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ESR Recasts Jargon File in Own Image
don.g writes "As reported by NTK, ESR appears to have embarked apon the process of recasting the Jargon File in his own image, adding terms like "Aunt Tillie" and "GhandiCon" that he dreamt up and seemingly no-one else uses, and various terms from (of all places) the warblogging community, where he is active. He's also updated the "Hacker Politics" page to be more closely aligned with his own views."
I saw ESR speak a few years ago. It was a pretty small group (~50 people or so), and so the floor was constantly open to questions for him. He was an absolute dickhead. I asked him simply why he didn't include computer security experts in his definition of hacker and he went off on me for 20 minutes. I then countered with a perfectly valid point. To which he countered with a school-boyish sneer, and nothing more.
He is also the most self-centered geek I've encountered. I can remember vividly a few years ago that he published "10 Sex Tips for Geeks" on Valentines day. If you have ever layed eyes on the man, you know that he is the last person you would ever want to be accepting sex tips from.
If we want this open source movement to take off, we need somebody who's a little more socially adept as our spokesperson. Don't even get me started on how outrageous the whole bazaar and geek-gift culture are.
__________________________________________
Take comfort in your ignorance.
Grandmaster Plague
About six months ago I looked for copies of the older versions of the Jargon File. That was not as easy as it sounds. I don't know if ESR has been intentionally ridding the internet of the older versions, but I wasn't too happy about how difficult they were to find. If the older versions of the Jargon File completely disappear, then a valuable part of computer history will be lost. In it's place will be the mindless, egotistical rants of someone who thinks the Open Source community revolves around himself.
And where was the open/free graphical OS back in 1991? To compete with Windows 3.1 and the Mac? With things like PageMaker and WordPerfect and Excel and so on?
Especially amusing is this:
It always seemed to me that he's describing himself.Hahahahaha! You stupid Anonymous Coward, *everyone* should *always* fork *every* project *now*. Or didn't you realize that?
-russ
p.s. No, seriously, there are always good reasons to fork each and every open source project. The question is: who's gonna do it? Obviously you aren't, because you're too stupid and lazy (irrefutable evidence: your unwillingness to create a user and log in). You're too stupid and lazy to find someone else to do it, so guess what? This fork isn't going to happen.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Some links
8 94 139
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=63272&cid=5
"My little town has a eight little churches"
"heated but friendly arguments over MVPs like Bruce, Eric, and Richard"
http://www.catb.org/~esr/personal.html
"I live in Malvern, Pennsylvania"
http://www.churchangel.com/WEBPA/malvern.htm
Reading the account's comments, it has an "us vs. them" attitude WRT open source, and claims long-time involvement, yet it's a very recent account. Oh, and most damning of all, ESR has a cat.
Revisionist historians might now make the claim that 'The Cathederal and the Bazaar' outlines the open source software creation process but when it was originally written, it was a polemic against the 'Cathederal' method of software development being practiced by the GNU Emacs development team.
It isn't meant to be a purely historical document. It is meant to be a relevant, credible dictionary of terms that hackers use, and thus merely being updated is not good enough.
However it can only have real credibility if it can actually cover a reasonable amount of hacker slang, and the number of hackers has grown over the years so ESR is either going to be everywhere at once or he's going to choose a subset.
It appears that, given his recent choice of entries, if he wishes the Jargon File to be at all relevant in 5 years he'd have more success auctioning dogs.
Let's be fair here, this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. I used to read NTK until I got sick of the snotty political commentary they tended to work into many of of their (quite interesting and witty) reports. In particular, IIRC, they've always been fond of slinging mud at ESR, who's views happen to be about as far as you can get from the generally leftist slant of NTK. There's no question that ESR puts his own spin on just about everything he does, but NTK calling him on it is a bit like IndyMedia accusing CNN of being "controlled by the Man". I don't really expect neutral content from either source.
--
CPAN rules. - Guido van Rossum
He's the maintainer, he has the power, he uses it. Show me the guy who wouldn't put in some of their own stuff and their own views. I would, and so would 99.9% of people.
A few years back at Geekfest in Cambridge (MA), a co-worker of mine observed ESR telling a local newspaper reporter with a straight face that all geeks are libertarians. I don't think that the idea that every single last one of his fellow engineers might not subscribe to every last one of his pet political causes would ever occur to the man.
Raymond has always been an egomaniac blowhard with a self-opinion exceeding his actual worth by several orders of magnitude, and if you don't believe me, just ask any member of the linux kernel mailing list.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
... for a /. poll. It would by no means be the scientific evidence you're looking for, but it would certainly be interesting thought fodder.
i an?i c?
Where do you see yourself in the Political Spectrum?
NeoConservative?
Paleoconservative?
Liberitar
Traditionally well-established Liberal (hippie)?
Post-Scarcity Gift Cultural?
Redmondcentric?
PaleoNeoCowboyNealist
I have no beef with the entry on GandhiCon, which I thought was witty and deserving of a place.
There are a few entries where the ESR-factor is bothering me, though, with the hacker politics page being the worst.
I love the line "Hackers are far more likely than most non-hackers to either (a) be aggressively apolitical or (b) entertain peculiar or idiosyncratic political ideas and actually try to live by them day-to-day." which rings very true to my ears, and how the geeks (including myself) view politics. (I know people of both category a and b.)
However, that category "b" definitely includes socialistic (esp. anarchistic) views, especially (but not limited to) outside the US. I've met plenty of hackers who hate all lefties and I've met plenty who see themselves as socialist. The phrase "affected by the collapse of socialism" just sounds like what I read in plenty of rightwing-oriented literature (I like to read stuff from both sides of the camp), but it seems false. The latest years I've seen a great strengthening in various leftlibertarian/anarchist movements. The only thing that's crumbling with the Berlin wall is leninism (and part of marxism), not the socialistic ideals themselves.
Tonight, being in a good mood since it's a nice summer night here, I feel like suggesting that hackers should view each other with kindness regardness of immediate political view. Most hackers have a fondness for freedom, and even though some of us think that corporatism and capitalism are the greatest contemporary threat to that freedom while others think that capitalism is the best means to reach and uphold a state of freedom, the entry in the jargon file should reflect that hackerdom is not a homogenous political movement.
Socialism hasn't collapsed, is the worst error in ESR's idiocy. The countries with the highest standards of living in the whole world are socialist.
Most hackers I know are leftist-anarchists. We are certainly not reflected in that definition.
Maybe most hackers in the USA are neoconservative, but here in Europe leftist-anarchism is the norm.