ESR Gets Job Offer From Microsoft

epsalon writes "Eric S. Raymond, the well known Open Source Evangelist, recently received a job offer from Microsoft, that he strongly refused. Is this another attempt to lure Open Source figures or just ignorance?" From his post: "I called [the Microsoft HR rep], who told me my name had been passed to him by his research team. I indicated to him that I thought somebody was probably having a little joke at his expense, and promised him an email reply."

Comments

Interesting

[keesh]

Also, RMS got a boob job and Ben Collins had his hair cut. Front page news at 11.

Is slashdot a celebrity gossip site for geeks now or something?

Re:Interesting

[ultranova]

Is slashdot a celebrity gossip site for geeks now or something?

Seeing how the main attraction of Slashdot is the ability to discuss about the story, and seeing how quite a few stories are about various famous or infamous people and organizations, I'd say yes.

Re:Interesting

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

Also, RMS got a boob job and Ben Collins had his hair cut. Front page news at 11.

Ah yes, I remember that. Joan Rivers was gushing on E! about Ben's stunning Old Navy jacket and Converse sneakers (customized with a Sharpie). An incredible new look for the Fall season.

Re:Interesting

[lcsjk]

Slashdot is a place for people to make comments that have nothing to do with the original article.

Re:Interesting

[mahdi13]

Ben Collins

Re:Interesting

[Sepper]

Slashdot is a place for people to make comments about people who makes comments that have nothing to do with the original article.

Re:Interesting

[Bun]

Slashdot is a place for people to make comments about people who make comments about people who make comments that have nothing to do with the original article.

Re:Interesting

[networkBoy]

Ad Nausium.
-nB

Re:Interesting

[tokaok]

infinitum

Re:Interesting

[Stephen Maturin]

you mean ad nauseam ?

Re:Interesting

[networkBoy]

yes, thaaank u 4 the speeling correction :P
-nB

Your New Job, ESR...

[ackthpt]

MS: Sit in this office. Call no one. Write nothing. Issue no memos. Reply to no email.

ESR: I can't do that?

MS: Can't handle the isolation?

ESR: No, I have to sound off every now and then or people will forget about me!

MS: Well... that's what were actually shooting for.

Re:Your New Job, ESR...

[madprof]

As much as he's no doubt done a lot, he could do with toning his ego down a bit.

Re:Your New Job, ESR...

[Anonymous Coward]

While the grammaticly correct version is "a lot" according to U.S. Law any string of letters published more than three times with a coherent definition is considered a word, though may still fall into the category of slang. Seeing as how so many have made the mistake of publishing "alot" instead of "a lot" your statement is technically incorrect. Therefore you are a duchebag! =) Language was created for the sole purpose of communicating thoughts and ideas between persons, not to fuel grammar nazis like yourself that get off on being a pain in the ass. So long as one is able to adaquately convey what they intended there shouldn't be any problem with how they do it. Of course language has rules like spelling and grammar to standardize it and make it easier for a larger number of people to understand. If you're going to spend your life correcting other people's typographical and grammatical errors even though you can clearly understand the intended thought you might as well just shoot yourself.

Re:Your New Job, ESR...

[msuzio]

I'd certainly chip in to get him to shut the fuck up for once.

Re:Your New Job, ESR...

[pohl]

I'd certainly chip in to get him to shut the fuck up for once.

...says yet-another-blogger.

Re:Your New Job, ESR...

[Overly Critical Guy]

Said blogger isn't being trumpeted in a front page Slashdot story for millions of geeks to ponder over.

Besides, Slashdot is a blog.

Re:Your New Job, ESR...

[jkauzlar]

The issue isn't over what, technically, defines a blog, but the level of journalistic competence of the average blogger. Besides, if you're going to come onto /. and insult ERIC RAYMOND over a little joke he made without anything to back it up, then you're an idiot. I can't stand that Lisp-essayist guy, but I've learned to keep my mouth shut.

Re:Your New Job, ESR...

[Overly Critical Guy]

The issue isn't over what, technically, defines a blog, but the level of journalistic competence of the average blogger.

As opposed to the journalistic competence of the Slashdot editors? Please.

Besides, if you're going to come onto /. and insult ERIC RAYMOND over a little joke he made without anything to back it up, then you're an idiot.

Why is "ERIC RAYMOND" above criticism? A "little joke?" Take off the blinders, dude.

Job offer?

[steevo.com]

Since when is a request for an interview a "job offer"?

Re:Job offer?

[saden1]

It's a job offer when you are well know.

Re:Job offer?

[stockpicker_dude_78]

My thoughts exactly ... I first read the /. headline "ESR Gets Job Offer From Microsoft" and was confused on how MSFT would give an offer without an interview! This might be nothing more than someone giving a pointer to the MSFT HR machine ... clearly not /. worthy news :(

Re:Job offer?

[That's Unpossible!]

It's a job offer when you are well know.

If he was that well known, apparantly he wouldn't have received the "job offer."

Here is a comment someone made on his site about this:

"This is a simple mistake. The recruiter's email address starts with a "v-", which stands for "vendor", i.e., they are not microsoft employees. I know this because I work there. The recruiter obviously didn't do any research and has sent a standard (templated) email to the applicant. There is no where in the email any indication of "offer of employment" as ESR claims in his reply. Recruiter has tactfully said that he wants to do a preliminary telephone screen. Thats about it."

Re:Job offer?

[Cutie Pi]

clearly not /. worthy news :(

Two years ago you would have been right. But with the downhill bent that Slashdot has been on lately, this story is not only newsworthy, but will be duped sometime later today.

Re:Job offer?

[Krach42]

"Microsoft tries to recruit me" title from TFA. Now, agreed that doesn't say "job offer" at all.

But considering that I, also as an open source developer, with a lot of Computing experience was practically guarenteed a position somewhere at Microsoft when they called me to try and recruit me. Somehow, I don't think it would be that far of a stretch to say, that if ESR had expressed any interest in getting hired by Microsoft that they would have picked him up right away.

And just for the record: How do you "buyout" a community that makes Open Source software to ensure that they can't continue working? Hire them into your fold... for ANYTHING, and then tell them that they can't work on FOSS as a matter of company policy.

THAT is how you buyout open source software.

Re:Job offer?

[Foofoobar]

Yeah, I know lots of companies that interview employees they never intend to hire. Happens all the time. In fact, they just waste valuable employee time running these interviews for people they never plan to hire because they've nothing better to do.

Well, now that I have talked through it, maybe you're right. :)

Re:Job offer?

[Krach42]

To ESR's defense (yeah, I know, I'm nuts)

He did not say on his page that he was actually offered any sort of job. He says that he was contacted by a Microsoft representative about a job. And that Micrsoft attempted to recruit him.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but at some point your job offer at Microsoft started as a telephone interview.

Because mine did.

Re:Job offer?

[baadger]

Since when do companies go looking for potential employees?

I should be so lucky.

Re:Job offer?

[harrkev]

And just for the record: How do you "buyout" a community that makes Open Source software to ensure that they can't continue working? Hire them into your fold... for ANYTHING, and then tell them that they can't work on FOSS as a matter of company policy.

So, the best way to get a MS job is to write FOSS. Interesting.
I bet that would start a curious attitude shift in the bottom levels of MS if they did that to any appreciable degree.

Re:Job offer?

[njcoder]

"Since when is a request for an interview a "job offer"?"

Since the person responding to it seems to think he's a lot more important than he is. I'm sorry but this is just plain sad. Maybe it's a bit humorous that ESR got a standard HR templated letter before the HR person did the research to see who this person is but ESR's response is actually quite sad. Starts off the same way as most ESR stories start off. ESR misinterprets what's going on but uses that to make a stand and pump himself up. Microsoft's worse nightmare? Please. If I had to pick Microsoft's worse nightmare it would be someone like Oracle, Sun, IBM, RedHat or some company like that. They have caused a lot more damage to MS's bottom line and trouble for them. Linus definately has made a few MS exec's wake up screaming "Mommy" more than ESR. Worst? Not by a long-shot.

Open Source isn't a company but it seems people like ESR have decided they've been promoted to upper management and spend more of their time being advocates than developers. While I don't always agree with what Linus says, he's at least a respectable leader in that he is still active in Open Source development. People like ESR have developed into loudmouths who have tried to capitalize on some of their open source achievements but gave up on working on open source software. This is probably the biggest threat to open source in my opinion.

I'm sorry to Eric and his fan base but getting a form letter from some HR person, posting it along with an over the top reply on your blog and having your fans talk it up and post it on slashdot doesn't keep you relevant. Do Something.

If MS was really trying to recruit ESR for the important person he is, they would have contacted him more directly and with a more personalized letter. Either this is someone making a mistake, or MS did want to hire him, they just don't think he's all that important to waste 5 minutes writing a letter.

Re:Job offer?

[lysander]

Zonk is truly on a roll with the bad headlines today

Re:Job offer?

[SeanAhern]

He did not say on his page that he was actually offered any sort of job.

Um. From the page:
I'd thank you for your offer of employment at Microsoft,

Re:Job offer?

[mzwaterski]

Monster.com for Employers - Post Jobs. Search Resumes. Hire Today's Best Talent. Now.

Re:Job offer?

[FireFury03]

what is bad about working for Microsoft?

Well, I can only speak for myself here, but I wouldn't want to work for a company that is grossly unethical and has such an anti-FOSS (and indeed anti-standards) attitude. Wouldn't you have a problem with being part of something you consider very bad?

OTOH, I assume that most of the MS employees don't see the company in this light (whether that be because they haven't seen that side of the company or whatever).

Re:Job offer?

[jonbryce]

Head hunters do exist. Mainly at the top end of the job market - at boardroom level and just below.

Re:Job offer?

[kurtmckee]

this story is not only newsworthy, but will be duped sometime later today.

By Zonk, again. If there's one thing I know, it's that you can never give people too little credit.

Re:Job offer?

[karnal]

Wow.

I just read through his response letter. Has everyone lost their professional touch? ESR definitely makes himself look like a jerk with that response.

In the real world, people tend to be more polite.

Re:Job offer?

[ifwm]

Of course they do. Many companies on the public sector have requirements for the amount and type of applicants they have to interview. One reason is to ensure that they don't have to fend off a discrimination suit later.

Re:Job offer?

[SeanAhern]

I just read through his response letter. Has everyone lost their professional touch? ESR definitely makes himself look like a jerk with that response. In the real world, people tend to be more polite.

Unfortunately, that's pretty much classic ESR. He's never been one to be very politic when it comes to his interactions with people who peeve him in the slightest. It's not that he doesn't know how to communicate effectively and politely. He does, he just chooses not to.

Re:Job offer?

[Foofoobar]

Ok, let me clarify then. Nobody sends an interview invitation to employees they don't intend to hire. Those requirements you speak of only apply to applicants, not people they approach. If they do not receive a certain number of applicants of a certain type, they are not faulted.

Re:Job offer?

[James.Stanton]

It was a time long-long ago, son.

We called it 'The 90s'

Re:Job offer?

[ifwm]

"Those requirements you speak of only apply to applicants, not people they approach"

Let ME clarify, no they don't only apply to applicants. You have a very serious misunderstanding of the hiring process if you believe otherwise.

Many companies are required to maintain certain diversity in their workplace, often by internal corporate mandates, not just laws.

You really have no idea what you're talking about.

Re:Job offer?

[Jason Earl]

You can say what you want about ESR, but I use a pile of that guy's software everyday. He's one of the Python committers, he's written more of Emacs than anyone save RMS, and that's literally the tip of the iceberg. Not to mention the fact that he's fairly well spoken, a published author, and a pretty competent PR hack. In short, he would probably make a good addition to just about any team.

If ESR would have labored his entire life on proprietary software he would probably still be skilled, but no one would have a clue other than the few people he worked with (and some of them would probably overlook his talents). Similarly, when Linus wrote Linux he was an undergraduate student in the frozen wastelands of Europe. Free Software gave Linus the opportunity to argue with Andrew Tannenbaum in a public forum and then prove that Andy was *wrong* and that a humble undergrad CS student was right (if you haven't read the comp.os.minix flamewars about Linux you really should). That sort of thing can only happen in a system where working code is more important than credentials. Linus could get a job *anywhere* and it's entirely because he was able to prove his skills with Free Software.

Re:Job offer?

[Jherek Carnelian]

Yeah, I know lots of companies that interview employees they never intend to hire. Happens all the time. In fact, they just waste valuable employee time running these interviews for people they never plan to hire because they have to meet fair labor practices requirements but really want to hire a dirt-cheap H1-B import labor.

Re:Job offer?

[ChadN]

You switched positions, and admitted his point! If they are required to maintain diversity in their workplace, which you just claimed, and they are calling around to a diverse set of people, they have an intent to hire some of them (assuming they interview well). They aren't doing it just so that they can say "we interviewed women, blacks, and mexicans, before we hired our original choice, John WASP".

I think you need to reread the first post you responded to, and understand what it meant. He is simply saying that if someone contacts you about a job, it isn't out of political correctness (most likely), rather it is because they at least have an intent to go through the process of determining if you are someone they want to actually hire.

First you responded by implying that companies need to give the appearance of diversity, thus interviewing people they don't intend to hire. Then, you responded that they actually DO want to hire a diverse range of people, and so the interviewing is not just for show. Then you insult the poster for a position he never took, and which YOU failed to understand (based on the context of this thread, and his original post).

Re:Job offer?

[Foofoobar]

And you have no idea of the laws that apply to companies. If a company is only approached by male applicants, they cannot be penalized by law; they keep all applications on file for such purposes as to show that kind of thing.

If a company feels it needs more diversity, it will then try to interview candidates that will fit in but bring a diversity to their office space.

They still interview candidates that they want to hire. In the scenario above, if they went out of their way to interview female candidates thast they intended not to hire, a case could then be made against them since 100% of their employees are male and they have shot down female employees that they interviewed.

Companies do not want to open themselves up to that kind of accusation so regardless, they still only interview people they intend to hire.

Re:Job offer?

[91degrees]

It happens. Usually it's big companies courting the very successful well known figures. But even I have had an unsolicited approach from a company.

Granted, since it was a fairly spammy email, everyone else in my company and probably in the entire industry sector received the same approach, but companies will, from time to time, approach people on spec.

Re:Job offer?

[soft_guy]

They treat their test engineers badly.

Re:Job offer?

[Tim C]

No it isn't. A job offer goes something like this:

"We'd like to offer you a job with us in the position of XXXXX"

or possibly

"Hey, come work for us! Please?!"

A request for an interview is a request for an interview, whether you're Jo Unknown or the Lord God Almighty. If you're going to make an offer regardless, why waste everyone's time with an interview?

Re:Job offer?

[elemental23]

It's not uncommon. I know a developer at Yahoo who recently got an unsolicited recruitment letter from Google.

Re:Job offer?

[Guillaume Laurent]

In short, he would probably make a good addition to just about any team.

Between his oversized ego, his misperception of himself as a highly skilled programmer, his mostly outdated skills, and the fact that when he did try to collaborate to a team (with his kernel build system) he failed by committing a typical beginner's mistake (forgetting the requirements and getting caught in adding new "cool" features), I seriously doubt he would.

I'd be surprised if any software company would hire him other than for purely PR reasons.

Re:Job offer?

[smittyoneeach]

Concur. His Art of Unix Programming book is balanced and readable.
Can't wait to show this to my MS sales weenie/kool-aid vendor chum.

Re:Job offer?

[Moofie]

If you don't think that Microsoft uses illegal, unethical, and otherwise dubious tactics to preserve their monopoly, there's nothing wrong with working for Microsoft.

For those of us that DO think those things, well, the question answers itself.

Re:Job offer?

[kb1cvh]

Everyone can make a mistake or even two.

Ever have a bad day and make it worse by advertising it? Forgive and forget.

Re:Job offer?

[swv3752]

Ahh, but what if they have a very limited selection of minority class employees, be they black, female or whatever? Then if they interview some WASP males that they do not intend to hire they can show that they turning down everyone.

Re:Job offer?

[Rycross]

So because Ballmer acts like a tool its ok for a self-proclaimed representative of the open source world to act like one as well? Aren't you guys supposed to be better than that?

Re:Job offer?

[podperson]

Let me guess ... they're recruiting consultants.

Re:Job offer?

[tgbrittai]

Actually, ESR was quite clever in his response. Microsoft is making an attempt to "infect" the open source community by hiring OSS people - http://www.gentoo.org/news/20050613-drobbins.xml. ESR has effectively turned their effort into a publicity problem. And Microsoft handed it to him on a silver platter. Nicely done!

Re:Job offer?

[tolkienfan]

I rather liked it.

In fact, I wish Microsoft would send me such a letter so I could respond in kind.

Re:Job offer?

[Guillaume Laurent]

I've googled and couldn't find anything about him being a Python committer, and he doesn't mention it in his resume (you'd think he would).

As for him having "piles of credits in the Linux kernel", here's the relevant extract from the kernel's CREDITS file :

N: Eric S. Raymond
E: esr@thyrsus.com
W: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/
D: terminfo master file maintainer
D: Editor: Installation HOWTO, Distributions HOWTO, XFree86 HOWTO
D: Author: fetchmail, Emacs VC mode, Emacs GUD mode

Call that a "pile" ?

And yes, Python is not outdated, but I leave it to you to find anything else currently relevant in his resume. The guy's stuck in the 80's.

Sorry to burst your bubble if you're a fan. I used to like him too back in 97 when he first published "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", but he's been going downhill ever since.

As for "what rock I've been living under", just google my name.

Re:Job offer?

[MaxwellStreet]

I'd imagine that if they were truly trying to "buyout open source software" by hiring the competition's best/most noteworthy - the initial contact and offer would have been done in a much subtler way than a standard recruiting form letter.

This was a prank... nothing more. And I found his response, while funny, to be rather sad in its egomaniacal and dismissive tone. But then, you'd expect nothing less from ESR.

Re:Job offer?

[antirename]

You missed the point as well, in my experience. Interviews are normal, whether or not the company has already decided on hiring you. If the position is not going to be advertised, they will still want an interview just to talk to you in person if they haven't already. If the position (for policy/legal reasons) has been advertised, they still do interviews so they don't get sued, even if they already know who they want to hire. This is why, in my opinion, it is easier to get a job if you know someone and why Monster et al are a waste of time if you have experience in your field. This is just my experience, YMMV.

Re:Job offer?

[antirename]

I understand why head hunters exist, but they seem kind of ham-handed. You get a call or an e-mail, very carefully targeted, and you can count on one hand who among your vendors and consultants that information came from. They almost always admit to it over drinks the next time they are in town. And it's not just in the top end of the job market, it's anything really specialized. Companies would rather not have to train you, and if it's something industry specific the head hunters get called so some poor sales rep for a VAR doesn't get embarassed while playing golf.

Re:Job offer?

[njcoder]

Robbins actually got an offer. This is most likely the case of some third party recruiter that works on behalf of microsoft sending out a bunch of letters to people that others told them about. If MS was serious about ESR they would have been more direct. This is like someone reading the Publishers Sweepstakes envelope and thinking they won a million dollars. Using this as an example of how MS is trying to infect open source is a joke. Robbins struggling to make Gentoo profitable and giving up so that he can have a decent salary to reflect his talents is a serious matter. It's not MS trying to infect Open Source, it's how big players in Open Source are having a hard time raising donations to support themselves to devote time to their projects. If Robbins had a dollar for every time someone said "Gentoo Rocks WooT!" on here he wouldn't have to go to MS. RMS may want software to be free but the store wants money when Robbins needs to get food or diapers for his kid and software developers need to have money to exist in society. If Microsoft infected Robbins, they infected him with money. Money he couldn't get by leading/founding what people consider to be a successful open source project. Do a search for the donations that the Gentoo Foundation received around the time of his move and interviews about how he had to get his mom to help pay for stuff.

Re:Job offer?

[dbIII]

he's written more of Emacs than anyone save RMS

I suggest you look at the history of emacs - RMS wrote some macros to make a text editing program more useful and then others used the method from his macros in the new text editor he wrote. This is why he describes himslef as the "inventor" of emacs and not the "writer" of emacs. Later on RMS did have a guiding role in emacs development, most famously sacking the developer of emacs at the time for supporting X windows, ( X didn't run on hurd at the time, and hurd was the main gnu project, so supporting X with emacs was seen as hurting the hurd) which caused the emacs fork and a very public flame war. To sum up, it is very likely that a lot of people have written a lot more of emacs than RMS, but the original design and a lot of later design choices were done by RMS.

Re:Job offer?

[sumdumass]

I would asume it is a job offer. Maybe becuase I have worked at every company I interviewed for. (Not all i applied to though)

I could understand your complaint if when he called in and found out it was an interview for some microsoft magazine or something and he still considered it a job offering. The way i understood it, when contacting them about it he recieved a rtecuiter who was looking for an interview. Now, why would a recruiter be looking for an interview if they were not interested in placing someone in a position? It isn't exactly proof that the answer is 4 but, the problem seems to be 2+2.

Re:Job offer?

