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Ask Eric S. Raymond Anything
This week's Slashdot interview subject is Eric S. Raymond. You already know who he is, and may even know that his new book, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, subtitled Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary, will be published by O'Reilly in October. We anticipate lots of questions for Eric. Please try to avoid the obvious ones he's answered thousands of times already, and try to ask only one question per post! We'll forward the selected 10 - 15 questions deemed most interesting by Slashdot moderators and/or editors to him Tuesday afternoon. Answers will appear Friday.
I was wondering what you think of the implications of the success of linux with the creation of drivers etc due to a large number of devolpers vs the stablity and efficentcy of FreeBSD. What implications does this have for future free source ventures? Will Linux with its media hype catch FreeBSD or is it flawed to the core (or should i say 'kernel'? hehe)
Outside hackerdom, "intellectual property" is exactly synonymous with "proprietary information", which is the older term. This includes copyrighted and patented material and trade secrets, all of which can be treated much like real property. Why do you feel justified calling GPL-licensed software "non-proprietary" when that should only be applied to software in the public domain which no one owns? Do you expect everyone to learn and use the contents of your Jargon File to relearn the English language?
OSS business models do not include "blame" for failure. YOU must be responsible for your own decisions, successes and failures. There are no scapegoats available.
Oh, I get it. When I fuck up and sell you the results, it's your fault, not mine. I can drive my car through your living room, and it's your fault for not anticipating my actions and building your house elsewhere. So, actually, there's loads of blame and plenty of scapegoats -- but the scapegoat is always the screwee, rather than the screwer. This is because Libertarians tend to be young and naive (when not old and delusional), and they always like imagine themselves doing the screwing rather than being screwed; so naturally, that's where their sympathies lie. Eventually (just like communists, fascists, and other one-solution-for-all-problems ideologues) most of them grow up, live life a little, and moderate their views. Some, of course, cling to their views, wish those nasty facts away, and end up dangerously delusional.
One of the main uses for my PC is games. I like Starcraft, Descent3, Quake, you name it. In fact lack of games is the only reason I don't use linux at home.
My question is, how do you find the OSS model tackles the subject matter of games. We all know how prevalent hackers and cheaters are on games. There are all sort of patches in Starcraft to cheat. Wouldn't having an OSS version of the game make it extraoridinarily easy to cheat? I have no idea how to write a starcraft cheat in Windows, but I know I could easily modify the source code if it was OSS to my advantage.
Is it possible to have a stable and FAIR gaming community when the source is open for everyone to see and modify? I am very interested in your views on this.
Thanks,
Julien Beasley
That should be capitalized, i.e. Major Science Fiction, so that we know it's a proper noun, and not science fiction, the genre. Because Heinlein is old outdated crap these days.
Is Eric a member of the new-age Church of All Worlds (CAW) organization? He's clearly a neo-pagan, just wondering if he's the card carrying variety.
Slashdot promotes freedom--freedom of software and freedom of speech. You're just an X Windows bigot and haven't one of the many bad experiences of others users trying to install XFree86.
What flavor ice cream do you like? Do you add little sprinkles to yours, or any kind of syrup, e.g. caramel?
Stop lying.
It's incredible how a man and marketing can go so far. If it would be for "open source" "guevaras" we would follow Paul Vixie (Bind), Eric Allman (sendmail), Bill Joy (csh, vi, BSD, etc),McKusik (ufs), Larry Wall (Perl) but not such "open source" minimal contributor and its only "opera" fetchmail. There's no diff between MS/midia and Eric modus operandi. Thanks God the Real(tm) Bazaar never needed such "revolutionaries", we can live without Win2k and fetchmail but can't without bind/vi/net2,etc
NT - As Linux as I wanna be, and I get *both* processors too!
It makes it rather difficult for even the author to charge for the software. However the GPL on the Linux kernel had allowed an awful lot of people to 'make money' from it in its various forms. Red Hat et al seem to be doing fine off GPLed software.
M.
Apple released mkLinux in order to keep their hardware closed awhile longer. They did their inside port in order to reduce the pressure from outside the company to release the information that an outside group would need to produce an independent Linux port. Hackers all over would have started reverse engineering every aspect of Apple's hardware if Apple hadn't brought out mkLinux. It was a good defensive move on their part, and one that effectively keeps keeps part of the Mac secret to this day.
This is a GOOD QUESTION. ASK IT. Sam Wilson
Just go to the soothsayer's tent out in the Bazaar.
By all means stay away from the Cathederal. Those evil Christians hang out in there.
And remember, eclectic neo-paganism means never having to explain anything you don't wanna explain. If it feels good, do it.
explain the universe and give three examples, please
Let me refresh your memory:
Remember a pair of early teens that went on a shooting spree not so long ago (one of them said the [in]famous "I have lots of killing to do."). They were brought up in respected families with a strong gun culture. They were taught to use and respect guns from an early age. Make of it what you want...
So my question is, can the Open Source movement actually innovate on the large scale? Or does that require concentrated resources beyond the ability of the open source paradigm?
He's written a few essyas that have gotten published all over the place (The Cathederal and the Bizzarre), he's self-appointed to be in charge of the Internet Purity Test^T^T^T^T^T^T^T^T^T Jargon File.
He's the Linux equivalent of Guy Kawasaki.
Frightening, isn't it?
Damn Straight
Apprently yes!
um, "objectivism" that is...
I would say they're in to it.
This may be too personal, but what have the doctors diagnosed your mental illness as? I'm just curious, because I, too, have a friend suffering from dimentia and dillusions.
They don't seem too intolerant, at least not today. My comment two layers up, which was meant as a medium-high form of sarcasm, hasn't been moderated down.
Wow! These brilliants geeks have all the luck. But let's face it, once you're famous all the chicks are after you. After all, Mick Jagger is still rockin'.
Mabie he's referring to eithor the Kernel, the Movement, or Specific distributions, which can all be refered to as "Linux".
Not that I'm trying to answer this one for Mr. Raymond, but I recently had this discussion with someone else. I think the problem is in the misconception that having a gun gives you power when infact having a gun causes one person to end up dead and the other to end up in jail. The proper action should then be to teach gun safty in schools. I think that if children are exposed to guns at an early age, taught how to use them, and taught what they ca and, more importantly, what they can't do, kids would be much less likely to try to solve their problems with a gun.
Of course we also need to work on eliminating these
Not that I'm trying to answer this one for Mr. Raymond, but I recently had this discussion with someone else. I think the problem is in the misconception that having a gun gives you power when infact having a gun causes one person to end up dead and the other to end up in jail. The proper action should then be to teach gun safty in schools. I think that if children are exposed to guns at an early age, taught how to use them, and taught what they can and, more importantly, what they can't do, kids would be much less likely to try to solve their problems with a gun.
Of course we also need to work on eliminating these problems in the first place...
X Windows is a tool that neither sucks nor blows, it is people like you who give it whatever reputation it holds. If you personally suck or blow, then your touch will automatically assign that quality to everything in your sphere of influence. Please don't use Slashdot to expand the radius of that sphere any wider than your short-sightedness can see.
The only firearms transactions that are not recorded under this de facto registration scheme are private transactions between individuals (the so-called "gun show loophole" that you often hear the victim disarmament crowd braying about from the rooftops), and even this is regulated under state law, in many cases (in California, for example, every firearm transfer must go through a federally-licensed dealer; it is illegal for a private citizen to sell his own property to another private citizen).
The flaw in such "accountability" schemes, however, only becomes clear once you get past the "crimes of passion" and "guns make good people go bad" myths that the victim disarmament crowd perpetuates. It is incontrovertible fact that the overwhelming majority of crime guns are acquired, not through a federally-lisenced dealer, not through a legitimate private transaction, but illegally (through a straw purchase or theft or otherwise). Registration schemes only allow you to identify the last legal owner of a firearm, who well over 99% of the time is not the person who just used it in a crime (would you, if you knew the BATF and FBI could get your information so easily?).
Furthermore, there is a legitimate concern that more extensive registration schemes than currently exist would merely be precursors to widespread confiscation of privately-owned firearms. It is a matter of historical fact that tyrants throughout the ages have first registered weapons, then used the registration information to confiscate privately-owned weapons, and then enslaved the disarmed populaces. Some individuals, including many gun owners, view as paranoiac fantasy the idea that any such thing could happen in the land of the free and the home of the brave; however, only recently, the state of California has begun using registration information to confiscate firearms that owners had been previously assured did not fall under the state's onerous "assault weapons" ban.
Finally, it's important to realize that according to Supreme Court precedent, individuals who are, under the law, ineligible to own firearms cannot be prosecuted for failing to register their firearms. This, according to the SCOTUS, violates the Fifth Amendment's protections against self-incrimination. Ultimately only the weapons of non-criminals are registered under any gun registration scheme. Ask yourself this question: why on earth would the government need to know what guns you, a law-abiding citizen, own?
"Thus you now have more freedom of action than you did with GPL software. This is a good thing."
The coder has more freedom but the program freedom isn't promised (you can do a close version).
"Personally, I think the GPL helps both the free software and the opensource camps,"
Which was the aim of the FSF, they never intended to help closed source software. This is clearly stated in the GPL preamble, you can agree with it or not, but this is their aim.
"but I think that BSD type licenses [and systems] help the whole software industry"
Which was their aim too: to free the programmer. Given that the programmer can do whatever he want, it helps the industry, even the closed source part.
