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Fortune file for Open Sources
chrisd writes
"As a service to my readers and the community I've
prepared an Open Sources fortune file
containing some fun quotes from the book. I only have 35
quotes right now but I'd like to expand it, so if you have
a favorite passage from the book, let
me
know and I'll add it to the master file. And thanks for checking
out the book. I've also submitted the file on freshmeat for
later updates." Hey, its saturday. Plus RMS and Linus
each have some gems in there.
I'd suggest word-wrapping the quotes to 80 columns, though.
the author had enough sense to leave ESR out of the fortune file.
god only knows his ego would only get bigger and bigger. besides, like so many people have said before, he neither represents free software or the free software community.
I totally agree. ESR represents himself in the public forum just like any other Joe does.
Here's where the solution gets sticky, though:
ESR popped out of nowhere within the past two years, claiming to be the self-proclaimed "leader" (Heh, RMS has my vote any day) of the Open Source/Freeware/Public Domain community.
He claimed to represent all of us. He made statements to the media "on our behalf", mixing his own extreme Libertarian political views into the fray:
Q: "So what do you think of Linux?" A: "Well, that reminds of of the bill of rights. And the bill of rights guarantee us the right to own all the AK-47's and shoulder missile launchers we damn well please, and another thing....."
I do not know what dreamworld Eric lives in, but it certainly is not a democracy.
Did you vote him to be our leader? Did I vote him to be our representative to the media? No? Then who did?
ESR has several gifts: one is that he's a very good programmer, two is that he groks the nature of free software/open source, three is that he's got good credentials to represent the historical hacker community, fourth is that he's very talented at media spin.
He is also an egomaniac who's on the fringes of the political, religious and economic spectrums.
So what? If you don't like ESR's advocacy, then do some media spinning yourself. In free software, if you don't like the way someone programs, you're free to program it yourself. In free advocacy, if you don't like the way ESR spins, then spin yourself.
Otherwise, you're just blowing hot air instead of making any substantial change.
In times of crisis we always get the people we need; we never get the people we want.
Posted by Roland the Gunslinger:
Or proofread, or something...sheesh
Some mistakes have been fixed, more later. Man you people like to bitch! But the reason I'm posting this is to say if you have found an author missing from the colleciton it's just because I wanted to get it out to the public not for any other reason. You will see quotes from all the authors in time.
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Seeing the ke of kernel on one line and the rnel on the next is pretty annoying.
If 90% of everything isn't crap, your standards are too high.
Of course, Larry Wall (of Perl fame) isn't one of the names listed in this topic, but he delivers some damn-fine quotes, perhaps none of them having to do with open source, but they're still good.
t es.txt
http://student.uq.edu.au/~s343905/pub/lwall-quo
-- If you met me, you probably wouldn't remember me. I'm pretty hard to remember.
that old quote about berkeley, lsd and bsd.
Ex Machina "From the Machine"
xm@GeekMafia.dynip.com [http://GeekMafia.dynip.com/]
Remind me to come back to this in a few days to grab the more complete file, I definately need to find a way to work a random quote into my e-mail signature without making it even longer..
Zephaniah E. Hull..