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ESR steps down from OSI
Hope Thelps writes "According to an article on news.com.com, Eric Raymond is stepping down from his role as president of the OSI. His replacement will be our very own Russ Nelson. "
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Looks like Eric finally accepted the job offer from Microsoft.
:^)
Just kidding Eric, don't shoot me!
The submissions mentioned Russ's Slashdot Page, but a lot more info about him can be found at his home page and/or his company Crynwr.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
I look forward to his long-winded rambling pseudo-philosophical treatise on what it feels like to step down, and how that relates to the ethos of the Open Source movement.
I *actually* got a first post.
I can not believe this is so!
Oh happy day! I think I shall call my mother and share with her the wonderous news!
Fanatics like ESR might do good to the cause in the early stages of revolution, but in the longer run, they will always prove to be an annoyance and will be dealt with. See, for instance, what Stalin did with the veterans of the Russian Revolution
:/
So in this analogy, ESR is represented by the veterans, and Russ Nelson is Stalin?
Yep, it's time to execute ESR. Might as well do RMS while were at it.
Fear not, knowledgeable people, and learn quite how full of shit ESR is.
ESR didn't step down, according to the article, he stepped aside.
-- SouNerd.com
Obligatory Good Morning Vietnam:
"Excuse me sir, seeing as how the VP is such a VIP, shouldn't we keep the PC on the QT, because if it leaks to the VC, you could end up an MIA, and then we'd all be put on KP."
There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that can keep their train of thought,
You can get secret naked pictures of him touching printouts of open source code for all of your F/OSS fetish needs!
From the article:
Since when? Last time I checked, "open source" was a generic descriptor, and only use of the OSI CERTIFIED mark required approval from the Open Source Initiative.
Naw, I have to call. Her hearing aid is acting up.
From the article:
:P These business-orientated news sites have had fucking ages to get the facts right on all this stuff and they still can't do it.
Approval from the OSI is required for all open-source licenses, which are used on thousands of products, from the Linux operating system to the Firefox Web browser.
Erm, what? I don't need anyone to "approve" my software's license
But no!!! You're wrong! You're so wrong! FOSS is different. It's not meant to fall victim to the ravings of mad dictators like Fidel or the commies. ESR is simply stepping down in order to let someone else have a turn. After all, what fairness would there be in not letting everyone in the community have a shot at being the top dog for a while? ESR probably has a lot of more important things to get on with right now. I hear he has a fantastic glass eye collection he's been working on for the past decade or so. That kind of thing consumes a lot of time and would prevent one from being able to participate in FOSS evangelizationism as ESR has done. Just imagine how great his collection of glass eyes is going to be after only a year or two of being away from the FOSS evangelizationism. It would put to shame the glass eye collection that Terry Gilliam used in the cut scenes from Brazil. I, for one, welcome our hiatus taking squanderlords! (In case you people are curious, I am completely substance free)
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
See, for instance, what Stalin did with the veterans of the Russian Revolution, or how Fidel Castro got rid of Che. Every revolution has ended up eating its children; i can't see why the Open Source Revolution should be different.
Yeah, now it's free to slaughter 30 million developers and subjugate every user to its iron grasp for fifty years. WTF?
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
Does this nelson guy look as retarded as ESR does?
I think a lot of it may be that the OSI is interested in fulfilling its original goal of creating an environment in which corporations feel comfortable using and contributing to Open Source software, and while ESR had his purpose in building the bridge between open source development and the corporate world, he's not capable of exploiting what's on the other side of that bridge. He knows enough about the business world, and he's charismatic enough, to get his foot in the door, but he doesn't know how to close the deal.
Hopefully Russ Nelson, who I believe has a longer history as a professional consultant to these corporations, will be able to close the deal and get more of these corporations to support Open Source in a monetary way, rather than just paying lip service to the idea.
If you entity don't set financial, technical or legal standards, it's probably not really needed.
Open Source Initiative does in fact set legal standards. It maintains a definition of what constitutes an open source license and approves licenses for use with its OSI CERTIFIED branding program.
Actually, this isn't always the case. For instance, the American Revolution is a good counter-example. Not only were the original revolutionaries not "eaten" but flourished in the government that followed the revolution.
You know, a psychologist would probably be able to interpret many interesting things from your post.