We've got used over here to americans talking about 'guns and freedom'. I think most europeans tend to expect it and will just filter it out of esr's discourse (when we've got time for discourse, that is, and aren't out enjoying our safer streets and lower murder rate)
What defines a Turing-complete programming language?
Thanks.
Hmm... lets see... (BTW, i'm not a microsoft employee or particullary pro-microsoft.)
I can't think of the last time Microsoft has bought a competitor just so it can claim stake to the market. (Computer Associates does this all the time.)
XML, HTML, IMPP, etc... Microsoft has been pushing to use public standards rather than introduce new ones. Is it's method of "embrace and extend" that different from other companies?
They haven't released the source for everything to the public, but most universities have access to the Windows NT and Windows CE source trees. (If your school doesn't, talk to your dean, it's very easy to get.)
Microsoft has about 3 technical conferences a day in my area alone (Technet, MSDN meetings, Training opportunities, etc.) Many of these are free, and the ones that aren't free are $100. Other companies host these, but not nearly as often and they cost $1200-$5000. I know most developers don't take advantage of these, but isn't this a sign of trying to help developers?
IE took over Netscape not just because it was on the desktop already, but it's a better product. Read any comparison of the two, and you'll see IE (at least IE 5) win. Or do your own compairison - how many times a day does Netscape crash? More than once? Then use IE for a week and see if it ever crashes.
Office is bloated, but they partially fixed that by only installing the necessary parts and features as you use them get installed JIT-style.
Windows 98 is buggy, and NT blue screens, but Windows 2000 is being talked about by non-Microsoft people as the most stable thing since a pad of paper. Is it more useful than a pad of paper? Who knows... I played with it and it was definitly faster than my NT install, and a hellalot faster than my 98 install, and the telnet demon was pretty cool, but the other features i don't really know much about.
Innocents?!? They were criminals resisting arrest!
You're a mindless left-wing socialist liberal ideologue! (Translated into plain English, that reads as "The facts you refer to are forbidden, because they're inconvenient" -- and anyway, Randy Weaver was required by his religion to sell automatic weapons to neo-Nazis. Therefore, preventing him from doing so is religious persecution!)
Actually, it's beginning to look like the Waco thing really was unjustified. By contrast, the Weavers were criminals and they opened fire first, so fuck 'em.
Offtopic? Yes.
Pointless? Yes.
Juvenille? Yes.
Funny? Yes.
I'm sorry. I keep forgetting how important Linux and Slashdot really are. We must always strive to be serious. After all, the corporate world is watching. We must appear to be as uptight and serious as them at all times, lest we not get favorable reviews on CNN Business News.
It was written by Donald R. Woods and James M. Lyon in 1972.
Eric,
I've read over your firearms page but saw no significant treatment of an issue about which I'd like to hear your opinion: gun registration.
Firearms rights proponents sometimes state that a solution to violent crime is not the restriction of gun ownership but enforcement of existing laws against violence. Effective registration would seem to be an important component of such enforcement: if it were possible to trace back the ownership of a gun used to commit a crime, the individual responsible for owning/selling that weapon could be held accountable. Responsible firearm ownership is at least a sliver of common ground in the gun control debate.
Arguments against registration that I have seen are typically permutations on the theme of "freedom wasn't won with a registered gun." Realistically, don't the present-day benefits of accountability outweigh the advantage conveyed by anonymous ownership during the Revolutionary War?
why aren't the tools used to create the Jargon File open source?
When's the next release of Nethack slated for public consumption, or is it effectively dead? ;-)
And don't say "it'll be released when it's ready"
complete ==> compete
You've attended a lot of technical shows, expos, conventions, etc.. Do you see the general dumbing-down of the attendants as a good thing? Does it show that Linux and Open Source have really made it, when technically illiterate people are lining-up to hear Linus, Alan Cox, or even David Mosberger speak? Or, is a serious problem that will hurt us? I noticed last year at the Linux Expo, the crowds were a hindrance to intelligent discourse.
Eric, Do you ever regret the position you've attained in the community or the positions that you have taken? Sometimes, when I read about your beliefs or positions, I feel that you don't see any grey, just black and white. Oftentimes this is the case with revolutionary's but if you ask almost any former '60s radical, they will regret not having seen the grey areas.
This post is fucking brilliant. I'd find it offensive, for several reasons, if it weren't so . . . fucking . . . brilliant.
(AC due to patent problems . .
There was a collection of Open-Source logos on the webpage, and the page said that there will be a voting somewhen. But it seemed to dissapear. Did you gave up the Open-Source-Logo idea? When will the final logo be decided?
Eric, what would you recommend for an aspiring wiccan follower? Are there particular texts or authors that you would recommend? A way of going about things that would help? Yes, we've already read your paper, but what could you add?
Now that oss is closing down some of the software backdoors into "citizens" computers, and now that hardware producers have for a while now foreseen this eventuality and have now been putting backdoors and serial numbers into our hardware, do you foresee a day when us human beings will have open source bios and open source hardware designs? ... as her lion slowly retreats. Now the sea is the Argonauts sea, and in the dawn ...stop ...stop, please don't distract me with morning coffee and pain grille, Listen carefully, and you can hear the distant calls of Odysseus as he steers his ships past the hoary straights. --- From D.H. Lawrence, I think, loosely. In any case, the lost memories which its images and rhythms seem to recall increase my love for stallman and torvalds, and for their crews.
---
Now that the sun, like the lion, goes down the hill, and now that the moon, rising like a queen, pauses near the crest of the hill and watches
Oh, so non-CAW (perhaps reformed CAW) aren't "card carying" NeoPagans?
I suppose you haven't read that great FAQ ESR makes. If you did you probably wouldn't hold such a view.
IMHO this is flamebait.
[1](Matt. 8:8)
Yeah. The Mensa members in the trailer park are always arguing, especially after they've had a few.
Dear Mr. Raymond, Philosophically, how do you resolve the Zen notion of egolessness against the central selfishness of Randian objectivity? Jamie Guinan (lost my /. password)
Do you have a social life? Do you date? In your work "The Hacker's Guide" you mention that all hacker wanna-be's should abstain from sex. I find this quite strange since Linus has a family. And, most of the hackers in the open source movement seem to be married or have girl/boy friends. I also find it interesting that you do not mention abstaining from drugs and alcohol. It seems that the Linux community is obsessed with beer.
Ok heres a humourous one, if you were on a desert island, which Linux distribution, application software, and nubile assistant would you like to have with you?
/. pool?
Current odds for Red Hat + Star Office + Gilian Anderson 10:1, anyone want to start a
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
We Christians are anti-evil. (That's kind of the point. :-)) And if you in any way whatsoever believe that anything is objectively true, then you will eventually be forced to the conclusion that Christianity is TRUE - a realization that comes very hard to some of us...
/. is intolerant of other forms of racial/religious slander, but doesn't seem to respect the rights of Christians?
"If God does not exist, then all things are permissable" - Dostoevsky
Note: That means if you believe that there should be ANY limits placed on human behaviour (ie, no rape, murder, etc.), then you believe in God. You may just not have finished thinking it through yet. BTW: Even the most humanist philosophers agree with Dostoevsky's quote above, they just reach the conclusion that all things ARE permissable, taking the nihilist view that everything is meaningless.
Seriously, why is it that
This has been my experience too, in both of the open source projects I have been peripherally involved with.
Essentially, the guy who comes in with the code gets to call the shots, whether anybody agrees with his way or not.
The less code there is in existence at the time the discussions start, the longer those discussions go on and the less actual work gets done.
If anyone is thinking of getting an open source project up and running quickly, bypassing most of the arguments, then it's necessary to develop a comprehensive framework at least, before opening it up.
But remember that unless you're one of the very best you're unlikely to get all the answers right all by yourself. So for the sake of the finshed product, maybe it's better to start with a heated debate after all. Just don't expect quick progress.
In summary: the logical way to proceed is to start by knocking together some code that demonstrates an arbitrary design, right or wrong, just as a seed to get potential codevelopers' interest and start them talking about how to do it right. Then when the dust settles, throw it away and start again.
Actually now I think about it that's pretty much what happened with Mozilla.
Eric, have you ever had a "First Post"?
Which would you prefer: Ginger or Mary Ann?
I've been following a discussion on this very topic, with RMS present.
He doesn't care for the term "viral". IMO it's somewhat accurate, not pejorative, and is actually a hot buzzword among Internet-related VCs -- viral marketing is what the idea behind HotMail was dubbed.
Alternative terms suggested:
I'd just as soon the proponents of the GPL latched on to the term "viral" as a positive portrayal of the nature of the license.
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Why not just rewrite the HURD servers in INTERCAL? It would
do a lot for their clarity.
A Turing-machine is a very simple computer that has an infinite, linearly organize memory, has a finite number of states, and may, depending on the current state and the character at the current memory address, perform some simple actions like increase or decrease the memory pointer by one, or write a character at the current location.
There are a large number of different but equivalent specifications for Turing machines, and the so-called "Thesis of (Alonzo) Church" states that everything that can be computed at all can be computed by a Turing machine. So far, most computer scientists do agree.
Less strictly speaking, a programming language is Turing-complete if it can be used to compute all Turing-computable functions if we abstract from the limited memory in real computers. Any language that allows assignments, simple arithmetic and conditionals, and either goto or while, is Turing-complete.
There is a fairly good description at this web site.
Stephan
Of course, it's the use that make them evil, but guns are supposed to hurt people. So, what's the fun of it?
What's your take on the emerging Virtual University concept -- do you think that learning out of the traditional classroom setting has any bearing on the development of a student, particularly a Computer Science major?
