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Should sexist opensource developers have their projects censored or removed? (Apple makes sure not to hire such males)

Recently an opensource game release story was removed due to the game developer's open sexism(0) and harrasment(1) of women in tech.

A story posted by the editor of the popular Phoronix linux news site about a release of an Open Source videogame was later manually removed(2). The reason cited was the game developer's unacceptable views on social issues such as gender equality (3).

The release story was titled "Xonotic-Forked ChaosEsqueAnthology Sees New Release - Phoronix" and can be accessed via the google cache(4).

With the recent inclusion of a code of conduct(5) for those wishing to contribute to the Linux Kernel some questions now need to be asked and answered about the inclusion of code from people who are known to engage in or promote socially unacceptable attitudes or harrasments of those whom the free-software movement would prefer to attract in their place:

* Are the social or political views of an author of free software relevant to that software's inherent quality?
* Should the beliefs of an opensource developer weigh when when evaluating whether a piece of opensource software is worthy of any publicity or public notice?
* Should men with unpopular or "forbidden" views be excised from the opensource movement and "not allowed" to contribute, in a manner similar to that which is done in employment?
* Has the free/opensource software movement changed in these respects since its founding? If so is this a positive change?
* Should there be gatekeepers to opensource that decide who may and who may not contribute. Should abusive developers be "blackballed" to maintain proper social order and controls?

and

* What are the consequences of not doing this

Citations:
(0) Past related incident: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310
(1) http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/...
(2) Removed story URL: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...
(3) http://www.phoronix.com/forums...
"Fortunately, the article has been removed now."
"Thanks everybody for speaking up."
(4) https://webcache.googleusercon...
(5) Linux "Code of Conflict"

Should sexist opensource developers have their projects censored or removed?

Recently an opensource game release story was removed due to the game developer's open sexism(0) and harrasment(1) of women in tech.

A story posted by the editor of the popular Phoronix linux news site about a release of an Open Source videogame was later manually removed(2). The reason cited was the game developer's unacceptable views on social issues such as gender equality (3).

The release story was titled "Xonotic-Forked ChaosEsqueAnthology Sees New Release - Phoronix" and can be accessed via the google cache(4).

With the recent inclusion of a code of conduct(5) for those wishing to contribute to the Linux Kernel some questions now need to be asked and answered about the inclusion of code from people who are known to engage in or promote socially unacceptable attitudes or harrasments of those whom the free-software movement would prefer to attract in their place:

* Are the social or political views of an author of free software relevant to that software's inherent quality?
* Should the beliefs of an opensource developer weigh when when evaluating whether a piece of opensource software is worthy of any publicity or public notice?
* Should men with unpopular or "forbidden" views be excised from the opensource movement and "not allowed" to contribute, in a manner similar to that which is done in employment?
* Has the free/opensource software movement changed in these respects since its founding? If so is this a positive change?
* Should there be gatekeepers to opensource that decide who may and who may not contribute. Should abusive developers be "blackballed" to maintain proper social order and controls?

and

* What are the consequences of not doing this

Citations:
(0) Past related incident: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310
(1) http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/...
(2) Removed story URL: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...
(3) http://www.phoronix.com/forums...
"Fortunately, the article has been removed now."
"Thanks everybody for speaking up."
(4) https://webcache.googleusercon...
(5) Linux "Code of Conflict"

This story about sexual harrasment using phone apps brings up another question relevant to linux and FLOSS: Should sexist opensource developers have their projects censored or removed?

Recently an opensource game release story was removed due to the game developer's open sexism(0) and harrasment(1) of women in tech.

A story posted by the editor of the popular Phoronix linux news site about a release of an Open Source videogame was later manually removed(2). The reason cited was the game developer's unacceptable views on social issues such as gender equality (3).

The release story was titled "Xonotic-Forked ChaosEsqueAnthology Sees New Release - Phoronix" and can be accessed via the google cache(4).

With the recent inclusion of a code of conduct(5) for those wishing to contribute to the Linux Kernel some questions now need to be asked and answered about the inclusion of code from people who are known to engage in or promote socially unacceptable attitudes or harrasments of those whom the free-software movement would prefer to attract in their place:

* Are the social or political views of an author of free software relevant to that software's inherent quality?
* Should the beliefs of an opensource developer weigh when when evaluating whether a piece of opensource software is worthy of any publicity or public notice?
* Should men with unpopular or "forbidden" views be excised from the opensource movement and "not allowed" to contribute, in a manner similar to that which is done in employment?
* Has the free/opensource software movement changed in these respects since its founding? If so is this a positive change?
* Should there be gatekeepers to opensource that decide who may and who may not contribute. Should abusive developers be "blackballed" to maintain proper social order and controls?

and

* What are the consequences of not doing this

Citations:
(0) Past related incident: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310
(1) http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/...
(2) Removed story URL: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...
(3) http://www.phoronix.com/forums...
"Fortunately, the article has been removed now."
"Thanks everybody for speaking up."
(4) https://webcache.googleusercon...
(5) Linux "Code of Conflict"

Should sexist opensource developers have their projects censored or removed?