I'm not sure I like the idea that OSI is pitching itself as "the authority" of license evaluation. Although it is a lot easier to ask the question, "is license A approved by OSI" to mean "is the software licensed under A open source for me" but the question is flawed. One has to recognized that free software licenses are not created equal. The difference of them, and the choice involved, is what makes open source great.
I once had a signature.
Why the hell do we need another organization to promote open source. This is getting out of hand. Everyone is trying to be a chairman, CEO, head of board, so they start these unnecessary organizations.
What 'other' organization? The OSI has been around for years. And they were founded by Bruce Perens, who can make the claim of having coined the term 'Open Source'.
If the OSI is an 'unnecessary' organization for promoting open source, then I don't know which one isn't.
For instance, the American Revolution is a good counter-example. Not only were the original revolutionaries not "eaten" but flourished in the government that followed the revolution.
Or at least, that's the way the eaters wrote the history books.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
OSI isn't spreading FUD about the phrase "open source", are they?
Has this post been throught the SUPPRG (Slashdot Users Preferred Posting Review Group) process?
What does [tt] mean?
Every revolution has ended up eating its children; i can't see why the Open Source Revolution should be different.
Because Dance Dance Revolution is now available as open source.
in the echo chamber of technology news, all it takes-- as ESR did-- to get branded as a "fanatic" is to speak your mind.
The stepping aside of the "fanatics" doesn't mean anything more or less than the stepping aside of people with opinions, vision, or a desire to succeed. In the future the "open source movement" will be run like a business, like traditional charities and not-for-profits: i.e., inefficiently, carelessly and by bloated fat parasites who care about their own career, not the organization. In the future, groups like OSI will be operated not for the benefit of open source, but for the benefit of the "grown up" OSI group and its personal power. And we will hail it as the "fanatics" losing power.
Does the person taking ESR's place at OSI represent this process? Probably not. But almost certainly his successor will.
Open source isn't a revolution. This isn't Vladmir Lenin trying to convince people to take up arms and shoot people. This is software development. It is a creative endeavor. In a revolution. Revolutions are tricky because you need people who inspire at the beginning and people who are stable after the beginning. But this isn't a revolution. What is creativity without inspiration?
I'm not sure I agree with your examples, but I agree that it is a sign that Open Source is growing up. The article also mentioned how Open Source has transitioned from a few volunteer hackers to corporate backed programmers. GNU went through the same transformation, so again I view this as a good thing.
The only concern is how much influence corporate needs drive open source rather than individual desires. However, I think in the end the coporate influence can help solidify Open Source due to the pragmatic nature of most corporations. I would rather have one fairly standard tool (e.g., Open Office) that works pretty well, is quite common, etc. rather than a wide variety of tools that all do pretty much the same thing. Rather than building on the shoulders of those who came before, programmers tend to stand on their toes. ;^)
A good example of the problem I hope this will solve is the age old /. question: "Which Unix Distro do you recommend?" I'm guessing there are a lot of people who haven't tried Linux simply because it is too confusing taking that first step of getting a "Linux".
Or a sign that the OSI is finally selling out.
First they approve Non-Free Sun licenses as Open. Now they lose the biggest spokesman for Open. What next, recruit Balmer and Schwartz to the OSI board?
The reasons for this are several fold. Part of it is to discourage new incompatable licenses (you can't use APSL code in Apache that can't be used in Perl that can't be used in Linux that can't be used in AROS, to give some examples.)
Part of it is to make sure that a uniform set of licenses is produced. It's no good having open source, if one group thinks you should email all changes to them, or another thinks they should be able to use your stuff in a proprietary program without permission. The OSI can level the playing field somewhat.
As you might imagine, ESR was behind the bill, lobbying for it extensively behind the scenes. "Sometimes, it takes a government to push forward progress" he said in a recent paper, "The Cauliflower and the Mattress". "We expect governments to do a job, and that's to provide for the common welfare. Open Source is a critical part of our welfare. It is at the heart not merely of the software that runs this country, but of our future. Some might say we would be better off in a world without schools, and healthcare, with only guns to defend ourselves. I say no, that's wrong. Totally backward that is. We don't need guns when we have open source. We don't need to defend ourselves when we have control over the code we run."
Google for "The Cauliflower and the Mattress" and you should find a copy. Inspiring words.
Or better yet, to write his reflections on going through life with a complete lack of social skills?
Hmmm,
go and check what happened to the original signatories of the constitution.