The Wknd Sessions - Malaysian and South East Asia independent music
Audin Malmin! How's your fan club doing?
--
I noticed
--
I noticed
It's getting about time to leave everywhere
Eric,
What do you feel is the role of Crackmonkey in the new gift-culture information economy? Is GAR a resource currently in artificial scarcity? How does Crackmonkey help or hinder participating in the reputation game? What future developments would you recommend for Spock Mountain Research Labs?
--
I noticed
--
I noticed
It's getting about time to leave everywhere
Given the ethics, morals, and integrity that you've shown to this community, would you ever consider running for political office?
Anything from State Rep, to Vice President, or (ceartinly to the information revoultion's gain), President?
If Jesse can win a govenership in the midwest, why couldn't we elect ESR to a similar office?
Dumb yourself down, run Windows.
...for someone without a sense of humor, or the ability to interpret a ;-)
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
> Do unto others what has been done to you
Then laugh.
If you can't do that, then spend some time examining the principles behind libertarian thought. At least then you won't make a fool of yourself with comments like:
> Probably the same people who think that
> limiting the basic freedoms of people you
> disagree with is funny too.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
...the answers are:
;-)
Anything that increases the flow of information and the general level of education and literacy of the population will help to reduce the "need" for government, whether it is a perceived need or real one.
So:
> In what ways can OSS be an enabling technology
> for advancing libertarianism?
OSS can enable the flow of information, that is: information conduits become less expensive and thus available to more.
> Do OSS business models teach us anything about
> being better libertarians?
OSS business models do not include "blame" for failure. YOU must be responsible for your own decisions, successes and failures. There are no scapegoats available.
> Can OSS be a factor in reducing the size and
> power of government?
OSS directly costs less. That in itself can facilitate a less expensive, AKA smaller gov.
> How can we non-coercively ensure that RMS never
> sings again?
Murder is not coercion.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
I've seen it said that open source projects go through a growth stage, where hackers work diligently to provide patches that cause the software to have the features they desire. After a while, contributions slow as the software matures, meeting the general needs of most technically minded people.
- ----------------
Unfortunately, if the software has potential to make it in non-technical circles, it often has to jump several remaining hurdles -- documentation, better user interfaces, etc.
Some have suggested that going "commercial open source" is the only way to get through this period of stagnation. Basically, you have to pay people money to do the unrewarding, tedious work that must be done to make software "ready for public consumption".
First, does this characterization match your experience? Second, do you see any alternative to going commercial?
Thanks!
--------------------------------------
"For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words
Very unlikely. I think his wife would probably have noticed by now. Of course, he could be bisexual, but that's not what you asked...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
with Linux becoming more and more a second x86 binary standard, do you think there will be more binary releases and network centric applications in the future leading to less software released as open source?
and: :-)
Have you ever tried out FreeBSD?
Why did you choose to stay in Pennsylvania? It looks like you never moved. Your resume shows a few different companies (all in PA?) until '85, and then you list yourself as an Independent Consultant for over eight years. I'm sure you got many offers in that time, many of them interesting, but likely most of them located in Northern California too. At the same time, your choices in PA must have been pretty slim.
If you could enlist Supermans help and reverse the rotation of the Earth and turn back time, would you make the same choices? What advice would you give to graduates and others that face the choice of whether to move to an area like Silicon Valley, or whether to stick it out and blaze their own path at home?
Thanks for fetchmail, by the way...
P.S. would you take the blue pill or the red one?
If you wanted a real life example, this is more or less what Dave Winer (Userland) has been saying.
10 years ago I used WordPerfect and Lotus to produce reports and spreadsheets on an XT. Today I need a Pentium to do the same sort of work with most office products, even though what I produce isn't a lot different.
It seems that our software is becoming far more demanding of our hardware, and yet the rise in functionality has not kept up (don't get me wrong - databases, scientific computing and games have all benefited, but most offices don't use these applications). Open Source software would appear to offer a solution, in that people could find the inefficiencies and eliminate them, however this does not often occur. Sure, the Linux kernel is fast, but have you tried to run Enlightenment or KOffice?
Do you feel this is an issue which should be addressed, or do you see the availability of ever faster hardware as the solution?
Thanks
I can ask anything?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Do you, or do you have ideas on having some sort of way to find reputable consultants to help any sort of business create a plan on intergrating opensource into their IT services? People who can talk tech, but know the legal and business sides of opensourceness.
I am worried that people will start going out there and saying "I can be a consultant for that!" like some people that are currently "NT consultants" because the money is there right now.
-- dieman - Scott Dier
The X Consortium requests that the following names be used when referring to this software:
:) thank you.
X
X Window System
X Version 11
X Window System, Version 11
X11
-- see X(1)
Why do people insist on calling it X Windows? It isn't frickin' windows! ok?!?
Will Open Source dominate the world?
What I think Tom is saying is that with the BSD license, you have 3 choices:
1) Use the code, publish your code under any random license you want.
2) Use the code, keep the code secret.
3) Don't use the code.
Obviously, these are more choices, and #1 is broader too. Thus you now have more freedom of action than you did with GPL software. This is a good thing.
Personally, I think the GPL helps both the free software and the opensource camps, but I think that BSD type licenses [and systems] help the whole software industry. Obviously having big companies publish their code is good, but the GPL does not cause them to do that, it just causes them to write their own inferior code and ram it down the poor user's throat!
#include
require 'no_flame_me.pm'
--Nick Martin
Eric, Have you ever had to resort to using your martial arts skills in order to protect yourself? If so, what was the situation? Also are you still active in martial arts?
You have been assimilated.
I was very excited when I heard from you that Sun would be making almost all their software Open Source. But what they have done isn't OSS, it's just releasing proprietary / semi-free software but letting people look at the code. In many ways, this is a bad thing, because it 'taints' developers who might otherwise develop Open Source alternatives (for example, trying to clone Java).
Do you think that we will see companies such as Sun release products as _real_ Open Source, or will they just be content with halfway houses like the SCSL?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Avoiding the word "viral" might've been a good start.
I miss Meept.
the RMS v. ESR debatacle seems to be a shining example of this - they are both hackers in their own right, they are both working towards the same general goal.. but yet when it comes to describing "Open Source" v. "Free Software" they both dip into non-linear territory. I can see a visible effort being made to maintain civility on some of the listservs - and Eric has on more than one occasion lamblasted somebody for getting their facts reversed. This fact hasn't gone unnoticed by the news media - I recall an article describing this exact chasm appearing on slashdot in the not-too distant past.
The question is... why?
--
I noticed your LARP resume on your home page. It's a continuous debate at least here in Finland whether LARP is only entertainment or if one can actually develop social or other skills through it. What is your experience and general opinion?
BTW, you're welcome to contact me if you ever happen to visit Finland and would like to get an invitation to some game that suits your interests.
Finnish Live Action Role Players' Association
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
Do you ever consider taking a sabbatical for a year or so, away from the conferences, "serious" coding, and community-building, to give time to projects you enjoy?
I'd be tempted to spend a while extending INTERCAL and/or Nethack, myself.
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
(note: this isn't a question to fuel flames on either side of the issue, I just want to know what his interests are.)
I'm not real big on this question but why did it get moderated the way it did?
Where do you stand on the whole Corel Linux beta issue, and why haven't we heard anything from the OSI about it? It would seem to be right up your alley.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" -Salvor Hardin
Do you still think MS were in the right in
the recent IM battle?
K.
-
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
GPL'd source may essentially never be used in a commercial project again, as all projects it is used within are forced to become non-commercial and subject to GPL.
You don't mean commercial, you mean proprietary. The FSF has a page describing the difference.
In short, commercial software is software developed for money. Proprietary software is software which is closely-held by its owners. The two concepts are orthogonal.
Bear in mind that you (or your company), as the author of a piece of software, have the right to release it under any license you like. This means that even after you release it under the GPL, you may re-release under a different license, so long as you do not include any modifications which are copyrighted by someone else. The FSF insists that "official" GNU software must have copyright assigned to the FSF for this reason, and to give them a stronger position if the GPL must ever be defended in court.
Releasing free software is a gesture of good will to users and to potential co-developers. Releasing free software under the GPL is a *promise* -- you won't take other people's free contributions and close them again without their permission. To release under the GPL is also foreclosing the ability of *other* developers re-releasing your software under a more restrictive license -- something that happens to BSD licensed software all the time -- without your co-operation. With your co-operation, anything is still possible.
Have you noticed that Cygnus releases software under the GPL which it doesn't give away for free? Customers have the *right* to copy and disseminate such programs to one another, but they choose to pay for it. Surely such software is worth quite a bit to those customers.
The FSF itself also makes a point of *selling* its software for a good price -- people can get it for free by download, but many continue to shell out hundreds for the official GNU distributions.
the terms of use are more invasive than the most predatory license agreements...
This is patently false. The GPL places NO RESTRICTIONS WHATSOEVER on use. It restricts *only* distribution of copies and of modified versions. Read it!
Jonathan
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
Innocents?!? They were criminals resisting arrest!
I have noticed a great deal of commentary from the tech press regarding Linux for appliances and sub $100 devices, but little mention of Linux as a viable desktop machine. Is this a case of well
well orchestrated FUD or is this the direction Linux should be headed? With Window manangers (esp KDE) making great strides in ease of use and customizability it seems we only need more app porting to be just as viable as any other OS/WM.
Sorry ...
For those of you who clicked, a great comment I saw somewhere ...