[fbg111]

"I just read through his response letter. Has everyone lost their professional touch? ESR definitely makes himself look like a jerk with that response.

In the real world, people tend to be more polite."

Actually he didn't really send that to MS, he just wrote that letter for the amusement of his fans and blog readers.

ESR: UPDATE: For those of you who missed the subtlety (which was a surprising lot of you) I was quite polite to this guy on the phone.

Re:Job offer?

[mcrbids]

And just for the record: How do you "buyout" a community that makes Open Source software to ensure that they can't continue working? Hire them into your fold... for ANYTHING, and then tell them that they can't work on FOSS as a matter of company policy.

You don't see that that's only going to accelerate any erosion already taking place?

If merely working on OSS software is sure to land you a good job and income so that you don't work on OSS software, can't you picture the massive rush of people (GASP!) developing OSS software so that they too can get the primo job?

Sorry. Software is becoming food in the first world. Food itself has little value, and you can make very little money selling bare agricultural goods, you have to move massive amounts to become profitable. In order to make money at a higher margin, you have to open a restaurant, or provide some kind of premium service, using the food as raw material.

So it will be with software - the software itself will be fairly cheap and easy to come by; the money will be made using software as a product base to deliver premium services with. Think hosting, backups, customization, etc.

Re:Job offer?

[ErikZ]

"...he's written more of Emacs than anyone save RMS, and that's literally the tip of the iceberg."

Uh, if it were literally the tip of the iceberg, shouldn't there be an actual iceberg invoved?

Where would he keep it?

Re:Job offer?

[ErikZ]

In the real world, people at the bottom are more polite. People at the top do whatever the hell they want.

Re:Job offer?

[bladesjester]

I'm not well-known, but I've gotten probably close to half a dozen unsolicited interview offers over the last year or so and none of them were spammy. In fact, a couple of them were via phone.

Unfortunately, none of them have panned out for various reasons (including one place being downright psychotic) so I'm still looking.

Re:Job offer?

[Barryke]

Since when is a request for an interview a "job offer"?

Remember!
At Microsoft, its 'Pop Quiz'

Re:Job offer?

[Silkejr]

I'd just take their job and continue work on open-source projects anonymously, releasing stuff via Tor, I2p, or freenet.

Re:Job offer?

[sparkz]

He was polite on the phone, but then he claims to have sent the quoted email.
ESR used email to threaten to to shoot Bruce Perens, don't forget.
I've not met the man, but he seems too timid to say such things face-to-face, but from the safety of his computer screen, he can be most excessive.
Whether he actually does anything beyond shooting guns at inanimate objects and bizarre witchcraft, I can not say.

Re:Job offer?

[beer_maker]

I don't have any mod points, so all I can do is say "Thanks for a great post!"

Aloha.

Re:Job offer?

[BrokenHalo]

Looks like the whole gamut of opinions on his response are well represented at the tail end of the article. I have no problem with his work (though he appears to have a generous opinion of his own worth), but it would have made a better impression if he had
(a) made sure that he was responding to an offer from Microsoft, and
(b) taken the time to come up with a more creative response than simply spraying invective like an adolescent hooligan.

Re:Job offer?

[gnarlin]

Like Steve Balmer throwing chairs.

Re:Job offer?

[SeanAhern]

just because ESR seems to think that's a job offer doesn't make it so. Nowhere in the letter he was sent does it indicate anything like a job offer

Oh, I agree completely. I didn't mean for my comment to give the impression that I believe he was offered a job.

Re:Job offer?

[slick_rick]

"You guys"? So all of "us" OSS geeks are all the same and we all think all you windows types are drooling morons who can't tell the difference between your CD-ROM drive and a cup holder?

Grow up. Ballmer is a tool (specifically Gate's tool) and Eric's response was more then a bit childish. However Ballmer != average windows user, ESR != average OSS user.

Re:Job offer?

[rob.wolfe]

Since when do companies go looking for potential employees?

All the time actually. Happened to me a few years ago and I am not famous and/or stupendously talented.

Re:Job offer?

[Cuthalion]

The best way to get an MS job is to write lots of widely used software, thus showing that you can deliver software effectively. FOSS is one venue in which you can do this.

Re:Job offer?

[njcoder]

All I managed to read was :

"An autobiographical account of my `religious' beliefs and how they got that way. If you start this, please read it through. Stopping partway would probably leave you with some very silly misconceptions." That was enough to make me stop reading in addition to seeing how long the document was.

No interest in reading the ramblings of a some blowhard who needs some help tightening a few screws. We're living in 2005, if he has some sort of disorder, which is the impression I'm getting, he should seek treatment.

He's slightly dellusional, self absorbed, thinks the world revolves around him, probabl a bit paranoid. He also thinks he's missunderstood but if people took the time to read the screenfulls of info he posted, hell the crap he posts routinely, he might finally be understood for the genious he is in his head. Someone with more knowledge may be able to name this condition but it's not the type of thing I'd want as a leader of anything I was involved with. It's sad but I can't feel sorry for him. He's digging his own hole but he's got an open source branded shovel and he's making sure everyone knows it.

The type of people that this behaviour attracts are probably similar to the types of people that follow some cult leader that think's they're god's earthbound vessel.

Re:Job offer?

[Guillaume Laurent]

OK, I stand corrected on this point.

Re:Job offer?

[Guillaume Laurent]

Just because he's not as active any more doesn't make his software go away.

Certainly not. I still use fetchmail myself. That's not my point.

you'd have a hard time convincing me that he's not far better than average. Microsoft could almost certainly find a spot where he would be useful

"a spot", yes. If they'd need someone to teach them about the Unix culture and way of programming, for instance. But as a developer in a team, no. It's not only a tech skills problem, he's too close-minded and apparently lacks the human qualities required to integrate oneself in a team.

Re:Job offer?

[sjelkjd]

Uhm, from the page:
    I would love an opportunity to speak with you in detail about your interest in a career at Microsoft, along with your experience, background and qualifications.

Doesn't sound like a job offer to me, simply a request for an initial screening interview.

Re:Job offer?

[SgtChaireBourne]

If you don't think that Microsoft uses illegal, unethical, and otherwise dubious tactics to preserve their monopoly ...

According to the court records, it's not an opinion but a matter of fact going back to before DR-DOS, no matter how much wishful thinking by Chairman Gates fans.

The corrected version:

If you don't know that Microsoft uses illegal, unethical, and otherwise dubious tactics to preserve their monopoly ...

Re:Job offer?

[Chris Mattern]

> And you have no idea of the laws that apply to companies. If a company is only approached by
> male applicants, they cannot be penalized by law; they keep all applications on file for such
> purposes as to show that kind of thing.

Nope, try again, bunkie. They keep applications on file because they're required to by law. As far as getting, say, all male applicants, a plaintiff could claim that their advertising of the position was so biased as to exclude women from trying to apply. If they can convince a judge or jury of that, they win the suit.

Re:Job offer?

[SeanAhern]

Doesn't sound like a job offer to me, simply a request for an initial screening interview.

Doesn't sound like one to me, either. I hope my original comment did not come across that I thought he was offered a job.

Re:Job offer?

[Narchie Troll]

"I still use fetchmail myself."

That's unfortunate, considering how it's a piece of insecure crap. You might want to consider something that has a modicum of quality.

Re:Job offer?

[farble1670]

wow. you need to go back and take logic 101 at your local community college.

so your reasoning is that because you have gotten job offers for every interview, therefore, all interviews are equivalent to job offers, for everyone? i don't even know where to start trying to explain what's wrong with that reasoning.

but, let me try to explain the difference between an "interview" and an "offer".

an interview is a request by an employer, either directly or through an agent, to speak with a candidate for employment. the process is used by the employer to determine whether to give the candidate an offer. an interview is is no way an offer for employment.

an offer is when an employer officially presents a candidate the opportunity to work for them.

ESR claimed to have an offer. at best, what ESR received was a request for an interview, and probably only a phone interview.

let me know if you have any further questions.

Re:Job offer?

[sumdumass]

Yep, you have different defnitions then i do.

Tp me and probably the rest of the world, an interview for employment is an offer. It is up to you to impress them enough to keep the offer open.

If i was to call you and start asking about replacng your car, you would think i was offering you a deal on a car. Your opinion of the deal might not be the same as mine but t he context is the same. If someone asks to interview me for a job, then they are offering me a posistion. The interview is just a part of the process to see if they will still offer that position after they aska few questions.

Re:Job offer?

[farble1670]

so when a company requests an interview, they have already decided to hire the person. but the interview is an opportunity for them to change their mind about this decision?

i have been to many interviews, and interviewed people for many positions, for many different companies, and i can assure you, this is not how companies, interviewers, recruiters, and interviewees think of an interview.

maybe you are trying to do some sort of zen positive thinking thing, where you tell yourself you have the position already when you go to an interview. well, whatever works.

Re:Job offer?

[sumdumass]

I don't know what to tell you. I have work for every employer's job that i interviewed for.

Most companies (i'm aware of) screen aplications for hires before they waist thier time with interviews. Most companies i'm aware of interview thier first pick in hopes of keeping them then going onto the next best canidate of that doesn't work out. This saves time and money on the process.

Re:Job offer?

[farble1670]

I don't know what to tell you. I have work for every employer's job that i interviewed for.

how many employers have said to you "hey sumdumass, i read your resume and i really like you, let's skip the phone screen, and what the heck let's skip the face-face interview too, you're hired!" if that had happend to you, then you might, just might, be saying something that makes sense here. even in that case, you are one person, a sample size of one. if that had happend to you, it would be contrary to the experience of anyone else i've every heard of, and every company i've ever worked for, and every hiring process i've ever been involved in.

obviously, employers wouldn't even bother with job interviews if they didn't use them to decide if they wanted to hire someone. they would not waste 5 hours of employee time to run a person through interviews for nothing.

Most companies i'm aware of interview thier first pick in hopes of keeping them then going onto the next best canidate of that doesn't work out.

no, most certainly not. every serious company interviews multiple candidates for the position, even if they really like the first one. that is standard, good, practice.

the only thing i can do here is assume you are full of it about being hired anywhere other than burger king based on how you reason through problems.

Re:Job offer?

[sumdumass]

how many employers have said to you "hey sumdumass, i read your resume and i really like you, let's skip the phone screen, and what the heck let's skip the face-face interview too, you're hired!" if that had happend to you, then you might, just might, be saying something that makes sense here. even in that case, you are one person, a sample size of one. if that had happend to you, it would be contrary to the experience of anyone else i've every heard of, and every company i've ever worked for, and every hiring process i've ever been involved in.

No, they didnt' put it quite like that. Of course i have only had around 15 different real jobs (outside contracting like i currently do) in my limited 20 years of working life (over half have been part time or temporary second jobs). Usualy the proccess goes like this. I place an aplication with the prospective employer or they hear about me form word of mouth, usualy around two weeks later i get a call either saying i have the job or they want to interview me. At the interview the conversation usualy starts out with "this is just a formality we have to do. What pay do you expect and how soon can you start" On a couple occasions the phone calls said that and there wasn't a person to person interview. One time i had interviewed with 20 other people for a position and i was highed into a managment level above the position applying for. Another time o sat in a room with ten or twenty others and two thirds of us started the next week while the rest started the week after. I don't realy find anythign unusual about this after speaking with friends who share basicaly the same experiences.

no, most certainly not. every serious company interviews multiple candidates for the position, even if they really like the first one. that is standard, good, practice.

the only thing i can do here is assume you are full of it about being hired anywhere other than burger king based on how you reason through problems.

Well a couple of the jobs were pizza delivery and restaurants (Bob Evens, ChiChi's) but they were whil in school and shortley right after. The rest were either tech jobs or managment jobs at anything from trucking companies, enviromental services and resoration firms (hazardous material cleanup), IT at small to medium sized law firms and insurance offices (less then 100 employies) as well as some work with the local police department when they upgraded thier systems.

I live in a small town close to a large city. The population as of 2000 was listed at around 35000. It isn't hard to make a name for yourself that will travel with you. If you apply your self with good work ethics and have some other desirable qualities, you can get hired on reputation alone. ESR has a reputation that could lend himslef to this same catagory. It makes even more sence when we see the new microsoft stratigy of trying to include linux into it flavor of cross platform compatability.

As of now I'm a contractor working in networks and computer /repair areas. I don't advertise, I don't have a store front or a published phone number. I recieve around 5 new clients a month from word of mouth alone. I'm listed in the chamber of comerce primarily for insurance reasons but i have yet to get a call saying thats were they found how to contact me. I used to own a computer repair shop but it was eating too much of my time so i gave it to my cousin and his girlfriend/now wife who were my partners at the time. This was about 6 years ago. They were still successful at it until early last year when one of them got messed up pretty bad in a car accident and they had to close.

I'm not pretending any of this is special or something. I wouldn't have brought out if not to show that I have done more with my life then work at Burger King. Maybe the experiences are different in large cities but i doubt it is too different. Most all managment and owners tend to gavitate to the same areas of recreation. Even though they aren't working together, they tend to talk about thier duties, worklife or business in general. It wouldn't be unusual for someone to know about another person by name and not have ever meet them.

Re:Job offer?

[farble1670]

i know you've been trying to make some sort of circuitous argument about the connection between you and this other guy, but get this, assuming there is any substance to your posts, your experience is an anomaly. one anomaly doesn't prove another. let me repeat: one anomaly doesn't prove another. if your experience wasn't an anomaly, and that's how business worked, there would be no interviews at all. the fact that there are interviews proves that your experience is an anomaly. the fact that 99% of businesses conduct interviews is proof that your experience is an anomaly. businesses would not waste hours of their employees' precious time for interviews if they knew they were already hiring the person.

i am sure there are positions where you show up and get hired, but a high-end engineering leadership position at MSFT (or anywhere) is not one of them. say what you want about MSFT, but it's well-known that they are extrememely picky about who they hire. they do not send emails to folks like "hi, you're hired for the lead engineer position. please show up on monday in redmond to claim your $150k + bonus."

maybe, just maybe this whole thing was another anomaly for ESR, but the fact remains that it is egotistical to assume a random spam from a MSFT recruiter is a job offer. they are many, many other posters to this thread that have gotten such emails, and they have not been job offers, but rather requests for an interview. there is no evidence to support this is any different.

Re:Job offer?

[madprof]

Slashdot jumped the shark about 5 years ago.
Bloody hell you are slow.

Poor choice of graphic

[Engineer-Poet]

"It's funny. Laugh" should have been at the top of the totem pole.

Re:Poor choice of graphic

[Jay Maynard]

That was the category I submitted this story under yesterday afternoon...

Re:Poor choice of graphic

[op12]

"It's funny. Laugh" should have been at the top of the totem pole.

But then the base of the totem pole wouldn't have had the proper footing.


Ba-dum-ching!

Re:Poor choice of graphic

[generic-man]

I think Slashdot needs a more forceful "It's an arrogant jerk. Mock." icon instead. Their current icon is a good start, with the childlike security blanket, but it could be improved.

Come on Eric...

[thewiz]

Tell us how you really feel!

Get over yourself ESR!

[sulli]

I am the guy who responded to Craig Mundie's "Who are you?" with "I'm your worst nightmare", and that I've in fact been something pretty close to your company's worst nightmare since about 1997.

How terrible it has been for them, to have this guy as their worst nightmare.

What a pompous ass.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[djh101010]

How terrible it has been for them, to have this guy as their worst nightmare. What a pompous ass.

Excuse please, but what possible point could you be making by comparing stock price of Microsoft with the stock price of a dot-bomb company whose stock symbol happens to look like "linux"? Yes, they're _a_ vendor of Linux solutions. Are you of the mistaken impression that the entire Linux industry somehow tracks into that stock price, or were you perhaps trying to imply that it's relevant somehow?

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Shakrai]

What a pompous ass.

Indeed. He actually used the words "piss on Microsoft's grave". That (and the preceding paragraph) says lots about his professionalism and conduct.

The nearest example I could relate to would be getting a job offer (which isn't what this was either, btw) from the RNC. As much of a die hard liberal and Democrat as I am (and given that politics matters a lot more then software, imho anyway) I would not use this type of language in declining such a job offer.

Pompous ass sounds about right.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Overly Critical Guy]

He was pointing out how ineffective this "worst nightmare" has been for Microsoft. You're distracting yourself with the Linux company, which wasn't the point.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[venicebeach]

What a pompous ass.

I agree his letter was way over the top.

I also think this says quite a lot.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[NicodemusPrime]

What a pompous ass.

I agree. That was very un-professional of him. If I were an IBM exec, I would be a little upset about that name drop. I love Linux but stuff like this is holding it back. Do we really want this to be the public perception of our Linux all-stars? What a self-absorbed asshole. He even referred to his own writings as propaganda.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[GreyPoopon]

You're distracting yourself with the Linux company, which wasn't the point.

Then why was it included in the graph at all? Based on what I saw in the graph, the point looks very much like an attempt to compare Microsoft and "Linux."

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[FreeUser]

The nearest example I could relate to would be getting a job offer (which isn't what this was either, btw) from the RNC. As much of a die hard liberal and Democrat as I am (and given that politics matters a lot more then software, imho anyway) I would not use this type of language in declining such a job offer.

Yeah, but you might not be quite so polite if the White Pride Party offered you a job, with insinuations that you'd be "just perfect" for the party.

Oh wait, that was your example ... my bad.

*duck*

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[squiggleslash]

From TFA, speaketh the Raymond:

You've maybe heard about this "open source" thing? You get one guess who wrote most of the theory and propaganda for it and talked IBM and Wall Street and the Fortune 500 into buying in.

He thinks he talked IBM and Wall Street and the Fortune 500 into buying in? He certainly campaigned, for better or worse, but it's hard to believe that the only reason big corporations signed on was ESR. That they didn't hear about the benefits of FOSS from within their own organizations. That, indeed, someone with the diplomacy and tact exhibited in this message, not to mention his threats against Bruce Perens, would be the person able to convince a stalling CEO/CTO to give FOSS a try. It's also a little ironic - the rants against Stallman and the FSF of the "Show them the code" type constituted the one thing that the OSI never really did (and the FSF was doing very well.)

Well, whatever. I don't want to sound ungrateful for ESR's very real efforts, but the guy's credibility tends to be undermined whenever he comes up with this kind of thing. The letter to Microsoft is rude. It's pompous. It brings up an image of delusions of grandeur. It's a good thing he's no longer OSI head-honcho, IMO, and I fear that he set the wrong tone for what was to come.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would use that language, and I worked for Microsoft in the past. I was stupid and left during the dot-com boom, thinking that the new dot-coms would offer better growth (I was wrong!).

Anyway, if approached by Microsoft today to come back, I would use language similar to his, only I would indicate different reasoning: their current policy shift away from pro-consumer, and restricting the user at every turn; treating every single customer like a criminal. Not allowing de-activation of Windows for license transfers. Implementing DRM throughout the OS. Suing customers who switch away from Windows, or sell old, retired licenses on eBay. Suing college students who resell UNOPENED academic licensing after Microsoft and their resellers refuse to honor the 30-day money-back guarantee, then when they settle out of court after being countersued for breach of contract, pay up big and then bind the customer to an NDA to hide the evil.

Fuck Microsoft. Really. This is coming from a former Microserf, and a former Microsoft fan.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[blinder]

sulli, you rawk!

oh and i love this part:

and talked IBM and Wall Street and the Fortune 500 into buying in

i'm sorry... but this is just ridiculous.

yeah... ESR: get over yourself... sheesh... i get those kinds of emails 3 or 4 times a day. they aren't job offers.

*wonders if ESR jerks off to Revolution OS*-- eeewww... sorry about that dreadful image

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Jim Hall]

How terrible it has been for them, to have this guy as their worst nightmare.

Didn't ESR actually visit Microsoft back in, say, 1999 to give a presentation about Open Source? Seems to have been on friendly enough terms with them, in the past.

What a pompous ass to feel he has to be this over-the-top when a simple "I think you've made a mistake, I'm not really a Microsoft guy - I prefer open source systems, like Linux" would have sufficed.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just any dot-bomb, but the dot-bomb that happened to have "microsoft's worst nightmare" on their board of directors.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Otter]

Excuse please, but what possible point could you be making by comparing stock price of Microsoft with the stock price of a dot-bomb company whose stock symbol happens to look like "linux"?

Presumably he's referring to Raymond's charming essay, just after the LNUX IPO, when he bragged at length about how fantastically rich he now was. (Raymond, IIRC, was on their board with the position of "corporate conscience".)

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[JahToasted]

It is relevant since ESR once bragged up how rich he is (and how he wasn't going to let that change him, etc) when he was given some LNUX stock. He's not bragging too much about that anymore.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[assantisz]

I think it is funny how the e-mail he sent does not compare at all to what he said about the phone call has with that Microsoft dude. I assume it was something like that:

ESR: I think somebody was playing a joke on your expense.
CM: I am sorry about that.
ESR: I will follow up with an e-mail.
CM: Okay, thanks.

And then he took his sweet time to write a response in form of an e-mail. I would have been much more impressed if ESR was like that on the phone with CM.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[djh101010]

He was pointing out how ineffective this "worst nightmare" has been for Microsoft.

