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ESR Speaking @Microsoft
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writes "ESR's been invited to speak at Microsoft on June 21st. The question: Why? The answer: Nobody knows... "
All it took was bribing him with dinner with Neil Stephenson.
I think that would work for Hemos too...
MS thinks this is what ERS will be
talking about.
ABSTRACT:
In the last nine years, the Linux
community has emonstrated a remarkable
ability to violate Brooks's Law
(``Adding more programmers to a late
project makes it later.'') and
produce extremely high-quality
software with large, loosely organized
development groups. This talk will
explain how it was done, focusing on
the central phenomenon of distributed
per review. The communications
structures and sociology that support
Linux will be analyzed in detail and
related to general phenomena in the
scaling of complex systems. Specific
prescriptions for effective development
will be elicited.
sql*kitten wrote:
Well, despite the hysterical raving of many "open source" advocates, remember that Microsoft is just a company like any other. Would it be newsworthy if ESR was invited to speak at Sun Microsystems or SGI?
As a previous poster indicated, yes, just not as newsworthy. Both Sun and SGI have already dealt with Free software and the Free software movement. Microsoft really has not, hence it is a new situation, hence it's news.
Considering ESR's public writing is often little short of slander
I think you're thinking about libel here (slander is for speech, not writing). I also think you are approaching libel here. In what way is ESR's writing criminally defamitory?
Microsoft are being extremely magnanimous by inviting him
No, they are hoping to gain something from this. Whether it's PR points, or they actually want to understand what ESR is talking about, I don't know.
I only hope that he endeavours to make it a productive meeting and doesn't engage in his customary circus act - if for no other reason than it would simply be rude to insult his hosts.
I think you're confusing ESR and RMS here. ESR's talks with companies are polite to a fault (in fact, polite to the point where I often disagree with him). RMS is the one who publically insults his hosts (generally when they deserve it).
----
Open mind, insert foot.
I found this quote at the end to be the most interesting:
Another sign of Microsoft's interest in open source comes from user statistics released Monday by Linux.com. Microsoft was the leading corporate visitor to the site in the first two weeks after it opened last month, with 15,000 visits from Microsoft servers.
That's a lot of visits in a month, about 500/day. I'm not sure what consistutes a "visit" (a single hit on any page?), but it seems like Microsoft is certainly keeping an eye on us Linux people.
Microsoft have a tradition of inviting all sorts of speakers onto their campus; the theory is that the more ideas their staff are exposed to, the better they work. It's a sort of memetic diversity thing.
As such, it was only a matter of time before they invited ESR or some other open-source figure onto campus. And ESR seems the obvious choice (being less zealously opposed to the basis of Microsoft's existence than RMS).
It doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be GPLing Windows 2000 or anything anytime soon. Though the increasing propagation of open-source memes in the MS environment may have an (as yet undetermined) effect.
Given his essay I wonder if it wouldn't be more productive to have Stephenson rather than ESR speak to MS. I can't really see MS learning much from the free software development process, but perhaps they could be gotten to rethink user interface issues.
Eric, Eric, turn to the Dark Side, it is your destiny...
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
So - it was YOU! No wonder my packet sniffer just died...
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Let's see... the open source movement's biggest gun nut visits the largest software company on the longest day of the last year of the millenium. I point this out in the lamest post in the thread, that's also the most-recently posted? Scarey.