Recently an opensource game release story was removed due to the game developer's open sexism(0) and harrasment(1) of women in tech.

A story posted by the editor of the popular Phoronix linux news site about a release of an Open Source videogame was later manually removed(2). The reason cited was the game developer's unacceptable views on social issues such as gender equality (3).

The release story was titled "Xonotic-Forked ChaosEsqueAnthology Sees New Release - Phoronix" and can be accessed via the google cache(4).

With the recent inclusion of a code of conduct(5) for those wishing to contribute to the Linux Kernel some questions now need to be asked and answered about the inclusion of code from people who are known to engage in or promote socially unacceptable attitudes or harrasments of those whom the free-software movement would prefer to attract in their place:

* Are the social or political views of an author of free software relevant to that software's inherent quality?
* Should the beliefs of an opensource developer weigh when when evaluating whether a piece of opensource software is worthy of any publicity or public notice?
* Should men with unpopular or "forbidden" views be excised from the opensource movement and "not allowed" to contribute, in a manner similar to that which is done in employment?
* Has the free/opensource software movement changed in these respects since its founding? If so is this a positive change?
* Should there be gatekeepers to opensource that decide who may and who may not contribute. Should abusive developers be "blackballed" to maintain proper social order and controls?

and

* What are the consequences of not doing this

Citations:
(0) Past related incident: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310
(1) http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/...
(2) Removed story URL: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...
(3) http://www.phoronix.com/forums...
"Fortunately, the article has been removed now."
"Thanks everybody for speaking up."
(4) https://webcache.googleusercon...
(5) Linux "Code of Conflict"

Should sexist opensource developers have their projects censored or removed?

Recently an opensource game release story was removed due to the game developer's open sexism(0) and harrasment(1) of women in tech.

A story posted by the editor of the popular Phoronix linux news site about a release of an Open Source videogame was later manually removed(2). The reason cited was the game developer's unacceptable views on social issues such as gender equality (3).

The release story was titled "Xonotic-Forked ChaosEsqueAnthology Sees New Release - Phoronix" and can be accessed via the google cache(4).

With the recent inclusion of a code of conduct(5) for those wishing to contribute to the Linux Kernel some questions now need to be asked and answered about the inclusion of code from people who are known to engage in or promote socially unacceptable attitudes or harrasments of those whom the free-software movement would prefer to attract in their place:

* Are the social or political views of an author of free software relevant to that software's inherent quality?
* Should the beliefs of an opensource developer weigh when when evaluating whether a piece of opensource software is worthy of any publicity or public notice?
* Should men with unpopular or "forbidden" views be excised from the opensource movement and "not allowed" to contribute, in a manner similar to that which is done in employment?
* Has the free/opensource software movement changed in these respects since its founding? If so is this a positive change?
* Should there be gatekeepers to opensource that decide who may and who may not contribute. Should abusive developers be "blackballed" to maintain proper social order and controls?

and

* What are the consequences of not doing this

Citations:
(0) Past related incident: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310
(1) http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/...
(2) Removed story URL: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...
(3) http://www.phoronix.com/forums...
"Fortunately, the article has been removed now."
"Thanks everybody for speaking up."
(4) https://webcache.googleusercon...
(5) Linux "Code of Conflict"

(Is sytemd awsome?)

Should sexist developers have their projects censored or removed?

Recently an opensource game release story was removed due to the game developer's open sexism(0) and harrasment(1) of women in tech.

A story posted by the editor of the popular Phoronix linux news site about a release of an Open Source videogame was later manually removed(2). The reason cited was the game developer's unacceptable views on social issues such as gender equality (3).

The release story was titled "Xonotic-Forked ChaosEsqueAnthology Sees New Release - Phoronix" and can be accessed via the google cache(4).

With the recent inclusion of a code of conduct(5) for those wishing to contribute to the Linux Kernel some questions now need to be asked and answered about the inclusion of code from people who are known to engage in or promote socially unacceptable attitudes or harrasments of those whom the free-software movement would prefer to attract in their place:

* Are the social or political views of an author of free software relevant to that software's inherent quality?
* Should the beliefs of an opensource developer weigh when when evaluating whether a piece of opensource software is worthy of any publicity or public notice?
* Should men with unpopular or "forbidden" views be excised from the opensource movement and "not allowed" to contribute, in a manner similar to that which is done in employment?
* Has the free/opensource software movement changed in these respects since its founding? If so is this a positive change?
* Should there be gatekeepers to opensource that decide who may and who may not contribute. Should abusive developers be "blackballed" to maintain proper social order and controls?

and

* What are the consequences of not doing this

Citations:
(0) Past related incident: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310
(1) http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/...
(2) Removed story URL: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...
(3) http://www.phoronix.com/forums...
"Fortunately, the article has been removed now."
"Thanks everybody for speaking up."
(4) https://webcache.googleusercon...
(5) Linux "Code of Conflict"

With all the proactive steps being taken to improve society for the benefit of the fae, another question must be asked:

Should sexist opensource developers have their projects censored or removed?