In other news tweedle dumb replaced by tweedle dumber, and tweedle dumb replaces tweedle dee.
Fidel Castro did not get rid of Che. Che was given several high ranking posts in the government but he chose to leave in order to fight for other oppressed people.
Poor example.
You seem to be confusing RMS with ESR. ESR is not a fanatic (except about guns).
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
A slashdot user becomes the head OSI. I think I'll burn down my computer now.
"One of the most important parts of any founder or leader's responsibility is to know when to step aside." --Eric Raymond, co-founder, OSI
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
Well, it says here:
"I am the person who first announced "Open Source" to the world, in an article carried on Slashdot and elsewhere."
He also trademarked the thing, wrote the OSI definition, and cofounded the OSI. I don't see why he couldn't or wouldn't be allowed to make that claim.
...so is "[tt]" a new, friendly, and convenient Troll Tag system?
The American Revolution wasn't a revolution, exactly. The people who orchestrated and lead the American Revolution weren't revolutionaries in the sense we normally use that word-- they were extant local political leaders, almost all of them elected local political leaders. The American Revolution wasn't the people rising up to overthrow a system, it was two empowered groups fighting over spheres of influence. The people generally happened to be on the same side as the empowered group that eventually won-- again, in large part they'd elected this empowered group-- but I don't think that's enough to call it a revolution.
The group who took control of Britain's holdings in America in the American Revolution-- the "founding fathers"-- were already established as the people who controlled America prior to 1750, 1750 being when Britain decided to stop taking a passive, absentee-landlord stance to its American colonies and instead assume a position of active control. The 26 years after that were basically a process of Britain's empowered group going going "hmm, you know, we own you, and we have the right to determine your affairs", and America's empowered group going "you don't have the right to determine our affairs, and you know what, come to think of it, you don't own us anymore either". We call this a revolution but "war for independence" would be a far more accurate way of putting it, since the American side of the war was 13 established and self-sufficient states and their goal was autonomy, not change.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The way i see it, it's a sign that Open Source is finally growing up. Fanatics like ESR might do good to the cause in the early stages of revolution, but in the longer run, they will always prove to be an annoyance and will be dealt with.
1. ESR is hardly a fanatic. He is much more of a pragmatist, falling somewhere between RMS and Torvalds, but much closer to Torvalds than Stallman.
2. OSI is an organization intended to promote Open Source software. As such it behooves OSI to have someone at the help that WON'T compromise the open source initiative's goals and philosophy, so arguing that his successor (who I know nothing about and wouldn't assume to be a great deal different than ESR) should be willing to change the organization's philosophy, political, or technical stance for some short term gain is very short sighted and ultimately destructive to the entire movement.
3. Having said all that, OSI has always been vulnerable to a "corporate takeover." Whether or not this is the case here (I kind of doubt it is), the position they've sought out as "mediator" between the corporate mindset and the free software movement certainly makes them vulnerable to that kind of thing.
4. I sleep much better knowing that RMS heads up the Free Software Foundation. These folks definite the stance of the movement. It isn't their job to compromise with those who oppose their philosophy, it is there job to articulate their philosophy and argue effectively for it. It is then up to the rest of us to choose our own stance, either 100% one or the other, or some middle-of-the-road mixture of the two. OSI falls somewhere in the middle, but to imply that moving toward the business end of the spectrum to the point where they become indistinguishable means the movement has "grown up" is to miss the whole point of the movement entirely.
Revolutions only eat their children when the revolution betrays its own ideals and becomes something very, very different. Contrast for example the Bolshevik/Communist revolution is Russia, which ran amok and never established communism, merely a dictatorship that called itself communist without practicing any of the economic or social advocated by Karl Marx, and the American revolution, which did remain true to its ideals for the most part and did in establish a democracy in its wake.
One became a monster with an entirely different agenda than the revolution and its revolutionaries while the other did not. One did "eat its children," while the other did not.
A more accurate statement would be to say that
"Each evoluton which betray itself and its ideals had ended uyp eating its children." In which case I can see every reason to expect the Free Software movement (and hopefull the Open Source movement with which it shares some adherents) should be different.
As a corallary, I would say that if history is any lesson, and if the Open Source (or Free Software) movmements do in fact "eat their children" we can pretty much understand that, at that point, they have betrayed themselves and everything they stand for, whith only the rhetoric remaining to gloss over an entirely different, probably very detrimental, agenda.
