Bruce Perens IRC Q&A Tonight

TheLivng1 writes "Bruce Perens will on the NewNet network (irc.newnet.net) Sunday, January 23rd at 6p Pacific/9p Eastern in #astepcloser." Bruce and I have our differences, but he's a good guy and worth meeting. I've never had a conversation with Bruce that I didn't enjoy. I urge anyone who only knows Bruce from his Slashdot posts or by reputation to "tune in" tonight and get better acquainted with him via IRC.

Comments

Red, not Yellow

[Roblimo]

Well, Bruce, for *literate* hackers, the title "Hole in GNU GPL?" with a question mark at the end (which is how it ran) indicated that it was a question, rather than a statement of fact. But be that as it may. I know that you're human, and like most humans you feel that "responsible reporting" and "unbiased journalism" are phrases that only apply to stories which you totally agree - and that any story that doesn't adhere strictly to the Official Bruce Perens Party Line is wrong, sensationalist, biased, and (no doubt) irresponsible.

;-)

But we all have our flaws; I have mine, you have yours, and since we're both trying to achieve many of the same long-term goals, I have nothing against you and wish you well in every way. Why, I even read TECHNOCRAT.NET at least two or three times every week -- and enjoy it! (Free plug!)

And so, since I'm a "don't sweat the small stuff" person and know it's scary getting ready to be a father for the first time, I'll overlook your poor fact-checking on the taxi front. A tiny bit of research would have told you that Royal Cab in Baltimore, for which I both drove and dispatched, has red taxis, not yellow ones.

I hope I have time to drop in on your chat tonight. You're an interesting guy and decent person (with a few tiny flaws) and I think this is going to be a fine and worthy event.

Take care,

-- Robin "roblimo" Miller
Baltimore Cab License #6714
Maryland Limo Permit #1273

Re:addendum

[Bruce Perens]

It's not that he ran the story, but how. If some script kiddie determined that Linux sux, it would not make headlines on Slashdot. This was sort of the same thing. The posting was based on someone who was quite clueless about licensing, with nobody else to balance him. If you read the headline, and if, like most hackers, you didn't know much about licensing, you might have thought there was a real problem. I didn't feel it was responsible reporting.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:Log

[Bruce Perens]

A corrected log is here. The original is garbled because I was dictating answers over the phone.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:Why newnet?

[Bruce Perens]

I didn't choose it. I chose to grant the interview. I left the technical details up to the interviewer. I am afraid I am quite ignorant of IRC - I don't generally have time to make much use of it.

Thanks

Bruce

Uh-oh

[Bruce Perens]

Robin says we have our differences. I think his feelings are still hurt over the GPL loophole story - after which I threw him about the worst insult you can throw a limo driver. I said his car was yellow :-) . Gosh, I'm such a hothead sometimes.

Bruce

[OT] Time zones

[Mawbid]

Instead of putting raw text into articles to indicate time, how about offering article (and comment) writers a time tag that gets translated to the reader's selected time zone?

Or at least put the UTC time in there so that people will only have to know their own time zone.
--

Win98 0wNz j00r L4M3R Azz? (Not a Troll)

[kuro5hin]

Well, Bruce, for *literate* hackers, the title "Win98 0wNz j00r L4M3R Azz" with a question mark at the end (which is how it ran) indicated that it was a question, rather than a statement of fact. But be that as it may. I know that you're human, and like most humans you feel that "0wNz" and "L4M3R Azz" are phrases that only apply to 'l337 H4x0Rz with whom you totally agree - and that any 'l337 H4x0R that doesn't adhere strictly to the Official Bruce Perens Party Line is wrong, sensationalist, biased, and (no doubt) an irresponsible l4M3r.

I posted this piece because I felt "l33td00d@aol.com" raised some subtle but interesting technical points about r00ting L4m3Rz that were worth discussion and clarification. I honestly did not expect to get flamed over my decision to post his submission.

I believe that l33t H4x0r tricks and h4X, like l33t h4x0rz themselves, should be discussed as openly and publicly as possible so that everyone knows who is 0wN3d by whom. However, words (especially l33t H4x0r words) are far more slippery than code. With words the question, "R j00 4 L4m3R?" is often far harder to answer than it is in software.

