ESR Wants to Retire

hexix writes "ESR wants to retire from his job, and he is looking for someone to take over." Eric says the stress of being away from home, having too little quiet time, and the community's reaction to him is burning him out.

Comments

Demagoguery

[Aron S-T]

I am not a big believer in ad hominem discussions. The merit of a position stands and falls on its own validity, not on who says it. I preface my comment with this statement, because in general I work very hard in my postings to stick to the ideas not the people behind them. But since Mr. Raymond laid down the ad hominem gauntlet in this latest letter, I have no choice to respond in kind.

It is true, that people relate to people more than to abstract ideas. So any political or philosophical position needs a spokesperson to have it spread and be accepted in a broader forum.

Anyone who takes on that role, must be prepared for all the aspects that go with "spokespersonhood". A good part of that is being criticized, fairly or not, not just for what you say, but how you say it and what you do. It's part of the territory. Those who are being "represented" can justifiably hold their leaders to a higher standard. For if you are going to speak in MY name (especially if I didn't choose you to do so), then you damn well better be equal or better than me, in every way. A leader should be a source of inspiration, someone people look up to, not someone who shames us by their words or actions.

Unfortunately, many, if not all leaders, become totally identified in their own minds with their ideas. They take attacks on their positions as personal attacks. It is very hard to avoid this egotistical disease.


In fact, in the world of free software, the ONLY leader who so far has managed to avoid this, and given his nature probably always will, is Linus Torvald. Nick Peterley compared him to Tom Bombadil - a man over whom the ring of power has no influence. What an apt description. Linus is in fact a holy man, an exceptional human being whose ego is just the right size.

Eric Raymond, however, isn't. It is clear from this latest diatribe that the fact that many people strongly disagreed with calling the Apple APSL as open source, got his goat. He took the attack on Apple as a personal attack on himself. I read alot of the discussions. There were lots of strong opinions, but very little that can be characterized as ad hominem attacks on Raymond as such. His reaction in this letter can only be characterized as pitiful for a man who wants to be a leader.

In this "response", Mr. Raymond has resorted to the cheapest of demagoguery. The sad part is that so many people fell into his trap. Basically, what Raymond is saying in his letter is I am a god and anybody who criticizes me is a worthless ingrate. Instead of responding to the merit of the arguments against his positions, Mr. Raymond resorts to threats and insults to silence those who disagree with him. In a fit of pique worthy of a four year old, he says that if those worthless little ingrates (presumably on /.) dare to attack his positions, then he's going to take his toys and go home.

Quite frankly, I am willing to bet anyone on this list that Raymond isn't going home so fast. It is quite clear from his letter that he enjoys the "face time" (what an ugly expression) with such "luminaries" as Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos, and all the other "perks". Well good for him. But that shouldn't stop anyone from standing up and speaking the truth when the truth needs to be said, even if that truth is uncomfortable for a man who just exposed himself to the world as being egotistical, childish and unworthy of leading an intellectual revolution as important as the free software movement.

Firstly..

[raistlinne]

So when all hardware goes proprietary, and Linux will only work on old hardware, and the world demands that you live and work in it, what will you do? If you don't shape the world to your ideals, the world will shape you to it's ideals.

If the Linux "community" keeps silent, and lets the world go to hell, and everything becomes proprietary and corporations own everything but the equivalent of some hobbyists commodore64s in their basement, what will we do? If we stand silent and watch the world degenerate, what good will Linux be? If we silently give consent to information being as hidden as possible, what good will Linux be?

As Eisenhower said, "People who value their priveleges above their principles soon lose both." If we just sit the corner and do our own thing, what will we do when the hardware that we are running fails, and their are no open replacements? What will we do when everything is proprietary, and corporations own the world?

People have civic responsibility, even if they don't like to admit it. No one should have what they do belittled because "it was their duty". I'd never be ungrateful to Linus and claim that he did no more than his duty. But where would he be if he never started Linux? And if *BSD was never written?

If we don't try to leave the world a better place than we found it, we're pretty much guaranteed to leave it a worse place. Of course, given a fiarly large lifespan, like thirty or fourty years, we'll probably get to live in a good portion of the decay that we didn't prevent. If we make nothing good, what will we do when we look for good things? When the rivers are going to overflow their banks, we must shore them up, or we will drown. The corporate rivers are poised to overflow their banks. Shall we sit by minding our own business and be drowned in them?