Luckilly I don't see any evidence of anything like that happening just yet.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Ahhhhhhh......
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Know your history, bitch. OSI has been here for a long time, it was one the first ones, it's not "another" organisation. It's not new. It just changed the president.
If this kind of tantrum junkie is the best spokesperson the open source movement can find, they're really in trouble!
You are a bright one aren't you?
+ empire/2100-1001_3-235639.html
http://news.com.com/Gates+turns+over+reins+of+his
By your reasoning, the communist revolution in Russia was not a revolution either..granted those involved in the revolution were not elected, but certainly a vast majority of the people didn't necessarily want the communists in power either. Just enough of the military, as I remember.
Why do I have this feeling some anti open source troll is going to mod down all of his posts just because they know who he is?
I'm surpised slashdot posted his name like that. Especially with recent posts.
Excellent use of the word 'Bitch' here. Completely unexpected, but very appropriate. Thank you, that put a smile on my face.
"We need a fourth law of Robotics: Stop Fingering My Wife"
Check out Sex Tips for Geeks
Actually, the essays in this section, as well as much of his other writing, make very interesting reading. I think this one can only be found via the site-map.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
Just like every other revolution. There has never been a revolution of the powerless masses and there probably never will be. I looked up the definition of revolution and it doesn't say anything about people rising up. It just says, "The overthrow of one government and its replacement with another."
Alright....you asked for it.
All those complaining about the OSI insisting that a licence is open-source only if they approve it forget one thing: the OSI coined the term "open source". Hard as it may be to imagine, the phrase didn't exist up to 7 or so years ago. With this in mind, their claims are somewhat justified.
((lambda x ((x))) (lambda x ((x))))
They think that Ayn Rand farted fairy-dust.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Hippies don't typically promote the right to carry firearms.
Do NOT click the parents link! It contains spyware; GAIN and Claria. You have been warned. If you have already clicked the link, run a spyware scan using updated profiles.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
this still makes me laugh. And I mean laughing at him, not with him.
This is purely a hunch, but wouldn't the bill to which you refer only apply in the US? Which would mean that if the grandparent is one of the other 5.6 billion people in the world, no, he DOESN'T need osi's approval.
Stuff.
Is that a fault of Russians or a "dreamer" like Marx? I think a dictatoral state is the end result of any system that advocates "from each according his ability, to each according to his needs." You need a ruling class to start handing out rations as no one has a right to private property.
... the communal communes of Spain in the early 20th century. The country as a whole was a dual system, half capitalist, half communist. The local communists were very democratic and outcompeted their capitalist competitors (Note: communism != centrally planned).
Not any more than you need a ruling class for capitalism to work (someone owns the land, someone works for someone else).
There has been at least one working communist system that was inherently democratic
Both Washington and Moscow had strong interest in undermining this particular example of communism. Washington because it showed communism could outcompete capitalism under the right circumstances (small, democratic, self-organized communes and cooperatives trading with one another) and Moscow because it undermined their argument that communism required authoritarianism to work (this was particularly troublesome as the Spanish democratic variant was working far better than stalinism ever did).
The Spanish government coopted the communists into their system legally, then modified the laws to make them uncompetative and ultimately illegal. Kind of like what is happening to the internet vis-a-vis the expanded copyright laws today.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The 4th of July is called "Independence Day" for a reason. I think you've over-estimated the hight of your point of view.
--
Mu
I use Fedora Core 2 + Mozilla as non-root, didn't seemed to have installed anything.
This sig is the express property of someone.
Yes and no. Rabblerousers like Sam Adams and the agrarian populists like Patrick Henry and to a lesser extent Thomas Jefferson were largely excluded from having a real role in forming the government.
The real brain behind the Federal system was Alexander Hamilton, who was still in school during the opening shots of the revolultion.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
The open source movement has no problem with advocating for software that is not "open source". This movement's philosophy champions a development methodology aimed chiefly at businesses. When you focus on criteria where you can't always excel, like technological innovation, you sometimes have to stump for things that won't qualify for the imprimateur of your own organization.
Free software proponents, by contrast, champion a different philosophy: all computer users deserve the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify computer software. Thus, software freedom is primary, not technical innovation or faster and less buggy development. Hence, free software proponents never have the ironic situation of advocating the use of software they don't agree with. From the perspective of the older free software movement, the goals of the open source movement are nice as far as they go but they don't go far enough.