Please accept my humble apology. I was wrong. I will try not to make the mistake of posting anything on Slashdot ever again.

-----------------------------

Ok, the last bit was only wishful thinking. But before you dismiss this as a menaingless troll, read it carefully. How different is posting the legal opinions of someone who has no legal knowledge from posting the technical opinions of somone who has no technical knowledge? Robin would have been run out of town on a rail if he had actually posted "Win98 0wNz j00r L4M3R Azz?" but since it was "arcane legal matters," he was perfectly justified? Hackers tend to have very finely tuned bullshit detectors, and mine goes to full alert whenever Robin-the-Taxi-Guy starts defending himself.

Slashdot is dying. I started reading here for the articles. I hardly ever even read the comments. Whatever I may say about CmdrTaco, he has a good nose for interesting content. As soon as he pretty much stopped being the editorial manager, and turned it over to this joker, the content went to hell. But there's still the community, which is often a rich source of information and new ideas. So now I read the comments more than I even pay attention to the stories.

But how long can a site maintain an interesting community if it no longer has the content to draw interesting people. Sooner or later (sooner, I think) the smart people here will get sick of all the crap and move somewhere else (like technocrat.net, where the S/N is still blissfully high).

The life of slashdot is like a microcosm of the life of Silicon Valley. First there were the geeks, geeking out and doing cool stuff. Then they made some money, and the businesspeople moved in. Now you can't swing a patch cable without hitting twelve lawyers and eighteen CEO's. But where are all the geeks? They're moving on.

Farewell /. It was fun while it lasted.

"Moderation is good, in theory."
-Larry Wall

Re:Or, use a bit of logic.

[Gonwin]

Another person who thinks the world is a Hemisphere and not a sphere. Hello in there this may shock you but the world is a globe, a round ball; it has lots of different dates the Day light saving takes effect and lots of places that have no DST.

One of my major gripes is when someone announces the X will be out in the fall 2000'; as if winter happened the same time all round the globe. how much harder is it to say 2nd Quarter of 2000?

When the rest of the world think of USA they think Arrogance; the USA think that the world IS the USA; heck they even refer to it as America?

Excuse me but USA is only 1/12 of the worlds pop; please show a little bit of inclusiveness especially when talking on the NET which is a global community.

---

technocrat.net for slashdot criticism

[doom]

It's been brought up a few times already, but I wanted to give one more plug to Bruce Perens' site (technocrat.net). Lately there have been a number of threads there discussing slashdot itself (like, "where's the code?").

You don't get to read stuff like this on slashdot itself, except in little bursts that are quickly labeled "off-topic".

I recommend reading: A proposal to Slashdot

Re:Bad scheduling

[toastyman]

Hey, In my defense, they didn't announce the new show until after Bruce and I scheduled this. :) It was originally going to be a week later. :)

Although, I did get to meet most of the X-files cast last week. Perhaps I can talk a few into doing a chat like this.


Kevin

Re:Why newnet?

[toastyman]

As an administrator for a couple of servers on NewNet, as well as a software developer, I can assure you that this kind of association with NewNet isn't desirable.

I'm actively working to bring interesting things to NewNet that aren't warez/porn/whatever related. Things like this help.

-- Kevin

The aftermath. :)

[toastyman]

Ok... First of all, a offical transcript is here:

http://www.a stepcloser.com/Zope/astepcloser/forum/948687822/in dex_html

Secondly, we learned quite a bit. :)

1) Even if your guest says they have a DSL line and can handle script kiddies, insist on a proxy of some sort before hand. :)

2) Plan for many more people than you expect. I honestly expected a lesser crowd than the ones I've had before for events like this, since I couldn't promote it well.

3) Implement the hacks I've got to ircd to allow for a forum like this. (Hide joins/parts from non-opers, disallow nick changes, etc).


But, a lot of really good questions got asked, and Bruce did a wonderful job of answering them. We'll be doing more of these, so please subscribe to the mailing list, if you want to be informed of them... (majordomo@dragondata.com - put 'subscribe irc' in the body).