Recently an opensource game release story was removed due to the game developer's open sexism(0) and harrasment(1) of women in tech.

A story posted by the editor of the popular Phoronix linux news site about a release of an Open Source videogame was later manually removed(2). The reason cited was the game developer's unacceptable views on social issues such as gender equality (3).

The release story was titled "Xonotic-Forked ChaosEsqueAnthology Sees New Release - Phoronix" and can be accessed via the google cache(4).

With the recent inclusion of a code of conduct(5) for those wishing to contribute to the Linux Kernel some questions now need to be asked and answered about the inclusion of code from people who are known to engage in or promote socially unacceptable attitudes or harrasments of those whom the free-software movement would prefer to attract in their place:

* Are the social or political views of an author of free software relevant to that software's inherent quality?
* Should the beliefs of an opensource developer weigh when when evaluating whether a piece of opensource software is worthy of any publicity or public notice?
* Should men with unpopular or "forbidden" views be excised from the opensource movement and "not allowed" to contribute, in a manner similar to that which is done in employment?
* Has the free/opensource software movement changed in these respects since its founding? If so is this a positive change?
* Should there be gatekeepers to opensource that decide who may and who may not contribute. Should abusive developers be "blackballed" to maintain proper social order and controls?

and

* What are the consequences of not doing this

Citations:
(0) Past related incident: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310
(1) http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/...
(2) Removed story URL: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...
(3) http://www.phoronix.com/forums...
"Fortunately, the article has been removed now."
"Thanks everybody for speaking up."
(4) https://webcache.googleusercon...
(5) Linux "Code of Conflict"

Should sexist opensource developers have their projects censored or removed?

Recently an opensource game release story was removed due to the game developer's open sexism(0) and harrasment(1) of women in tech.

A story posted by the editor of the popular Phoronix linux news site about a release of an Open Source videogame was later manually removed(2). The reason cited was the game developer's unacceptable views on social issues such as gender equality (3).

The release story was titled "Xonotic-Forked ChaosEsqueAnthology Sees New Release - Phoronix" and can be accessed via the google cache(4).

With the recent inclusion of a code of conduct(5) for those wishing to contribute to the Linux Kernel some questions now need to be asked and answered about the inclusion of code from people who are known to engage in or promote socially unacceptable attitudes or harrasments of those whom the free-software movement would prefer to attract in their place:

* Are the social or political views of an author of free software relevant to that software's inherent quality?
* Should the beliefs of an opensource developer weigh when when evaluating whether a piece of opensource software is worthy of any publicity or public notice?
* Should men with unpopular or "forbidden" views be excised from the opensource movement and "not allowed" to contribute, in a manner similar to that which is done in employment?
* Has the free/opensource software movement changed in these respects since its founding? If so is this a positive change?
* Should there be gatekeepers to opensource that decide who may and who may not contribute. Should abusive developers be "blackballed" to maintain proper social order and controls?

and

* What are the consequences of not doing this

Citations:
(0) Past related incident: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310
(1) http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/...
(2) Removed story URL: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...
(3) http://www.phoronix.com/forums...
"Fortunately, the article has been removed now."
"Thanks everybody for speaking up."
(4) https://webcache.googleusercon...
(5) Linux "Code of Conflict"

Anyone not on the "SJW" bandwagon is "blackballed" and their free software projects taken down. ( early example: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6537 ) gnu utilities (unix utilities even) are being binned and replaced with systemd, choice is gone.

It was good while it lasted.

----

OpenSource release story removed due to developers opposition to Social Justice.

A story on the Phoronix linux news site about a release of an Open Source videogame was manually removed after a few days.
The reason cited was the developer's views on social issues such as gender equality (1).

The release story was titled "Xonotic-Forked ChaosEsqueAnthology Sees New Release - Phoronix" and can be accessed via the google cache(2).

Are the social or political views of an author of free software relevant to that software's inherent quality?
Should the beliefs of an opensource developer weigh when when evaluating whether a piece of opensource software is worthy of any publicity or public notice?
Should men with unpopular or "forbidden" views be excised from the opensource movement and "not allowed" to contribute, in a manner similar to that which is done in employment?
Has the free/opensource software movement changed in these respects since its founding? If so is this a positive change?
Should there be gatekeepers to opensource that decide who may and who may not contribute. Should abusive developers be "blackballed" to maintain proper social order and controls?

Citations:
(1) http://www.phoronix.com/forums...
"Fortunately, the article has been removed now."
"Thanks everybody for speaking up."
(2) https://webcache.googleusercon...

Removed story URL:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...

ESR maintains gpsd, which ntpd can use as a clock source.

His most recent time-related post is here, Introduction to Time Service. Before that, it was a gpsd release.

ESR maintains gpsd, which ntpd can use as a clock source.

His most recent time-related post is here, Introduction to Time Service. Before that, it was a gpsd release.

Opensource is about Social Justice, Women's rights, and Faggotry now.

If you don't support those things you get kicked the fuck out.