Digital Citizen
Who is this "Eric Raymond"? I thought Oscar Goldman was in charge at the OSI. Did he retire? The least they could have done is give Dr. Rudy Wells or Steve Austin the job as a sinecure.
The rudimentary math shows he was granted 150k shares, which at today's prices would put him in a pretax gain of $300k.
Seriously.. If you don't know who Russ is, you probably have never been to a Linux conference, or have never attempted qmail.
I see you half got my joke :)
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
Huh. Interesting to reread ESR's Take My Job, Please! essay, now that he is stepping aside.
Up till now, OSI has pretty much treated freedom as a non issue or a side issue in the FOSS community. I think this signifies a change in direction to where freedom becomes the main issue. If so, I welcome the change.
Giving up the title, in this case at any rate, is not the same as giving up the power. You'll find that Gates has much more power than his position would normally grant.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
WTF! They're all dead now!
BTW, this is one piece of software from Microsoft that seems to work well. But then, they did write the OS software so they SHOULD know how to check it.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
It also seems when that war is successful (ie: USA), it's a revolutionary war (or war of independence as you said), but if the exact same war is NOT successful (ie: Confederates), it's a civil war.
Or at least, that's the way the eaters wrote the history books.
You mean, according to the abundance of documentation availabe in private and public collections? Or the vast number of eye-witness accounts recorded in private letters and notes of the era?
This whole concept of "victor writes the history books" is flawed when there is an abundance of evidence that is freely available. We can search through and discover the true stories of all of American history, because every step is documented. If you would like to dispute the work that the historians have presented, please write your own papers and cite your sources.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
There has never been a revolution of the powerless masses and there probably never will be.
The French Revolution fits this description perfectly well, for example. The French Revolution didn't actually end by putting the powerless masses in power, of course, but the powerless masses at least were the ones who revolted or were pushed to revolt.
What perhaps you would be much more accurate in saying is that there has never been a successful revolution of the powerless masses.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
There has never been a revolution of the powerless masses and there probably never will be.
I'd like to find out what you mean by "masses". My understanding is that the masses are the people who aren't in power. I guess by this definition it means that they are powerless. But then again, in a democratic society, what is power? It is the ability to make decisions. Who in a democratic society makes decisions? Why, the people do, by voting. They make decisions about who is allowed to make decisions for them. They make decisions about what kind and what form these decisions are made.
That doesn't sound 'powerless'. That sounds 'powerful'. America has been about empowering the masses and respecting their decision since the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock and the decision was made to vote for the leaders and laws.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
And in politics (extreme anarchist libertarian) and foreign policy (militarist). And in his comical anti-Microsoft stance.
It was a revolution in that the system changed from top-down to bottom-up. Up until that point, general philosophy said you needed a king who had been raised since birth to lead to run a nation. Otherwise, it couldn't be done. Julius Ceaser was celebrated, along with Alexander the Great, because they were great top-down leaders.
Then along comes the idea that maybe the masses aren't so stupid as Ceaser and Alexander claimed. Maybe, in fact, they knew more about how to run a country, a city, and a village than a king who lived far away and who didn't care. If the masses aren't stupid, then they should be free to do what they wish, because they are more often right than wrong.
That was the revolution part. The revolution didn't start with a gunshot. It started with a pen, long before 1776. It isn't complete either. We're still trying to bring freedom to everyone who wants it.
The war for independence was a different yet connected matter. It was a formality to make it clear to Britain and the rest of the world that the Americans were intent on self-rule. While I think the war was great, the revolution was even greater.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
There's no spyware installed at that link, at least I don't see anything.
Trolling is a art,
Well except that the people supporting the revolution where only 1/5th the population at the start. Also note that local leadership had no real power. They most certainly weren't "established" in terms of holding the reins of power. It was all about "taxation without representation", if you'll recall highschool history class. In terms of "autonomy, not change", then why was it called The Great Experiment? Hint: it was a *radical* departure.
First, 95% of the American Indians were basically doomed to die. Europeans were eventually going to come to the American continent, and when they did, they were going to bring their diseases. Even if all of them had been Quakers, the Indians still would have had their culture destroyed.