How so? He's showing the stock price of a company that ESR has nothing to do with, with Microsoft's stock price, and this is somehow supposed to show a correlation of some sort?

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Lulu of the Lotus-Ea]

Definitely pompous ass material, but I think we knew that.

Maybe an even better analogy would be getting spam for penis enlargement, then writing an angry letter in return boasting of how large your penis already is without their product (and how dare they suppose otherwise).

The MS recruitment letter is just that: spam. Other than the name at the top, they probably sent out 5000 of them the same day. And no, MS didn't check each other *potential candidate's* biography either, just that their resume (or some other document) said they were a computer programmer or similar.

I'm hardly pro-spam, but when I get it, I don't think I'm being *personally* insulted either.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Anonymous Coward]

He's showing the stock price of a company that ESR has nothing to do with,

he was on their board of directors and bragged about how rich he was.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[vertinox]

He actually used the words "piss on Microsoft's grave".

For some reason I vaugley remember a disclosed memo from Bill Gate saying the same thing about Sun. Or maybe Oracle... It's been a while so my memory is foggy.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[arturs]

The guy is right to some extent.

Wasn't ESR on heir board of directors?
Didn't he write another pompous essay on how he had become a millionaire overnight?
Didn't it all turn out to be... something else?
Wasn't he then quietly removed from the board?

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah because "professionals" only throw chairs and yell they are gonna KILL the competing company...

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[noize_addict]

Yeah, I'm sure your "strongly worded" response to an HR person's email is going to get passed along up to management who would in turn get greatly offended and question their morale compass.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[91degrees]

Well... While VALinux was horribly overvalued at the start, Microsoft's relentless rise did stop at about the same time as ESR was there, and since 03 it's actually been doing fairly well.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Dogtanian]

Really; no offence, but the stereotype low-end (i.e. not management, etc.) Microsoft employee is out of university; smart but naive and willing to drink the Bill Gates Kool Aid.

Microsoft were unethical and quite willing to scre over people 10 or 15 years ago. If they've done more, it's only because they were in the position to do so. What's happened is that you've grown up a bit, and the scales have fallen from your eyes; you're seeing MS *then* as your old naive self remembers them, not with your current cynical perspective.

Anyway, MS don't need cynical old you any more; they'll simply get some more smart, flattered and naive Gates-worshippers straight from university to replace the cynical older employees as they've always done.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

"Do we really want this to be the public perception of our Linux all-stars?"

Apparently, Yes.

He wasn't appointed Grand Pubah by the Linux HighCouncelSociety, the only reason he's still where he is is because we want him to be there. If we all stopped paying attention to him he would just fade into history.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[ifwm]

You were told it wasn't. Why beat a dead horse?

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[ifwm]

I thought the same thing.

While you may completely diagree with their policy and think that the company is shitty, why do anything other than take the high road.

"Thanks but no thanks"

Then you don't look like a twat.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[NickFortune]

LNUX is the stock code for VA Software. They have a lot of open source based ventures, including the Open Source Technology Group who host sourceforge.net and a little known discussion board that goes by the name of Slashdot.

It may look like an attempt to compare Linux and MS, but that's just because VA (presumably) thought it'd be cool to have LNUX as their code on all the stock exchange boards, probably to relect the amount of FLOSS related work they do.

HTH HAND

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Jherek Carnelian]

What a self-absorbed asshole. He even referred to his own writings as propaganda.

Either you don't know what propaganda means, or I don't know what an asshole is.
It's not like he referred to his own writings as the literal word of God.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[mrchaotica]

and given that politics matters a lot more then software, imho anyway

Politics depends on communication, which is increasingly dependent on computers and software. For me at least, it's easy to imagine a future where people are disenfranchised if they don't use proprietary Microsoft products and formats (not to mention DRM, which is designed to artifically restrict communication), which is why I support Free Software.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[IllForgetMyNickSoonA]

It is nice to see that some people *are* able to change their minds. You have my respect.

Too bad the vast majority will just keep quiet and be nice little drones as long as you throw enough dollars at them. Or as long as you keep telling them the same lies they like to hear over and over again. Don't get me wrong, this is not only about MS. This behavior is also not restricted to the technology sector. That's, it seems, how people are.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[HardCase]

"Doing fairly well" from the perspective of a short seller, I guess. It's down over 50% from December 2003.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[lowe0]

How does Ballmer's unprofessional conduct in any way excuse Raymond's?

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[djh101010]

I've been really told, by an AC. Wow. No context, no specifics, I'm just an idiot. Coming from someone who doesn't even have the balls to say who he is, I'm content with that. Grow up.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Shakrai]

Too bad the vast majority will just keep quiet and be nice little drones as long as you throw enough dollars at them.

Yeah damn drones who only care about the money. It's not like they need it to feed their children or anything...

I worked in the insurance industry for three years and was disgusted by a lot of what I saw (selling people crap they didn't need, abuse of credit scoring, data mining, blah, blah, blah) but what was I supposed to do? Tell my boss what I thought of him? That would have been a great 10 minutes of my life followed by the sinking realization that I'd be living in a box by the river until I could find another job.

And I don't even have dependents to worry about! Perhaps you should think of that before you call people mindless drones and bitch about who they work for.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Overly Critical Guy]

The graph isn't showing Linux; it's showing VA Linux, which had ESR on its board of directors. Again, the point is to show the ineffectiveness of ESR against Microsoft through comparison.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Shakrai]

Politics depends on communication, which is increasingly dependent on computers and software. For me at least, it's easy to imagine a future where people are disenfranchised if they don't use proprietary Microsoft products and formats (not to mention DRM, which is designed to artifically restrict communication), which is why I support Free Software.

That's actually an interesting take on things. While I doubt that Microsoft could actually get that far in controlling the media (recall what happened to Ma Bell) it is an interesting reason to support free software.

I don't see what it had to do with my point though -- which was about professionalism in the business world. And isn't it possible to support free software without being a rude, pompous asshole to some poor chap just doing his job? Hell, I don't think Bill Gates himself would deserve to be talked to like that -- the recruiter certainly didn't.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[NicodemusPrime]

you don't know what propaganda means I'm sorry for the confusuion, but I generally attach a negative connotation to the word propaganda as it is almost always one sided and disregards any utily in the opposing view point and attempts to gloss over incosistencies in it's own content. I think most people would agree but I could be wrong.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[IllForgetMyNickSoonA]

I chose a job which pays slightly less than the best offer I got (actually, I took the 4th-best offer). Neither I, nor my family (wife and 3 small kids) have ever regretted this decision.

So don't give me that crap about feeding chilrun and stuff - I have to do the same, but I didn't chose to run where the most money is, ignoring everything else.

If you see it differently, so be it - it's your good right. It is also my good right to think whatever I want of you, for being ready to work for a company you know is screwing people (and *their* children, while we're at that) out of their money, as you said.

Besides, I didn't call anybody a mindless drone. I called them "nice little drones".

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Jherek Carnelian]

And so how does ESR referring to his own writings as something which is one sided and disregards any utily in the opposing view point and attempts to gloss over incosistencies in it's own content, make him full of himself?

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[kelzer]

There's one more thing. Raymond was given $36 million in VA Software stock (LNUX) at their IPO as compensation for being on their board. See this article. Hence the comparison of MSFT and LNUX.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[GogglesPisano]

You can read about Eric dreaming about his newfound wealth here:

http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=1999-12 -10-001-05-NW-LF

Given that he article was dated December 1999, this one line struck me as particularly poignant:

So it's not strictly true that I'm wealthy right now. I will be wealthy in six months, unless VA or the U.S. economy craters before then.

Doh!

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[antirename]

I don't think he was being pompous... that kind of implies that he wrote his response without realizing how it would come across. I think he knew exactly how it would come across: it would needle someone at Microsoft, and it would drive the fanboys on /. into a frenzy. He accomplished his goal. Nicely done, ESR. I hope you were operating on the principle that any publicity is good publicity and just stirring up shit in the process. Nothing really wrong with that, in my book.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[mrchaotica]

It wouldn't happen through Microsoft controlling the media; it would happen through Microsoft and the media working together voluntarily. They're one and the same, after all!

Moreover, even the government is helping them with stuff like the DMCA. Once the DRM systems are in place (did I mention that Vista will require HDCP, which is nothing more than DVI+DRM?), Microsoft will be in complete control, and will be capable of disallowing any content that Big Media doesn't want you to see.

Then, when you break the DRM in order to get it anyway, they sic the Government on you because of the DMCA (either that, or declare you a "ter'rist" and use the PATRIOT act instead).

By the way, read this. It's the example I always give to people who have a hard time visualizing what it'll be like once all this happens. Pay special attention to the "Author's note" at the end.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[Shakrai]

So don't give me that crap about feeding chilrun and stuff - I have to do the same, but I didn't chose to run where the most money is, ignoring everything else.

How lucky that you had at least four offers to pick from. I had three offers when I went job hunting and I took the 2nd biggest pay. The 1st biggest was a fairly large jump too (~$4,000/yr).

My point is that perhaps we should show enough consideration to think that perhaps everybody isn't as lucky as we are. And I don't think it's "crap" to talk about needing to feed the children. Not everybody has the option of getting another job (regardless of what they are being paid).

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[beheaderaswp]

Pompous?

I dunno... after watching the "Steve Jobs Return to Apple, The "Microsoft saves Apple investment" of $150M (When Apple had 2 Billion in the bank), The agreement for the production of Microsoft Office for the Mac, followed by the wildly spun press.... "Microsoft saves Apple"

Along with the Microsoft buyout of Dayna, ResNova (This actually put my company out of business), and the Quicktime code found in a Media Player Library....

Well I guess when I see these things, and they alter my professional life, My professionalism tends to more or less go away.

I'm pissed.

Mostly because in the "American Business Sense" there has to be the idea that there is "room for everybody" where true competition can take place well beyond PR "spin". Once a company (like a convicted monopolist) is allowed to maintain a near monopoly and maintain it through "embrace and extend" and self funded studies claiming their superiourity- well the system fails and *everyone (including the monopolist) suffers. The consumers suffer now, and the monopolist eventually dies from (in this case) being trumped by near free software and indignant software enginers.

Sometimes, it's best just to say it like it is.

AND RFCs exists for a reason.

Re:Get over yourself ESR!

[GreyPoopon]

The graph isn't showing Linux; it's showing VA Linux, which had ESR on its board of directors. Again, the point is to show the ineffectiveness of ESR against Microsoft through comparison.

Thank you. You're pretty much the only one that answered my post with a rational explanation. ;)

Dinner time

[Space cowboy]

[grin] Would *you* dine with the devil ?

Given that I'm constantly being told how bad the IT job-market is, I suspect most would... Now Eric's made a chunk of change out of being an OS advocate (I think it was Redhat that gave him a load of shares), but I'm sure MS is in the position to offer seriously tempting offers to just about anyone. Kudos to him for sticking by his principles...

Simon

Re:Dinner time

[interiot]

Hell, at least dine on the devil's tab!

So MS mistakenly sent a job offer to ESR. The obvious thing to do would be to try to play along for as long as possible, and see how many free meals/vacations he could get out of it, just to make the final news stories that much funnier. Going to the press now is like saying no when a woman offers to take off her clothes.

Re:Dinner time

[teromajusa]

Considering that taking a job working for Microsoft would pretty much end any possibility of returning to his previous career, I doubt the offer was that tempting.

Re:Dinner time

[Dasein]

http://www.businessrecord.com/Main.asp?SectionID=1 &SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=2130

It's getting better.

Re:Dinner time

[qwijibo]

Perhaps it's a matter of principle for him, or just an opportunity to go off on a clueless headhunter. I'm not a MS fan, but I'd entertain any offers they wanted to make. MS won't change because we want them to. MS will change when people within the organization stick to their principles and show that there is another way.

Re:Dinner time

[CrackHappy]

Oh dear sweet Jesus.

My mind automatically replaced "a woman" with "Bill Gates" in that last sentence...

Please excuse me while I attempt to remove my brain with my fingernails.

Re:Dinner time

[Jherek Carnelian]

MS will change when people within the organization stick to their principles and show that there is another way.

Where did you get the idea that anyone within the organization holds principles that are compatible with open source?

MS will change when the market makes them, not a second sooner and probably years after they really should have.

Well Known ?

[barath_s]

May have been my ignorance, but I hadn't heard of him before :

His page :

http://www.catb.org/~esr/

Re:Well Known ?

[dstewart]

Eric Raymond's just this guy, you know?

Re:Well Known ?

[alman]

Is this the same Raymond guy that everybody loves?

Re:Well Known ?

[dkleinsc]

That would explain why people tend to look at him as if he had two heads.

Sounds arrogant

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had bothered to do five seconds of background checking, you
might have discovered that I am the guy who responded to Craig
Mundie's "Who are you?" with "I'm your worst nightmare", and that I've
in fact been something pretty close to your company's worst nightmare
since about 1997. You've maybe heard about this "open source" thing?
You get one guess who wrote most of the theory and propaganda for it
and talked IBM and Wall Street and the Fortune 500 into buying in.
But don't think I'm trying to destroy your company. Oh, no; I'd be
just as determined to do in any other proprietary-software monopoly,
and the community I helped found is well on its way to accomplishing
that goal.

Pride goeth before a fall. The classy thing to do would be to thank the person (whose v- address signifies that they're a vendor, in this case a headhunter) and decline politely, then make your plans to piss on Gates's grave or whatever floats your boat.

Re:Sounds arrogant

[elgatozorbas]

You get one guess who wrote most of the theory and propaganda for it and talked IBM and Wall Street and the Fortune 500 into buying in.

Yeah, that's why everybody knows you and never heard of Stallman...

Re:Sounds arrogant

[rve]

I was surprised ESR mentioned his 'wife'. Maybe it is a metaphor?

Re:Sounds arrogant

[gowen]

Actually, pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall... but I digress.

Didn't Microsoft once employ people who were, you know, actual programmers, rather than self-publicists. If I'd known you could get an interview by adding blindfolds to nethack and taking over maintenance of fetchmail, I'd have considered that career path myself.

Re:Sounds arrogant

[radish]

ESR? Arrogant? Can't be....

Re:Sounds arrogant

[Jay Maynard]

Don't piss Cathy Raymond off. She shoots as well as Eric does.

Re:Sounds arrogant

[clone22]

Yeah? Well, why are manhole covers round?

Re:Sounds arrogant

[Thud457]

Hell, he shoulda played along, took the job, and pissed in the punchbowl at the company Christmas party. That'd show them!

Re:Sounds arrogant

[KhaZ]

Completely. I've actually never heard of ESR before, but I definitely don't rank him up there with Linus and RMS (Well, closer to RMS... I find him a bit pretentious at times), and I haven't elevated him since reading his posting.

Why is it that the people with talent often are the least equipped to deal with it? It sounds like ESR is quite a talented fellow, but he's got the social skills of a hungry racoon.

Re:Sounds arrogant

[nacturation]

Yeah, theory and propaganda. The second result, if you Google for the term, would invoke Godwin's Law. Anyway, I'd expect that kind of immature thinking from a child but certainly not from someone who believes himself to be important. Does anyone actually consider him any kind of open source leader or are they too embarassed by his self-gloating?

Re:Sounds arrogant

[duggy_92127]

Pride goeth before a fall. The classy thing to do would be to thank the person (whose v- address signifies that they're a vendor, in this case a headhunter) and decline politely, then make your plans to piss on Gates's grave or whatever floats your boat.

How could it be that you missed it in the article and in the summary above that that's exactly what he did?

Doug

Re:Sounds arrogant

[benjcurry]

The point is: OF COURSE manhole covers are round...OF COURSE ESR is arrogant.

Re:Sounds arrogant

[Jherek Carnelian]

Yeah, that's why everybody knows you and never heard of Stallman...

ESR is right, he did write most of the theory and propaganda for Open Source and if you ask Stallman, he'll have nothing to do with OS.

See: Open source movement

Re:Sounds arrogant

[pyrrhonist]

The point is: OF COURSE manhole covers are round...OF COURSE ESR is arrogant.

No, actually that's not the point.

Re:Sounds arrogant

[trcooper]

The dude is an egotistical prick. Billg is out for money, ESR is out to have his ego stroked. They're both dicks. His response could have probably gone more like this.

OMG1! LOL! i so totally pwn3d m$ft in the past u should respect me cause i pwn3d joo ESR roxxors!!11 joo sux!!!!!111OMGLOLLERSKATESWTF!!1

Sorry, Eric, there's lots of people who don't know who you are, get used to it. If the recruiter just went to his website, they'd just think he's some dude who appears to have an aversion to showers or something. The design of the page is so hidieous no one is going to take the time to read it. You'd send the dude a form letter, and shuttle him on to the real hiring authority if he showed interest.

ACCEPT

[Karem Lore]

Under the following conditions:

1) Your office filetypes are made public

2) Your publicises the OS system server calls.

3) Stop funding biased reports.

4) Hey, while your at it: open-source Windows OS (all of them)...

Re:ACCEPT

[Swamii]

Step one is done, in Office 12. All formats are zipped XML + media resources in thier native format.

Re:ACCEPT

[msuarezalvarez]

It is not such a hard concept to grasp: The fact that the format is visible does not mean that it is open...

Re:ACCEPT

[Swamii]

Frankly, as a developer, as long as I can read the format and output the format without royalties (both of which are explicitly allowed by Office 12 license), then I care little about the utopian ideals put forth by the high-horse OSS zealots.

Re:ACCEPT

[robgue]

5) Profit!!! sorry, somebody had to...

Re:ACCEPT

[msuarezalvarez]

I'm glad you are content with that: I love to see happy people.

I, on the other hand, do not think the licencing terms are good anbough for me to use those formats in my software, nor, actually, to actually store any content I produce. I have considered the options, and have chosen. If that makes me a zealot, well, fine.

Re:ACCEPT

[Swamii]

When you write software for others (e.g. a corporation, or as a programming contract job), I think you'll find that many people need MS Office .doc & .xls file interop.

That's when all this comes into play. As long as I can read and write the format, it matter to me little where the format came from. Everything else is politics.

It's NOT an offer... just a troll...

[byteCoder]

Not to burst ESR's bubble, but it's not a job offer. It's simply a Microsoft recruiting vendor trolling for people who might be interested.

I get a similar e-mail every few months.

Re:It's NOT an offer... just a troll...

[rindeee]

Agreed...but when your as arrogant as ESR, you make a big (public) deal out of it. I work with a guy that shouts "I just got ANOTHER job offer" from his cubicle every time he gets an e-mailed job lead (many of them automated). I see little difference between the two.

Re:It's NOT an offer... just a troll...

[justsomebody]

Yeah, but even after I went to your page I don't have a clue who you are. Just another company man? But obviously a lot in MS circles. So, nobody cares if you (or I) get the offer or not.

ESR is a bit more famous than you. And then again, MS even trolling about such thing. Well, it is just the same as if Jewish people would try to recruit Hitler to their underground movement during WW2.

And while you getting the offer goes with the wind (tommorow I will probably already forget I was reading your page today), I still consider original article a good joke.

Re:It's NOT an offer... just a troll...

[hritcu]

As a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer for .NET, I specialize in Windows and Web software architecture and development for enterprise-class software products and systems.

Is comes as no surprise that you were being recruted by Microsoft. ESR however ... he f***ing hates Microsoft, and everybody not living under a rock knows that.

Re:It's NOT an offer... just a troll...

[arbitraryaardvark]

1. Send letter to ESR
2. See ESR's head explode via his blog.
3. See slashdot pick up story.
4. Receive 3,000 resumes.
5. Hire best 30.
6. Profit.
7. Be able to buy own underpants.

It's called viral marketing.
Hillary is Rockstar's best spokesmodel.

Re:It's NOT an offer... just a troll...

[KhaZ]

You might want to be careful: bursting ESR's ego is likely to kill a few million innocent civilians in it's wake.

The man disgusts me.

I SINCERELYY hope...

[The Angry Mick]

That this was a joke someone at Microsoft was playing on the "new guy". I'd hate to think there's actually someone there that could be that clueless.

Re:I SINCERELYY hope...

[soft_guy]

Oh, come on. I'm sure this email is actually sent by a VB script to a list of names every 24 hours. They don't do any checking - just blind trolling.

Microsoft looking for help?

[nothingx]

Not surprising, really... With all the good people Microsoft's losing to Google, someone's got to pick up the slack.

Re:Microsoft looking for help?

[Lodragandraoidh]

Pick up the slack? How can you pick up the slack on something that was all slack to begin with?

and

[Anonymous Coward]

how about asking bill to join the openoffice team?

Re:and

[screevo]

Yeah. OpenOffice really needs that "Crash at Inopportune Times" feature that he could offer.

In other news...

[screevo]

George Bush offers Michael Moore a cabinet position. Hilary Clinton becomes spokeswoman for Rockstar Games. Tipper Gore and Dee Snider release a duet album.

Re:In other news...

[clem]

Tipper Gore and Dee Snider release a duet album.

Glad to hear those crazy kids are back together.

Re:In other news...

