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Wired on Bruce/Eric Meltdown
chrisd writes "Anyone
folowing the blowtorches being wielded lately in the
Linux community might want to check out this saturday
Wired News article featuring some commentary on the latest from Eric and Bruce."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Well said, dria!
It's the code that is our representative.
Flamewars happen. I think I'll go recompile a kernel or two.
Bruce Perens is unstable. He should be on Prozac. ESR is a gun-toting looney who is dilusional and secretly fantasizes that he is Richard Stallman. Neither makes a good spokesman for free software. If both of these clowns disappeared from the scene tomorrow the free software movement would be better for it.
This is a meaning less side show, but it is fun (like Jerry Springer!).
We handcuff the two of them together, and drop them off in the middle of the wilderness with nothing but a bag of nacho chips and jar of salsa.
By the time they make it out, they'll be best buds.
Either that, or they'll get eaten by a pack of hungry racoons.
One of the two.
Either way, we won't have to put up with these rather senseless flamewars, which are beginning to drag on a bit long, and no longer appear to have anything to do with what they were orignally about (what were they originally about again?)
-Lung
Self-elected. Self-promoting. Questionable anti-social tendencies.
Public debates are our strength, even if they are sometimes childish. If we are afraid of letting others know how we feel, then we'd best shutdown /. now.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Hackers are excellent coders, great engineers and rather intelligent. However, they tend not to make the best public figure for courting the business world. An article like this is perfect FUD fodder. Unstable "leaders" make for an unstable community.
We know that Bruce and Eric are not our lead developers or descision makers for our community, but an article like this doesn't convey that to Mr. Business Reader. In the beginning, the merits of our community were based on the stability of our code. Now the merits of our code will be based on our stability as a community. When we all sat in basements, bedrooms, labs and offices... flame wars were fine. Now that our "leaders" are the center of attention, I think flame wars need to be kept private, or not fought.
Just my $0.02
Get a life, not a lifestyle. - Hikem Bey
It is not absolutely trivial for anyone, anywhere to come up with weapons as deadly as guns.
Actually it is, and more so. Up until the Oklahoma City bombing, the worst mass-murder in this country was accomplished by something routinely available to, and purchased by, almost anybody: a can of gasoline.
take my dear old mother, for example. [...] With a gun, however, all she has to do is pull a trigger, and if she's close enough she can kill anybody
Technical errors aside (you display ignorance of firearms), if you really consider your mother capable of killing anybody (with a gun), then she's capable of killing anybody with any of a variety of other implements of death -- such as running over random pedestrians with her car. Perhaps you should seek help for her.
I'm surprised that all those hoplophobes out there who seem convinced that mere possesion of a firearm is a danger because of the chance of being easily triggered into homicidal fury, are content to let even cops carry guns.
-- Alastair
Making somebody look like a fool and an asshole isn't defamation if he really is a fool and an asshole, or if you don't fabricate any of the evidence by which you show that.
Certainly in this context that doesn't seem to be much of a problem, although neither party is all saint or all sinner overall.
-- Alastair
It's stories like this (I have heard similar tales from other people) that put me off emailing ESR. I have some suggestions for the Jargon File, but I shan't bother if I'm likely to get a response like this.
I guess he'd have a point. I've been a member of the "geek community" for only a few years. What could I possibly have to offer?
Someone says, "Watch your step," in an email and the conclusion is that he intends to use a gun against you? Stereotypes and gun control arguments aside, isn't that a bit of a stretch?
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
How DARE you suggest that programmers might sometimes overreact! Clearly, the entire programming community (which I represent) MUST question both your intelligence and your motives. I have a big dog. I just fed him a bowl of chili. I suggest you WATCH YOUR STEP.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
From my perspective it is Bruce Perens that has made this fight public by posting that email excerpt. What was the purpose of that? If he was truly worried for his physical safety, then notify the police and leave it at that. What he did speaks of childish political posturing.
On the other hand, ESR was trying to avoid mutual public defacing in the interests of the open source community. It takes a little bit of maturity to refrain from acting in like manner when attacked in public. Someone correct me (with specifics) if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge ESR has never INITIATED a public attack.