Second, when Americans met Indians, they generally traded with them peacefully. It was after the Civil War, when there were all these trained soldiers sitting around, that Washington decided to "Do Something" about the Indian Problem. That's when you got the Indian wars. Thank you, Washington (DC, not George)!
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
" The way i see it, it's a sign that Open Source is finally growing up. Fanatics like ESR might do good to the cause in the early stages of revolution, but in the longer run, they will always prove to be an annoyance and will be dealt with.
Methinks you'd like the whole disruptive emergent pattern to recrystalize back into the old, accepted ways and methodologies. Would make you more comfortable, yes? Not likely, though...
Russ Nelson, as in, Russ "The Angry Economist" Nelson? Well how can you go wrong with that choice?
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
mod parent up
I thought Che left to "spend more time with his family" - and also to expand his very sucessful t-shirt business.
You got that right! NOT ONE of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence went on to serve in the newly formed Federal government. NOT ONE governed one of the 13 states after the revolution. NOT ONE of them was permitted to survive until the Constitutional Convention. All of them were either shot in the Boston Massacre or drowned in the Boston Tea Party.
(Yes, I realize that you were being funny, but a couple of the moderators didn't.)
You'd be surrpised. While "hippie" hasn't been a useful label since the late 1960s, many people who feel some affinity or nostalgia for that movement believe in self-reliance, including the right to self-defense and gun owmership. ("Hippie" sympathizers are not folks who think highly of the police and military - why would they want the state to have a monopoly on guns?)
Remember that Leary carried a gun when he was on the run, and that Reagan signed gun control legislation (the Mulford Act) when he was governor of California.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
What has he done that makes him a 'hacker'? Has he developed any useful software whatsoever? Is there any worthwhile code of his in active use? Has he done anything that suggests that he understands computer science?
My biggest problem with esr was that he couldn't seem to keep his OSI work separate from his other opinions about the proper place of women, how to treat homosexuals, etc. I respect his right to have those opinions, but I wish he would tuck them away during his very visible tenure as leader of OSI.
Russ has a fairly extreme view on libertarian economics. ("Extreme" because few people believe there should be no public liability laws -- I'd link but the archives are broken.) Fair enough; I sympathize even if I wouldn't go quite as far as he does.
My big question is: will he manage to keep his personal opinions separate from his OSI work? I do not want to hear any more OSI-related statements alluding to gun control. It's not just unprofessional, it's also a bad idea in that you may alienate people who like open source but dislike Rand.
My point remains. Generally Americans are happy to let others live and let live. The American government, on the other hand, is a lot less tolerant. Lemme see, Trail of Tears: yup, US Federal Government policy of "Indian removal."
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The rest of the essay is a bit interesting -- picking apart a particular garden-path excursion.
(Yes, I realize that you were being funny, but a couple of the moderators didn't.)
No problem, you're right that was supposed to be funny and no way was it a +5 joke anyway.
My favorites are the ones that mod up 'underrated' like they can't think of a reason but feel compelled to mod up anyway. I can understand it to correct a post that shouldn't have been modded down, or even to bump an AC up to 1, but any more than that should at least vaguely match one of insightful, informative, funny.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
Open Source is not a generic term. It is a term invented by the OSI and has a strict definition: oddly enough, the Open Source Definition.
If the term 'Open Source' becomes genericised, then any software you can get the source doe to - including Qmail, Microsoft Windows, and Pine - will be called 'Open Source' when it isn't.
Erm, what? I don't need anyone to "approve" my software's license :P
That's correct, you don't. Just don't call it Open Source.
If, however, you do wish to call your software Open Source, it must meet the definition of Open Source, which was created by the people who invented the term, when they invented it.
This is vitally important, or every man and his dog will call software you can get source code for (eg, Pine, Qmail, or Windows, as stated earlier) Open Source.
One of the OSI's most important tasks in the next few years is to protect the term Open Source from those who would wish for it to be abused.
One of the major points of OSS is that unlike the term 'Free Software' (which, to many people, already had another meaning - 'free software') it was a new term, and hence can be more easily defined.
Even if you're more an FS kinda guy than an OSS one, the Open Source Definition is very similar to the FSF list of Four Freedoms. Making sure people who guarantee neither Open Source nor Freedom don't come to abuse the term is in all of our interests.
1) I can't believe that on Slashdot, nobody knows what Open Source means.