>>... (the thought of a DJ sitting at a computer
>>table on a platform in the middle of a dance
>>hall clicking a mouse kinda freaks me out)
>Well, for us old farts who remember that to
>entertain people musically you actually had to
>PLAY an instrument, this type of comment is
>kinda fun to see...
You wrote your Epilogue to "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" about the release of the Mozilla Source Code.Do you think Mozilla,now after years of release of the source,is beginning to become a real "serious project"? Does Mozilla has any significance in your opinion to the OSS movement? Or was it really an attempt by Netscape to hire "free programmmers"?
Thanks!
Since, as we all know, cheese is the most powerful substance in the universe, I was wondering what your favorite source of ultimate power is.
Well they did say I could ask anything...
It's not easy being green. -K.T.F.
In a purely mathematical sense, the most
efficient coding algorithm is predicated on
the valuation you put on the end result.
Hence, isn't it true that CatB arguments are
only valid for *your* definition of good code?
For instance, I only value java's compatibility,
so its speed of execution, number of bugs and
elegance of design are of no importance to my
valuation of that piece of software. Under
*my* valuation, should I support open sourcing
java? Are there valuations under which open
source is not a winning strategy?
How old do you have to be to go on Geeks with Guns? Can I come? :)
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit. -- Robert Anton Wilson
jdube is who
Dude.
Geeks with guns.
'nuff said.
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit. -- Robert Anton Wilson
jdube is who
Care to comment on the story (popular in the DC area) of your yakking over the catwalk rail in the Cape Canaveral Vehicle Asembly Building?
Is it a base canard? An exaggeration? Maybe something some other guy named ESR did?
Or, are you the first non-astronaut to send blown chunks into orbit?
C'mon, Rob, don't moderate my question out... Infantile minds want to know!
Intellectual property claims aren't necessarily always evil,
but frivolous, overly-broad claims seem to be a growing problem
(e.g., sightsound.com's patenting of internet delivered audio/video,
or OpenMarket's patent on shopping carts).
We can whine, posit, and conjecture all the day long
on Slashdot about greed of various media and software
companies and their lawyers, but what can we really start
to DO about it?
Tweet, tweet.
Do you think that in times where the Internet reaches everywhere, and even I - a single-household - am connecting my third computer to my LAN, that to few people control the "key business". :-) tempting.
I mean Linus (Torvalds) and Alan (Cox) control the Linux-Kernel. You are THE open source man. Brian solves any license questions. Bill Gates (still) controls the major market share. The list goes on and on.
Having so much power might (and in some cases already is
And the famouse quote "Linus and Alan should fly on different planes" also comes to mind!
Do you think that might be dangerous in the near future?
-- MicAttAck
Religon is an insult to human dignity.
In Friday's responses from Havoc Pennington we learned that there is a Tuesday cut-off for question selection. I would like to suggest that once questions are selected, The Powers That Be(SM) post an Update: to the article explaining that we should all sit on our hands until Friday and not promote additional carpal tunnel syndrome by needlessly posting additional questions or wasting valuable moderator points.
just an idea.
bnf
this space intentionally left blank (oops)
IANESR* but: From my worms-eye view, as an engineer in my second startup, being a member of a board of directors appears to be very far from a full-time job. It's amazing how uninvolved BOD members are, even when the company they direct is swirling down the drain. I think the reason is they are involved, not committed. (A chicken is involved in making the egg in your omelette; she's committed to your chicken salad.) * IANESR: I Am Not Eric S. Raymond
In an article I recently wrote for the WSU Association of Pagan Students' Mabon newsletter, I used you as an example of a Pagan individual who is technically competant (statistically 17 to 22% of the NeoPagan community in 1985 -- Adler - DDTM 2nd Ed.), and liken you in that reguard to VRML inventor Mark Pesce.
What is your conception of a "TechnoPagan" and do you consider this a viable and/or developing NeoPagan tradition?
No, there is another way.. but you won't like it.
-- ATTENTION: do not read this sig. It doesn't say much.
What is your opinion on Virginia's claim to be the Capitol of the Internet? What is your opinion on what SHOULD be the capitol?
It's always been my understanding that California was the Capitol State, what with Silicon Valley (easily the capitol of High Technology), UCLA (part of the first experiment 30 years ago), UCB (who begat BSD)... What does Virgina have? AOL?!? C'mon...that's not even funny!
"All warfare is based on deception."
Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"
Hmmm... lets see, a virus which people willingly infect themselves with, is recommended by intelligent, well respected people, is widely believed to have a beneficial effect? A vaccine, I believe. One which promises eternal life*, no less. Sign me up now!
* I.E. The code lives on!
(Don't complain about this euphemism. It makes more sense than your one. )
Should you ever have to step out of the OS picture for whatever reason, who would you (a) chooose, and (b) choose to take your place?
To what extent do you believe that software patents are defendable as a mechanism for the government to promote R&D that leads to greater wealth? What limits would you place on patents?
Alternatively, to what extent do you promote copyrights for the same purpose? What limits would you place on copyright? To what extent should copyright owners be allowed to restrict reverse engineering?
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
Wouldn't it be "...Musings on GNU/Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary"?
:-)
Just asking
--Ben
www.tuxedo.org/~esr
Large portions are devoted to guns and ESR's views on guns.
-Laktar, a.k.a. Nick Rosen, laktar.dyndns.org
If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord:
64. I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual
phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage.
-- Peter's Evil Overlord List, http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html
What do you think of the changes to the BSD license?
-Laktar, a.k.a. Nick Rosen, laktar.dyndns.org
If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord:
1. My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not
face-concealing ones.
-- Peter's Evil Overlord List, http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html
Do you see any potential problems with malicious product forking, where a company would leverage a large market share and a modified GNU/Linux with some proprietary software, to try to control the whole community.
(An example, though I apologize for the MS-paranoia, is MS making a MS-Linux which would be compatible with some new proprietary NT networking/file-system, setting everyone up to use only MS-Linux in situations where it needs to coexist with NT, but controlling the Linux-derivative through seperate, yet required proprietary modules.)
If so, do you see using the Linux trademark that Linus has control over, to allow marketing of 'Linux' derivatives and software only if they follow certain free-software rules. (Not making the basic OS depend on any proprietary or patented code, etc...)
We could end up in the future, if this happens, with many patented protocols used on GNU/Linux derivatives, and many distributions like Debian being basically shut-down because they couldn't even reverse engineer the protocols, and won't release a non-totally open distro.
I just know you've tried it...
Do Windows & AOL CD's make good skeet targets?
Don't throw your computer out the window, throw the Windows out of your computer!
When is it? What will it be?
Nethack should be celebrated as one of the greatest open source projects in history. Certainly it is the one people have spent the most time directly interacting with.
It seems as though in asian cultures respect for intellectual property on the part of governments, corporations and individuals is much lower than in the west (This is an overbroad generalization, but one supported by a lot of anectodal evidence that has come my way over the years).
Currently, this expresses itself as endemic piracy of closed source software, music CDs, movies, etc., but I suspect that when Open Source wins over closed source software, rampant violations of the GPL will ensue from asian corporations and developers.
What will we be able to do to protect the GPL in the arena of international law and a global marketplace?
--
The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
Eric,
Mars Climate Observer, was it knocked down due to little green men in need of some fun, or was it because of their closed-source software development? Seriously, could NASA and other public government agencies benefit from a free/open source project?
"Though it may take a thousand years, we shall be FREE."
"is like herding cats..they fight a lot before they actually start doing anything" because each one thinks they are right.
+&x
How do you feel that Open Source and Free Software mesh with software engineering principals, including the capability maturity model. The seemingly haphazard methods of the bazaar would seem to fly in the face of the CMM
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
What I'd like to know is why Mr Raymond slams Commodore Electronics (requiescat in pace) so scathingly both in the Jargon File (entry 'chickenhead' -- "notoriously crocky bitty boxes", indeed!) and in /etc/termcap ("Egregious mismanagement" I can agree with, but "Shaky engineering"? In comparison to Apple II's and early IBM PC's? Yes, I know UNIX has been around since the 1960's at least, but c'mon, it was almost-strictly mainframe stuff for a good decade or two -- not like now when J. Random Windozer can casually split off a partition of his hard disk for Linux). I wonder whether Mr Raymond would've been just as nasty toward Amigas as he is toward the 8-bits had they not had their UNIXy command line interpreter.
He's a kept man. His wife pays the bills. He's laid aside his consulting business for the past few years. She makes enough for the two of them, and she may need a sugar daddy in the future. She may need to take a low-paying job (as a court clerk) as a stepping stone to the Supreme Court. So he's taking advantage of their being SINKs (Single Income No Kids) now, presuming that later the roles will reverse.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
thats simple. and its come up on practically *every* mensa magazine out there..seems that the more intelligent people are the more they like to argue. leading software developers or mensa members is like herding cats..they fight a lot before they actually start doing anything.
one word : HURD !
In light of the bad feelings caused by the Corel Linux beta test license, it seems possible that the GPL in particular, and OS in general being weakened by commercial ventures trying to cash in on the good press. What is your position on the Corel licensing and the potential larger issues coming out of it?
Much of ESR's writing has been about the internal dynamics of the OSS community. Well and good, but the world is wide and non-OSS influences tend to dominate. Howcome so few comments on the role that the anti-OSS camp have to play?
My own take is that the coopetitive nature of OSS makes their attacks (Mindcraft, Dvorak, etc.) just another form of peer review -- which is what makes OSS thrive. That said, I'd rather see ESR's analysis.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Remus Shepherd asked:
Could scientific research/teaching/politics/other endeavours benefit from a 'Bazaar' approach of distributed design?