On the other hand, he has done a LOT to promote the growth of Linux and corporate acceptance of Open Source. His efforts have gone a long way in helping me decide to chart a path towards an enterprise solution on Linux for our university. If someone truly believes that he is hurting the community, then lets have some specifics. Otherwise, leave your immature feelings and vague denuciations at the door.
ESR is one of six, soon to be seven.
received is spelled received, not recieved.
ESR really *was* there from the beginning. I know; I was there too.
ESR's threat is believable; not that it would involve violence, merely letting people know that Bruce's behavior is typical of Bruce.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Unless you can give me the URL to an archive page containing ESR's threat, I'm going to continue to believe that it was private mail. It's not the sort of thing which ESR would have done publicly.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Bruce, if you don't post a URL to the message you claim ESR wrote to a mailing list, I'm threatening never to believe you again. If you claim to be Bruce Perens, I'm going to ask for proof. Publicly.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
About the spelling flame: I worked hard to learn how to spell received correctly. It was in my master's thesis about a gazillion times (transmitted was also in there big-time) and I'll be damned if I'll sit by and watch someone else get it wrong.
We really don't know what ESR's threat was in response to, do we, because Bruce took it out of context.
Longevity in the free software movement matters. It shows a certain personal committment to it, as opposed to opportunism.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
In recent years I've noticed that certain people have fanatically expounded the idea that the contents of an email message are private and cannot be quoted without permission from the author. I do not understand this. Excepts from email clearly fall under the Fair Use doctrine in copyright law. Additionally, this is not the way we treat other forms of interaction. If someone called me on the phone, or we spoke face to face, the contents of the discussion would not ordinarily be considered private. Unless someone specifically requests that information be kept private normally we don't ask permission to repeat what people told us to others.
Imagine that someone showed up at my house and screamed threats at me. Would you claim I should not be allowed to tell anyone that he did that without his permission? That seems like a dubious standard and one that is not followed in everyday life. We should apply the same standards to email that we apply to other interpersonal communication. The contents are not private unless specifically identified as such.
First off, that brief email quote almost certainly falls under the concept of Fair Use.
Second, I do not understand why people think email messages are supposed to be considered totally private. If we spoke face to face, you would never consider the things we talked about private unless there was some specific reason to believe they were. (ie, I told you "don't repeat this"). We generally don't have to ask people for permission to relay the things they told us in person to others. I don't see why email is any different.
Hmm. I don't think that is much of a distinction. What is better, for me to paraphrase what you said, almost certainly getting something wrong in the translation, or to post exact words? People complained on this topic about posting a handful of words of context; imagine posting just someone else's interpretation of that snippet. How much more out of context and potentially misleading that is.
The message I replied to specifically made issue of posting private email message. (Which Bruce did not do, BTW). However, you are correct that things should not be taken out of context in order to mislead.
I think Raymond started hacking in the late 1970's. He was certainly around before the late 1980's. He claims to have been one of the first GNU volunteers back in 1982 or 83 and I have no reason to doubt him on that.
Hotheads are nothing new, nor ares personality conflicts. These two people seem to have strong feelings (understatement, eh?) and they erupt every once in a while. This is just normal human behavior. We've all seen it hundreds of times.
The thing I don't get is why so many people make a big deal about it. I bet board members at MS, IBM or wherever get in fights too. But since that is behind closed doors, no one knows about them. In our little world, we don't have as many doors to hide behind, so our spats are public. Does that change anything?
The only thing I can think of is that people look to Bruce, Eric, Linus, Richard and so on as our "leaders" and expect some sort of coup to happen after a fight. While I respect the "big names", I don't feel like I "follow" any of them. I don't have a leader. Our "movement" is lead from below. http://www.perl.org/news.html has a reference to Larry Wall saying that 'Perl culture mandates a "bottom-up" approach.' I think this is true of most (all?) of the open/free/whatever software packages.
Let us listen what these "names" have to say, think about thier ideas, and get on with our lives.
- doug
Look at the database industry - do you think Oracle and Microsoft get along all of the time? Or Apple and Microsoft for that matter? Of course not, and when they disagree, we call it normal competition.