[advocate_one]

Bill Gates gets a patch accepted by Linus...

If you don't understand them...

[Ikn]

Hire their leaders.

four word job description

[aendeuryu]

It's a four word job description. "Shut the heck up."

Oblig ref.

[BayBlade]

Oh!

I remeber this episode! ESR takes the job after Microsft offers to give ESR's son a "real life" and wipe everyone's memory.

Re:Oblig ref.

[swimmar132]

Heh, Angel, right?

I wish they had kept going for one more season and ended the show properly.

Sashclode

[tehshen]

On the day *I* go to work for Microsoft, faint oinking sounds will be heard from far overhead, the moon will not merely turn blue but develop polkadots, and hell will freeze over so solid the brimstone will go superconductive.

Apparently he was also going to put in "and Slashdot begins using CSS", but took it out at the last minute.

Re:Sashclode

[br0ck]

and Slashdot begins using CSS

Go to Slashcode in Firefox and and do View, Page Style, Slashdot. Not one single table tag! The top article there says it's coming soon.

ESR Offer

[TomTraynor]

It may not be a joke on the part of MS. Think about it, how do you shut down the threat of Open Source? Starve it of resources. Now what are the resources? The people who are like ESR. Put it very bluntly this is war and MS is determined to deny the enemy (Linux) the materials (people) to wage war.

Re:ESR Offer

[Overly Critical Guy]

I find that rather overdramatic. If it wasn't a joke, Microsoft was probably wanting just him as some sort of open source consultant. I don't really know how to respond to your talk of a "war" and of "denying the enemy the materials to wage war." Microsoft commands something like 95% of the world's desktops. So if it's a war, only one side is fighting.

Re:ESR Offer

[Moby Cock]

To be fair, ESR has nothing to do with the coding of Linux. He is essentially an salesman. I think he has had some minor code accepted for a few apps, but never anything to do with the kernel. So, if ESR went to work at microsoft all that would happen to Linux is that there might be one less voice extolling its virtues. The whole notion of open-source it that its bigger than one-man. Of course ESR's obscene response to the recruiter would have us believe he was the cutting edge of the Linux revolution. In allm liklihood this was a recruiter following up a lead. I'm sure he doesn't know who ESR is, like 99% of the world.

Re:ESR Offer

[Iphtashu Fitz]

Starve it of resources.

Interesting thought, but I doubt even M$ would have the ability to sustain such a program for very long. How many poor college types like Linus would they have to hire & shut up to truely stifle the FOSS movement? Every year colleges & universities around the world are cranking out more computer geeks who embrace FOSS. To shut them all up M$ would go broke trying to hire them all.

Re:ESR Offer

[TomTraynor]

It is an extension on how MS works. Remember Netscape... What happened? Stacker? WordPerfect? Spyware scanners? If you can't beat them outright they get into a fight of attrition and since MS has billions want to guess who usually wins?

Re:ESR Offer

[bomonguny]

Is is possible that only the Open source community thinks this is a war?

Re:ESR Offer

[thesandtiger]

The people who are like ESR

You mean people too dumb to realize that the email was a template sent from a headhunter who is contracted to, but doesn't actually work as an employee of Microsoft?

Or do you mean people who are so absolutely lacking in sense and diplomacy that they go off like a loon on something like this, giving their "enemies" perfect ammunition in the form of "Gee, you're really thinking of open source stuff, huh? Well, you know... This guy (hands out a copy of this rant) is one of the key people behind that whole thing, and he doesn't exactly come off as stable, you know? Do you really want to trust your business to that guy? Or would you rather trust it to a company like us, with a long history and billions of dollars that isn't going anywhere?"

Or perhaps you mean people who are so self-absorbed that they dismiss the work of the entire OS community and take credit for their work?

Or maybe you meant someone who is so freaking delusional that he thinks he singlehandedly talked the Fortune 500 into examining open source?

I'm no MS fangirl, but jesus, if this is an example of a FOSS evangelist... There's a rather serious image issue, dontcha think? "Starving" the FOSS movement of resources like ESR might not be a bad idea.

Re:ESR Offer

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a fangirl?

Marry me?

Re:ESR Offer

[coolGuyZak]

I'm no MS fangirl, but jesus, if this is an example of a FOSS evangelist...

You really should really think carefully before using that "G" word... soon, there'll be 10 or so posts under here asking you to marry them.

Me? I'm just gonna ask for a date.

Re:ESR Offer

[mbrod]

It would actually make good business sense to hire ESR and listen to him. Right now Google and Apple are both gearing up to make a real run at MS and MS is really concentrating on all the wrong things. If they don't change their strategy they will be done in 5-10 years. Done as in not mattering and not having majority market share. Because if they are not willing to play nice there are a lot of really big companies with really big wallets all lined up to do just that: to respect their customers and their business partners.

Re:ESR Offer

[Maxo-Texas]

Gets up off his knee and puts the ring away.
Damn.. too slow.

Re:ESR Offer

[Mr_DW]

You mean people too dumb to realize...

No I bet he meant the FOSS evangilests that are smart enough to take advantage of a easy attack.

Next you say that he's

...giving their "enemies" perfect ammunition...

But later you said

...so freaking delusional that he thinks he singlehandedly talked the Fortune 500 into examining open source?

So which is it? Is he important enough to talk the F500 to go with GNU/Linux or is he a nobody that no exec is going to listen too?

Then you say

...so self-absorbed that they dismiss the work of the entire OS community and take credit for their work...

ummm, where did he say/imply that? Was it before he mentioned RMS or Linus (and if you look at what he said, he seems to be impling that they are even HIGHER on the Gnu/Linux food chain then him. Pretty egotisitical of him, no?). Or are you saying he hasn't wrote ALOT on this whole open source thing?

As for

...singlehandedly talked the Fortune 500 into examining open source?

Do you really think F500 companies do things just because their employee's think it's a good idea? Maybe, as an outside source he really was in a position to influence them?

And finally (since I have work to do)

...if this is an example of a FOSS evangelist...

UMM DUH! What the heck do you think an "evangelist" does? He got a 2 for 1 here... he got a free swipe at MS AND he got to give a peep talk to the troops.

So I say to you.. Are you the kind of person who's just so ignorant they can't think this thru OR are you a MS fangirl?

-Smalltime Linux evangelist

Re:ESR Offer

[Mr_DW]

Yes, it was a pep-talk. He was talking about how close MS was to falling. Do you really think he believes the day is close when MS dies? Give me a break! He knows it's not going away.
Who do you think he was trying to persuade? He was talking to an MS exec (and it's not important if the person was a direct MS employee or another vendor working for MS). The OTHER "person" he was talking to was me. Guess it wasn't you, but then I'd lay dollars to donuts that you already had your mind made up about him long before this.
You said

That wasn't evangelism.

Really? What was it. If you'd like, we can call him a zealot. In the context that "evangelism" is was used for these comments I don't think there would be alot of difference. So I'll give it to you. BUT I'd ask that you go back to all the other posts and correct them too.

I wonder if he would be another

[multiplexo]

Faberge egghead like Nathan Myhrvold was. No one I've known who worked at Microsoft really knew what Nathan did there other than make oracular pronouncements, tout his educational accomplishments and collect a large salary. Nice work if you can get it.

How far will you go?

[RedMage]

I love the "How far will you go?" quote in the letter. Of course Eric's response is "Not THAT far!"

Ever dance with the devil...?

How insulting

[kote-men-do]

"I'd thank you for your offer of employment at Microsoft, except that it indicates that either you or your research team (or both) couldn't get a clue if it were pounded into you with baseball bats. What were you going to do with the rest of your afternoon, offer jobs to Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds?"

Right, because we all know ESR is on the same level with those two guys because he's responsible for uh... What exactly did he do?

Obligatory "Everboby loves Eric Raymond": http://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/show-them- the-code

Re:How insulting

[alexhs]

Right, because we all know ESR is on the same level with those two guys because he's responsible for uh... What exactly did he do?

Just for the uninformed (sorry for ruining the joke...) :

Write / maintain software.

Write books, the most known being "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".

Direct from his homepage.

Re:How insulting

[Zak3056]

Right, because we all know ESR is on the same level with those two guys because he's responsible for uh... What exactly did he do?

Maybe he's suggesting that F/OSS as we know it wouldn't exist without fetchmail?

Re:How insulting

[Pantero Blanco]

He may not have written a whole lot of code, but I'd say the community has benefitted a lot from his essays.

Though he's far from "normal", he has enough social skills not to start talking about having nasal sex with dead flowers with people he's trying to convert. The best coders often don't make the best spokesmen.

Re:How insulting

[Rycross]

I don't call flying off the handle and delusions of grandeur social skills.

Re:How insulting

[sad_]

Right, because we all know ESR is on the same level with those two guys because he's responsible for uh... What exactly did he do?
if you want to walk around in OSS-land at least try to remember who the important people are! A good introduction might be to read a book about it...

Re:How insulting

[MegaFur]

I don't either, but delusions of grandeur can sometimes go a long way at convincing dopes you're the messiah. Now, flying off the handle, that's harder to make work for you, but some people can. E.g. Sam Kinison

Now that's funny...

[pergamon]

Don't get me wrong, I dislike ESR as much as the next guy, but even I have to admit his response is hilarious.

sigh

[Satai]

I really wish ESR would stop claiming to speak for the Open Source community if he is going to behave in this fashion.

RMS, while a bit self-admittedly silly at times, at least conducts himself in a more courteous and polite fashion.

This is but one of the many non-idealogical reasons that I prefer to think of myself in the Free Software Community, rather than the Open Source Community.

Re:sigh

[Jay Maynard]

Merciful $DEITY. TOu claim a moonbat like RMS as your idol and believe that ESR having fun casts discredit on the open source community?

Render unto me a ****ing break.

Anyone who's read ESR's writings knows that this is definitely not the way he deals with the world in general. He's a professional to the core. This situation was simply too funny to pass up the opportunity.

I would have been much more restrained, myself, but then I can't afford to burn bridges. ESR's bridges with Microsoft were smoldering ash long before this happened.

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

know nothing about leaders do you?

Stalin took off his shoe and banged it on the podium during his speeches.

the current CEO of Microsoft makes crass comments and insulting claims almost daily.

Apple CEO makes absurd claims, talks to others in a crass attitude and insults others on a regular basis.

so how is ESR acting any differently than the other Leaders?

Re:sigh

[thesandtiger]

It isn't a matter of burning bridges. It's a matter of ESR being (for better or worse, to whatever degree) a public voice for the OS community.

He is putting himself forward as an evangelist, a mouthpiece, and he should know better than to behave like a whack-job.

I can very easily see ways that companies such as MS could spin this to make the OS community look like a bunch of loons. "Do you really want to trust your business to a guy who goes off like (hands out letter) this to something like a form letter from a recruiter? He can't control himself - and he's the best they've got!" (Not true, but how many suits know that?)

In short, if you want to claim to be a leader of something, then you give up the right to act like an asshole unless it is strategically beneficial to those you claim to represent. This was not. This was pure ego on ERS's part.

Re:sigh

[lowe0]

Politeness in the face of "opportunities" such as this is, in my opinion, a significant part of professionalism.

Well done ESR

[ellem]

you came off like a professional and stable person. thank goodness you are taking it upon yourself to represent the OS movement. certainly many other professional people will want to join you.

Re:Well done ESR

[Krach42]

you came off like a professional and stable person.

Really... um... did you EXPECT ESR to react in a rational and polite manner?

It's like George Bush offering a job to Michael Moore. What do you think Michael Moore would do? Politely decline and keep it private?

Hell no!

That's the thing with vocal individuals... they're really loud.

Re:Well done ESR

[bliSSter138]

Quoth AC:

"Whether Michael Moore would or not, that's his problem..."

and

"Yeah, I'm not surprised at what he's done either. But, we shouldn't let that vindicate him. The guy's a kook."

The same could be (and probably has been), said about Michael Moore as well. Free speech still affords both Michael Moore, and Eric Raymond, the right to burn as many bridges as they see fit.

Apology

[Karem Lore]

OH, your OpenSource Evangelist; We made a mistake...We thought OSS was OpenServer...As in...Oh, you know SCO? uh-huh...uh-huh...Yes well we think that SCO are a mature and...Yes, uh-huh...Yes I know that they...uh-huh...And that we gave them...uh-huh...Ok, so you don't want to work for MS then...Can I ask why you why?....

Handled very incompetently

[mcgroarty]

ESR's only valid response should have been to accept an interview and show up roaring drunk.

Re:Handled very incompetently

[Jay Maynard]

This would have been funny, too, except that he does not drink. (Or use recreational drugs, either, so showing up stoned out of his gourd is out as well.)

Re:Handled very incompetently

[qwijibo]

But he could show up armed.

Re:Handled very incompetently

[zztong]

Showing up drunk would have shown more class than his email.

Re:Handled very incompetently

[Andrewkov]

Oh he could use the interview as a chance to infiltrate the Microsoft campus, then use his laptop to plant a virus into the core MS systems, and then hack *cough* crack his way to destroying MS from the inside! *manic laughter*

Re:Handled very incompetently

[Diabolical]

ESR's only valid response should have been to accept an interview and show up roaring drunk.

Judging his response he did...

Re:Handled very incompetently

[Kurt Gray]

ESR's only valid response should have been to accept an interview and show up roaring drunk.

That would've been hilarious. I can imagine what sort of answers he would give to their logic puzzle test questions and "where do yourself in five years" career questions.

Raymond fits right into MS

[tjstork]

Look at his email. He takes credit for an entire movement? Cut me a break. His cathedral and bazaar paper was a bunch of pot smoking nonsense. What a blow hard. What did he write that was so amazing or complicated? His web site is all "I contributed to, was in a meeting with..."

The guy is a total fraud.

Re:Raymond fits right into MS

[StormReaver]

"His cathedral and bazaar paper was a bunch of pot smoking nonsense."

Of everything ESR has done, for better or for worse, "The Cathedral and The Bazaar" is probably his best work. It was very good, solid writing. Calling it "pot smoking nonsense" indicates you either haven't read it, or just don't understand it.

Re:Raymond fits right into MS

[tjstork]

I didn't like the way it was written. It rambled on too much for me to be called "great".

Re:Raymond fits right into MS

[mobilesteve]

You seem to be forgetting that this is the person who added masks into nethack. He has every right to take credit for the open source movement

Re:Raymond fits right into MS

[hritcu]

Puppy Checkers: Beat Our Dog

Re:Raymond fits right into MS

[Sartak]

Actually, ESR was referring the NetHack Guidebook.

Re:Raymond fits right into MS

[murr]

Of everything ESR has done, for better or for worse, "The Cathedral and The Bazaar" is probably his best work.

Personally, I found "The Art of UNIX Programming" quite enjoyable and instructive, while I'm not entirely convinced that the central arguments of Cathedral & Bazaar, for all their soundbite worthiness, are actually correct.

Re:Raymond fits right into MS

[tjstork]

Commodity Server

Re:Raymond fits right into MS

[sparkz]

CatB, at the time it was written, was actually very prescient. Most of it now seems like obvious trash, but CatB was the first real document which combined these ideas into a coherent structure.
That was certainly far more than Fetchmail (for fsck's sake!), and more than he has done since.
CatB was ESR's great moment.
TAOUP has the potential to be made into a useful reference, if all the hyperbole is removed. However, that would probably transform it from a book to a pamphlet.
God, I felt old on /. in 1998; I feel ancient having to explain all this stuff 7 years later!

Re:Raymond fits right into MS

[puppetman]

I agree. I thought his emailed-response back to Microsoft was pedantic, vain, and immature (he could have used this opportunity to politely explain why and perhaps planted a seed in a Microsoft head), but I thought The Cathedral and the Bazaar was a great piece of writing, and it did have a profound impact on several companies at the time. The Firefox browser I'm typing this into is a result of TCATB, I believe.

Re:Raymond fits right into MS

[StormReaver]

"The Firefox browser I'm typing this into is a result of TCATB, I believe."

Yes it is, though indirectly. TCatB was cited by Netscape Corporation as a primary reason that the Netscape browser source code was released. The Netscape source code sucked so badly, though, that it was eventually discarded in its entirely (I suspect the same thing would happen if Microsoft released the Internet Explorer source code).

The result of the complete rewrite is what used to be the Mozilla suite (the programs have now been unbundled into separate projects). And finally, Firefox is a fork of the Mozilla browser.

Re:Raymond fits right into MS

[DerekLyons]

Of everything ESR has done, for better or for worse, "The Cathedral and The Bazaar" is probably his best work. It was very good, solid writing. Calling it "pot smoking nonsense" indicates you either haven't read it, or just don't understand it.

Y'know, my right wing Christian neighbor says the same thing about the Bible. My left left wing neighbor says the same things about Gore's enviromental ramblings and Hillary's self-indulgent nonsense.

My response to them, and to you, (and the mods who modded you up) is simple: If your only defense is "you obviously don't understand it", that is nothing but a glaring statement of the weakness of the writing in question.

could be a trend

[paulbd]

This happened to me recently as well. I am not as well known as ESR in general linux circles, but those of you who mess around with audio software on Linux probably know me as the author of both JACK and Ardour. MS called me 10 days ago about a job, and emailed me again yesterday. The caller indicated that he knew all about my work on linux audio, and my feelings about MS, but assured me that "MS was changing". I was sent a URL for an PR/newswire "article" suggesting that MS was moving "toward open source".

Like ESR, I indicated to them that Microsoft was a company that I could never consider working for, under any circumstances whatsoever.

Re:could be a trend

[Isca]

If you can't beat em, buy them!

Re:could be a trend

[justforaday]

If you can't beat em, buy them!

And then beat them when they're chained to the desk!

Re:could be a trend

[l3v1]

I am not as well known as ESR in general linux circles

I'm no audio professional, still, all I can say regarding your work on JACK and Ardour: respect !

About MS "changing", yeah, right. Only possible anwser to that would be: 1xaction>1000xword.

Re:could be a trend

[Krach42]

I'll take the opposite side of the coin.

I might be better known in the linux circles, just because of the publicity that CherryOS gave the PearPC community.

I was sick of working for $8/hour with the skills that I had, or worse working piecemeal at a job that was dirty and annoying for at one point $500 a month because there wasn't any other work that I could have done. So when Microsoft called, I was willing to go work for them.

While they say they're working towards Open Source, they're not. Many parts of the company are working strongly to work with F/OSS, and improve MS's image to the F/OSS community, there are other groups that are expressly devoted towards skewing data, and spinning F/OSS as worse than MS's products.

Re:could be a trend

[STFS]

Like ESR, I indicated to them that Microsoft was a company that I could never consider working for, under any circumstances whatsoever.

I just hope you did it in a more polite way.

Re:could be a trend

[demachina]

I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft is seeing how many open source people will succumb to high paying jobs with nice stock options, though it was silly to contact Eric because there was 100% probability he would just flame them, use it to pump up his ego and be his usual publicity hound self.

If they identify a lot of open source contributors who are struggling to make ends meet working in the open source world and hire them they both reduce contributions to open source, and they make open source look bad. In particular they are testing to see if people will sell out and sell open source down the river in exchange for piles of cash. Their coffers are deep enough they could hire a lot of struggling open source developers with ease.

They kind of did this to OpenGL a while ago, hiring Kurt Akeley, David Blythe and Michael Cohen in particular. Those people were faced with clinging to the sinking ship that is SGI and OpenGL or sell out to Microsoft and DirectX which totally dominates the desktop and gaming. They both get good researchers and they drain talent away from OpenGL in hopes of pushing it further in to irrelevance.

If you hop in to the wayback machine they did the same thing to Borland, hiring all their top people just to put them out to pasture.

Re:could be a trend

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking for Ardour and JACK users everywhere, let me say "thanks". I'm recording guitar parts for a CD using Ardour, on top of imported bed tracks created on ProTools. I rather enjoy comparing notes with the producer:

Him: ProTools is great! You can apply plugins to tracks, as many as you want.

Me: Yep, me too!

Him: I have a really nice reverb plugin, compression, delay, distortion, lo-fi stuff, etc.

Me: Me too. Hundreds of them!

Him: You can slide tracks fwd/backward in time w/ ProTools!

Me: I can too!

Him: Mine is actually ProTools LT (or LE, whatever), so it only cost me $5,000 (plus the $6K for the Mac G5, of course)!

Me: Mine was free and runs on a $2K punk-ass PC running Linux!

Him: d00d, WTF?

Re:could be a trend

[byteherder]

If you hop in to the wayback machine they did the same thing to Borland, hiring all their top people just to put them out to pasture.

Microsoft completely raided the Borland C++ compiler development team.
Borland had the best product and Microsoft's was a crappy also-ran.
After the raid, Microsoft had the best product and Borland never recovered.

Re:could be a trend

[demachina]

There is more to a job these days than stock and stock options. Stock options are fading fast for established companies because the accounting rules are changing so most companies are charging them against their bottomline now. They are only really good now people working at startups through IPO. Of course if you purchase stock you want it to go up but there is still... ... just a hefty big salary, cash bonuses, benefits especially health insurance which might be pretty attractive to someone living in a basement barely making ends meet doing what they "love". There are also probably some open source developers who have crappy day jobs and would love to get paid full time to develop code, even if it means selling their soul to the devil.