2) I think ESR's a bit of a loony, as I find most right wing Americans to be. But I'm not interested in OSS so I can get along with some guy with a beard, I'm interested in it because software that's Open Source tends to be better than software that isn't. I can troubleshoot it without running into a brick wall, and it's harder to do the kinds of dodgy tricks Symantec does with security (eg, negotiating with specific spyware manufacturers to let their Antivirus not remove the apps). I get these benefits with FS too, but it's never been a moral thing: so I use the term OSS.
And yes, the guys who created the OSD have made a massive contribution to Linux. Ever had your boss ask you about some of that hip 'Open Source' stuff he read about in BusinessWeek? When was the last time you read an article about capital F Free Software?
The DJ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/radcliffe/
He's a fantastic DJ, but I wouldn't trust him with legal matters!
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
That would be 'slaughter 30 million end-users,' to properly frame the context of the grandparent's comment. After killing off the developer elite who made the revolution and establishing a dictatorship.
Read some history. The History Channel won't suffice.
"What's the frequency Kenneth?"
Thank you, Washington (DC, not George)!
Yes. The propertied-class can thank Washington (George, not DC) for stomping on the popular rebellion that happened shortly after 'the suits' decided that 'the revolution' had gone on long enough. Read up on Shay's Rebellion. The first betrayal of the American Revolution...
"What's the frequency Kenneth?"
Perhaps you want to back up a little and follow the implications of the train of thought you're pursing.
I'm not sure you want to even *see* the next station down the line.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Do you really think that anyone (except yourself?) on Slashdot gives two shits about something that only affects Internet Explorer for Windows? *snicker*
Dude - seriously funny! Really!
I am pretty sick of OSI after the CDDL fiasco (just blogged about it:my 'Brown Nosing' entry). Anyway, have a good day!
Because this bazaar thing was very messy, so we're going toward a more structured, cathedral-like model.
I still remember using Russ's packet drivers and trumpet to get DOS/win31 tcp/ip working. A most excellent kludge in a kludgy time of PC history! Also, good ole' ka9q/nos and many other apps used them. You kept us bandaided up until linux. Good Luck with the new post.
Jedis are stupid. If they were so powerful, why couldn't they handle counseling for a kid who missed his mom?
I'm not a huge fan of ESR, but in the interest of giving credit where credit is due, he is responsible for fetchmail, which is admittedly an extremely useful (if not particularly exciting) piece of software.
He also wrote an INTERCAL compiler for UNIX-like systems, I think. I think he also wrote a build configuration system (like menuconfig) for the Linux kernel which was ultimately rejected -- but I'll hold off on disparaging him for it, as I've never had anything accepted either, and submitting something on LKML is more than most people do.
Of course, ESR is best known for his gift of gab, not his contributed code. When he's speaking about something he actually has a cursory understanding of, he's usually capable of being quite insightful. Unfortunately, he's one of those intelligent people who believes that because his opinions are respected in one arena, he is automatically an expert in all arenae -- and he attempts frequently to back his esoteric points of view -- especially regarding homosexuality, racism, and the like -- with rather flawed logic.
Of course, ESR is only human, and just because he's been a public figure of some note doesn't mean that we should hold him to an unrealistically high standard.
He's just not particularly well rounded. Writes well, though.
Not only that, but the treatcherous heretics of FSF also approved the CDDL as a "Free-software license! How dare they?!?!?!
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Are you sure? He seems nice.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Eric's Gun Nut Page: "Yes, I cheerfully refer to myself as a gun nut." -- Eric S. Raymond.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Why does everyone keep forgetting about the most important project? I've heard that Eric went to Thailand to finally get some empirical data for his HOWTO.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Microsoft didn't write it. That may be why it works well.
This to my mind is bad news. I understand that ESR is controversial...Some people like him, and others definitely don't...but there's one area where he did the geek world a big favour...namely in the sense that from what I saw, he was the real world's answer to Louis Skolnick.
What I mean by that is that geeks traditionally are (to put it in politically correct terminology) "neurologically diverse." We seem to typically be either somewhere on the autistic spectrum (I myself was diagnosed in 1992 with a Nonverbal Learning Disorder, which is an autistic spectrum/PDD condition fairly similar to Asperger's) or to have ADHD. I've always thought that RMS's major problem as far as obtaining genuine (mainstream) relevance is concerned is the fact (at least to my mind) that he is deeply and visibly autistic, which seems to be an enormous hindrance to him when it comes to relating to other people.
