Slashdot Mirror
Gentoo Founder on his way to Redmond
Rotworm writes "Recently former founder of Gentoo Linux, Daniel Robbins, has managed to procure employment with Microsoft. Robbins describes his position as "helping Microsoft to understand Open Source and community-based projects." Seemingly there's no scandals as Robbins managed to finalize the transfer of all Gentoo's IP to the Gentoo Foundation, Inc."
Let's see... you created a Linux distribution based on recompiling every piece of SW it would use. Therefore burning hundereds of hours and megawatts to squeeze performance out that is negligible at best, slower or non-functional at worst. Wow, I hope he brings that wonderful package philiosophy to Microsoft. Well, I hope he at least milks them for some good salary (sorry dude, stock options are out nowadays).
-Ho
That's your fucking schizophrenic view of thins ;) what an idiot...
(1) Working for Microsoft=the only way to keep your family fed. Red Hat makes money. Suse makes money. The original Mosaic team made money. Halliburton makes money off of killing other countries, but at least they didn't stoop to working at Microsoft. Enron made money...
(2) We can't blame the guy. Sorry, I can. How small am I, to hold something like this against him? This small->
(3) Microsoft and FOSS will merge into a fuzzy, wuvvy snuggle-fest and good times will be had by all. Let me give ya' all a book of clue coupons and directions to the Clue Store: Microsoft is dying. Think it through: A company founded on providing programs for people, and charging them Gigabucks for this service, and the service that they perform can be done by *anybody* just by
* clicking a download link!
* gunzipping a file !
* typing "make" !
and furthermore, that a massive culture of hobbyist programmers (not necessarily living in a cave and living on dandelions, OK? You CAN work an unrelated 9-5 and code the weekends!) are keeping it going, forever. If you *SHOT* every open-source developer tonight, by tomorrow a new one would take interest, and that would be the next Stallman or Torvalds to get the ball rolling again.
Consider history. Every new technology has had it's Ford, it's Carnegie, it's Hearst, it's tycoon who rode the wave until people figured out that they could just start doing the same thing themselves...
So Microsoft is dying, and as Neal Stephenson observed, the Mammoth of Redmond is spending it's dying days thrashing around, taking as many others down with it as it can. Which will mean more tricks, more suits, more booby-trapped hardware, more nuisances to work around, until at last the Beast's head sinks into the tar, and the rest of us can get back to making some progress building the information age again, before we had this 800-pound millstone tied around our necks.
SO THANKS A LOT, DANIEL ROBBINS, FOR PROLONGING OUR AGONY FOR ANOTHER *FUN* YEAR!!! AND DON'T EXPECT ANY OF THAT MONEY TO BUY *US* TO BE YOUR FRIENDS!
PS go ahead, mod it down again. Sometimes truth tastes bitter.
As a seriously busy individual, he always took time out to talk to the little guy.
how appropriate that this reads like an obituary. he's dead to the community. fuck robbins.
Unfortunately, his work with Gentoo never paid the bills enough for him to rely upon it.
How can you possibly insult someone that has a family to support, and bills to pay? He has paid his dues!
this is not an insult. robbins should be called out for what he is. F/OSS isn't like the fucking peace corps where you go out for a year or two and then leave it behind. it's an on-going movement and philosophy.
imagine if robbins spent a couple years protesting against baby seal clubbing, and then decided he'd done his part and took a lucrative job clubbing baby seals. would everyone get misty-eyed and send him off with a fond farewell? it's fucking disgusting.
in my book, hooking up with microsoft destroys any credibility and good will one may have developed during their association with F/OSS. i refuse to believe that the only job he could get is with microsoft. if it were me, i'd get out of the tech business before i greased my hole for them.
I hope Daniel Robbins will take his customary brilliance to Microsoft and do great things. Of all corporations that need a breath of fresh air, Microsoft is foremost. Business Model reinvention la? Perhaps we can look forward to new Microsoft products being GPL'd
you have got to be kidding me. yeah, that's what he'll be doing at microsoft - helping them GPL their products. you're either a stone-cold idiot or a shill.
Good luck Daniel!
fuck you.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.