Also, we're holding a contest to see who can bring the most interesting person for a future chat.... Go here for details... Win a t-shirt from Think Geek, or a $20 gift certificate from B&N.

Thanks to everyone who came. :)

Kevin

Wow, this is a bit much. :)

[toastyman]

Hi, I'm Kevin Day, the guy who's kinda running this interview tonight.

I really had no idea this was actually going to make it up on here, so this will definately be a learning experience as how to handle larger crowds. Right now it's 7 hours before the chat starts, and there are already more people here than there were for some tv/movie stars that I've done this with.

I'm gonna post a 'how this is gonna work' to www.astepcloser.com in a few minutes, but briefly:

The channel is moderated during the Q&A. This means nobody can talk who isn't running the show, or Bruce. With hundreds of people here, there's no sensible way of doing this.

To have a question asked, you'll send it to me, or one of the people helping out. (They'll have @'s next to their name).

We'll pick the interesting looking questions, and post them in the channel. Bruce will answer.

The realtime nature of this will allow followup questions to his responses, as well as the hint of unpredictability. (I hope!) :)

You're welcome to hang out before and after the event. We've got one other interview scheduled two weeks from now, with more on their way.

(And yes, please don't flame me that www.astepcloser.com looks a whole awful lot like www.slashdot.org. That's the default SquishDot look that I haven't had the chance to change much yet) :)


We'll definately be exploring the slashdot effect on irc servers tonight. :)

-- Kevin

Re:Wow, this is a bit much. :)

[toastyman]

Ok, I know how poor taste it is to follow up your own post, but... :)

The channel is #astepcloser. If that's full, please use #astepcloser-mirror. (Exact same content, just mirrored to another channel).

Also, irc.newnet.net is a dns roundrobin pointing to all of the servers. In case it picks one that is down or full, and it's not giving you a new one, here's a list:

irc.dragondata.com
|-irc.away.net
|-services2.newnet.net
|-security.dragondata.com
`-hub.dragondata.com
|-irc.rma.edu
|-hub.stinger.org
| |-irc.chelmsford.com
| |-irc.bootsector.org
| |-irc.Neticus.COM
| |-irc.busprod.com
| `-matrix.tlh.fdt.net
| |-irc.kbnet.org
| |-irc.aye.net
| |-irc.qpalzm.com
| |-irc.uplink.net.nz
| |-irc.gravestone.net
| |-irc.cybertrails.com
| |-hub.aohell.org
| | |-irc.keytech.com
| | |-renegade.midv.net
| | |-irc.gry.DE
| | | `-irc.oasis-net.net
| | |-irc.freshworld.de
| | |-irc.aohell.org
| | `-irc.jaxn.com
| `-irc.fsn.net
|-newnet.telia.NO
| |-newnet.grolier.fr
| |-newnet.online.be
| `-irc.kvalito.no
`-hub.eskimo.com
|-services.newnet.net
`-irc.eskimo.com

I promise that if I had known this was going to happen, I would have prepared better. :)

The thinking is too US-centric

[barzok]

The US isn't the only country that has a timezone labeled "Eastern" - there's an EST in Australia as well.

Use UTC. It's a common reference point that everyone *should* be able to convert to their local time. Otherwise, you have to say "well, I'm 11 hours ahead of UTC, USEST is 5 hours behind" and go through more crap.

Re:Who?

[Issue9mm]

Well, to learn more about Bruce, you can check out his "competition to /." page at Technocrat.net, or his personal site at Perens.com. His BIO can be found here.

All in all, Bruce is an okay guy. I haven't really interacted with him much, but he at least appears to make sense most of the time. (Really, all you can ask out of anyone, IMHO)

Re:Why newnet?

[Issue9mm]

Cause that's where Bruce gets all his MP3s. When there aren't any questions pending, he'll be in #Cablemp3z sucking up Fserves and the like.

Also, I heard he's gonna have an onopen invite bot running to sucker you into #technocrat, which will be housing his devious plans for opening Slash code.

No doubt, he's an evil mastermind, and we should all bow down before him. (CmdrTaco, I am your father...)

PS. Just kidding.

Log

[Townshend]

There will be a log of the whole convorsation at http://people.ce.mediaone.net/t0w nshend/index.htm.