Let's not flatter ourselves too much. The scientific community don't need to learn Open Source methods from us, because they taught them to us in the first place. Open Source is essentially the application to software of the open publication/peer review methods that have been so successful in the scientific community for centuries.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
That's a question that you could answer yourself just by thinking about it. For example, when Wine reaches release-grade, and is capable of running all Win32 software, MS-Word will still suck sitting on top of it. Equally, I think a port of software such as Outlook for example to Linux, will still not improve the quality of the software. It may crash less, because it's sitting on a stable platform... but if it's bad software, it doesn't matter what platform it's running on.
Bzzzzzt..."AAAAaaaaarrrgh!!!" Thud.
Out of all the gaming platforms in this 'wonderful' age of computers, what would you say is your favorite and why?
Question everything!
How do you feel about your key character role in After-Y2K? Do you think that all the 'geeky' comics, big cuddly penguins and anti-Micro$oft stuff serves to further The Cause, or do you think it could work against us in the long-term, closing off geek communities (and Linux) from the rest of the world?
insignificant sig
ESR is a leading open source advocate. The Halloween Documents, internal memos from Microsoft about Linux, Open Source, and stuff, were leaked to him and he posted them at opensource.org. If you'd like to find about him and his views, probably reading his reaction to the Halloween Docs would do the job. Or, just go to his homepage and read about him.
Links to his essays
That would cover all I know about him, which really isn't all that much.
I never did like to do anything simple when I could do it ass-backwards. - Neuromancer
Hello Tom Christiansen,
... a world where the hood isn't welded shut on my software is a beautiful dream. So that even if I don't want to modify the software, someone else may make the software I will find useful. I don't see how the BSD license would be efficacious in making those proprietary problems go away... because sometimes the best software is written by proprietary companies, who if they do not release Free software, have the final word on whether you can learn the internal working of the hardware it drives, if it will change all your preferences, if it will install itself everywhere but you don't know where, if it will create a world where software sucks. That is: the current state of running Windows on my computer.
It's nice to type to you. It's hard to tell exactly what you want. It sounds like the most important thing to you is to have a coherent system that sticks to standards. Given that, you want free software over non-free software. It's not entirely clear if you are against using GPL'd software, or just against FSF for saying it is Free when it really isn't.
I think you have given the most coherent explanation about truely free software I have ever read, and I'm at a loss to produce any apologetics for GPL software that doesn't have holes in it regarding Freedom. It's basically made to make sure that people have the right to redistribute the software and any modifications to it, at the expense of the freedom of companies to make proprietary versions of that software.
That seems like less freedom if you are already with the BSD condition. But as someone who has put up with shareware that stops working after a certain amount of time or has artificial shortcomings in the free [beer] versions, free [beer] software that "cannot be used for commercial purposes." As someone who has to decide between downloading a warez copy of DVD software or pay $50 to get the software to use my own (!) hardware, because the manufacturers are in a conspiracy to keep that technology locked up. As someone who has been forced by Microsoft to install Internet Explorer and therefore MSN just to run Visual Studio (which I chose to pay for).
Your best example against called GPL "free" is that just calling an API means your software must be GPL. What about the LGPL? You can create non-GPL software (anything from giftware to fully proprietary) that links to LGPL libraries!
Commercial copyrighted software with a standard EULA is viral too. If you include any of it in any copies against the EULA (like making a copy on another computer or using some of its code in your program) makes you a "pirate." Isn't that kind of software the greater evil?
Is there any way free/GNU/and open source people can work together?
(I hope that was readable.)
And, judging from the posts on slashdot, many open-source supporters are also libertarians. However, the main libertarian magazines, e.g. Liberty, Reason, etc., only mention Open-Source in passing, usually in the context of pointing to it as one form of competition in their anti-trust/microsoft articles.
Have you approached any liberatrian magazines about doing an article on open-source software?
I find it amusing that they advocate compition as being a good thing. However, they always claim that the lack of OS compitition is a good thing because there is a 'standard'.
I feel like picking a fight with everyone who thinks they are right. - Rainmakers
Am I the only person here who has NO idea of who the person I'm supposed to be asking questions is, and what he has done?
(no, this wasn't a joke)
Insert "moderator on crack" comment here.
-- $SIGNATURE
-- $SIGNATURE
Eric is known to be a medievelist. I would like to know if Eric has ever participated in a May Day celebration. Has he ever been crowned King of the May? Has he ever defended his title?
hello
while you are president of opensource.org and
open source != free software, what do you think
about the SCSL, APSL and all the yet another public
licenses ???
And do you think Montery will be successful?
my 0.02 E
Well, we've got to have a choice of funny questions, so here goes. (inspired by the current poll):
When choosing a breakfast cereal (assuming you consume breakfast cereals) which of the following methods do you practice and why ?
a)best brand-name recognition from product placements and/or blatant advertisingp rotein-fat-laden-Calvin&Hobbes-esque cereal a l-replacement cereal
b)most irritatingly memorable jingle
c)coolest mascot
d)least nutritious, most sugar-coated-candy-frosted-chocolate-filled-anti-
e)most nutrious, health-freak-dietary-fibre-enhanced-vitamin-miner
f)random chance, just grab whichever box comes to hand (the Zen choice)
g)Breakfast cereal ?! Who gets up in time for breakfast ?
---
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
You have speculated on the reasons why people contribute to Open Source, what do you think about the notion that its success is at least in part due to the fact that it allows people to do random things to it at a very low level, e.g. adding a new filesystem to Linux with specific attributes like automatic file versioning, indexing etc? Can we view it like DNA, instead of the selfish gene (a la Richard Dawkins), we have the selfish code? And as OSS tends to mutate faster than closed source (like bacteria against antibiotics) is there really any room for closed source except for custom made apps (e.g. within an organisation)?
(Sorry I know its only supposed to be one question per post but its all linked!)
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
Eric, over the last decade usage of the Internet has grown immensely, become overwhelmingly World Wide Web oriented, and been stratified from a way of exchanging information between sites both supplying and using data to a structure divided between "suppliers" such as portal sites and "users" often actually forbidden to operate server software on their connections, and expected to use little other than their web browsers to guess, point, click, wait, and repeat in a linear search for information.
Is it your belief that these trends will continue, or do you feel that there is still room for entirely new methods of gathering and presenting Internetted data to users to appear and compete in the marketplace, or for the users to return to supplying a greater share of the data retrieved by other users?
"extremely dangerous"? Part of the problem with this discussion is that too many individuals elevate their opinions to that of a religion statement, and refuse to consider rational arguments that refute their basic tenets.
I believe in truly unemcumbered "open source" software. GPL is the most invasive, restrictive, infectuous license in general distribution. It attempts to impose a communist or altruistic business model on the software developers. How is that not infinetely more dangerous than a simple waiver of liability?
GPL is a touchy subject because it imposes such severe restrictions on reuse, while being praised under the "open source" monkier.
GPL'd source may essentially never be used in a commercial project again, as all projects it is used within are forced to become non-commercial and subject to GPL.
Many programmers, such as myself, cannot understand why it isn't a larger issue. Only programmers remaining in academia or working in a non-capitalist market can ignore the consequences of GPL and pretend that all is OK. There are a few companies buoyed on Internet Stock IPO's that would argue the point, but I'd point them to their balance sheet r/e burn rate vs. actual revenue.
It's an "open source" license that _forces_ you to change your business model to an indirect one, such as selling support or distribution packages at near-cost. The source is "open", but the terms of use are more invasive than the most predatory license agreements I've ever seen. This has been wildly successful for some niche systems in leau of legal challenges, but should all software development go this route? Most programmers would starve to death.
That's a good reason to argue...
First, it requires the actions of the computer it is running on and the software it has been embedded into to "spread", so it does nothing by "self" by any definition of the term.
Second, GPL does far more than "perpetuate" - since its license circumvents the license of the entire application it comes into contact with and changes the license of the entire source base to match its own, "viral" is the only correct term.
Whether GPL is "good" or "bad" is another debate, but please don't attempt to apply euphamisms to it, especially an incorrect one that obsfucates critical issues.
These days my company, Coltronix.com, made a proposal to Mattel/TLC (current copyright holder over practicaly dead WordStar) to acquire this wordprocessor, claiming that if done Coltronix will imediately release all the code and fiile formats as Open Source (TM).
Will you publicly back our proposal to open-source WordStar?
Catalin Braescu
-- We provide Zope consulting from US$ 25 hourly!
And now, the really important question everyone wants to ask... What is it like being immortalized as a cartoon character on Nitrozac's After Y2K! Looking buff by the way!
;-)
Oh, will you be speaking at Abacus World Expo?
I have not seen this satisfactorily demonstrated. Merely mentioning it doesn't prove it.
My understanding of the GPL stems from: The mere aggregation of your code with GPL code does not bring your code within the scope of the GPL.
Anyway, thank you for further explaning your point of view. I still don't agree with it, and I still think that the use of pernicious language is unnecessary.
Passionate, intelligent people often express their views using fairly dramatic language. In this light, I have been cautioned to avoid giving the full weight of the negative connation of "viral". However, sometimes people go too far.
You are welcome to email me. I will not be posting more noise on this topic to /.
Good day.
You were a moderator with 5 points. You should have read the moderator guidelines before you did any moderating
For those of you who don't know Intercal, it is a Turing-complete programming language deliberately designed to be unlike any other programming language in any form.