The reason that Bruce and Eric's dispute is such big news is that open-source is being perceived as a "company", and not an industry model. For instance, an open flame-war between Ballmer and Gates would cause some eyebrows to be raised, for sure. But why would an open flame-war between Ellison and Gates cause that kind of response? Hell, there have been dozens of examples of that kind of conflict, and who cares?
What we have to do is strive to promote the presentation and interpretation of the open-source movement as just that: a model for building software. And the same way any other "model" can have within it fierce competition and disagreement (witness the capitalist model), so too can open-source.
No biggie. -p
--
The real Paul Vallee is slashdot userid 2192, and, what do you mean it's not cool to point out your low userid?
I didn't really have a problem with what Chris said in the interview. I mean, he could have said that insults and threats are not cool, but he said I over-reacted, which was fair.
Bruce Perens.
Agreed that this is all quite silly. Next time anything like this happens, I'll do my best to bury it.
What just astounds me is that I can't blow my nose without it showing up in Wired. This while bombs were falling in Europe.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I sent you the mail. Judge for yourself.
Bruce Perens.
I think leadership is really the essence of the problem. As I have posted elsewhere, the hacker community doesn't have that much at stake as far as the OSI is concerned. Furthermore, neither of these guys matters all that much in terms of the software. Fetchmail can go on without ESR, and Debian can go on without Perens. These two aren't really that important. It's our strange relationship with leadership that really makes this such a point of contention.
Note:I must apologize in advance, this comment discusses U.S. politics, albeit in a non-partisan way, for purposes of comparison. My apologies to non-americans, who may not feel the full benefit of the comparison
Hackers as a rule, do not take well to leadership. Witness how ready we are to barbecue anybody who achieves any sort of prominence in the community. Witness my own struggles and failures as president of my high school's computer club. Only the most incredibly self-effacing, such as Linus, are spared. This anti-autoritarian streak is generally a Good Thing, keeping us from being dragged down a questionable path by a charismatic leader. It does, however, give the community an anarchistic character which is sometimes a hindrance.
Despite our hatred of them, we still have a very human need for leaders, if only as someone to blame things on. Thus figures such as RMS, Linus, and ESR rise to prominence and become our communitiy's equivalent of politicians. Unlike politicians, however, their prominence is not totally voluntary. We have so far avoided nosing into their personal lives for the most part. Their every public move, however, is subject to analysis, criticism, opposition, and flameage. The immediacy of the internet gives this a much more personal nature than is common in American politics. One is reminded, however, of William Safire's column a couple years back calling Hillary Clinton a "pathological liar," to which Bill essentially responed (in public, mind you) that if he were not the president, he'd give Safire a punch in the face.
In the case of Perens and ESR, the politician comparison is even more apt, because they have deliberately made themselves very publicly visible, in order to create change, in the community and outside it. And, like many American politicians, their personal rancor is as much for the public's benefit as for each other. There is a reason that this battle is not being waged in private e-mails, but being posted on websites and in mailing lists. Ad hominem arguments make great propaganda, and are surprisingly persuasive, even to us self-describedly smart people. I know my opinions on the APSL jumped back and fourth on a daily basis based solely on whose response I had read most recently. And, as with the Safire incident, what started as an essentially political matter has become very personal.
Reconciliation between ESR and Perens is probably impossible at this point. This particular issue will die out pretty quickly, although the flames will spring up pretty readily whenever the next liscencing debate comes up. The real lesson that I am taking from this, and that I hope others will take from this, is to question leadership. Oddly enough, this anti-authoritarian community has proved surprisingly ready to embrace authority and the assumptions that underlie it. Everyone equates ESR with Open Source, when the two are, of course, separate. ESR's faults are not Open Source's. Likewise, Free Software is more than RMS and Perens. More fundamentally, we are very willing to see these issues in black-and-white terms. Gnome xor KDE. Free Software xor Open Source. This sort of either-or thinking plays right into the hands of politicians. When there are only 2 ways of thinking, you have to not only agree with an idea, but you have to agree with a person, and that gives them power.