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310

Seems to me he's already sold out. :-) http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200002/df20000210.jpg

They (Debian-women and allies) DID try to make the software unavailable before:
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310

They had it taken down from its host.

I just encountered a link about refracta. It turns out to be absurdly easy to fork Debian, at least for now.

Refracta is rather close to Debian testing. Its home page
is http://www.ibiblio.org/refract...

At http://forums.debian.net/viewt... it is described as
(for testing, without libsystemd0, it's pinned).

It even uses the Debian repositories!

Are there any other forks?

-- hendrik

This goes way beyond offending people, though. This is abuse and harassment, which is not the not the same thing at all.

Anyone who has been paying even passing attention to Gamergate knows by now that in the vast, vast majority of cases, this doesn't go beyond offending people. This doesn't extend into the territory of abuse or "harassment" at all for any sane definition of these terms. Claims that it does are being used as a tool to censor and shut-down discussion around this issue. Case in point.

Since you obviously can't tell the difference, you are directly part of the problem. There is no right to make rape threats.

Case in point. A slashdotter makes a comment about the right not to be offended, and is all but called a rape supporter within 4 sentences. This is the standard, now tired tactic gamers have been exposed to for over three months now: Kafkatrapping. Refuse to agree, and you must support rape and need to "sit in a corner and think quietly before joining the rest of the online community again". Discussion terminating cliches like this would not be so serious if the main stream media hadn't engaged in a propaganda carpet-bombing of gamers and indeed wider geek communities on the internet over the last three months.

I defer to sci-fi author John C Wright's description of these tactics. "You are the boy who cries wolf"

And boys like you have cried about "misogyny" in video games for years, from accusing Super Mario of objectifying women all the way up to using absurdly unrepresentative footage to accuse gamers of being out to "derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters". When most gamers object, protest, or declare these arguments absurd, we are accused of harassment, "mansplaining", "internalized misogyny", or inevitably "supporting rape culture". This has simply kicked into overdrive in the MSM since gamers resisted the pulpit declaration that "Gamers are Dead".

And the reason is simple. Money.

What Gamergate has uncovered, more so than any other factor, is how tactics such as the parent's post are being used to censor artists, blacklist developers, and stifle creativity and competition in the games industry. Even when industry professionals know that misogyny is not a problem in gaming, these tired claims are repeated with the express intetion of shutting out competitors, even those who ostensibly support the same causes.

These tactics and other forms of cultural scarring are being used across other geek communities and only now, in the wake of gamers consumer revolt and continued resistance, do other communities finally feel safe enough to stand up to intellectual bullying of the new Internet Red Guard and the cultural revolution it has declared on geeks.

Anyone who wants to know more about the re

And then he turned into a neoconservative/fringe libertarian nutbar after that business with the skyscrapers in '01.

Do you have any proof of that? In this Slashdot interview from 1999, which you will astutely note is before 9/11, people were complaining about him in similar terms to today. What is this big change that you claim happened? Is there something in his writings or blog?

After 9/11 some people went cold turkey on the bat shit insanity that they had been involved in, others found a moment or two of sanity and then relapsed. And some others couldn't even manage that.

You seem to have made clear how you view ESR, but I guess we know where you stand too, eh?

ESR has already helped several free software projects convert from CVS to Git using his existing computer. The bigger the project, the longer it takes. (Each attempt to convert the Emacs repos takes 8 hours with his current computer.) He has studied the C code for doing the conversion, and determined that the best sort of computer for doing these conversions would be as fast as possible (doesn't matter how many cores; this is a single-thread process) and would have as much RAM as possible. Graphics card? Whatever, who cares. Keyboard, mouse? Not going to buy those, he already has those. Oh, and he would prefer it not sound like a leaf blower so he is looking for quiet power supply and a case with large quiet fans.

He says that several people spontaneously donated money to help him buy a better computer. So he opened up a discussion for how to best spend the money.

Several people urged him to only use ECC RAM, which means either an AMD chip or a Xeon. Someone just donated $1000 (!!!) so he has pretty much settled on the Xeon.

Once he has this, he will go around to free software projects and offer to do the conversion for them. His plan is to grab a copy of the CVS repo, run the conversion to make sure there are no surprises, then ask the project maintainers to stop modifying the CVS repo while he runs the final conversion.

This seems like a reasonable service for him to be offering. Instead of each project figuring out the conversion process, he will become an expert on CVS to Git conversions (with more experience than anyone else) and he will have the purpose-built computer to do the conversions as quickly as possible. So he really will be saving time and hassle for the various projects.

P.S. He converted the NetHack repos, and stirred up a hornets' nest. Read about it here: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6389&cpage=1#comment-1207141

22 years give or take, started with SLS, can't remember which version probably older than this one ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/hist... as I can vaguely remember kernel 0.97 but SLS 1.03 has kernel 0.98pl.

FWIW this is the first Linux distro (there are earlier versions but I didn't bother to search) ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/hist...

And the place to get your kernel was ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/linux/

22 years give or take, started with SLS, can't remember which version probably older than this one ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/hist... as I can vaguely remember kernel 0.97 but SLS 1.03 has kernel 0.98pl.