Check The Intercal Resources Page for more information.
What possibly possessed you to ever come up with this programming language (Intercal)?
Are you still doing anything with the language and what kind of support for it is happening with Linux?
I was wondering... what's tucked away in your Y2K/general-apocalyptic emergency storehouse?
I'm pretty sure there's a book for writing Haiku in there, somewhere...
Nitrozac
Open-source seems uniquely suited to the software business, but there are other areas of society where it may have an effect as well?
For example, architectural services are expensive and made up of an elite group today, but there are very few innovators, many buildings are just collections of "known good" parts.
Could we see the Open Source movement affect non-software areas? Could there be "open-source" building designs and components?
Obviously, there are pros and cons... I'm not sure if you can have an Open Source building design and feel safe in it, but you could make the same argument about using Linux to do critical work, such as hospital systems.
Thoughts?
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
Given your stand on OSS and the 2nd Amendment, have you ever considered the ultimate in PHBdom: Running for President of the US?
And after you came down from the Nitrosolv fumes, what is your favorite handgun?
www.eFax.com are spammers
What are your plans for the future? Now that you've published your first book, now what? More kernel hacking? Another book? A Linux startup maybe? Where do you want to be in five years?
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
As you invoke links between free-thinking geeks and proprietary-minded suits, does the code word "choardic"(#3;) arise in any of your dialogues? Could creative freedom and cooperation enforced by "open source" also inform actual corporate by-laws, (sort of like Dee Hock's 25% implemented code for Visa International?). Are they conceivable, corporations that don't suck?
>3. Ain't Mae Ling Mak really cute?
>
>4. (No GIFs due to patent problems)
Why not mak a Mae Ling PNG?
Glenn
Given that you support libertarianism, and yet also have stated a desire to see the various Unixen coalesce around Linux, how relevant is the BSDs' survival to you and why?
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Eric, why in the world is NetHack so hard to build?? Did you make it difficult on purpose?
Some of us only have time to play games when we're sick, and it took me the whole day the first time just to get the darn thing built! I probably could have patched it in the same amount of time.
Really, is it such a mess on purpose?
Phil
Lets not bother Mr. Raymond with such terrestial matters such as his favorite distribution or his most loved caffine delivery system, lets cut to the important questions.
What is it like to be immortalized , for all time, in the online comic masterpieces such as Illiad's User Friendly?
So what did we learn?
Basically the C keyword auto is useless.
The next remark is false. The previous remark is true.
At first sight the main reason they have for not using an OS license like GPL is that they care about the money they expect to get from commercial licensing... But I doubt it. It really seems to me that they ask companies to pay simply because they are stuck with the idea of "those who can should pay" and so for them OS doesn't seem fair enough. Sadly this seems to be a common critic to OS licenses, don't you agree?
For an interesting example of academic license see the ZIB Academic License which is applied to many mathematical programming software like SoPlex.
See, too much work or becoming obsolete is a defeatist concept. If there is an idea or even a small ideal creeping around in the back of someone's head, it will be brought into being simply though perserverence and a deliberate will to make things happen. This is what separates the doers from the thumb suckers. "Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist but you have ceased to live." --- Mark Twain.
If you were a robot, would you GPL yourself?
Most analysts critical to Microsoft claim that this is a bad thing for consumers in the long run, even if in the short term they (the consumers) benefit from the monetarily free program. The reason it's a bad thing is because other companies no longer have the incentive to create web servers and browsers; thus competition is destroyed and innovation stifled.
My question for ESR is the following: is he concerned that these same accusations might apply to the OSS community and its abundant production of monetarily free software? Furthermore, does the issue of "dumping" bother him with regards to OSS, or does he believe that software "dumping" is a legitimate practice, or does the question simply not apply?
Thank you.
hessiebell
p.s. what is your favourite type of m&m?
---
"Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi! You're my only hope!"
---
"I can't send an email! Is the Internet full?"
For Eric: Do you think we'll talk about, much less care, what operating system(s) we'll be using in 50 years?
Hi Eric
You may have been asked this many times before but as I'm not an avid reader of all things open I would have missed it.
Do you ever tire of the hero worship? Of having people agree with things you said, just because you said them?
This is one of the things that annoys me most as an observer, I find it hard to take the Linux community seriously because the most vocal people seem to be the dogmatics. The same thing happend in the Amiga community, although its died off so much now it reminds me of the early days.
cheers
Inc
Each language has it's own merits and uses but everyone has a favorite. If you could program something in any language without any loss in portability, functionality et al... which one would be your choice and why? plaXion
Ok, so just about everybody hates Microsoft, that's just a fact. So what can Microsoft do fix it's self? Not just it's image of the 800 pound gorrila or the Evil Empire - but how it functions as a company.
I'd rather be pro-microsoft than pro-aol (the 8000 pound gorrila that most people don't see coming).
Free Software will eventually achieve dominance.
Do you think it's possible that you're actually
hurting the free software community, and thereby
reducing software quality - since fully free
software has characteristics which help it achieve
higher quality - by encouraging commercial companies to embrace partially free software
which allows them to complete more effectively
with truly free software? (Not totally free
contributions such as Mozilla, MPL, APSL & IBM's Opensource efforts (IBM holds more than 10% of all existing software patents.))
I read an interview you gave the Philly Inquirer in which you spoke about your use and collection of guns. What are your thoughts regarding free software vis-a-vis the 2nd amendment? vis-a-vis the Bill of Rights in general? Do you feel ideas have influenced in the Open Source movement? If so, how?
I don't mean to stir up a gun debate, but rather, derive a possible source of the Open Source philosphy.
> Apple has turned to BSD not Linux.
It probably has more to do with history than anything else. Apple _used_ to be into Linux (with MkLinux) until they bought NeXTSTEP, which already included a BSD on top of MACH. They have released the non-GUI part (Darwin) of MacOS X as free software, so I doubt that the GPL requirement to do that was significant in the decision.
In which of the application areas currently dominated by proprietary solutions do you think free software would work best? And which areas do you think free software are least likely to succeed in?
Or are there no way to guess?
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product
What influence, if any, do you think the Open Source movement will have on companies whose sole value is in the software they sell? (i.e. they don't sell support or services -- just closed-source binaries.)- -----------------
-------------------------------------
"For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words
C.
I sometimes write stuff
Eric's a major science fiction fan, and I'd guess that the works of Robert Heinlein would figure prominently in any such list...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I'm a big fan of the idea behind open source software, and I do play around with Linux, but most of my time is spent with "closed source" operating systems. Due to the viral nature of many open source licenses -- most notably the GPL -- it seems like there should be a way to increase the amount of open source software on proprietary platforms, which would (in theory) make proprietary systems more open and strengthen open source software in general.
How would you suggest going about doing this?
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
If you were stranded on a desert island, what ten albums and ten books would you want with you?
pronoblem
Did RMS really sing 'join us now and share the software'? :^)
--
Most critical battles of propaganda war have already been won, haven't they (the turnout has sure been fast-paced this year)? Now some efforts have to be focused to getting all the big corporations to really work together in open source spirit, but it's likely FSF will do a lot of the preachery :)
Do you have a vision of how to maximize the prize - would it be a neat idea for the next decade to talk about other relevant areas of sharing (non-computer IP issues, global poverty), or should the open source movement not be used as an example for a more general gift-culture based alternative society?
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
ORA's website on your book says that your essay, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, has been updated and expanded. Did you add anything to reflect the sweeping changes that have been ocurring in the industry due growing acceptance of Open Source Software? I'm not suggesting anything like Bill Gates's revamp of The Road Ahead (when he realized the internet, not the cd-rom, was the Next Big Thing). In short, has your outlook on the Open Source Movement changed at all since you initially wrote CatB, and if so, how?
We want endless gardens of data, where the bits can flower, flourish and reproduce. -- Andy Mueller-Maguhn
The Berkeley licence guarantees that the code will always be free. So does the Artistic Licence. So do a lot of licences. They simply refuse to try to tell others what to do with their own code enhancements. BSD code is forever free. The BSD licence makes no claims about non-BSD code, and this is only reasonable. The GPL makes claims about non-GPL code. This is not reasonable. Keep your licence to your own code, and let others live as they will without any holier-than-thou intrusiveness. If someone wants to make a value-added version of BSD and sell that without also giving away their investment money they put in to make the added value, they can do that. And they have. And this is great. It doesn't affect the original BSD-licenced code, which remains forever free. It's remarkably how many people don't understand this. GPL isn't forever free. It's forever in coercive bondage. Hence the whole virus matter. If you want something free, SET IT FREE AND STOP POKING YOUR NOSE INTO OTHERS' CODE!. Your code is and always will be free. No one can change that. Please stop saying they can. That you expect to infect others is immoral.
The free software movement seems to span many political and religious viewpoints, and you must have met more of the movement than most people. Do you have and feeling for what worldviews are more common in the free software movement? Is it every difficult working on a shared cause with people with very different motivations?
What about rewriting Linux and Gnu software on Intercal and building an Intercal Operational System that only Intercallers would know how to use?
-- You are in a twisty maze of passages, all alike.
The GPL was written to ensure that free software continues to be made free. Such effort is not wasted. It can continue to be included in free software
Open only means you have the right to look. Additional rights may or may not be granted by particular licenses. That's why I personally dislike the term "Open Source". It's too vague, although it is useful as a "Big Tent" moniker.
In reference to other points brought up in this thread (not just your article):
The term self-perpetuating is, as most words are, somewhat inaccurate. But it is not pernicious. Although we may have to coin new language to deal with the terms of the debate, I don't think that something that connotes disease is really appropriate. The FSF deals with some of these linguistic issues.
