Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Interview: Ask Eric Raymond What You Will

Posted by samzenpus on from the go-ahead-and-ask dept.

Author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar and The Art of Unix Programming, Eric S.Raymond (ESR) has long been an important spokesperson for the open source movement. It's been a while since we talked to the co-founder of the Open Source Initiative so ESR has agreed to give us some of his time and answer your questions. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.

8 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Slashdot Beta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    ...and do you know of any projects that we could all move to replacing it?

  2. Still Surprised By Wealth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Did you get to cash out before the crash? After you infamous gloating here, http://news-beta.slashdot.org/story/99/12/10/0821224/esr-writes-on-surprised-by-wealth, inquiring minds want to know.

  3. In all seriousness... by iluvcapra · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I believe, but cannot prove, that global “AIDS” is a whole cluster of unrelated diseases all of which have been swept under a single rug for essentially political reasons, and that the identification of HIV as the sole pathogen is likely to go down as one of the most colossal blunders in the history of medicine.

    Do you still deny a link between HIV and the disease known as AIDS?

    You picked an extremely bad example there; Turing was atypical in a way that damages your case. If you examine the actual circumstances of Turing’s exposure, you’ll discover that he was remarkably and willfully self-destructive about it. Outed himself, under circumstances where he could easily have covered and (as I read it) the cop was trying to look the other way. Still, I’m not “pro” Turing’s suicide, just refusing to blame anyone else for it. He made his choice and died. End of story.

    Do you still blame Alan Turing for his fate? So have you become a total crackpot since September 11th, or was it something that was always sorta brewing under the surface.

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    1. Re:In all seriousness... by iluvcapra · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We can go on like this for days, by the way.

      In all seriousness, why is this guy still a thing in the Open Source movement? He wrote a few books in the 90s, very good ones, but he's been irrelevant for years and he's a nut. He has nothing to offer.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    2. Re:In all seriousness... by Alomex · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So have you become a total crackpot since September 11th, or was it something that was always sorta brewing under the surface.

      It was always brewing under the surface.

      He is a blind follower of extreme libertarian ideas. For example, a long time ago in a personal discussion I showed him how under the specific libertarian rules he was suggesting I could buy all the land around a person's house and starve them to death since they couldn't leave. He didn't bat an eye. He kept insisting that "free market rules" wouldn't allow this, as if by magic, rather than rethinking his simplistic position.

      Frankly ESR is an embarrassment to the open source movement.

    3. Re:In all seriousness... by Charliemopps · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Yes, because political ideology makes everything else in a persons life irrelevant. What have YOU done for the open source community? I mean other than make bad political analogies that have no baring on reality. Any political system taken to an extreme is bad. A glass of water is good and healthy, downing in an ocean is not. That doesn't make water bad.

    4. Re:In all seriousness... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That one is incredible. The fact that he isn't asking "Do you accept these negative observations about black people as fact without any evidence?" shows what a massive, unthinking racist he is. And I've emphasized "unthinking" for a reason; for all his squawking about rationality, he consistently makes judgements based on his emotions and prejudices rather than basic logic, in a way that a barely-educated child would have learned not to do.

      Every esr argument ends up with him insisting what he wants to be true is absolute fact, and that his detractors are illogical idiots. It's a stunning lack of awareness or capability. The man should be a case-study.

    5. Re:In all seriousness... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      That's a longwinded way to say "yes, I'm an AGW denier and conspiracy theorist".