FWIW this is the first Linux distro (there are earlier versions but I didn't bother to search) ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/hist...

And the place to get your kernel was ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/linux/

Posted the below to: http://ibiblio.org/pjones/blog...
---
For all that, here is a recent Atlantic article and related slashdot discussion on why email is not going anywhere, which makes much the same points as I have here previously (email is decentralized, standards-based, non-proprietary, interoperable, ubiquitous, extensible, mobile-friendly, etc.):
http://www.theatlantic.com/tec...
http://tech.slashdot.org/story...

I'd agree it would be good to have something even better than email (a social semantic desktop?), but closed-source proprietary centralized walled garden solutions like you repeatedly profer don't seem like a general improvement. And what do you do if these platforms close up shop? Why notfigure out how to build something better for knowledge exchange on email or other open web standards? Still, WordPress with Akismet is an excellent platform for exchanging knowledge -- but it still relies usually in practice on email for push notifications.

Ultimately, what are your "requirements" for a better platform?

Reminds me of an oldie but goodie:

Dr. Fun from 1996 Dec 20

... using computer code or math to make music. Back in the (early) '70s, you'd sometimes see these weird commercials where Fred MacMurray (I imagine most /.ers just said to themselves "Fred Who?") was showing how a bunch of Korean schoolkids were doing math using their fingers on their desks in a piano-playing sort of action. The commercial was for some kind of learning aid to teach your kids how to do that. (Q: Does anyone recall those ads? What the heck was the name of the technique being hawked?) This was some years before hand-held calculators even existed let alone were actually affordable. I thought it might be interesting to use that to numerically integrate equations, somehow translate the finger action involved onto a standard 88-key keyboard, and see what comes out. Composition titles would be the equation being integrated. I figured the resulting music would have sounded something like Philip Glass or Steve Reich so public performances might have been hazardous to your health in certain venues. (For example, a place like this.)

Agreed 100%. Ron and his fellow volunteers have worked on this for several years, not only transcribing the Apollo Command Module and Lunar Module flight software from paper listings, but also writing the toolchains and simulators with which to build and run it. And not only for Apollo, but also for the Saturn IB and V rockets, the Gemini spacecraft, and probably other things I haven't found yet. There are lucid explanations of everything, and original project documentation as well. The site is a treasure trove of information for anyone interested in the software aspect of these great historical space missions.
http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/...

No, you're likely to get a recipe.

FWIW, this is a good one. I make it about weekly, though I use chorizo; real andouille is hard to find in the wilds of rural Minnesota.

Really?

"...and consequently cuts a wide sexual swathe when he cares to..."

Seriously? Because you look like a fucking troll, dude.

It permeates everything you write: the moral assuredness that You Are Right. I'm all in favor of positing that a position someone takes is the right one -- that's human nature. But your whole "I speak for the hackers" tone, wherein you seem to feel the need to put your views forward as representing others', puzzles me. I give, as a case-in-point, your "Sex Tips for Geeks" as exhibit A, but, really, most any of your writings -- most definitely including your handling of The Jargon File, as well as your stance on homosexuality -- qualify. Care to comment?

• Are you still a scientific racist/"race realist"?

That one is incredible. The fact that he isn't asking "Do you accept these negative observations about black people as fact without any evidence?" shows what a massive, unthinking racist he is. And I've emphasized "unthinking" for a reason; for all his squawking about rationality, he consistently makes judgements based on his emotions and prejudices rather than basic logic, in a way that a barely-educated child would have learned not to do.

Every esr argument ends up with him insisting what he wants to be true is absolute fact, and that his detractors are illogical idiots. It's a stunning lack of awareness or capability. The man should be a case-study.

We can go on like this for days, by the way.

• Do you still think anyone who opposed the Second Iraq War is an "Idiotarian"?
• Do you still think the scientific consensus on global climate change is a conspiracy?
• Are you still a scientific racist/"race realist"?
• Do you still believe that the 2010 Haitian Earthquake was caused by a Voodoo curse?

In all seriousness, why is this guy still a thing in the Open Source movement? He wrote a few books in the 90s, very good ones, but he's been irrelevant for years and he's a nut. He has nothing to offer.

We can go on like this for days, by the way.

• Do you still think anyone who opposed the Second Iraq War is an "Idiotarian"?
• Do you still think the scientific consensus on global climate change is a conspiracy?
• Are you still a scientific racist/"race realist"?
• Do you still believe that the 2010 Haitian Earthquake was caused by a Voodoo curse?

In all seriousness, why is this guy still a thing in the Open Source movement? He wrote a few books in the 90s, very good ones, but he's been irrelevant for years and he's a nut. He has nothing to offer.

I believe, but cannot prove, that global “AIDS” is a whole cluster of unrelated diseases all of which have been swept under a single rug for essentially political reasons, and that the identification of HIV as the sole pathogen is likely to go down as one of the most colossal blunders in the history of medicine.

Do you still deny a link between HIV and the disease known as AIDS?