So, the real solution to this conflict is not (as I was inclined to suggest) that ESR and Perens shut up. Rather, we need to learn to take them with a grain of salt, and realise why these battles don't have to matter to us. Leadership is useful, and often worthwhile, but not when it limits our options, constrains our thinking, or distracts us from real issues.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" -Salvor Hardin
In the long run, the OSS movement isn't about leaders or corporate acceptance or the public perception of this community. This movement is about software, dammit, nothing else. Sure, Linux and OSS are currently in the spotlight, but that's a new situation the community is being forced to deal with. Soon enough the spotlight will swing and focus elsewhere and Linux/OSS will continue to trundle along in relative obscurity again.
This community doesn't have "leaders"...this community has "significant contributors". No one voted ESR or Perens or Raymond in as spokespersons, they just ended up there because of what they contributed (and continue to contribute) to this movement and to this community. Eventually other people will become the spokespeople for this movement...again, not because they're elected in any fashion, but because of what they do...because of what they contribute.
I'll now hoist up our very own Commanding Taco as prime example. He's a guy with a website fer gawd's sake. No one voted him in as maintainer of this website, he just built the damned thing. And what happened? Boom. The website got popular. Linux/OSS ended up in the spotlight. Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda ends up with a full page spread in Wired, ends up on the Advisory Board for linux.com, ends up being interviewed by the media...blah blah blah. No one voted for this guy for anything. Rob just actively contributed to the movement, and in contributing has ended up as a highly visible potential-spokesperson.
My point? Who the hell cares if Bruce and Eric fight like dogs?Who cares if they hate one another's guts and like airing their dirty laundry in public? I don't care. This doesn't change the amount of respect I have for them, because my respect is earned by their real-life contributions.
Personally I don't give two hoots if there is a wide-spread corporate acceptance and adoption of Linux/OSS. I don't. Even if the current surge in popularity continues unabated, it's going to be *years* before I am able to use Linux full-time in the workplace. Corporate adoption isn't just about getting word out about the quality of the software. There's a whole lot of other issues that have to be overcome: changing platforms is high-risk; retraining staff who have been trained on Windows for years is an expensive proposition; hiring staff to create and maintain the networks is also expensive; there are huge gargantuan piles of data lying around in proprietary format; there are tons of widely used proprietary applications which do not have Open Source equivalents yet.
Etc. As long as there are people who are willing to continue developing OS software, it doesn't matter at all if the corporate world adopts OSS. Not yet...not for years yet. This isn't going to be a Sudden Sweeping Change that zooms around the world leaving millions of smiling happy OSS users around the world. Right now the spotlight is on this community. The spotlight will move on long before Total Global Domination is a reality.
So...who cares if these guys fight? Let 'em have at it. It's entertaining the hell out of the press, and it's not like none of us have seen a flamewar before.
In the long run this movement will be a success not because of our spokespeople, but because of the quality of the code, documentation, and technical support. Not to mention the full-on support of open standards and a foundational philosophy that is non-exclusionary and puts powerful computing tools into the hands of the common people. Viva la revolucion, and all that.
- dria
It boggles my mind that RMS is the guy here with
the best grasp on reality. At least he has good reason for his holy war and continues to fight it without resulting to petty threats orname calling...
If they could all just be like Linus and stay out of the holy wars. *sigh*
-Rich
Heh. Does a Ph.D. in history count as missing out on a decent liberal arts education?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Just because you breed faster doesn't mean you leave more copies of your genes around. People in Mozambique, for example, have higher birth rates than in the United States, and yet the population of Mozambique declines (AIDS + civil war).
And you are not taking a long-term view. Having a BMW is not a survival trait. However, having a working society is. Ineffective societies die out, successful societies let their members multiply. Just don't think in terms of years, think in terms of centuries.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Seems to me that Eric and Bruce's public disagreements have degenerated into personal attacks. Lets not the rest of us fall into the same trap.
Lets also remember that there are real issues that face us at the root of their disagreement and that we as a community have to decide how to address them, although perhaps in a more civil manner?
...is a private matter and is NOBODY'S BUSINESS but mine and his.
Maybe if you took the time to read my brilliant essay "The Catheter is Bizarre" you might begin to recognize my DIVINE RIGHT to speak for programmers everywhere -- even the poor slobs using Visual Basic!
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I've read better essays on the men's room wall! For some examples of REAL writing, I refer you to my MANY previous slashdot posts:
"What does RMS stand for?" -- a brilliant ASCII tome (EBCDIC version also available) in which I point out that Free Software vs. Free Beer is irrelevant, because bars have been offering Free Peanuts for years. Indeed, if the FSF wants to be noticed, they should push for Free Nachos.