You should also note that Microsoft has been handing out big chunks of cash as dividends to people who actually own their stock. Since the Republicans changed the tax rules for dividends that money is tax free so owning stock and getting dividends is WAY more attractive now than it was. I think it was last December a big dividend payout by Microsoft single handedly lifted national economic data for the quarter because it was billions of dollars pumped in to people's pockets instead of sitting in Microsoft's huge reserves. Of course a huge percentage of it went in to the pockets of Gates, Ballmer, Allen etc tax free. There is something seriously wrong with working people barely making ends meet paying taxes on every penny they make while rich fat cats can now rake in windfall profits from dividends and not pay a dime. The con game used to sell it was the company already paid taxes on that money, so taxing dividends was double taxation. The problem is the tax code is so full of loopholes, shelters and corprate welfare, most big corporations already don't pay anything like the taxes working people do. America is a place rushing to make the rich richer and the poor poor. Over a million new people landed below the poverty line last year.

Re:could be a trend

[utahman44]

Like ESR, I indicated to them that Microsoft was a company that I could never consider working for, under any circumstances whatsoever. And if you responded in the same manner that would make you an asshole too. This isn't politics, human rights, or religion (well ...) that we are discussing, its just software. I hope that your children aren't starving because of your ideals.

Re:could be a trend

[hritcu]

Like ESR, I indicated to them that Microsoft was a company that I could never consider working for, under any circumstances whatsoever.

You mean, you made it sound like this? :)

On the day *I* go to work for Microsoft, faint oinking sounds will be heard from far overhead, the moon will not merely turn blue but develop polkadots, and hell will freeze over so solid the brimstone will go superconductive.

Re:could be a trend

[demachina]

"Please look at the tax code. Those that are considered poor pay very little in taxes (except for FICA)."

Nice to dismiss it like you just did. That is, if I recall 12.5% by the time you count both employee and employer contribution which is a LOT for low and middle income people, and there are still income taxes hammering the middle class in particular thanks to the alternative minimum tax. You have to count the hidden employer contribution because it would be going to salary were it not for that tax.

Payroll taxes used to be worth it when it was a lot lower especially before the rates soared in the 1980's. You used to get more back than you put in. Since the 1980's when the taxes and surpluses soared those payroll taxes have been going to keep a deficit obsessed government afloat(Bush and Reagan in particular) so all those surpluses have been squandered and when Social Security and Medicare hit the red either benefits will be savaged or people will be taxed AGAIN to make up the shortfalls.

You can't dismiss payroll taxes like you just did, they have turned in to highway robbery of working people since the 1980's, they keep going up while taxes on corporations and the wealthy keep going down and it will be a miracle if working people ever get it back like todays seniors do.

"Furthermore, corporation do in fact pay a large amount of taxes. Check the annual statements of any public company to see how much they do pay."

Actually the corprate share of the nation's tax burden has been in steady decline for years. I think it was down to something like 9% though I'd have to go Googling to find the exact number. Any company paying a lot of taxes must have a bad accountant because the number of easily exploited loopholes are huge. If you may recall from the overshoring debate, the tax code actually rewards companies with tax breaks for offshoring jobs.

Re:could be a trend

[danharan]

Sounds to me like MS is trying to change their image.

If that's the case, ESR just handed them some free PR: now every geek in open-source land knows they have a chance at an interview with MS.

The strategic thing would have been to accept the interview to get a sense of what they want exactly.

Re:could be a trend

[RobertKozak]

If you hop in to the wayback machine they did the same thing to Borland, hiring all their top people just to put them out to pasture.

You mean people like Paul Gross and Anders Hejlsberg? Seriously, what have they done lately?

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1478523,00.as p

Re:could be a trend

[farble1670]

your post is pure speculation.

maybe, just maybe, MS is recruiting for talent, like all companies do, because they need talent to be successful, like all companies do. there is nothing sinister about trying to hire good people.

yes, it's possible that a bunch of MSFT execs got together and developed this evil scheme to destroy the open source movement by hiring away its good people. another possibility is that this is a real effort by MSFT to become more OSS friendly. if you don't think that's a good thing, then you're not in it to forward OSS, you're in it for the fight, and there's no honor in that.

i mean really, is it a good plan to hire a bunch of OSS leaders into your company and expect that you can simply crush their spirits? it's more likely that they will influence other people in the company in the OSS direction. and if that doesn't work, if they are real leaders, they will simply leave and make it worse for MSFT.

Re:could be a trend

[starseeker]

"but those of you who mess around with audio software on Linux probably know me as the author of both JACK and Ardour."

I think I speak for the open source community when I say I'm very impressed with your work and wish to thank you for making it available.

Re:could be a trend

[eraserewind]

So maybe Borland should have paid them what they were worth?

Re:could be a trend

[demachina]

"your post is pure speculation."

Well duh, since I'm working on a sample size of two, Raymond and this JACK developer of course its speculation.

"maybe, just maybe, MS is recruiting for talent"

The problem with your "speculation" is we are talking about Raymond here, at least he is half of the known "talent" pool being discussed here. The obvious problem is its unclear what "talent" Raymond would bring to a company these days. Its not like he is a prolific coder. His only known "talents" lately are:

- publicity hound
- author of really embarrassing rants which he unwisely tries to distribute as widely as possible
- gun fanatic
- worked in partnership with Augustine to cash in on the Linux bubble with VA Linux and then promptly declared selling Linux based hardware was an infeasible business mode, took the money and ran

All in all it would be something of a gift to the open source community if Microsoft did hire Raymond so he could embarrass them with his rants and show up in front of news camera dressed like a seedy Jedi Knight. The most effective strategy I can think of for Raymond to undermine Microsoft is for him to take a job at Microsoft and be himself :) It appears he passed up a golden opportunity to destroy Microsoft when he rejected their advances.

Re:could be a trend

[Krach42]

If you were actually me, you'd know that I did *not* turn down Microsoft.

Did I "sell-out"? Yes, but that's the only way I was going to make money. All the other companies that are interested in hiring F/OSS people care in general too much about GPA, of which, mine is not awesome.

Literal reason from the mouth of the recruiter for IBM as to why I would not be hired: "Well, you only have a 3.0 GPA, and we don't hire anyone with less than a 3.5" (could be higher)

Unfortunately, in our world as it is right now, one needs to make money in order to survive. With a huge student loan debt over my head, it was way too frustrating to be working in a career field that wasn't related to the degree I obtained, but worse: did not even require the degree.

Yes, I'm a sell-out, but sometimes you have to do somethings that you're not proud of in order just to get ahead in life.

Hate to trouble you all....

[wolfemi1]

I'm behind a filtering proxy and can't find a google cache... could someone post the text of the article please?

Re:Hate to trouble you all....

[NotWorkSafe]

The following is, verbatim, a letter I received a few minutes ago from a Microsoft recruiter.

From: "Mike Walters (Search Wizards)"
To:

Eric,

I am a member of the Microsoft Central Sourcing Team. Microsoft is seeking world class engineers to help create products that help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential.

Your name and contact info was brought to my attention as someone who could potentially be a contributor at Microsoft. I would love an opportunity to speak with you in detail about your interest in a career at Microsoft, along with your experience, background and qualifications. I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have and can also provide you with any information I have available in regard to the position s and work life at Microsoft.

Please take a moment to visit My Calendar http://www.appointmentquest.com/provider/201022492 7> online to schedule a convenient time for me to contact you. You can learn more about our vision for the New World of Work at http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail> http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail.

Additionally, if you are aware of any current or previous colleagues who might also be interested in opportunities at Microsoft, I would be happy to speak with them as well. Referrals are always welcome, and are greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance and I look forward to an opportunity to speak to you in the near future

Best regards,

Mike

http://members.microsoft.com/careers/default.mspx>

How far will you go?


Mike Walters CST Senior Recruiter

Microsoft
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?Pyt=Tmap&addr=One +Microsoft+Way&csz=Re dmond%2C+WA+98052&country=us>

I called Mike Walters, who told me my name had been passed to him by his research team. I indicated to him that I thought somebody was probably having a little joke at his expense, and promised him an email reply. Here is my reply in its entirety:

To: "Mike Walters (Search Wizards)"
From:

I'd thank you for your offer of employment at Microsoft, except that it indicates that either you or your research team (or both) couldn't get a clue if it were pounded into you with baseball bats. What were you going to do with the rest of your afternoon, offer jobs to Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds? Or were you going to stick to something easier, like talking Pope Benedict into presiding at a Satanist orgy?

If you had bothered to do five seconds of background checking, you might have discovered that I am the guy who responded to Craig Mundie's "Who are you?" with "I'm your worst nightmare", and that I've in fact been something pretty close to your company's worst nightmare since about 1997. You've maybe heard about this "open source" thing? You get one guess who wrote most of the theory and propaganda for it and talked IBM and Wall Street and the Fortune 500 into buying in. But don't think I'm trying to destroy your company. Oh, no; I'd be just as determined to do in any other proprietary-software monopoly, and the community I helped found is well on its way to accomplishing that goal.

On the day *I* go to work for Microsoft, faint oinking sounds will be heard from far overhead, the moon will not merely turn blue but develop polkadots, and hell will freeze over so solid the brimstone will go superconductive.

But I must thank you for dropping a good joke on my afternoon. On that hopefully not too far distant day that I piss on Microsoft's grave, I sincerely hope none of it will splash on you.

Cordially yours, Eric S. Raymond

My wife, upon hearing of this, suggested that if something like this could happen maybe I haven't made enough trouble for Microsoft lately, and I'm slipping off their radar. She might have a point...

UPDATE: For those of you who midssed the subtlety (which was a surprising lot of you) I was quite polite to this guy on the phone.

Re:Hate to trouble you all....

[qwijibo]

The first line of the email ESR originally received screams spam to me. In fact, the entire email sounds like spam. I wouldn't be surprised if I could find the exact same thing caught by my spam filter.

Did anyone else find it funny...

[caesar79]

..that an email from a M$ recruiter has a link to maps.yahoo.com ?


...
Best regards, Mike
http://members.microsoft.com/careers/default.mspx>
How far will you go?
Mike Walters
CST Senior Recruiter
Microsoft
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?Pyt=Tmap&addr=One +Microsoft+Way&csz=Re dmond%2C+WA+98052&country=us>

Slipping of MS's radar?

[tdvaughan]

My wife, upon hearing of this, suggested that if something like this could happen maybe I haven't made enough trouble for Microsoft lately, and I'm slipping off their radar. She might have a point...

Come on, ESR is pretty much off everyone's radar at the moment and has been for some time. The problem is that he doesn't DO anything much - as opposed to RMS and Linus who are of continuing significance. Seriously, aside from posting about gun rights and racial IQ differences on his blog, what does ESR get up to these days that anyone really cares about?

Re:Slipping of MS's radar?

[Russ Nelson]

gpsd? Or does code not qualify as code?
-russ

Re:Slipping of MS's radar?

[Anonymous Coward]

That site describes it as about a week of work. Congratulations!

a v- email address

[pdub]

A v- email address at microsoft means that you are not a full time employee, but are a contract worker.

Re:a v- email address

[Myko]

A v- email address at microsoft means that you are not a full time employee, but are a contract worker.

Um, wrong!

v- means you are a vendor providing consulting type services to MS. a- means you are a lowly contractor working for one of the body shops.

Really?

[GweeDo]

[horrific pic warning]

Really? This is who we have evangalizing for us? I quit...

Re:Really?

[jc42]

This is who we have evangalizing for us? I quit...

Hmmm ... Imagine if people in general applied this approach to their religions. Christianity, Islam and possibly Judaism would quickly vanish from the face of the Earth.

(We have been hearing from a lot of people lately that God has punished the people of New Orleans for their sinful ways. But I wonder. If this is true, why did He spare the French Quarter? ;-)

Whoops

[RealityMogul]

"You can learn more about our vision for the New World of Work at"

Did anybody else skim through that at read "New World Order"?

Yahoo maps

[MalHavoc]

Did anyone else notice that the guy who sent the email linked to the Yahoo! maps service instead of the Google one, in his sig?

I just thought that was sort of interesting.

Again, vague threats

[Ciderx]

It really makes me wonder if the open source community really likes being represented by someone who, not for the first time, makes threats of violence towards others.

In my opinion, he should be told that he doesn't represent anyone, his vague claims of leadership of the "open source community" are without merit and, frankly, he conducts himself in a manner which suggests he should get himself some professional medical help.

Hmm...

[borawjm]

I think I got a similiar response when I asked a woman for sex.

Microsoft is upset about Google

[Thrakkerzog]

Since Google is taking Microsoft employees, Microsoft is trying to beat them to the punch!

A good, but extremely unprofessional, response.

[borgheron]

First, a critique of his response:

He should have politely informed them who he is, his significance to the Open Source and Free Software movements and flatly refused.

Instead he did so, but in terms of invoking satan, calling them clueless, conjuring the childish image of him "pissing on MS' grave" among other things.

There are ways to tell someone to "go to hell" without actually saying the words. All ESR did here was embarass himself and, to some degree, the very movement he cares about. Because if anyone ever wanted proof that this movement is made up of people who are childish... he's provided it to them.

Second, a critique of what he thinks of himeself:

Yes, he wrote, the Cathedral and the Bazaar. BUT only about 5-7 years AFTER RMS had already been doing Free Software. Arguably much of the "theory" ESR claims for himself was borrowed from RMS.

Later, GJC

I have a date with an MS recruiter.

[thammoud]

The email left Microsoft's recuiter's link http://www.appointmentquest.com/provider/201022492 7

I signed up for an appointment with Leslie O'Connor. Hope she is a hottie.

What a pompous jerk

[duffbeer703]

The recruiter is just doing his job. Why abuse the guy?

As big as Raymond thinks that he is, bullshitting with IBM execs and "maintaining" the jargon file doesn't make you a B-list celebrity.

I've always found the the way that people treat waiters, clerical staff, etc reveals alot about that person's character. Raymond's self-aggrandizing, insulting and borderline abusive reply says nearly all that needs to be said about him.

Re:What a pompous jerk

[SpaghettiPattern]

The recruiter is just doing his job. Why abuse the guy?
NO! He is not just doing his job.

Re-read this drivel.

• Your name and contact info was brought to my attention as someone who could potentially be a contributor at Microsoft.

Why can't he simply refer to the actual person? My guess is that the recruiter heard a name and just had a go at it. If he just had googled for the name he could have saved himself time and embarrassment. This recruiter sounds very much like a 3rd rate telemarketer.

Re:Job Offer???

[Jay Maynard]

Maybe Gates needed an acolyte for his cathedral.

Not quite a "job offer"

[Gannoc]

Actually, it looks like the guy just got a form letter from an HR rep, which he then responded to like a complete asshole.

Yeah, OK, you don't like Microsoft. We get it. That wasn't a reason to attack and insult an HR rep that was clearly the butt of a joke.

Added Bonus!

[Valiss]

In the interview offer letter to ESR, M$ was kind enough to include a link to their HR schedule. Feel free to log in and schedule yourself and interview with M$, or just chat with a recruiter!

http://www.appointmentquest.com/provider/201022492 7

Re:Added Bonus!

[CoolQ]

Not only that, but their HR schedule is done in WebObjects!

(Hint: that's an Apple technology!)

--Quentin

Misleading

[Red Flayer]

ESR got an unsolicited form letter from a recruiting vendor doing the email equivalent of cold-calling -- otherwise known as "Spamming".

Of course, his response was humorous, and possibly therefore worthy of /. attention, but please. Spare us.

I would rather have seen an "unsubscribe" reply... with a followup in case he gets another email from the vendor.

ESR?

[Demon-Xanth]

Why would MS offer a job to Equivilent Series Resistance? You can get that from any capacitor on the market for fractions of a penny!

And what kind of sick geek of a parent would name thier kid Root Mean Square?

Re:ESR?

[Demon-Xanth]

See, I can make these jokes because I'm RED and my dad is SAD. We've been through it. We've earned the right.

It's happened to me...

[thrillbert]

Below is the set of emails of when MS tried to recruit me. Read from bottom up since that's how the emails were actually sent.


----- Original Message -----
From: James Hunt
To: 'Mauricio '
Sent: Monday, April 24, 2000 9:46 AM
Subject: RE: UNIX Opportunities at Microsoft - WebTV

Thank you for the quick reply. I respect an individual that sticks to
their morals. Take care.

James

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mauricio [mailto:mauricio@xxxx.com%5D
> Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 1:51 PM
> To: James Hunt
> Subject: Re: UNIX Opportunities at Microsoft - WebTV
>
>
> James
>
> Thank you for taking the time to look at my resume and to send me the
> description for this job. Unfortunately, being an advocate of open source,
> it would be against my morals to work for the Anti-Christ. But I do
> appreciate you having taken the time to email me.
>
> Regards,
> Mauricio
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: James Hunt
> To:
> Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 12:15 PM
> Subject: UNIX Opportunities at Microsoft - WebTV
>
>
> > Hi Mauricio,
> >
> > I am interested in your background for our full-time UNIX/Solaris sys.
> admin
> > position at Mircosoft.
> >
> > This position is within the Network Operations Center of our WebTV
> division
> > which is a 100% Solaris shop, supporting more than 1 million
subscribers.
> > We are located at the brand new Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus in
> Mountain
> > View, along with several other Microsoft divisions (5 buildings).
> >
> > If you are interested, I would like to set up a time for us to speak via
> > phone. Simply reply to this message or call me at (650) 693 3542.
> >
> > I have also attached the job description. >
> >
> > Kindest Regards,
> >
> > James
> >
> >
> > James Hunt
> > Microsoft - WebTV
> > Technical Recruiter
> > http://www.webtv.com/
> > http://www.microsoft.com/

---
Film at 11!

Re:It's happened to me...

[dnaumov]

> > Hi Mauricio,
> >
> > I am interested in your background for our full-time UNIX/Solaris sys.
> admin
> > position at Mircosoft.

Somehow I just got this feeling that you pulled this "email conversation" out of your ass. I highly doubt a recruiter from Microsoft would make a typo like that.

Re:It's happened to me...

[Andrewkov]

Why did you send them your resume? Just to have something to post on Slashdot?

Re:It's happened to me...

[GPLDAN]

I don't doubt it. Tech recruiters don't work for the company they are recruiting for, are often sloppy and in a rush, and usually not that bright. What they are good at, is social networking.

Re:It's happened to me...

[Eminence]

Congratulations. You are more polite and mature than one of the prominent personalities in the OS movement.

Re:It's happened to me...

[Tim C]

Apart from the bit where he refers to them being the anti-Christ...

Re:It's happened to me...

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

I wish I could do that! Make sure you keep your skills up and up to date!

As for me, I would have begged for the job and brought my own tube of KJ for the interview. For a job, I will drink the MS Kool-Aid. Yes sirree! I have lost my pride and my morals apparently.

How much?

[qwijibo]

I'm not surprised to see such a response from ESR. I would at least want to discuss how much M$ is willing to pay. Being paid an astronomical sum to subvert your enemy from the inside would strike me as having significant job satisfaction potential.

Hiring practices?

[tuxlove]

I didn't realize Microsoft was in the habit of hiring openly racist people. ESR's ego about his hyperintelligence seems unjustified given the fact that he subscribes so wholeheartedly to the failed theories of "The Bell Curve". It's kind of sad that someone supposedly so smart lets his personal desire to be more uber than other races shine through, rather than to try and conquer his prejudice. I've never been a fan of Microsoft, but I did at least expect them to have more integrity in their hiring practices.

Should Have Skipped Angry and Gone to Amused

[Cr0w T. Trollbot]

ESR's reply seemed far too angry and less clever than warrented. He pounded the poor Microsoftie Drone with a sledgehammer when he should have used a rapier. For example:

Dear Microsoft: Thank you for your kind offer of employment. However, I'm afraid that I must refuse for the same reason a gazelle declines a dinner invitation from a pack of wolves. Inviting me to work for Microsoft would be rather like asking Rush Limbaugh to run the Democratic National Committee. Given than I am am working to undermine everything Microsoft stands for, I feel it would be in neither of our interests for me to accept employment there. Sincerely, ESR. PS: If your staff have suggested you contact a certain Linus Torvalds or a Richard Stallman about offering them similar employment, I'm afraid I have some bad news...

See how easy that was? Why go for confrontational and boorish when you can make your points more cleverly with wit and tact?

Eric has smart in spades, but his lack of tact and grace hurts the very Open Source movement he supports.

Crow T. Trollbot

Hiiihaaaaay!

[putko]

The sound Ballmer makes as he flying ninja-kicks Mike Walters (the hapless recruiter who tried to recruit ESR) in the nuts.

And then he throws a chair on the guy, once he's down.

Full of himself...