You picked an extremely bad example there; Turing was atypical in a way that damages your case. If you examine the actual circumstances of Turing’s exposure, you’ll discover that he was remarkably and willfully self-destructive about it. Outed himself, under circumstances where he could easily have covered and (as I read it) the cop was trying to look the other way. Still, I’m not “pro” Turing’s suicide, just refusing to blame anyone else for it. He made his choice and died. End of story.

Do you still blame Alan Turing for his fate? So have you become a total crackpot since September 11th, or was it something that was always sorta brewing under the surface.

I believe, but cannot prove, that global “AIDS” is a whole cluster of unrelated diseases all of which have been swept under a single rug for essentially political reasons, and that the identification of HIV as the sole pathogen is likely to go down as one of the most colossal blunders in the history of medicine.

Do you still deny a link between HIV and the disease known as AIDS?

You picked an extremely bad example there; Turing was atypical in a way that damages your case. If you examine the actual circumstances of Turing’s exposure, you’ll discover that he was remarkably and willfully self-destructive about it. Outed himself, under circumstances where he could easily have covered and (as I read it) the cop was trying to look the other way. Still, I’m not “pro” Turing’s suicide, just refusing to blame anyone else for it. He made his choice and died. End of story.

Do you still blame Alan Turing for his fate? So have you become a total crackpot since September 11th, or was it something that was always sorta brewing under the surface.

If I remember correctly, write-ins in NC are not automatically counted ( http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/Feb97/write.html ). Maybe he can get the few hundred who voted him onto the council to petition for his name to be counted in his race against Hagan. If he's serious about getting some attention, he should get billboards with his photo and a quote in Klingon written underneath. Otherwise, he might as well borrow a cloaking device, because he's going to be invisible anyhow.

Doesn't "inside joke" imply that someone else on the council understands why he'd do that or what's funny about it? Or maybe he's one of those people who smiles, and when asked why, answers "I think funny thoughts".

http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html

Here's a US DOT study that definitely hurts the idea that speed limits increase safety.

Safety statistics and studies concerning Germany's Autobahn system (feel free to look for them, I don't have time at the moment to search deeper) have suggested that speed is not the problem, but the way people actually drive is. Stay left if you are faster, right if you are slower, and yield the left lanes to anyone going faster than you.

Horses are expensive to maintain, and have a rough daily limit of about 30 miles. In comparison, a human walking at 3 mph can go the same distance in only 10 hours.

That's not comparable. The horse could do that forever (for example, see this US cavalry manual which stipulates cavalry can go 35 miles a day, six days a week indefinitely - page 152) while the person would not be able to maintain that sort of pace for more than a few hours to a day unless they were in really good shape.

In comparison, typical indefinite marching rates for an army were about 10 miles a day (both for roman legionaires and US soldiers).

It's very comparable. A human can keep up a 3mph walk forever as well. A 3mph pace is not hard for a human at all and without
a pack 30 miles a day would not be an issue for a human. 35 miles per day, six days a week indefinitely would not be a problem for
the average person either. I don't think a march with camp setup, etc... is comparable to what the original poster was talking about.
I think you underestimate what a human is capable of. When I was in college we went on a hike to the bottom of the grand canyon
for a week. None of us were in great shape, did any training, or probably near as fit as a peasant who worked all day in the field
every day yet we averaged about 20-25 miles a day for a week with heavy packs on rough terrain and making camp each night.
We obviously could have done alot more with a light pack. And again, we were not in shape, didn't train, and most had never even
been backpacking before. For endurance running a human is every bit as good as a single horse. The pony express used multiple
horses because horses are faster over short distances but over multiple days a human is actually faster. A good runner can do alot
more than 35 miles per day. This guy averaged over 50 miles a day for 40 days:
http://www.outsideonline.com/blog/outdoor-adventure/the-human-express-interview-with-karl-meltzer.html
Here is one of many articles that states that humans can outrun every animal on the planet:
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/may/tramps-like-us

Horses are expensive to maintain, and have a rough daily limit of about 30 miles. In comparison, a human walking at 3 mph can go the same distance in only 10 hours.

That's not comparable. The horse could do that forever (for example, see this US cavalry manual which stipulates cavalry can go 35 miles a day, six days a week indefinitely - page 152) while the person would not be able to maintain that sort of pace for more than a few hours to a day unless they were in really good shape.

In comparison, typical indefinite marching rates for an army were about 10 miles a day (both for roman legionaires and US soldiers).

We've had, as some of you who Googled for North Carolina Bomb, our report about the Bomb online since 2000. The new report does have new findings -- our FOIA was never answered -- but our report has a lot of information that I haven't seen in the articles so far including maps and interviews. See http://ibiblio.org/bomb

I was 9 when this happened also, living about 3 counties Southeast of the crash site, certainly close enough to have seen a very bright light and heard a very loud noise if anything went off.

The B-52 in question was trying for an emergency landing at Seymour Johnson AFB, where my Dad did his active duty Reserve obligation every summer back then

Chances are if one of them had gone off it wouldn't have been over Wayne County but "in" it, as in buried in the dirt.