"Where's a Moderator When You Need One?" -- in which I explain, in detail, the Rob Malda-led conspiracy to systematically REDUCE the scores of my posts through biased and unfair moderation.
"Jon Katz Sux" -- pretty much speaks for itself.
Of course, unlike you, I would NEVER stoop to threats of violins to make my point. I'll let my writing speak for me and the entire slashdot community, whether they like it or not.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Bruce Perens had a long history of blowups and angry exchanges prior to this. In fact, he once claimed on slashdot that he was through with free software forever. This history of instability did not appear to bother Eric Raymond until such time as Bruce split with him. Then all of sudden Raymond suddenly started noticing that Bruce has a tendency to go off half cocked.
My understanding of Eric Raymond is also that he has had numerous spats like this with people in the past. There's this, the trademark dispute with SPI, the ncurses affair, and more I hear.
Of course I'm in no position to complain. I've been in quite a few flame fests in my lifetime. People say things in the heat of anger that they regret later. Unfortunately, in the modern electronic world it is there for anyone to see forever. Most of us don't have our every electronic word or posting examined like these two guys do.
How about the two of them just let it drop. And make a committment to try to not take things personally in the future, even if they think it should be.
It only seems to be a breach of "netiquette" if someone decides later they are embarrassed by an email message they sent. At least that is only time I ever hear people complain. There are a number of people (Richard Stallman is one, for example), who have never bought into your definition of netiquette. I fundamentally don't believe someone can send me an email full of threats and flames and legitimately expect me to keep that private.
Posted by Mike@ABC:
Geez...can't these guys take an anger management course or something? This isn't just a highly public flame war between two people -- it's something that effects everyone who's a part of the open source community.
The suits -- the guys who eventually make decisions about implementing software -- are going to read this. They're going to say "Good Lord, this whole Linux thing is supported by gun-toting yahoos." And then they'll go run Solaris. Or Windows NT.
What I don't think the community understands is that all of this stuff is public now. There's no such thing as a private flame war any more. My own mom can read any of this stuff. So can CIOs. For the good of the community, these two need to take their little feud into a private mailing list. If they want open source to prosper, these public flames will NOT help. With the rest of the world watching nowadays, y'all can't afford this BS.
Again, this is just my opinion. I could be wrong.
I'd never been threatened before and really did not know how to react - I think I took it more seriously because of the .signature, which was some Jefferson quote about the pistol being the best form of exercise. That was the next sentence after "Watch your step". Of course Eric is smart enough that he won't ever do anything like this again.
Eric communicated, through Dan Quinlan who was attempting to mediate, that he did not mean violence. At that point, I publicly dropped the issue. Dan did use the words "character defamation" in relaying Eric's message. Of course, it's hard to drop an issue when it's already in a mailing list. Both Eric and I made it clear to Leander at Wired that this was a non-issue. Other journalists, who I guess had more to write about, did drop the story when requested, including ZDNet and all of the various webzines. It felt really ironic having Eric and Brucie had a fight as the top headline at Wired while bombs were falling on Yugoslavia.
I spent part of yesterday patching Electric Fence, there's a new beta on my site. My DSL has been running full out for days serving downloads of the Digital U.S. Street Map, which I hope will seed the development of many free mapping programs. All of this is much more important than any little fight with Eric.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Please note that our two flamethrower-toting friends are free people and clearly have the right to say anything they want in any public forum. I hope nobody is really disputing this.
The real question thus becomes, was this public flamage a wise thing to do? Before your average Slashdot AC starts jumping up and down and shouting "Stupid! Stupid! Losers! Assholes!" I would like to point out that both Raymond and Perens are highly intelligent and articulate people. I am quite sure that they can decide on the wisdom of their actions without the help of more flamage directed at them. I really don't see the point of tsk-tsking at them.
Having said that, I would like to point out that my carefree attitude towards this spat is mostly based on my belief in social Darwinian evolution: the losers will die out (and, yes, I know, they breed faster). I do NOT think that the corporate attitude towards Open Source is going to be influenced by private disagreements, even if vocal and highly visible.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.