I wish only to focus on why the term viral is inappropriate in this debate.
Let me begin by attempting to understand, without malice, the the other side. The basic point of the other side seems to be "Once I put GPL'ed code in my program, the program becomes freer than I would have originally liked". This injection of freedom that changes the program into "something else" is what people are referring to when they call something viral. Am I correct in my understanding?
I don't agree with this position, because it says that any precondition for use and anything that imposes additional responsibility is equivalent to a disease. Also, the GPL itself does not appear to support this position. I admit there is some language that made me think twice, but it is heavily qualified.
I am trying hard not to quote the GPL itself because:
However, I do think that Open Source is annoyingly complicated for me. I know that with free software, I can take it and reshape it, and redistribute it without worrying about taking away anybody's rights. I find these redistribution rights too restrictive in other licenses (some of which merely give you the right to look at the source- whooopee).
I had no idea this would take me an hour to write. I've got to get back to work.
You were a moderator with 5 points. You should have read the moderator guidelines before you did any moderating
I wish distinguished people such as yourself would stop calling the Gnu GPL "viral". Viral has a hostile connotation that the GPL doesn't really deserve. Self-Perpetuating is not synonymous with viral. You may not like the GPL's restrictions on re-use in proprietary software, but that does not justify use of a term such as "Viral" that implies a definite mens rea .
People in leadership positions should be more careful of the language they use because it will be duplicated. You are entitled to your opinion, Mr. Christiansen, but you do not benefit the tone of public debate when you use terms such as "viral" to describe the GPL. Less heat, more light, remember?
/rant off/
You were a moderator with 5 points. You should have read the moderator guidelines before you did any moderating
If by some odd quirk of fate this question actually gets submitted, could someone please replace "unambiguously" with "ambiguously"? Usually I would consider the chances slim, but since without that mild correction I would look like even more of a fool than I probably do already.. ;) Silly typos.
~ Kish
The Cathedral and the Bazaar was initially a attack on the mandarin system setup by the FSF, but in the last year it has seemingly metamorphasized into an attack on all closed source software development.
Some, usually small shops that develop proprietary software, have charactized this as a matter of convienience for the author. These people typically see the essay as an attack, as they earn their living writing code and the two most prominant figures in the Open Source and Free Software movements do not.
What would you say to these small development houses to assuage their fears and/or point them in a better direction.
Are you tenured-for-life somewhere like RMS?
How does this affect your attitude when you're writing about or discussing the future of programmers whose career is tied to the commercial success of non-Open Source software development?
I guess I don't exactly know how to phrase this question properly, but here goes:
What do you think is the 'coolest' piece of open source software you've ever seen?
Eric, what do you think needs to be done about the increase in military style attacks on civilians by our police agencies. These (Waco, Ruby Ridge, assorted "drug busts") invasions have killed far too many innocents. What can we do?
"You can twist perceptions, reality won't budge." --Rush
How well do you think your message for free software will be received in Europe since you frequently include references to your political position on guns? Since most people in Europe have chosen not to equate guns and freedom, don't you feel that your message on free software gets lost as "rantings of a crazy American?"
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Do you think that the Bazaar model of software development will be taught as an economic model in a more traditional educational setting (i.e. the modern university)? As an ancillary question, would you be interested in participating in the authoring of the material neccessary to include the Open Source economic model in a textbook, or would you leave it to "suits"?
My personal opinion: the free-wheeling nature of community development is such that codifying it into a dead-trees book would be an excercise in futility. Not only is the development evolving, but the model of development is evolving as well, making the theories and concepts nearly moot by the time they reach the press.
Also, I wouldn't want ESR wasting his time, that could be spent teaching and coding, on sitting in on editorial meetings educating publishers.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Richard Stallman stated for years that he wished there were a better term than "Free Software", since that was often confused with freeware. Then you and some fellows come along an coin the term "Open Source Software". However, Richard says that's worse because it doesn't emphasize Freedom. Others lambaste you as a heretic, scoundrel and ideological impure for it.
Other than the FSF checklists of Free Software attributes, what exactly does the "Free" in "Free Software" mean? Is it "Liberty" in the sense that we can defend it with force and make war on those that would take it away? Is it "Free" as in "free to use" like your neighbor's swimming pool? Is Free Software akin to Free Verse since they're both creative works? Is it really "gratis" since every example of it out there can be obtained for zero dollars? Is the use of "free" just an emotionally positive word meant to build a following? Or does the "Free" mean something else entirely.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
In your paper The Magic Cauldron you talk about the sale value (final cost to consumer) and use value (what economics would consider a capital good). Modern capitalist societies have evolved very complex and sophisticated instruments (a la the profit motive) to price these goods and signal to the market what is valued. With OpenSource, this pricing information is missing and thus time/effort is spent on "sexy" projects like 3D interfaces (what economists call malinvestments) instead of really important stuff like good optimising compilers.
Question 1) Pricing of OpenSource Software How can OpenSource software be fairly priced given that it is always possible to undercut a distributor?
Question 2) Distribution of Resources Instead of vertically integrating all the profits at the sale end (distributions like Red Hat), how can the creators of the intermediate goods get enough funding to continue refining their products?
Question 3) Scaling to Megaprojects Given the limitations of no capital pool of funding so that intermediate software can maintained, will OpenSource projects be limited to "small" projects that can be supported by 1-6 key designers and wouldn't this be an inherent constraint?
Question 4) Bazaar Rules of Conduct At the moment, the Software Bazaar is controlled by gentleman rules of conduct (no encroaching on projects, equal sharing, etc). Do you see this continuing with the increasing commercialisation (and potential moral corruption) of the hacker's "gift culture"?
Question 5) Software Patent Roadblocks In a situation where time-to-market is becoming a key factor in dominating the bulk of the profits (see some notes on game theory of software patents), how can OpenSource work around limitations of key locks on irreplaceable algorithms?
Question 6) Freedom to Copy. While big companies like SGI have the resources and name-brand equity to release and protect their OpenSource efforts, how will smaller entry level players survive long enough without their ideas being poached by bigger companies?
LL
Typically, at the conclusion of a successful revolution the "founding fathers" don't hang around to enjoy the fruits of their success. So where will you and what will you be doing be when Free/Open Source becomes the norm, and the need to evangelize is gone?
As a Libertarian, how do you think laissez-faire capitalism fits in with Open Source software. That is to say, how can people manage to seek payment for their intellectual labour when it is freely distributable, and how will large software vendors make a profit off their products.
What do you think will happen to the traditional OS development model you described in the Cathedral and the Bizarre as more companies hop on the OS bandwagon? Do you think it will be able to sustain itself as the primary software development model? How will it need to change?
-Laktar, a.k.a. Nick Rosen, laktar.dyndns.org
If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord:
30. All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly
thieves in the land will be preemptively put to death. My foes will surely
give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief.
-- Peter's Evil Overlord List, http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html
I've read a lot of your accounts of travels and the like and you seem to be very flirtatious in nature. What does your wife think of this?
-Laktar, a.k.a. Nick Rosen, laktar.dyndns.org
If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord:
27. I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems
will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I
will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.
-- Peter's Evil Overlord List, http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html
All right, I think it's been proven pretty thoroughly that Open Source methods work for software engineering. Tell me, do you see Open Source being applicable to other real-world problems? Could scientific research/teaching/politics/other endeavours benefit from a 'Bazaar' approach of distributed design? To what other fields would you like to see OSS applied?
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Is the LSB really a good idea for Linux distributions and Open Source software or is it in conflict with the ideals of Open Source? I have followed the activity on the LSB lists for over a year now, and it looks more and more constraining to me. I wonder if we are giving away too much in the rush to attract more ISV's, many of whom will provide "closed source" products. Don't get me wrong - I want more products, open and/or closed, but I also want to retain the "anarchist" innovation that we enjoy.
Criminalize spam and telemarketing!
I found the paranthesized section of the "Linux" entry of the Jargon File to be rather curious. The original reason for wanting to refer to the system as whole as GNU/Linux and the kernel as Linux was far from the reason given by the Jargon File (or, more specifically, that the term "Linux" not be used unambiguously.. which isn't precisely the same thing). Richard Stallman simply wanted to promote understanding, not recieve more credit. I'm not sure how this could be considered "trivial learning" unless we are all content to live in a world where the truth is hidden behind a veil of misconceptions and lies.. What was the rationale behind the inclusion of such a slanted view in this particular entry of the Jargon File?
~ Kish
Dear ESR:
(No GIFs due to patent problems)
I'm sure everyone at Slashdot is familiar with the internal strife and conflict that can currently be found in the Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified movement, a primary cause of which is YOU and your cronies and your watered-down version of the ideals of Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified, which you laughably refer to as Mae Ling Mak Immobilized and Not Fully Clothed. You've taken what was good and pure about Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified and watered it down so it would be more tolerable and acceptable to conservative blowhards who are afraid to think outside the terms of society's established notions and conditions. This is detailed on our web page (no GIFs due to patent problems!!!) in our founder's document "Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified vs. Mae Ling Mak Immobilized and Not Fully Clothed," so I won't repeat what's already been said.
You state that by changing "Petrified" to "Immobilzied" you placate those who are afraid of the idea of petrification, and by replacing "Naked" with "Not Fully Clothed" you placate those who fear nudity. I SAY THAT THIS IS WRONG!!! The entire HEART of Mae Ling (No GIFs due to patent problems) Mak naked and petrified is MAE LING MAK.... NAKED.... AND PETRIFIED. The nudity and the petrification are the essential elements!