The one with the parachute wound up with about a foot and half of the nose underground but the other one, falling unimpeded, hit a field near a swampy area, and despite digging down over 40 feet, they still haven't recovered all of it.

Most of the stuff in this latest release was already known, though.

http://www.newsargus.com/news/archives/2011/01/23/the_bomb_one_click_from_armageddon/

http://www.ibiblio.org/bomb/story.html

http://www.restorationsystems.com/uncategorized/whoops-atomic-bomb-dropped-in-goldsboro-nc-swamp-neuse-huc-02/

http://www.ibiblio.org/bomb/

I see you responded to every comment except the one that actually answered your question, despite having undoubtedly read it. This link will tell you all you need to know.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/401227.stm

And hey, when you combine that with maglaunch it actually becomes more cost effectiove to pull the stuff out of the sky, taking into account externalities like environmental damage and pollution. All of the raw materials are up there in far more than trace amounts. To respond to your other comment, phosphorus? Scientists believe that most of the earth's supply came from asteroids in the first place:

http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/1155/meteorites-donated-lifes-phosphorus

Nitrogen? It's right up there:

http://www.ibiblio.org/lunar/minecarb.html

Potassium? The moon is rotten with the stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_differentiation#Moon.27s_KREEP

Thing about the earth is, it's basically a big ball of rock floating among a bunch of other balls and lumps of rock which all formed around the same time and are made of the same stuff. Not always in the same proportions but you can find what you're looking for easily enough and tear it out with nukes if you want to because there's nothing up there to care. Solar furnaces are a better option of course.

So, yeah, anyway, I'll leave you to it.

The Hacker Dictionary does not even offer a pretense of objectivity - to suggest that a non-systematic summary of a straw poll on Usenet groups he frequented is sufficient for a 'social anthropologist' to draw sweeping conclusions about Hackers certainly seems like egotism. Generalising his own personal characteristics and views as being the views of all hackers is pretty much par for the course for ESR.

I was going off of the strength of what he's published; Freeing the Source: The Story of Mozilla, Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, The Art of Unix Programming, etc., all of which have been widely cited by open source proponents. But let's ignore all that, I mean, anyone can publish a book that gets picked up by one of the most respected names in the field: O'Reilly, am I right? Usenet at the time was a good representative sample of the community, in the same way Slashdot up until a few years ago was a representative sample. It is not perfect, of course, but it certainly has more weight to it than an Anonymous Coward posting a handwave.

Deepak Chopra has published several books on quantum mechanics, but that doesn't mean I have to accept his views on physics. ESR's other 'anthropological' views include the view that black people are substantially less intelligent than other races and are inherently prone to violence, and some pretty genocidal opinions. And what about his interesting views on homosexuals:

Pederasty, at least, remains a common behavior among modern homosexuals... To the extent that pederasty, pedophilic impulses, and twink fantasies are normal among homosexual men, putting one in charge of adolescent boys may after all be just as bad an idea as waltzing a man with a known predisposition for alcoholism into a room full of booze.

Am I supposed to take him seriously about these things as well?

That "as in the beer sense" is likely a misrepresentation; have you heard of auditing code or patching it yourself?
I've applied new kernel patches before they became available on the branch I follow; it could have been 2-3 days or more to get the security fix as a compiled update (backport, test, and release).

Secondly, you should perhaps look at the rhetoric associated with "open source" (the term originally used) before you judge someone a hypocrite for their attitude towards "FOSS" (your choice of terms). The two may be similar in meaning, but the mentality isn't.
Open source is not "Everyone, you included, should release source and use FOSS, because it's the right thing" but "Open source is better, but still, you can take your pick".

For example, ESR in Why I hate proprietary software:

More precisely, I hate the proprietary software system of production. Not at the artisan level; Iâ(TM)ve defended the right of programmers to issue work under proprietary licenses because I think that if a programmer wants to write a program and sell it, itâ(TM)s neither my business nor anyone elseâ(TM)s but his customerâ(TM)s what the terms of sale are.

Because if they raise the limit to 75, people will drive 85. Americans have been conditioned to believe that the "real" speed limit is at least 10 mph over the posted limit.

That is an interesting point so I did some research. I found FHWA Report No. FHWA-RD-92-084 (one source of which is at http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html but other copies agree) that says "The results of the study indicated that lowering posted speed limits by as much as 20 mi/h (32 km/h), or raising speed limits by as much as 15 mi/h (24 km/h) had little effect on motorist' speed."

I'm curious if you had any citations to confirm your statement.

I agree: torrent can't really saturate a 10GE... for that you should see something like bbcp, which will quite handily flood a 10gig ethernet and then some. :-)

NC State University uses torrent to let students download some commercial software so they don't have to hand out DVDs... they distribute SAS that way for certain, probably a few others.

ibiblio had someone who developed sort of a "perma-seed" to use torrent for some sort of archive-like thingie. I know Paul Jones is probably reading this, perhaps he would like to comment? :-)

In the early 1960s there was at least one hobby magazine of the "Mechanics Illustrated" variety that showed how to build your own solid-state radio out of one of these RTL logic gates. This means these gates weren't the exotic parts you think they were.

