountered or heard about has been more rational than the people around them, not the reverse. People don't suddenly become invalids when they have to face their own mortality.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis#D...
Are you "not dying"? I ask because I've never met anyone who wasn't dying. Yes, most of us don't have a good idea as to what the attending MD will blame or when, but nevertheless, the vast majority of us are dying and know it.