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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.

16 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. What about protocols? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What are your feelings about protocols and file formats and keeping them open? Where do the efforts to keep protocols and file formats open and accessible to others fall on your list of priorities?

  2. Damage to the Internet by stox · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What's your opinion of the damage done to the Internet by the NSA scandal, and potentially by, the Comcast TWC merger?

    --
    "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
  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 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.

    4. Re:In all seriousness... by fsck-beta · · Score: 4, Informative

      What has ESR done in the last decade for the open source community? Well he has spread a lot of ignorant and hurtful ideas outside of the open source community...

    5. Re:In all seriousness... by ESR · · Score: 4, Informative

      OK, let's squash some of this nonsense right now.

      I never believed the 2010 Haiti Erthquake was caused by a voodoo curse, and I'm astonished that anyone interpreted that post in that way. What I found anthropologically interesting is that something like Robertson's "satanic" invocation seems actually to have taken place. Not actually "satanic", but within Robertson's impoverished terms of reference that's about the only way he could describe an invocation of the loa.

      I believe, and have repeatedly said, that the supposed "scientific consensus" on CAGW is not a conspiracy but an error cascade. I think most scientists are honestly trying to do right, but have been overly credulous about data and models that have been (and continue to be) fraudulently manipulated by a tiny minority of them. Those of you who think this makes me some sort of nut are going to have some explaining to do when measured GAT drops out of the bottom of the IPCC's 95% confidence band, which looks set to happen before the end of 2014.

      I might reply to some of these other questions at more length, but these two deserved to be dispatched immediately

      --
      >>esr>>
  4. So... by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Funny

    So how annoyed are you that RMS got to do an interview a week before you did.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  5. here's an obvious one.. by Connie_Lingus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    it's been almost 20 years since your write tCatB...i gave it a quick read and thought, "well, it *is* dated now, isn't it?" altho i am old enough to remember when its' ideas were pretty cutting edge.

    given the current state of software development (ie the ease of use of PHP and the fact that, without a doubt, the cathedral model has won), what would you either like to change or add to your original thesis?

    --
    never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
  6. Re:Slashdot Beta by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Informative

    Fine, taking a karma hit to provide one curious person an answer, then:

    http://soylentnews.org/

  7. Why the attitude? by Slartibartfast · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It permeates everything you write: the moral assuredness that You Are Right. I'm all in favor of positing that a position someone takes is the right one -- that's human nature. But your whole "I speak for the hackers" tone, wherein you seem to feel the need to put your views forward as representing others', puzzles me. I give, as a case-in-point, your "Sex Tips for Geeks" as exhibit A, but, really, most any of your writings -- most definitely including your handling of The Jargon File, as well as your stance on homosexuality -- qualify. Care to comment?

  8. systemd by Canek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a long time "Unix philosophy" advocate, and in the light of the announced switch to it by Debian, Ubuntu, and basically every other major Linux distribution, what do you think of systemd, and the tight vertical integration it intends to bring as a standard plumbing for (most of) all Linux distributions?

  9. How to ask questions by houstonbofh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When you wrote "How to ask questions" did you have any idea how big it would be? Or how long it would be relevent?

    And how do you feel that your most referenced piece of work is a howto for the clueless? :)

  10. Halloween Documents by frdmfghtr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I recall reading (and re-reading on occasion) the Halloween Documents. Have you written anything regarding any other opponents to OSS, or perhaps a look back on them and see what the end effect of Microsoft's attempts did long term?

    --
    Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
  11. Apple today by wordtech · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Your comments in The Art of Unix Programming about Apple/Mac developers being diametrically opposed to Unix developers in development style and emphases (designing simple, user-friendly interfaces from the outside in) were quite interesting. I am wondering about your perspective on Apple now. My interest is specifically in Apple's contributions to open-source (WebKit and LLVM, chiefly) and your take on those. It seems to me that Apple has done quite a bit to foster an alternative ecosystem to the GNU environment, for instance in FreeBSD's adoption of clang as their default compiler; and also it seems to to me that WebKit has supplanted Gecko as the most widely used browser framework. Curious about your viewpoint here.