A RTL gate is basically a pre-biased network of bipolar transistors and can be used in the linear mode... You can still get these today at digikey, look for what they confusingly call a digital transistor.

I mean, you people would argue with NASA itself.

http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/hrst/archive/1716.pdf

They picked an IC that was already available in large quantities! They say so themselves! I mean what else can I do to convince you? NASA used EXISTING OFF THE SHELF COMMERCIAL PARTS THAT ALREADY EXISTED. And the IC was *obsolete* by the time Apollo 11 landed on the Moon! Why? Because commercial and industrial markets were already WELL underway on the digital computer path, without NASA, and without space!

As I noted in a a post to the Creative Commons "cc-community" mailing list, while the software ("open source", "free software", "FOSS", "FLOSS", "open specs", "open protocols") industry and software users have (mostly) got the memo regarding the requirement to be open, and the music industry closely followed suit due to YouTube and other developments, there's still a lot of resistance from the film/movie industry. Nevertheless, I believe that whether they proclaim to currently like it or not, they will also embrace “openness” (also meaning honesty, transparency, lack of resentment, trust, etc.), and adapt to a newer business model based on the Internet, and other means.

One thing people should understand is that the fight for freedom and openness is not about getting rid of "big business". There will likely always be big businesses, because some companies are smarter than others and grow more, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with a big corporation, as long as it doesn't violate basic, objective, ethical principles such as initiatory force, threat of force or fraud against a person or their physical property, which corporations don't usually do (as opposed to many government agencies in the past and present). So if you were hoping that Walt Disney Corp. or Warner Bros or whoever will disappear, you will most likely be disappointed. However, I believe and hope we will see the day when the characters of them will be under the Public Domain or a liberal Creative Commons licence (at least in effect), simply because this makes business sense.

Naturally, there's still a long road to go, even in mostly won battles such as the software or music industry: YouTube ended up having to block all videos containing music for German IPs after a German musical cartel demanded they pay royalties; many YouTube remixes/etc. have been removed or made country-specific due to copyright claims; and it seems like a lot of content (Last.fm, Amazon.com mp3 sales, etc.) is only available to USA residents. We should try to convince the music industry and other industries that it makes perfect business sense to avoid such silly measures, which only encourage piracy. Most artists nowadays make most of their money not from selling actual copies of the songs, and the labels who signed them have adapted to this new reality, but given that I wanted to buy a song I liked from Amazon.com and couldn't and after a long time met someone one IRC who let me download it from his huge collection of mp3 (without paying), something here is definitely wrong. DRM and locality restrictions etc. end up hurting sales more than they encourage them, and the pirates don't care anyway, and it's time the media (audio, video, books, software, etc.) industries realise this.

Stallman's actually right on this one for practical reasons, and esr agrees for the same reasons. Among other things, determining what's "commercial" activity is notoriously difficult (write a hobby blog and put AdWords on it?), and there's not a lot of evidence to indicate that the NC licenses do anything helpful.

Yes, I agree with you. Eric S. Raymond (of The Cathedral and the Bazaar fame) has written a post titled “Michael Meets Mozart" about this on his Armed and Dangerous blog. He was saying that while classical music was engaging the audience back at those days, times have moved on and now most Classical music is just museum pieces. To play classical and neo-classical music properly, it should be spiced up with more modern elements like various crossover classical artists such as the aforementioned The Piano Guys, as well as Vanessa-Mae, Bond, Coolio's rap/pop adaptation of Pachelbel's Canon as "I C U when you get there", the Hooked on Classics series, etc. There is no reason that in these times, with all the great and lively music, that classical music should stay boring.

American blacks average a standard
deviation lower in IQ than American whites at about 85.

AKA the IQ of an average Scotsman in the 40s, when evaluated on a modern scale.

Taking ESR seriously about anything scientific is a losing proposition. His antics on climate science are widely known (sees some piece of code that adjusts a timeseries for temperature increases, and immediately concludes that global warming is a hoax), but it's not common knowledge that he's also an HIV denialist.

Open source advocate Eric Raymond, author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar and The Art of Unix Programming has entered the Nature-Nurture debate, stating here:

And the part that, if you are a decent human being and not a racist
bigot, you have been dreading: American blacks average a standard
deviation lower in IQ than American whites at about 85. And
it gets worse: the average IQ of African blacks is lower
still, not far above what is considered the threshold of mental
retardation in the U.S. And yes, it’s genetic; g seems to be about
85% heritable, and recent studies of effects like regression towards
the mean suggest strongly that most of the heritability is DNA rather
than nurturance effects.

For anyone who believe that racial equality is an important goal,
this is absolutely horrible news. Which is why a lot of
well-intentioned people refuse to look at these facts, and will
attempt to shout down anyone who speaks them in public. There have
been several occasions on which leading psychometricians have had
their books canceled or withdrawn by publishers who found the actual
scientific evidence about IQ so appalling that they refused to print
it.

Unfortunately, denial of the facts doesn’t make them go away.