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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."
The guy's an egomaniac, both online and off; if he's the maintainer of a project, he's god of the project. Whoever handed that one off to him is to blame, not ESR himself, because it's not like he's gone through some horrible, recent metamorphosis. :)
> And here I thought ESR was a level-headed, objective advocate of OSS.
Eric's going to be the star of the upcoming Hackers Gone Wild! video.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
ESR is Eric S. Raymond, author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", the essay which was cited as a prime reason for Netscape's decision to release their browser source, and many other essays on Open Source. He was a co-founder of the OSI, and is the long-time maintainer of .
His website is here.
Of course, a google search would have told you all of this.
Just glancing over the site I see that the first entry in the changelog is the Entry called '404' - clicking upon that entry gives you what?
A 404 - page not found error.
I wonder how that'll be represented in the paper version of the book, perhaps listing it in the index as page 2.5?
It was someone like you that came up with the Farad.
Damned uselessly large units.
-Peter
They gave ESR more free time to waste by not accepting his CML2. Linus, you should measure your decisions more carefully.
sgis ddo ekil t'nod i
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
the Hackers Dictionary was WRITTEN by ESR around 1990 if memory serves
This entry in Wikipedia says "The Jargon File (hereafter referred to as `jargon-1' or `the File') was begun by Raphael Finkel at Stanford in 1975."
The world will end in 5 minutes. Please log out.
Does anyone else find it thoughtless and ungrateful to criticize one of the communities greatest single person assets because the tremendous efforts he puts forth FOR FREE are colored by his personal experiences?
No. I'm sick of people insisting that someone wasn't paid for their time then somehow they should be immune from criticism from whatever they do with that time. It's idiotic.
He has decided to appoint himself voice of the hacker movement. When he starts trying to distort the truth to feed his own ego and his simple-minded politics, then why the hell shouldn't he be criticized?
Fork.
______
Like any public domain or copyleft project, it doesn't really matter what kind of job the maintainer does with the Jargon File, since alternate versions may be created effortlessly. ESR should be free to do whatever he likes with the thing, even if it's a bit silly. And since ESR isn't bothering anymore to host the definitive version himself, and hasn't for like a year or something, and 90% of the jargon file mirrors found on google are old versions anyway, it isn't like a forking would even be noticed.
I read the article after writing this comment and noticed NTK kind of makes this point themselves, but I think it's worth reiterating. Esp. since no one reads the article around here.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
- pico-ESR : Engineer brags about fixing a project design flaw, ignoring intern that did all the work
- micro-ESR : Project manager brags about bringing project in on time, within budget, ignoring unclocked overtime work by engineers
- milli-ESR : Upper manager gloats over his own division profitability, giving no credit to project managers
- centi-ESR : Corporate CEO take full credit for exceeding analyst's earnings report. Takes credit for Fed's changes to interest rate, favorable currency exchange rate, and underpaid work done by everyone who works for him (including the ones losing their job in the latest outsourcing fiasco)
- ESR : The limit as all of the above approach an impossibly high number. Requires heavy sedation. Alternates between belief is self as omnipotent Deity and as sole owner of all SCO intellectual property.
With apologies to Scott Adams."dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
and
You can keep the personal attacks...I don't buy them because they seem to spring from either long-held grudges or unsubstantiated claims against Eric's character.
What bothers me is the apparent willingness of this community to attack a person that has done a lot to bring us all here in the first place. If you don't like ESR's version of the jargon file, feel free to fork your own, or email ESR with your specific complaints and work it out.
I'm not disappointed that Taco posted this story because it's not a bad idea to question those we consider leaders in this loose society that is the FOSS community...but I'm surprised and a bit disappointed at how quickly we turn into a bunch of sharks willing to devour each other. The tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theory part of my brain thinks that any proprietary-software-funded trolls have certainly earned their money in this thread.
--K.
Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
Someone should tell ESR there are hackers outside of Texas. Neo Conservatism is virtually inexistant in Europe, where the corporate brain washing procedures are much less developped than they are in ESR's trailer park, and have to actually compete with a working education system.
Dev elpizw tipota, dev phoboumai tipota eimai lephteros http://euclidian.org
What's an Idiotarian? To my way of interpreting this writing, it's basically anyone ESR or his adherents disgrees with. At first, an idiotarian is anyone who supports terrorists and tyrants, a/k/a the American Left. However, the screed goes on to assail the American Right, who are most often in support of eliminating terrorists and tyrants. So, yeah, anyone who doesn't subscribe to ESR's version of militant libertarianism is an idiotarian.
A lot of people here were really beating up on ESR; I decided to my own checking and decided that the guy is veering dangerously close to Unabomber material. Guns, anarchy, manifestos against both political sides, whatever. Time to get a cabin in the woods and issue forth open-source decrees. Just don't wrap 'em around pipe bombs and everything will be okay.