ESR by comparison is/was relatively mainstream. I certainly won't say completely...but a lot moreso than RMS, and definitely moreso than is usual for the geek/hacker rank and file. In dealing with the corporate world (*especially* boomer corporates) it's absolutely vital that even if you aren't normal, you can convincingly pretend to be for extensive periods of time...which ESR evidently *is* capable of doing.
The point is that we *do* need someone like that, in order to act as a liason with the rest of the planet. Not only for those of us who genuinely can't do it, but also for those of us like RMS who I suspect probably *could* if they really tried, but who see doing so as tremendously immoral.
I understand some people don't like Raymond, and from what I've read of his writings I think I can at least suspect why that is. I think it's true that he probably *does* have an enormous ego, among other things.
But at the same time, in some ways personally I tend to see him as at least vaguely resembling the sort of person I myself would want to be if I had the courage to become self-actualised. I'm not someone customarily given to hero worship...and I'm not saying I engage in that with Raymond either, exactly...he's written things that I disagree with. But controversy about him aside, I think I have been able to see in him a lot which I admire and consider valuable...and I think as far as FOSS is concerned, he *has* made a difference. I hope that even after stepping down from this position, he'll still be willing and able to keep doing so.
I know he based it on another program, but lets be fair here: what makes fetchmail far, far better than any other similar program is its SMTP integration, which AFAIK popclient did not support. Of course, it wasn't ESR's idea, either (he admits this much) -- but he did write the code to do it. Not that this is complex in the slightest or anything.
Further, given the name popclient, I would presume that it probably only supported POP. Even if it didn't, fetchmail supports everything under the sun. But then, by ESR's own admission, he attempted to mimic Linus Torvalds in his management of the project -- something about proving his Cathedral vs Bazaar theory correct, or the like. Anyway, this means that he accepted a lot of patches and such from a lot of different people, so you could (if you wanted) make the argument that most of the code in fetchmail is not his. But then, that's true of Linus and Linux, too.
One thing is certain -- fetchmail is useful, and has been managed by him, at least. I'll give him credit for it. I don't give him credit for much else.
doubt -> doubt (n)
doubt + less -> without doubt (adj)
doubt + less + ly -> describes an action or adjective which acts or describes something in a manner lacking doubt (adverb of manner, constructed from an adjective, as in "hungrily").
In this case, we take the adjective "informative" and use an adverb to describe how it is infomative; in this sense, I indicate that I do not doubt that it is informative -- in fact, the construction is inherently passive as it deemphasizes the agent doubting, so the implication is that "one" would not doubt that it is informative. In other words, we are speaking of the response that I/no one doubts is quite informative -- but we can use just three words: the doubtlessly informative response.
Got it?
Yeah, I know, I love grammar. Linguist geek and all.
There are several ways to interpret it... yours is not the only one. Clue: Linux developers are also users.
Anyway, it was a joke.. lighten up. Not sure what brought on the need for an insult, but you need to find someone else to take out your frustrations on.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
Did I forget to mention that he likes to crack said fleas between his fingers and flick the results onto the floor? Yup.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Actually sir, if the indians had been given a deadly disease like measles, and ONLY measles their population would have bounced back in a generation or two with disease resistance. Instead the were finished off by europeans while they were in a weakened state. If every white guy had been a quaker the indians would NOT have all been killed off while in their weakened state, and therefore they WERE NOT "basically doomed to die", as people of questionable moral intent might put it.
Your analysis of this chapter of history is so poor that it makes everything else you say suspect.
every _exit() is the same, but every clone() is different.
And fetchmail is well-known for being insecure and unreliable. Better alternatives exist.
We treated the Indians poorly, but they were doing worse to themselves.
Let's start with human sacrifice, daily, of their enemies. Have we done anything like this? I'm sorry, but using germ warfare hardly compares to cutting the heart out of a living human.
Let's move on to the constant wars among the Indians. Unlike Americans, which fought wars to defend themselves, Indians fought war for fun. We took their land from them because they attacked us first. Did we distinguish between the peaceful ones and not so peaceful? Not very well. I would've preferred the Cherokee stay put, and if you read your history books, so did the Supreme Court.
We treat the Indians like kings nowadays. We pay them a King's ransom every year, we allow them to operate above the law, and we look past their problems in adopting our society.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.