[RexRhino]

Here is a small digest of the reply to Microsoft:

"WHAT? You don't know me? Why, I am famous. Yes I am so, so famous! You must be an idiot if you don't know my name! Why I am your worse nightmare! I said that in a very famous online flame war! I am the famous open source guy! I am up there with Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds. You have heard of them, but you never head of me? But I am famous! Your an idiot if you don't know who I am!"

What a pompous ass!

Can't we get some open source advocates with charisma? Maybe we could all pitch in and hire an out of work TV actor to be our open source spokesperson, instead of the usual juvenile socially disaffected geeks.

Re:Full of himself...

[justforaday]

Can't we get some open source advocates with charisma?

Sure, but they'll only have a 10 or 11 in wisdom and intelligence...

Re:Full of himself...

[Alomex]

Eric Raymond is an idiot. He was known as an idiot in the usenet world, and he is known as an idiot in the OSS world. In between those he wrote a very thoughtful essay called "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", but he went back to idiot mode right after he wrote the last word in that essay.

Re:Full of himself...

[dirtydog]

Like maybe, oh, I don't know - this guy?

http://www.wilwheaton.net/

Re:Full of himself...

[kevcol]

Setting up email gardens at Linux World in 1999, those of us with VA's tech support staff got one-off shirts for the show. Someone not on with VA present there commented on how he might get one of those shirts. Raymond pops up with "I'm a DIRECTOR. I can get as many of those shirts as I want!"

He is an ass.

Re:Full of himself...

[jcr]

Maybe we could all pitch in and hire an out of work TV actor to be our open source spokesperson

Sounds good to me. What's this guy doing?

-jcr

Re:Full of himself...

[scholzie]

Carrie Anne Moss used nmap in Matrix Reloaded. Maybe she wants the position.

Re:Full of himself...

[satan666]

I thought it was a very funny reply.

I would've just told them to go fuck themselves but not everybody is as well spoken as me.

Re:Full of himself...

[FurryFeet]

You know, with most of us having 6-7 ST and CN, you'd think we could get some more points into CH. This class is utterly unbalanced.

Re:Full of himself...

[RexRhino]

I was making a joke about the TV actor thing, but Will Wheaton isn't that bad of an idea.

Will Wheaton is no Ricardo Montalban, be he would at least be charasmatic enough not to do more harm than good.

And seeing as he is a bit of an open-source geek, hopefully he would do it for free.

Re:Full of himself...

[demachina]

"Maybe we could all pitch in and hire an out of work TV actor"

I vote for Leo Laporte, the easy going guy from TechTV who fits your description to a tee though I think he might be getting his old job back recently. He would be a million times better as an open source advocate than Raymond, of course tha could be said of anyone.

Raymond can't seem to write more than two consecutive sentences with out tilting in to the worst stereotype of an open source fanatic. He reinforces all the bad part of the bad image open source fanatics have and seems to add nothing positive other than maybe, um, passion. I remember the time he showed up to one of the Microsoft protests dressed as a Jedi Knight, how much of a bad stereotype reinforcement is that.

Of course we would need to figure out how to pay Leo. ESR seems to have done his cashing in on VA Linux stock. Remember VA Linux? As nearly as I can tell they created a semi phony Linux hardware company and IPO'ed right at the heart of the Linux craze. To the positive they gave stock and a lot of cash to worthy open source developers but Augustine and ESR(he was on the board) made a shitload of undeserved money cashing in on Linux, and about a week after the IPO completely abandoned their entire business model and screwed all their employees and investors.

Re:Full of himself...

[infinite9]

Maybe we could all pitch in and hire an out of work TV actor to be our open source spokesperson

Yeah! Out with that stupid flightless sea bird and in with David Hasselhoff!

Re:Full of himself...

[rmdir -r *]

Doesn't Wil Wheaton have a slashdot account? Perhaps we should ask him...

Re:Full of himself...

[OldManAndTheC]

That made me wonder how our President might fare as an RPG character:

Name: George W. Bush
Race: Republican
Class: Rogue
Charisma: 14
Constitution: 16 (affected by generous workout and vacation schedule)
Dexterity: 12
Intelligence: 9 (the level at which diction becomes impaired)
Wisdom: 8
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Feats: Deflect Criticism, Blame Previous Administration, Appeal to Base

Cannot cast Empathy or Listen (negatively affected by race: Republican)

Re:Full of himself...

[zcat_NZ]

Why I am your worse nightmare! I said that in a very famous online flame war!

It was an elevator. What's amusing is that at the time RMS had NO IDEA who Craig Mundie even was, he only knew that he worked for Microsoft because his nametag said so.

Re:Full of himself...

[mollymoo]

Name: George W. Bush
[...]
Intelligence: 9 (the level at which diction becomes impaired)

There's nothing wrong with George's diction - he has two children!

Microsoft's Secret Recruiting Methods

[lildogie]

Microsoft says Dr. Kai-Fu Lee shouldn't go to work for Google, in part, because the Dr. has knowledge of Microsoft's proprietary recruiting strategies.

Maybe they mean that, after working at Microsoft, he knows what _not_ to do.

HR also was given the names

[FerretFrottage]

S. Jobs
L. Page
S. Brin
L. Ellison
D. Zamos (lesser known but if you digg you'll find him)

Full Email and Response

[firepacket]

Email FROM Microsoft:

From: "Mike Walters (Search Wizards)" v-mikewa@microsoft.com
To: esr@thyrsus.com

Eric,

I am a member of the Microsoft Central Sourcing Team. Microsoft is seeking world class engineers to help create products that help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential.

Your name and contact info was brought to my attention as someone who could potentially be a contributor at Microsoft. I would love an opportunity to speak with you in detail about your interest in a career at Microsoft, along with your experience, background and qualifications. I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have and can also provide you with any information I have available in regard to the positions and work life at Microsoft.

Please take a moment to visit My Calendar http://www.appointmentquest.com/provider/201022492 7> online to schedule a convenient time for me to contact you. You can learn more about our vision for the New World of Work at http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail> http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail.

Additionally, if you are aware of any current or previous colleagues who might also be interested in opportunities at Microsoft, I would be happy to speak with them as well. Referrals are always welcome, and are greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance and I look forward to an opportunity to speak to you in the near future

Best regards,

Mike Walters
CST Senior Recruiter

Microsoft
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052



The reply email:

To: "Mike Walters (Search Wizards)"
From: esr@thyrsus.com

I'd thank you for your offer of employment at Microsoft, except that it indicates that either you or your research team (or both) couldn't get a clue if it were pounded into you with baseball bats. What were you going to do with the rest of your afternoon, offer jobs to Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds? Or were you going to stick to something easier, like talking Pope Benedict into presiding at a Satanist orgy?

If you had bothered to do five seconds of background checking, you might have discovered that I am the guy who responded to Craig Mundie's "Who are you?" with "I'm your worst nightmare", and that I've in fact been something pretty close to your company's worst nightmare since about 1997. You've maybe heard about this "open source" thing? You get one guess who wrote most of the theory and propaganda for it and talked IBM and Wall Street and the Fortune 500 into buying in. But don't think I'm trying to destroy your company. Oh, no; I'd be just as determined to do in any other proprietary-software monopoly, and the community I helped found is well on its way to accomplishing that goal.

On the day *I* go to work for Microsoft, faint oinking sounds will be heard from far overhead, the moon will not merely turn blue but develop polkadots, and hell will freeze over so solid the brimstone will go superconductive.

But I must thank you for dropping a good joke on my afternoon. On that hopefully not too far distant day that I piss on Microsoft's grave, I sincerely hope none of it will splash on you.

Cordially yours,
Eric S. Raymond

Hes kinda rude to the poor guy isnt he? :-(

Steps for successful hiring.

[twifosp]

1. Hire person you don't like.
2. Sneak egregious non-compete clause into hiring agreement.
3. Get hiring agreement signed.
4. Fire person.
5. Wait until they go back to working for an open-source company making even the slightest bit of income.
6. Sue everyone involved.
7. Profit!
8. Dismantle the company, you know, just for kicks.

Re:Steps for successful hiring.

[blackomegax]

if you sign a non compete, and then violate it. simply dont tell the contract holder. they'd be hard pressed to stalk you and find out what you're doing.

Re:Steps for successful hiring.

[twifosp]

This is microsoft we're talking about here. And that's not true. I work for a very large PC vendor & I've heard of least 3 non-compete clauses at a VP level being enforced. I've also heard of one being waved.

Job offer???

[atlacatl]

C'mon...The email wasn't a job offer - It was an invitation to talk to an HR dude - Nothing more.

I think everyone with a resume on the web gets the M$ invitation to talk an HR guy.

This is my story: http://www.josesandoval.com/2005/01/penskee-materi al-microsoft-way.html

And this was part of the templated email I received:

• ...number of hiring managers in the Office SharePoint Server, Windows Search, Content Management Server and Project Management Server teams [Had seen my resume and that] one, or as many as all, of these teams and their hiring managers have expressed an interest in contacting you [me] regarding positions at Microsoft that might map well to your experience and qualifications.

A bit presumptuous, no? And very harsh to the HR dude. Just don't hurt yourself on the way down from your self erected pedestal :)

BTW, I don't know who Eric is...So there...

Scheme to Kill Open Source

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth is that Open Source is a formidable nemesis of Microsoft. To deal with this threat, Microsoft is trying to hire away the most formidable opponents in the enemy camp. This procedure is classic textbook strategy taught in any MBA program in this country.

Google did the same thing when it hired away the top gun at Microsoft to run the new Google research center in China.

Re:Scheme to Kill Open Source

[MightyMartian]

I have to concur. It's very clear that MS is, at the very least, invoking the Godfather's philosophy of keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer. We all know what happens when someone gets swallowed into Microsoft, they become marketing yes-men that do contentless interviews with Slashdot editors. "We'll give you a bunch of money if you'll just spout the company line."

hand in hand

[Anonymous Coward]

from esr's response it sounds like he and ballmer would get along nicely.

There's a flip side though....

[King_TJ]

As I've seen in my own job hunt, and as many of my friends can also testify who are seeking employment right now - there is a lot of arrogance on the part of *employers* too!

It's fine to preach about practicing "professionalism" in a job search, but there's also something to be said for the individual who isn't afraid to "tell it like it is" when a proespective employer demands far too much or illustrates utter cluelessness.

EG. A lady I know was trying to get hired on at a high-end furniture store in town. She was originally seeking a position in commission-based sales, because it appeared the potential was there to earn the type of money she needs to take care of her family. (She's divorced with 3 kids and has to make house payments, a car payment, etc. etc. And she's only getting child support payments sporadically - and when they come, they don't nearly cover the basic bills.) Despite explaining her situation during the interview, the manager she interviewed with seemed to conclude that with her education and background, she'd be a better fit for one of their accounting positions. Fine, except it only paid about $9/hr.! Nobody would even consider discussing the sales openings with her after that, and it just fell on deaf ears that $9/hr. wasn't going to cut it....

(And don't forget, this is a business that sells one of the most marked-up items around... expensive furniture. On average, everything they sell goes for well over 200% of cost, and the store moves a lot of product too!)

She *could* have just politely declined the offer and moved on, but instead, she ripped into the guy about it. I say good for her! Maybe... just maybe, they'll give some more thought to the wisdom of expecting to get good candidates with 4 year college degrees to oversee all of their income and expenses, while paying them far LESS than any of the sales staff makes. Maybe they'll wake up a bit and realize that it takes a little more than some $9/hr. job to raise a family on.

Nothing's going to change when everyone just smiles and pretends that they're ever so happy to be given the opportunity to get bent over and screwed with a crappy job offer.

Re:There's a flip side though....

[Shakrai]

She *could* have just politely declined the offer and moved on, but instead, she ripped into the guy about it. I say good for her! Maybe... just maybe, they'll give some more thought to the wisdom of expecting to get good candidates with 4 year college degrees to oversee all of their income and expenses, while paying them far LESS than any of the sales staff makes. Maybe they'll wake up a bit and realize that it takes a little more than some $9/hr. job to raise a family on.

And maybe, just maybe, a year or two from now that asshole will no longer be working there. She'll go back to interview again with somebody who is more receptive and understands how it is.... but her resume won't even make it to him because the Administrative Assistant remembers her rant and doesn't think she is cut out to work there.

Twist that scenario in any number of ways you want. There is no reason to act unprofessionally even if they deserve it. For five minutes of pleasure and some euphoria at "giving them what they deserved" you will have burned your bridges. That can only come back to bite you in the ass in the long run.

Re:There's a flip side though....

[King_TJ]

I don't think it's about getting that "5 minutes of euphoria" (or at least, it shouldn't be). Rather, it's the realization that sometimes, there are bridges worth burning. Yeah, you might not ever be able to cross them again, but maybe you've saved a lot of other people some heartache when they waste time crossing them.

Personally, if I was treated as "expendable/undervalued/worthless" by a potential employer, I wouldn't ever consider re-applying there again anyway. I really don't get these people who quit (or even get fired) from a place, only to take another job there a few years later. Sure, you can say "Well, the person who was the problem is gone now." - but it almost always runs much deeper than that. It's a whole sickness in the corporate culture of the business, most of the time. They have a structure that allows people to get promoted to management for the wrong reasons, etc. Recipe for repeated disaster/failure/problems - even if there's a "calm before the storm" because by sheer luck, they happened to promote a few people who had a clue.

In the "big picture" - expressing anger can always, theoretically, come back to bite you in the ass. But how many of us can go through life acting perfectly happy with everyone we run into, and every situation we encounter? I'd say practically nobody unless they're on heavy medication....

Re:There's a flip side though....

[Karl Cocknozzle]

Despite explaining her situation during the interview

Mistake #1: Telling them she's a single mom. In the United states the interviewer simply can't ask about your marital status or whether you have kids or not. Employers (especially sleazier ones--and furniture stores are almost as sleazy as a used-car lot) have been known to not hire single moms because they perceive them to be a liability and constant source of problems. You gain no advantage by telling them you are--and are in fact disadvantaged by revealing that info.

Nothing's going to change when everyone just smiles and pretends that they're ever so happy to be given the opportunity to get bent over and screwed with a crappy job offer.

That may be true, but they wouldn't have invited her to interview if they weren't interested in her for the sales job. Likely the manager heard she was a single mom and decided she would be a problem. But rather than not hire her for being a mom (which would be discrimination) he simply offerred her a shitty job he knew she wouldn't take to get rid of her, which isn't technically discrimination. If she had kept her mouth shut about "her situation" and focused on getting the job by demonstrating her skills for it, she would have either gotten or not gotten the job based on her ability, rather than being discounted based on a "single-mom" stereotype.

By blabbing on about her kids, she gave the interviewer a reason to not hire her. That is all an interview is--demonstrating your skills while not giving them a reason to disqualify you.

There are many great books available to help people improve their interviewing skills, and it sounds like your friend needs to look one of them over before her next interview.

Re:There's a flip side though....

[King_TJ]

Life is what you make of it.... If you want to go around being a "whipping boy", taking abuse and just sucking it up with a credo of "Life's unfair.... oh well!" - then go right ahead.

But change tends to come from the people who aren't afraid to speak out, and do decidedly "non P.C." things at times.

Re:There's a flip side though....

[LaCosaNostradamus]

There is no reason to act unprofessionally even if they deserve it.

Their unprofessionalism must not go unpunished, or it will grow. The IT industry is now rife with unprofessional behavior on the employer side, and it has grown in part due to the desperation and meekness of the workers.

Being an employer doesn't exempt you from the law, from paying taxes, or from treating people with respect. When the latter raises its nasty head, it should be attacked. Such an attack may seem unprofessional itself, but that's the price to be paid for waging ECONOMIC WARFARE.

In a war, you have the language of war. That's something the rational man should expect.

Burning a bridge with a pack of arseholes on the other side is the very definition of sense. Let the arseholes be corralled onto an island that few people seek to swim to, since ALL the bridges will be down. Their isolation will be their punishment. The employee market will speak.

Re:There's a flip side though....

[covertbadger]

Despite explaining her situation during the interview, the manager she interviewed with seemed to conclude that with her education and background, she'd be a better fit for one of their accounting positions.

Look, I'm sorry your friend didn't get the job and everything, but the furniture store doesn't owe her a living. Her 'situation' is a reason for her to look for a high-paying job; it's not a reason for her to be given a high-paying job. You're quick to jump on the guy doing the hiring, and maybe you've read the situation correctly and the guy's a complete asshole, but have you stopped to consider that maybe your friend's qualifications weren't suitable, and she was offered the accounting position with the best of intentions? In which case, getting angry and aggressive about it was a pretty shit way to behave.

Re:There's a flip side though....

[antirename]

Agreed. I've turned down shitty jobs and the would-be-employer tried to look shocked, hurt, and offended when I did. The shocked part almost looked real, and I feel sorry for whoever took the job. I was polite and professional, though, so I didn't burn any bridges even if those companies are on the "I'd rather be homeless" list. There are people desperate enough to take those jobs, and a lot of them have families, and that's really depressing.

Re:There's a flip side though....

[chrispatch]

I absolutely agree with this. An old sergeant in the army once taught me -- " Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate"."

Ballmer and Raymond, a Match in Heaven

[tjstork]

Steve Ballmer and Eric Raymond have the exact same personality.

Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.

Eric should go work for Microsoft. He fits right in.

In other hiring news...

[moviepig.com]

Dear Gabriel,

The search firm of Avarice & Gluttony tells me that you may have grown weary of tooting your current employer's horn.

Be advised that we have a corner office ready and waiting (...although the air-conditioning's on the fritz).

Call me.

-Lucifer

Appointment with Microsoft

[brainee28]

Did anybody notice that the HR recruiter wasn't using Microsoft software to post appointments? I checked out the site, and it's a 3rd party online scheduling software...I would think MS would want their people using their CRM or some kind of MS product to do scheduling.

it would skew the odds the wrong way

[ChipMonk]

Microsoft Bob
Clippy
Outlook Express

Why would you want to make ESR more qualified to create products like those?

What a tool.

[maelstrom]

I'd rather work for Microsoft than have anything to do with someone who writes an e-mail like that and is proud of himself after doing so.

Re:What a tool.

[Jherek Carnelian]

I'd rather work for Microsoft than have anything to do with someone who writes an e-mail like that and is proud of himself after doing so.

At least he is his own tool and not bill gates's tool.

Re:What a tool.

[Anthony Liguori]

FWIW, I was going to write a response aftering reading the article with the exact same subject line as you did :-)

"What a tool." just summarizes the article so well.

erm...

[toby]

one guess who wrote most of the theory and propaganda for it and talked IBM and Wall Street and the Fortune 500 into buying in

Methinks that over-reaches just a little. Apart from the fact that "propaganda" is a poor choice of word - although it may describe ESR's output - open source pioneers were working effectively in principle long before ESR was out of diapers.

Despite ESR's strenuous self-promotion, the fact is that RMS was of course principally responsible for what we know as open source philosophy and its legal framework. ESR is only one of the slightly loopy hangers-on... valuable, but as is usually the case, in inverse proportion to his ego.

And then there is the Second Act, in which he plans to take credit for the inevitable disintegration of M$. Sorry Eric, that's going to take the whole community to achieve, unless you plan to take your arsenal to Redmond...

Indeed.

[game kid]

Jesus and Moses wouldn't be on the cover of GQ these days...but you gotta admit Mr. Raymond has a slight My Name is Earl style goin' on...

Obligatory modified Simpsons quote

[ganhawk]

Obligatory SImpsons quote:

Bill Gates and two "associates" enter.

GATES
Your resume was brought to my attention, but I can't figure out what, if anything, you do, so rather than risk competing with you, I've decided simply to buy you out.

ESR
This is it! I've poured my heart and soul into this propaganda and now it's finally paying off. (covering his mouth) I am rich! Richer than astronauts.
(to Gates) I reluctantly accept your proposal!

GATES
Well everyone always does. Buy 'em out, boys!

Bill Gates companions begin to trash the "office".

ESR
Hey, what the hell's going on!

GATES
Oh, I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks!

$20?! I wanted a peanut!

[Thud457]

With the new accounting rules making stock options less attractive to offer by employers, Microsoft is probably having a harder time recruiting.

That, and they probably thought a FOSS weinie would work for peanuts -- hell, they usually work for free!

Not a metaphor

[MAXOMENOS]

He has a wife. I met her in 1999 at the Atlanta Linux Showcase. She's a good-looking woman, too.

Nightmare

[claes]

Looks like ESR will turn out to be the worst nightmare of the open source movement too.

Johnson, take a look at this!

[Gruneun]

I've in fact been something pretty close to your company's worst nightmare since about 1997... wrote most of the theory and propaganda for [open source] and talked IBM and Wall Street and the Fortune 500 into buying in...I'd be just as determined to do in any other proprietary-software monopoly.

MS Exec: "Dear Lord, this guy is full of the worst concoction of bullshit and self-importance I've ever seen. We have to get him a position in marketing."

Don't be so arrogant

[bcmm]

What were you going to do with the rest of your afternoon, offer jobs to Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds?

Eric S. Raymond, if you're reading this /. article, let me remind you: you are not Linus or RMS. Even if you do see yourself as being as influential as them, saying so comes across as arrogant.

Linus started off Linux, Stallman wrote the main code of GCC, GDB and Emacs (we'll forgive him that one ;-). You wrote fetchmail (and several converters, minor utilities and drivers for esoteric hardware). Nothing like GCC or Linux. You've certainly created publicity (positive and negative), but they have written important code, and you tend to look worse for making the comparison.

did he type his reply in MS Word/ Outlook?

[krumbs]

tried posting this on his site. no luck.

"err, maybe i am wrong, but it looks as if you used Microsoft Word (or was it Outlook?) to type your reply. ie, in "Who are you?" and "open source", the angled quotes look just like those horrible Word-specials."

Standard Microsoft Email

[Peachy]

Microsoft have a standard recruiting letter they send out. Keith Peters got the same letter, see his blog. About time they changed the wording : Keith also turned down Microsoft.

Why?

[JahToasted]

Why hasn't everyone started just ignoring everything ESR says? He is obviously a nutcase. Yeah he wrote one semi-interesting essay about open source, but what has he done lately? The only reason to keep him a part of "the movement" is that RMS looks like a reasonable person next to him.

Not just arrogant, Arrogant Gas Baron!

[dan g]

Anyone remember this April Fool's post to linux-kernel?

so it's spam then

[sum.zero]

seems to me that this is spam if they are an outside vendor and they aren't contacting him with an actual job offer.

tomorrow i will submit my article about how i received a 'job' offer from a twenty-year-old teenage virgin whore gone wild who is hopped up on verbal viagra and cheap meds from canada!

sum.zero

ps ms encourages spam! ;P

Re:so it's spam then

[ifwm]

Of course, that would also make whoever decide this was a "job offer" a liar.

Embellishment to embarrass Microsoft? NEVER!

Re:so it's spam then

[jez9999]

who is hopped up on verbal viagra

Is that when they start talking about computers and D&D?

Re:so it's spam then

[Bun]

If you can actually phone said virgin and ask her how she got your name and why she contacted you, I suggest you go ahead and submit the article.

Proves that Yahoo beats MSN Maps!

[IntruMetrics]

Even Microsoft uses Yahoo Maps, not mappoint.msn.com! Microsoft One Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052 http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?Pyt=Tmap&addr=One +Microsoft+Way&csz=Re dmond%2C+WA+98052&country=us>

What the hell?

[Sheepdot]

I like how everyone on here berates him for how he responded.

Seriously, what you *you* do? Be polite for the sake of professionalism or make a fun joke out of the whole thing that you can tell for years to come?

Re:What the hell?

[Tankko]

I would hope they would be polite and professional. If you wouldn't, then I would have no desire to work with in, no matter what the company. People need to grow up to be taken seriously.

Excellent.

[bigtallmofo]

What a pompous ass.

Couldn't have picked a better name for this idiot. With morons like this at the helm, it's a shame but no wonder that most people use Windows on their desktop.

Re:Excellent.

[Synn]

No one is really "at the helm" for Linux, except maybe Linus who's a pretty level headed guy. Linux has influences which can be people or projects and ESR was an influence in the late 90's(he wrote an article that was pretty much responsible for Mozilla going open source).

But the influences on Linux change from year to year.

Common practice

[tji]

It sounds like there was nothing close to a job offer here, just a recruiter spamming possible candidates.

But, if they did know who he was, then it was probably just an information gathering mission, which is pretty common. Bring someone from your competitor in, dangle a high paying job in front of them, and grab as much information as they are willing to give. Then, come up with some excuse about organizational changes, and the position being eliminated or delayed..

I would think this technique would work very well on someone who seems very insecure -- constantly needing to prove his worth, and loves to hear himself talk.

It's really too bad.. MS hiring ESR would be the best thing that could happen to the free software movement. Eliminate a jackass that somehow gets quoted as authoritative in the press, and inject all that bullshit inside of MS.

Har-Har

[hahiss]

Wow, this result makes ESR sound like an immature 12-year-old loser who *FINALLY* got his first chance to be nasty to someone.

But even on this front is was pretty feeble; I mean, he didn't use an 1337 5p34k, question the sexuality of the person, or insist that all of Microsoft's base belong to us.

Quite the ambassador for the F/OSS movement indeed. . . .

Yuk.

[Spy der Mann]

I read his "strong response", but I'd classify it more as "insulting response".

Here's what *I* would have answered, had I been in his place:

Dear X: Maybe someone put a joke on you, see, I'm the people who lured away X, Y and Z companies away from your proprietary products to replace them with Linux. I'm an open source evangelist as you can see in A, B and C webpages. There I state explicitly that by the time I joined Microsoft, Hell would freeze over. Yes, I hate Microsoft and I think it's pure evil.

Seriously, you need to spend *a bit* more time doing background checks. Hey, you're Microsoft people, you can surely write an automated tool to do a google (oops, MS) search or something.

As I have no personal quarrel against you, I'm not going to insult you, but, seriously, the moment I saw that e-mail I felt outraged and insulted. I really have an urge to tell you one or two things, but I'll spare that - I can just invite you to read my webpages :)

Oh, in case you want a short, concise answer, it's NO, I WILL NOT WORK FOR MICROSOFT. EVER.

Thank you, and have a nice day :)"

PGP signature: blahblahblah.

There ya go, informal but professional. Soft, but strong at the same time.

Microsoft sending a message to all the unemployed!

[miffo.swe]

"You want to work for Microsoft?
Would you like to be part of a really big company?

Make a significant contribution for Linux and well hire you!"

Honestly i dont think MS really can hire away the talent that works on Linux and all the various bits and pieces surrounding it. Maybe they snag away some poeple out of employment but i cant see that as a bad thing for the community. The signal is clearly that linux people is sought after, even by Microsoft.

Re:So in other words,

[symbolic]

They chose to test the water by sticking their little pinky toe in, before diving in head first.

Open Letter to ESR

[Cytlid]

I hope he reads this.

  I'm a huge fan. I'm currently reading "The Cathedral and the Bazzar" and like it quite a bit. I use Linux solely at home and things like Firefox on my company-enabled laptop. I work for an ISP and pride myself on being a networking/Linux guy. I don't dispise Microsoft, but I do have to support their OS sometimes for work, and usually see windows as a "client" OS, not of my choice.

  I'm sure most people appreciate the zeal and fervor in which you declined the offer... in some ways, accepting a job from them would be not only an insult to you, but quite possibly even a demotion. If you're completely happy with what you've accomplished and your goals, fantastic. If you feel you have more work to do, even better. I'd like to think you're doing so for the improvement of our time here on this planet.

  But I have to admit, some of us might have taken the job. Take me for example. Sure, I have a pretty nice job, and I'm a Linux geek, but a job offer from any large company would be a dream come true for me. I'm "noone important" that MS would have gone after for pure political reasons, to control or hinder with crazy noncompete clauses or insane contracts.

  But a job at MS (or any "large company") at this point would help me out. I feel the same as many of the posters here on slashdot... I agree with your ideas, but in this particular instance, I think you give us a bad name. They're beating you at their game. Please don't let that happen.

  Someday maybe I'll take a much better position at a larger place... hopefully it will be a Google or similar and not an MS. Till then, I'll be happy in my current job and keep up to date with the software, the ideas and the literature, as well as the hearts and minds of the people.

                                                          -- FLR (*my* initials)

Hey! Me, too!

[R3d M3rcury]

This year, I've gotten a couple of calls from Microsoft.

The first was from one of the managers who had gotten my resumé from a recruiter. We swapped a few e-mails and he sent me the "e-mail interview." Since most of the questions were about Windows, I didn't bother to fill it out. I checked and discovered that I could find most of the answers on Google, but I felt that wouldn't really be a fair way to test my knowledge of Windows--which is essentially nil--and I figured that when I told them that I used Google to answer all the questions, they'd probably not be interested anyway so it would be a waste of time to even reply.

About six months later, I got a call from one of the recruiters at Microsoft. I chatted with him a bit on the phone and discovered that they had found my resumé on-line and that it had appropriate keywords (Network, Kernel, Security, etc.). Essentially, they're looking for people with kernel experience. The fact that my experience is as a Macintosh developer seemed secondary to having the skills and interest in working on kernel programming.

I was polite and told him that I didn't think I'd be a good match because I'm not all that interested in moving to the Pacific Northwest to work on the Windows kernel. I thanked him for the call and said to keep me in mind if anything opens up in the Mac Business Unit.

But the recruiter was a pretty nice guy. He said that he'd gotten lots of calls from people who told him to fuck off and die. Personally, I think that's rude. Even if you hate Microsoft, a simple "Sorry, not interested" would be much better. Act like a jerk now and all you've done is indelibly etched yourself into his mind. Not to mention that recruiters talk to each other. Send back a rude e-mail and he shows it to some friends and they remember the name, too. In ten years, when Microsoft is bankrupt and destroyed and this recruiter or one of his friends is working for a really cool Linux company, how far do you think your resumé is going to get?

I agree that, in the case of Eric Raymond, somebody must have been having a spot of fun with the recruiter. But, as the saying goes, it never hurts to ask. Maybe Eric would be interested in coming to Microsoft and showing them how to do it right.

Does he respond to Nigerian scammers, too?

[ValourX]

If a form letter asking for a telephone screening constitutes a job offer for Eric Raymond, I wonder if porn spam counts as a proposition for sex for him too.

And each Nigerian scammer is an offer for a multimillion-dollar business deal, I suppose?

To ESR: Take the damn job

[FhnuZoag]

Really, the guy is a freaking liability. The only things he can say now is worthless flamebait, and he hasn't made a positive contribution to F/OSS for an age. If he takes the Microsoft job, he might get Microsoft to understand free software a bit better, or he might just drive a few microsoft guys insane. We can't lose!

That's right.

[tjstork]

Raymond promotes himself as more than Kernighan, Ritchie, Stroustrap, Torvalds, Joy, Stallman, Ramey, and Wall and yet I don't think he's even close to being as valuable.

What I would do...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten such a letter, but if I did, I think it would be at least amusing to go to a job interview.

For one thing, maybe Microsoft is "moving towards open source". Maybe you could help them. But, if hell is not yet superconductive, it'd still be fun to confuse all the PR people.

I would consider working for Microsoft, IF I was given a sufficient amount of control over my own project, AND it was GPL'd and free of patents. Which, if Microsoft was thinking straight, wouldn't be such a bad idea -- it'd be great PR, and it'd produce great software, something they seem incapable of on their own.

I would NOT consider working for Microsoft if it was on something like "Services for Unix".

Re:What I would do...

[Mr. Underbridge]

I would consider working for Microsoft, IF I was given a sufficient amount of control over my own project, AND it was GPL'd and free of patents. Which, if Microsoft was thinking straight, wouldn't be such a bad idea -- it'd be great PR, and it'd produce great software, something they seem incapable of on their own.

Um, just because you GPL something, doesn't instantly make it good.

The truth..

[Andrewkov]

"Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer" -- Bill Gates.

ESR's Maturity Level

[blibbler]

After reading this, it is not difficult to understand why Open Source is not treated seriously. That ESR was offered a job at Microsoft is inherently interesting and amusing; his (public) reply makes him sound like a 14 year old boy trying to impress his friends with false stories of sexual prowess.

Re:ESR's Maturity Level

[ledow]

His reply may be immature but then, it's basically what I'd say in a similar situation (though I'm not nearly as popular that MS would want me) and what everyone else in the world is thinkign. The linked page states that there was in fact a very polite phone reply to the gentleman at MS.

Personally, I'd rather work with, buy stuff from and generally be around someone who not only speaks his mind but also has enough of a sense of humour to share it with people.

In the same way that Open Source is all nerdy hackers sitting in back bedrooms trying to persuade their mum to let them stay up to finish their latest bit of code, this reply represents Open Source. (Just to clarify, that means that it doesn't, in any way, shape or form.)

Anyone stupid enough to take this seriously would need a mental run up to tackle a crossword clue that read "A five letter word meaning a stupid person, beginning with I, meaning someone too stupid to know what a five letter word, meaning a stupid person, beginning with I is."

And then we look at the facts - MS, the largest, richest company in the world, ***is*** taking OS seriously because it's trying to recruit some of it's top people. Oh, and IBM and the rest of them. One person's reply does not a movement make and you only need a sense of humour to appreciate this.

Re:ESR's Maturity Level

[COBOL/MVS]

Yes, but a polite refusal would have been fine. The email he sent to the guy was clearly immature.

How can you say that his reply represents open source? The projects I've been involved with or have been a user of have never ever replied to any of my inquiries that way. Perhaps in your book, it does.

Re:ESR's Maturity Level

[blibbler]

I think it is clear that the only one who takes ESR seriously is ESR.

Seriously, "I've in fact been something pretty close to your company's worst nightmare since about 1997"? Who does he think he is, google?

Re:ESR's Maturity Level

[sparkz]

http://www.catb.org/~esr/who-is-ESR.html ... the URL says it all!

Read more of his writings, especially his Sex God stuff:
Well, what do you think happens when you start channelling the freaking God of Sex Himself? Yes, ESR is a self-confessed Sex God.

I'm kind of important....

[Banishedwun]

You might know me, I'm kind of important. I have many leather bound books.

I enjoyed it

[midicase]

I enjoyed the read and was slightly jealous it was not me writing that letter. How many people get to tell MS to "shove it" in more than one sense. Was it odd? Sure it was, but OS is not always about following the rules or protocols.

Guns

[gallir]

This wouldn't happen if USA citizens have the freedom to carry guns.

Re:Guns

[Indy1]

if you live in the right state, you DO have that freedom.

www.packing.org

And then...

[geomon]

ESR points his .45 at his computer monitor and shouts "YOU HEAR ME MICROSOFT!!??! Just GIVE me and excuse to USE this thing!!"

My Response to his reponse

[MrCopilot]

I read the polite letter from Microsoft's outside recruiter.

I read the (I piss on you) response from ESR

I wrote my own response to his response.

BEGIN QUOTE ->
Without parroting every other post, I'm dissapointed. Your time is precious I'm sure, but, I would have hoped you would take this opportunity to get some more insight and find out what they offer you. Even If you found it unnacceptable, you could report the results. What if they want to set up a new open source steering group at MS. You're content to leave that job in the Gentoo guys hands alone surrounded by MS borg engineers. If you are the visionary you claim (I make no judgement either way, I appreciate the work you do.) you need to know where/how your enemy is strategizing. From the outside you can react, from the inside you can be proactive. (Think along the lines of AOL and Nullsoft. You see it now?)

Once again I am saddened. Maybe RMS and Linus will think out their responses a little more carefully. I really have a hard time understanding why you chose a typical slashdiot antiMS diatribe.

We do/will coexist with these guys. 2 PCs in my office 1 Windows, 1 Linux. (about 125 embedded linux devices in varying stages of programming) The more we can convince them of the advantages of working with us, the less they will work against us. You have a position of some authority in the FOSS community, which should be used it wisely/judiciously. I would have fired you if you sent that response through my server. Very Unproffessional.

Having said that, I also understand that you hold firmly to your convictions. As an individual, you have every right to express yourself like an ass, and you have yet again exercised that right. (In my opinion to the detriment of us all.)

Then again, Maybe its all much simpler. Maybe just Maybe you were afraid you wouldn't be able to say no (alleged convictions be damned) to the dump truck full of scratch they were gonna offer you, Surely you won't have to make that tough choice now. But you also have ruined any chance of steering change from the inside.

Then there is the peer pressure issue. Maybe you saw the reaction/backlash to Daniel Robbins accepting a position at MS. But careful reading of that backlash will lead you right through all the points of this post.

Maybe its simpler than all that and you are a juvenile sophmoric technophile. Having read almost all of your writings and speeches and books, I hadn't come to that conclusion. Could you just clear it up for me? I can't quite decide.

- End QUOTE

He should have followed-up

[HWguy]

I think he should have followed-up and seen how far he could get in the interview process. Be very polite to the head-hunter and see if he could score an interview at Microsoft's expense.

Now that would have been a laugh. Of course it might have been damaging to his ego if he actually started the interview and the people he spoke with didn't know who he was.

ESR is not a man, he is a unit

[jbrandon]

of ego.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

He flipped out and KILLED a dude ...

[Anonymous Coward]

ESR can kill anyone he wants! ESR cuts off heads ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. This guy is so crazy and awesome that he flips out ALL the time. I heard that ESR was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon then ESR killed the whole town. My friend Mark who was at LinuxWorld said that he saw ESR totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.

Ho Ho Ho!

[Hard_Code]

Take that Evil Microsoft Recruiter! ZING! Didn't expect that did ya? That will teach your for all your, um, recruiting! IN YOUR FACE!

Seriously, I bet this guy is like many other presumably ideologically neutral incidental Microsoft employees who probably doesn't give a shit about ESR or his snyde comebacks. He probably has a pile of 1000s of other people to email.

Good one, ESR

[dantheman82]

I love the line in the sig of the recruiter. "How far will you go?" I guess he went pretty far - it takes a certain level of pompousness that rather scares me when he mentioned "on that hopefully not too far distant day that I piss on Microsoft's grave." This "I-will-outlive-your-company" attitude smacks of some type of religious war where it almost seems he would be standing there cheering over the death of a large company while 60,000 people are now without jobs.

However, one little rant. Everytime people bring up ESR, someone has to mention his ideas about guns. This is serious ad hominem and irrelevant to the discussion at hand...unless if it points out that he's really not the FOSS advocate he claims he is but simply a pompous windbag.

Rated R

[linumax]

Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA, through the Classification and Rating Administration (CARA) issued an R rating to ESR's response!
R - Restricted - Can contain mature themes (usually sex and/or violence). Children under 17 not admitted without an adult.

Re:Rated R

[linumax]

So this is not suitable material for most people on slashdot ,the age I mean

./ worthiness

[dusik]

>> "clearly not /. worthy news"

The job offer isn't. ESR's reply is. It's bad for all of us, him acting as such a child on our behalf.

It's odd saying that, him being over twice my age... but he truly does have an ego, and it's *not* helping F/OSS.

So yes, I think that is, alas, newsworthy.

Eloquent with rage

[crovira]

is the phrase I usually use to describe how people make the best speech they'll ever regret. (Made quite a few of those in my time.)

Now if Steve Balmer get a massive coronary, (with all that jumping around, sweating and spewing gibberish,) and Bill Gates suddenly deveops a conscience (Nah, never happen...) he might have been the person to show Microsoft the path to the light.

Won't happen now...

Never say "no" - quote an astronomical price

[Madwand]

Very old rule: never say "no" - just quote an astronomical price to the people you don't want to work for. Who knows? They might say "yes" and you'll become really rich or powerful.

I've been approached by Microsoft a few times. My answer is always the same: I'll work for them if I get the authority to prevent any/all product from shipping if the product does anything with or to the Internet that isn't standards compliant. No more "embrace and extend." No more proprietary protocols and file formats.

They usually smile and walk away after that.

appointmentquest.com ....

[sachu]

It's interesting the appointment system used by Micro$oft recruiters (appointmentquest.com) is "100% pure Micrsoft(R) product-free environment" !! http://appointmentquest.com/about

Missed A Free Trip!

[blueZhift]

A few years ago I got an interview with Microsoft and on the whole it very interesting. They flew me out to Redmond and footed the bill for everything. I didn't get the job, but I did meet some interesting people and on the whole had a good time. Next time ESR, go talk to them first and then refuse. Freebies don't pop up everyday you know! ;)

You've seen the basement at M$ then

[crovira]

That's where they keep them while they slave over the next version of Explorer. (A possible explanation for the quality of the code.)

They grumble so loudly that they can't let up into the light. They all look like mole people now. (A possible explanation for the lack of code reviews. They eat the reviewers.)

Thought exercise

[ifwm]

Who's the bigger ass?

Gates Vs. ESR

Re:Thought exercise

[2short]

Based on having interacted with him over the course of a weekend 12 years ago, ESR, no question. It's not that I do or don't think Gates is an ass; it's that I don't think it is possible to be a bigger more pompous ass than ESR. You'd, like, collapse into a black hole of pomposity or something.

Stallman who?

[coolGuyZak]

Who's Richard Stallman?

Same as I would have written it.

[MarkLewis]

Look, I realize that there have been a lot of negative posts knocking on ESR for this email. Try viewing this article at mod=5 and it's basically all criticism. To those who lambast ESR, I assert that you have an underdeveloped sense of humor and/or knowledge of deep-geek culture. The response was darned funny, if I were the recruiter I would have gotten a good laugh from it and moved on. Were he other than he is, ESR would lose his authentic appeal to the real engineers who agree with him. Look, we're not supposed to be charming and charismatic; or if we are, at least it isn't what defines us as hackers. Hackers are, by and large, short-tempered when confronted with blatant stupidity. We can be vindictive and hold quasi-religious beliefs about the merits of our favorite software. That's what we are, and ESR is just being honest about it. My $0.02.

Suggestion for email reply

[matsh]

Hi!

I'd be more than happy to discuss potential job opportunities within Microsoft Corporation, but to simplify matters I'd appreciate it if you would take the time to answer a few questions beforehand:

1) Have you ever talked with a programmer not employed at Microsoft before? If so; how long ago, what was their name and where (tech fair, campus recruiting, etc.) did you speak?

2) Will Microsoft be prepared to change it's present policy, and start shipping working software in any of the following categories: OS Software, Office Software, Development Software, Home & Personal Software (including games), Educational Software? Please indicate any preferences as well.

3) If I accept employment, will I be allowed complete anonymity and deniability regarding my employment at the company, and, on terminating my employment prematurely due to subpoenaed or volontary testimony before a U.S. district or federal court, will I be guaranteed priority status in the FBI Witness Protection Program at company expense?

4) Has the company performed any gross violations of law or common business ethics, including, but not limited to: Wilfull abuse of monopoly, intentionally degrading the quality or reliability of the companys products in order to force customers to otherwise unneccessary upgrades, or creating compatibility conflicts in OS software in order to cripple superior competing products, in the past 12 months? (other than all such acts presently publicly known and upheld in ruling by U.S. district or federal court)

5) If I accept a position, what severance pay will I receive as compensation for the social stigma and damage to my professional reputation incurred by my accepting employment at Microsoft?

Please respond by either email to my address, spam@esr.ibiblio.org or telephone,(999) 999-9999. I can be reached weekdays during 10:14AM - 10:15PM, Nepal Time zone. Please leave a voicemail message at all other times.

Look forward to hearing from you soon.

Eric S. Raymond

The guy does exist and his title does match

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy does exist in the address book and his title and location do match. So I think the email conversation in grandparent is real.

Pigs flying

[hkb]

I never thought I'd see the day when I respect someone less than I respect RMS.

Congratulations, ESR, you're a legend in your own mind.

Re:ESR bashing...

[Carlos Laviola]

Oh yeah! CML2 and fetchmail. Quite the minor deity indeed!

Good grief!

[gandy909]

That wasn't too bright letting this link from his letter get into the wild. I suspect this guy's calendar will be entirely clogged with mass amounts of appointments for quite a long while from mischievious slashdotters and their friends:

"...Please take a moment to visit My Calendar http://www.appointmentquest.com/provider/201022492 7> online to schedule a convenient time for me to contact you. ..." ...and they're off! :)

Reminds me of a friend

[ifwm]

I have a friend who spouts off every time a woman looks at him in a bar.

"Dude, I think she's into me"

That's what this sounds like.

Re:Reminds me of a friend

[cranos]

I have a friend who spouts off every time a woman looks at him in a bar.

Has he seen a specialist about that? There are treatments available now you know

shame

[hasst]

ESR totally sucks. He thinks he inveted open source. What an asshole. He is not a m1rk contributor, OE user, yahooudible, IE6 smart, educated, good person like we are.

"If I were him I would [insert total RIGHT bullshit from frustratred nonames]." Give me a breake. You are not ESR and I think there aren't 10 people in the position to tell ESR what would be best for Linux in his actions.

When he will piss on M$'s grave I will be right there handing him as many beers as necessary.

I vote Miguel.

[PCM2]

Miguel de Icaza has never failed to impress me with his charm, intelligence, and infectious enthusiasm. Nat Friedman, too, for that matter. Kudos to Novell for scooping them up.

Oh, that's good

[Minwee]

At least he responded in a mature and polite fashion, instead of making himself and by extension the rest of the Open Source movement look like arrogant jerks.

I would be interested to see the other spin on this story: "Microsoft reaches out to open source community, offers to work with noted writer, told to go to hell."

"You've been preapproved"

[bosko0]

I'd hate to see this guy's reaction to those "You've been preapproved for a loan" or "You may already be a winner" mailers...

That wasn't a "job offer"

[melted]

That was just a little probing. After that he'd have to do a couple phone interviews, and after phone interviews (if he passes them) he'd have to go through a six-hour MS interview gauntlet.

Job offer comes if you successfully complete a six-hour interview, and he'd probably be rejected during phone interview without further consideration. I seriously envy the guy. He thinks so much about himself. Humility be damned.

A disservice to Open Source?

[braek]

Various software companies try to discredit the open source movement by stating that the movement is made up of juvenile, unprofessional, irresponsible individuals. By responding in the manner that he did, Eric only propogates this incorrect stereotype.

Re:A disservice to Open Source?

[DerekLyons]

Various software companies try to discredit the open source movement by stating that the movement is made up of juvenile, unprofessional, irresponsible individuals. By responding in the manner that he did, Eric only propogates this incorrect stereotype.

Of course anyone who read /. could be forgiven for not knowing that is a stereotype as opposed to the real public face of the movement.

After reading the reply...

[gedeco]

I'm dissapointed he didn't take the job. Somehow I'm convinced this would be a good thing for open source.

It was a completly disrespectfull answer.
I have the impression ESR is linux own open sourced version of FUD.

I don't see a job offer here!

[callipygian-showsyst]

I called [the Microsoft HR rep], who told me my name had been passed to him by his research team. I indicated to him that I thought somebody was probably having a little joke at his expense, and promised him an email reply."

Getting a call from HR is not a job offer. A job offer comes after a round of interviews, and is typically a written document with terms, salaries, dates, etc.

What Eric got was a letter from HR saying simply, that they heard he may be interested in a job, and offering to answer his questions. If any of you all just sent a letter to Microsoft asking about jobs, you'd probably get a similar reply.

It's puzzling that Eric Raymond calls this a "job offer". He's either stupid, or a liar. Pick one.

That's how come the press release.

[PCM2]

Come on, ESR is pretty much off everyone's radar at the moment and has been for some time.

Sure. So, lest you think somebody just stumbled across a blog posting on Raymond's site and decided to submit it to Slashdot, let me verify that I actually received a press release alerting me to the e-mail from Microsoft and Eric's response. It was described as "your amusement item of the day" ... but obviously my amusement wasn't the only purpose of the release. (Yes, I'm press.)

Re:Render unto me a ****ing break

[Jay Maynard]

You should try your hand at children's poetry. I have a feeling you'd be good at it. That got to be positively Seussian.

Alternate headline:

[FurryFeet]

"ESR is not as famous as he thinks he is"

Really, what's the story here? That some Microsoft headhunter doesn't know Eric Raymond? Does that really surprise anyone?

His reply ..

[sunsrin]

to one of the comments here

Meanwhile, in Steve Balmer's office ...

[krygny]

Steve Balmer: "Please tell me you didn't try to recruit Eric Raymond."

Mike Walters: "It was Eric Raymond."

Steve Balmer does his Bobby Knight imitation.

Sir, can I please participate in this thread sir?

[hummassa]

Pretty please?
With so many 3 and 4-digit uids, Your Honorable Sirs must be white of hair and wise of head, so can you all tell me why are you bashis His Honorable Gunman ESR?

I'd rather

[jgoemat]

I'd rather work for a company where my boss throws a chair and says he's going to f***ing bury some guy because I want to switch jobs.

response seems fitting

[idlake]

What a pompous ass.

ESR's response somehow seems fitting for a company run by monkey boy and rain man.

Anyway, we have plenty of historical precedent for companies like Microsoft and it's pretty clear what's going to happen: the company is going to become afflicted with the usual big-company malaise, while its founders will be remembered as intellectual robber barons.

You may, good sir!

[spun]

I met ESR in Hawaii. He was on his way back from a conference in Japan. He claimed that Japanese women found him irresistable, which I found kind of amusing. He's quite a character and a lot of fun to bar hop with, but he's an easy target to poke fun at, as is anyone who thinks very highly of themselves. Many old timers think he's all talk and no action, but there's no denying that he did quite a bit to popularize Linux early on.

Re:You may, good sir!

[photon317]

He's an intelligent and thoughtful guy, and certainly worth whatever fame he's managed to acquire. It's not that the man doesn't have skills, it's just that the sheer amount of geekiness (the kind that gets you laughed at) outweighs what valuable skills he possesses. Nobody would make fun of Linus for being as geeky as ESR, for example, because his skill is extraordinary enough to justify it.

Re:You may, good sir!

[Anonymous Coward]

ESR doesn't deserve any of the publicity that he's received over the years. It's not just that he is completely untalented as a programmer, it's not even that he doesn't realize how untalented he is, it's that he's such a fucking nutbar and people repeatedly point to his inane tripe when they say, "See! Open Source can work!" He is completely ill-suited for a public representative of free software.

And if you think if he were more talented it would be ok, then I guess you aren't very familiar with RMS or Theo. Both of them are very talented developers (although RMS has given up developing in favor of religion), and no one tolerates them because they're fucking obnoxious. People respect them more than they do ESR, but they're made fun of all of the time for their social problems.

Re:You may, good sir!

[TaranRampersad]

Actually, Linus works more than he talks. When the dust settles, Linus will be remembered more than any of the shooting stars because Linus doesn't fight, he builds.

Re:You may, good sir!

[Dogtanian]

He claimed that Japanese women found him irresistable, which I found kind of amusing [..] Many old timers think he's all talk and no action

As did the Japanese women when he left...

there's no denying

His achievements? Truly an American icon.

Whatever happened to the "Stephen King found dead at his Maine home" trolls?

A joke?

[callipygian-showsyst]

I thought somebody was probably having a little joke at his expense

And a pretty funny one, too! If all it takes to get Eric's knickers in a knot is getting a form letter from a company recuiter (which he calls a "job offer"--makes you wonder how inflated the rest of his claims are!), then this is much too easy!

I suspect he'll start getting lots of calls from every fast-food joint and Starbucks around the country! And he'll be equally mad that *they've* never heard of him!

What a jerk

[Xenophon Fenderson,]

What's wrong with politely declining Microsoft's invitation? I can understand not wanting to work for Microsoft because one's personal morals and ethics. I even understand the desire to explain oneself, but there was no need to be rude or abrasive (especially since the invitation seemed to be made in good faith)./p.

Re:Sir, can I please participate in this thread si

[pohl]

You misread me...I was making fun of msuzio.

Huh!?

[MegaFur]

You use INTERCAL daily or monthly? My god, man why!? (me="humorously stunned")

MOD PARENT UP

[Vellmont]

Sadly, I think you're exactly right. I don't pay much attention to ESR, but from the little I've seen he's turned into a bit of a blowhard. There's something a bit immature in his reply to the job inquiry. The audience he's really talking to his fans in attempt to get high-fives from then all around. It reminds me of the pretty girl (but allaround bitch) who gets asked out to the prom by the nerd, then proceeds to make a big scene so her friends can make fun of the nerd. See "Mean Girls" or "Heathers" if you need a movie reference.

I think his last comment of "not causing enough trouble" is dead on. I doubt many people at Microsoft (especially outside of developer circles) knows who he is.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[RealityThreek]

Woo Mean Girls!

WIRED: Linus got one too & infected the mother

[D4C5CE]

Linus definately has made a few MS exec's wake up screaming "Mommy" more than ESR.

"Actually", in an alternate reality:

From the office of Linus Torvalds

Date: 10.31.2008
To: BillG
From: Linus
(...)
When you hired me three years ago, you had to realize that I was going to speak my mind, no matter what the consequences. You told me that if I ever hit a wall with Steve or his people, I should let you know.
(...)
Myself, I thought I was making some pretty outrageous demands. I was stunned when you agreed to accept the General Public License mandating that everything you added at the level of the new operating system would remain open. But you've been true to your side of the bargain, and you've won my respect. You never made me alter my goal, which was world domination for Linux. I'll never forget your line: "Come on, Linus, infect the mothership." I still believe that was the best recruiting pitch ever uttered. We both took a lot of criticism from our partisans, but look what we've accomplished. The world is using software that doesn't suck!

innefective??

[namekuseijin]

then why the hell is M$ so desperate to dismiss Linux in that stupid Get the facts marketing campaign?

if it wasn't bothering them, they wouldn't even mention it. they're aknowledging its a real competitor and a threat to their business model

...ship!

[D4C5CE]

Isn't it time for someone at Slashdot to fix the ampersand handling in subject lines?

Re:...ship!

[madprof]

Infecting the mother sounds so much better though. :)

my turn!

[c0n0]

*thinks*: OMG I got an automatic email from m$ ! this is my opportunity to send out an email and make it public in an attempt to be even more popular! clickety! clickety! clack! Dear MS dude: clickety clak go f*ck yourself *thinks* omg! it's just like when I that guy at kindergarden didn't let me play with him (continues) click clak click clack *send* that'll show the world that I can cause controversy by giving an absurd level of importance to an automated email, that I can treat like shit a guy who doesn't know who I am, and that I ask all waiters to remove the 15% auto-grat. Because yeah, they deserve it for not knowing who I am. geez.

ESR Takes One For The Team ...

[rv8]

You've got to admire ESR. If a 12 yr old broke into our site and posted something that made us look like a complete jackass, most of us would have removed it, and then figured out how we got hacked. But ESR knew what a propaganda coup it would be if MS could say "FOSS is no more secure than our SW. If even a leader of the FOSS world can get hacked, how do you think you could be safe with FOSS?

ESR is going along with the 12 yr old's joke, and allowing himself to be made a fool of, rather than exposing a break-in of a major FOSS site.

Way to go ESR!

Acronyms

[Nahooda]

ESR, RMS... AFAIK Linus' full name is Linus Benedict Torvalds. We should start to call him LBT from now on.

John Carmack's middle name begins with D (couldn't find the full name), so that makes him JDC.

So, if JDC talks about the Doom port to the OS initiated by LBT and releasing source code under the GPL created by RMS and is totally ignoring ESR, no non-geek will understand a word...

Regards,

Dennis B. Schramm

Of course.

[Chemisor]

> Would *you* dine with the devil?

Of course I would. Depriving him of food is a good way of fighting evil, and boy, you gotta see me eat!

douchebag

[TheMonkeyDepartment]

wow. Could he have been any more of a douchebag? He certainly is drumming up some great publicity for the Open Source community! And he seems proud of his response, too. Oh yes, he's just hilarious.

The real goal behind these recruitments ...

[Skapare]

... is to tie up as many open source people under non-compete agreements as they (MSFT) can. Not only can they (open source people) not contribute while working for Microsoft, they can't contribute thereafter, either. And that's for contributions to either OSS or Google (kill two birds with one hire).

article

[wikinerd]

I have covered this news with an article which you can copy under the GFDL or Creative Commons.

ESR

[cornface]

This guy is such a douchebag.

Does anyone actually care what he has to say? Blah blah blah! I wrote a childish essay based on conjecture and wishful idealistic thinking, once! I have a stupid mustache! I'm a 12 year old trapped in a sad aging sack of blotchy skin!

Gaze unto the horror! The horror!

Just shut up. Please. Shut. Up.

And for the love of all that is holy, shave that stupid fucking mustache!

Thanks.

ESR and Al Gore Invented the Internet!

[darthtriad]

oh wait...

maybe not...sorry Sir Tim,

i just read another of ESR's blog entries...

Re:HE TALKED WITH THE GUY OVER THE PHONE!

[njcoder]

AC: "So you didn't care to read the article? ESR _called_ the guy and talked with him over the phone! This guy was serious about offering him a job!"

ESR: "I called Mike Walters, who told me my name had been passed to him by his research team. I indicated to him that I thought somebody was probably having a little joke at his expense, and promised him an email reply. "

The guy was serious about sending him an invitation for an interview. The guy didn't give any indication that he even know who Raymond was. I have no idea what you are reading.

Re:typical of ESR

[91degrees]

I've never really had a problem with RMS. I disagree with him, but I see him more as a fundamentalist than a fanatic. He bases his arguments on certain core principals, and while I disagree with them, I can't prove them wrong and given his assumptions, the rest of his arguments are correct.

ESR seems to be different. He truly is a fanatic. He has his beliefs for whatever reason, and finds a justification for them. He will not pay any attention to opposing views and will insist that his way is the right way regardless of what evidence to the contrary suggests.

For clarity

[superspaz]

I don't like MS but this guy (as has been mentioned before) is a pompous ass. I can't imagine someone so self-absorbed can find a open-source team to put up with his ass.

At least Gates puts up a pleasent public figure. In fact he is doing better than the US govt on that a couple of ways (funding for the irradication of polio and other diseases for which vaccines exists would be my primary example).

Gates may be greedy and cunning, but at least he isn't a whining, attention-seeking, self-important jerk, who provides little or no good to the world.

Parent article is false

[JoeBuck]

ESR has contributed to Emacs, particularly some language modes and other Lisp code, but his contributions are small compared to many other people. He's far from #2.

Likewise on Python. He's contributed, but he isn't a leader. Emacs and Python are not "that guy's software."

The projects that ESR has led have been tiny compared to Emacs, or the Linux kernel, or any of the major GNU programs. There are at at least a hundred people whose contributions to free software are vastly more significant than ESR's.

ESR was a useful advocate back in the late 90s, but he's less important than he thinks he is.

Nothing like a little humility...

[Bun]

You've maybe heard about this "open source" thing? You get one guess who wrote most of the theory and propaganda for it and talked IBM and Wall Street and the Fortune 500 into buying in.

Uh, huh. Right. You did it single-handedly.

phone call != job offer

[farble1670]

i've received lots of emails from MSFT recruiters (and wow, i'm not an OSS evangelist, go figure). that does not equate to a job offer. MSFT has a very tough interview process. their recruitement philsophy goes like this: bring them to redmond, and grill them to death. they don't put a lot of weight on word of mouth, recommendation, how good you sound on the phone, or your reputation. they spend a lot of money shipping people to get them face-face, because they know that anything else is fairly meaningless.

so mr. eric s. raymond, don't flatter yourself, yet.

Wait a minute...

[Shoggoth of Maul]

From TFA:

"Additionally, if you are aware of any current or previous colleagues who might also be interested in opportunities at Microsoft, I would be happy to speak with them as well. Referrals are always welcome, and are greatly appreciated."

Is it just me, or does this sound like a chain email?

It makes it good.

[jotaeleemeese]

From an ethical point of view.

And from a technical point of view at least it is possible to improve things if sombeody wants to.

Re:It makes it good.

[Mr. Underbridge]

I think you're taking this shit to an extreme if you see software licensing as a matter of ethics. Time to stop drinking the kool aid.

My favorite quote:

[jnana]

You get one guess who ... talked IBM and Wall Street and the Fortune 500 into buying in [to Open Source].

ESR and Bill Gates surprisingly have something in common, in that they are both egomaniacs with extraordinarily overinflated opinions of themselves.

Before the flamefest begins, please read his words carefully. There is no room for reading that sentence to mean anything but that ESR singlehandledly talked IBM, Wall Street, and the entire Fortune 500 into open source.

oss' megalomaniac

[capt.mellow]

i read his 'the cathedral and the bazaar' essay, as well as his self-promoting followup, which chronicled his meteoric rise to oss rockstardom. this is email to ms sounds very much like something he'd write.

ESR responds

[HackingYodel]

From his blog: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=209#more-209

To the extent I ended up "leading" or became a culture hero in that process, it was because the community desperately needed someone to do it and pulled me into the role, shaping me to fit in the process.

Cultures need culture heroes -- and they'll create 'em if they don't pop up spontaneously. Note: the process can be damn rough on the candidate. And being the focus of so many peoples' dreams and aspirations is...well, it's terrifying at times. I used to have a lot of contempt for rock stars who couldn't handle the pressure and fucked up with drugs. Now I understand better. I've been through some awful, heartbreaking, soul-destroying shit on this job.

A bit disconnected from reality?

This Almost Certainly Was Deliberate

[Master of Transhuman]

It wasn't a mistake.

It was a deliberate attempt to compromise ESR by tricking him into actually conducting some sort of "dialog" with these MS assholes.

Fortunately, his acerbity kicked in and his response was entirely correct. So their little plan didn't work.

What a missed oportunity!

[Muhammar]

instead of this petulant childish reply, the situation was perfect for a corporate parody written in pure businesspeak.

If it was me, I have would send the guy the resume and quietly arrange an interwiew. After Redmont, I would give a nice press release that "the Microsoft core values and corporate structure did not seem to fit with my mission and objectives and it transpired that an employment at Microsoft would not result in synergies with the Open source movement"

I would take the day off. It could be more fun than visiting Church of Scientology recruitment center.

Smart Answers

[L505]

Please consider the Smart Answers article, which was written a while ago.

i would, but...

[sum.zero]

she only gave a 900 number and i don't want the wife to see that on the bill. that might be hard to respond to...

no, really honey. it was research for a slashdot article. no, i don't think it is good to lie to your partner, but...

i'm sorry. you're right; /. is teh devil!

sum.zero

The need to be heard

[speedbump]

Well, this confirms for me that Eric has this need to flame other people to make himself feel good.

I've encountered him a couple of other times, including once when he responded to me personally for some email commentary about one of his blogs, and each time, his response has been an over-the-top panty thrashing for the unfortunate target of his self-righteous indignation.

Phooey. His email to Microsoft was inappropriate and childish. How about 'no thanks, I disagree with your corporate culture.'?

What a dweeb.

Actually

[themusicgod1]

In the real world people are violent, commit rape, and torture eachother. He had the decency not to kill the family of the microsoft employee who contacted for wasting his time.

Fuck you and your secure little bubble world.