This bastardized philosophy you preach flies in the face of the Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified movement, which you ONCE claimed to support! (No GIFs due to patent problems) Now you've stomped on our heads on your rise to glory with your own hacked-up version of our philosphy. "Immobilized and not fully clothed" indeed! Why, that could be referring to a paralyzed Polish cowboy wearing a bikini for all we know! (No GIFs due to patent problems)
We know what's GOOD for the people, even if the people don't know what's good for themselves. What's good for the people is Mae Ling Mak, naked, and petrified. The people (No GIFs due to patent problems) NEED a naked Mae Ling Mak statue. You can't dispute this. You believe this yourself. And yet you refuse to stand up for what you believe! You say, "Well, maybe it's okay if she's not petrified, as long as she can't move," or (No GIFs due to patent problems) "Well, maybe she doesn't have to be naked, but she could at least take her shirt off or something." You BELIEVE she should be naked and petrified, but you ALLOW other lesser variations on this perfect theme into what could otherwise be a strong, world-dominating paradigm! (No GIFs due to patent problems)
You've sold out to the court of popular opinion. You're a blight on the face of the Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified movement. I hope you enjoy your Mae Ling Mak Immobilzed and Not Fully Clothed movement while it lasts, because guess what, we're going to run you (No GIFs due to patent problems) out of town!
FURTHER (No GIFs due to patent problems) NOTE: Please see THIS COMMENT in which several misconceptions of a person referencing Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified incorrectly were addressed.
Anyway, my QUESTION, is in your official response to (no GIFs due to patent problems) our founder's attack on the Mae Ling Mak Immobilized and Not Fully Clothed movement, you left SEVERAL major points unaddressed.
1. How you expect EITHER of the two Mae Ling Mak immobilization movements to compete with its competitors, the FreeMLM, OpenMLM, and NetMLM movements, with all this silly infighting that's going on.
2. The accusation that you simply watered-down Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified not for any real moral reason, or even to make it more acceptable to the general public, but simply to make it more acceptable to big business and help to increase profit potential? (No GIFs due to patent problems) Do I smell the rancid stench of Capitalism on your breath, ESR??
3. Ain't Mae Ling Mak really cute?
4. (No GIFs due to patent problems)
5. Just what's the big idea, anyway???
Those are all the questions.
FURTHER READING:
THOUGHTS FROM MAE LING MAK ABOUT THIS
MORE THOUGHTS FROM MAE LING MAK ABOUT THIS
A MISINFORMED SOUL GETS CORRECTED
A GOOD STATUEPHILE WEBSITE but it contains a GIF so it's bad!!!!!
ANOTHER GOOD STATUEPHILE WEBSITE but it contains GIFs so it has to DIE!!!!
I hope you'll be able to clear this up. Thank you for your time.
Recent interest shown by large commericial tech companies (IBM, SGI, Sun) seems to signal a new chapter in the history of Linux. Do you see the participation of these companies strenghtening the linux communitity? Destroying it? Or transforming it into something completely different?
(Not that I anticipate any of this happening, but...)
What if Linux "fails" in the commercial/business sector? (By failure I mean "not adopted in any significant numbers", "a flop".) What if, for whatever reason, the current pro-Linux trend is reversed, and in 5 years most current Linux users have moved on to some other, non-Free/Open OS? If the Linux movement fizzes out, would this be a blow to the Free Software/Open Source movement? Do you believe the future of these ideas are tied to the success of Linux?
Your essay "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" used fetchmail as an example of open source software development. Given the number of people who have examined the source code, one could argue that fetchmail is now one of the most mature applications in use anywhere.
You have discussed fetchmail's infancy. Is there anything to be learned from its "old age"?
I have a growing concern that some commercial organizations are only becoming involved in the Open Source movement because it is a common front to attack Micro$oft. Once they believe parity has been achieved do you think they will turn on the community and go back to their old tactics (IMHO several of them are just as guilty as Micro$oft in their unethical business practices)? And, if that happens do you think that OSS will have a large enough install base and IT/Enterprise presence to not only survive, but continue to thrive?
Who does your hair? :)
I ask this because most/all of the successful Open Source software (Linux, Sendmail, Apache) have been developed by individuals as a community projects, not by companies with profit as the objective. The companies have jumped on board later (Redhat, Sendmail Inc, etc) when the software has grown popular. Can it really be justified for a company that has spent millions of dollars on a software project to start giving their crown jewel away, especially as "Real Open Source" under the GPL license? Perhaps they could release the source code, just not under GPL, and retain the redistribution right themselves but I just don't see much good in doing that because then the bazaar effect would mostly be lost.
I just don't see any of the four methods, described on opensource.org ( Support Sellers, Loss Leader, Widget Frosting, Accessorizing ) as viable ways to get back the investment for already existing software products.
I'm glad to see that, after a three-year break, the Jargon File has been updated over the past few months. Is version 5.0.0 in the works? Are there any plans to release an update to the print version, The New Hacker's Dictionary, any time soon?
-Stephen
At the Open Source Forum here in Austin a couple of months ago, we briefly spoke about the impact of Open Source on the price of commercial software. We both agreed that Open Source software is driving the cost of commercial software down to something closer to its "true" value than its current benefits-based valuation in the marketplace.
At the same time, "free" (in the beer sense) does not adequately reflect the amount of effort required to develop and test software, particulary software that is thinly used (attractive to a limited user base), and hence would not likely be able to generate a sufficient base of Open Source developers. A few questions:
Is there a "Natural Value" of software to which the Open Source pressures are driving commercial software prices?
Can Open Source development efforts be adequately encouraged in vital but thinly populated user bases?
Fianlly, although Linux and other Open Source projects are improving more rapidly than their commercial counterparts, they tend to lack significantly (and not surprisingly) in areas which require an overall architecture. (An example would be the apparent lack of an Open Source *equivalent* (there are subsets) to Microsoft's Active Directory, which, regardless of one's view of Microsoft, is a pretty impressive piece of technology.) What part(s) of the Open Source community do you foresee as being able to step up to the plate and address the "big picture"?
(I'll air my own views if these questions are chosen...)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
With the recent shootings at schools across America, people are calling for further bans on guns. Many people would like to see all guns made illegal. Please discuss your views on this subject.
99 little bugs in the code, 99 bugs in the code,
fix one bug, compile it again...
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
In "Understand my job, please!" you described Bruce Perens's proposal that we have a team of Linux advocates sharing the load as "glib". Could you say more about why you feel this way - isn't it more likely that a job where the load is shared would be more attractive?
Thanks,
--
Xenu loves you!
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product
You say you want to live in a world where software doesn't suck. I couldn't agree more. However, do you see closed source software on an open source OS as a step in the right direction, or just likely to be a more stable platform on which to run your potentially bug-ridden software?
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I know these are tough questions to ask.. but the good ones are always controversial.
--
Astute readers know why you've reluctantly taken a position as a Linux evangelist, open source sociologist, and prime target. Taking the opposite approach, is there anything which would convince you to step down, that your posts were no longer necessary?
This is not meant to be inflammatory
Thanks for your time!
--
QDMerge 0.21!
how to invest, a novice's guide
Linux, like all things in the computer world, will eventually become obsolete or maybe just too much work to keep "up to date". Linus (er, Dr. Torvalds) even said in his "Open Sources" essay that (paraphrasing) someone else could come along and write something better which will take Linux's place. How long do you think before someone will have an offering that will obsolete (or at least prove a competitor to) Linux and the BSD's? It certainly won't be the offering of that company in Redmond..
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Why isn't there an entry for "free software"
in the Jargon Dictionary? Was this a
politically-motivated decision?
K.
-
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
Which of the coders working on open source projects do you admire the most? A particular big name like Linus, or someone less well-known?
This has probably been asked before, but I can't recall seeing the answer to it anywhere. What originally led you to write The Cathedral and the Bazaar? -- what I'm interested in is if there was some event or impetus that prompted you to write it down. Obviously you'd have no way of predicting the firestorm that followed, but it's always intriguing to know about the spark that started it all.
We want endless gardens of data, where the bits can flower, flourish and reproduce. -- Andy Mueller-Maguhn
A while ago, we read from you that being the Open Source advocate you are was wearing you down and influencing your life very badly. Did you cut down on advocating and did it help? In other words, did you get your life back?
Greetings,
Ivo
Intentionally or not, you are a role model for a certain type of kid/teen-ager -- the kind of kid who prefers to write code than to watch TV or play football. [Fifteen years ago, when I was in that stage, it wasn't chic to be a geek and there really weren't contemporary role models...]
Do you get contacted by young people looking for guidance / validation / advice? What's your reaction? Give us some interesting anecdotes. Also, do you have any sort of general words of advice for the young programmers of today? (go ahead, pontificate, here's an excellent opportunity)
Part of the Second American Revolution!
Eric, in your papers you've put forward many political, sociological and technical reasons why open source software is a good thing. (For example the gift culture is a political model, peer aclaim is a motivation for some programmers, peer review leads to less buggy software).
Every individual will be differently influenced by these different arguments, depending on their political leanings, emotional makeup, and the problems they are trying to solve. Which justification is the one which is most persuasive to you personally?
Starting an open source project from nothing but people with a common interest is difficult. It's been my experience that it is very easy to founder with a bazaar approach to architecture and design. The issues tend to get confused with religious wars about toolkits and license choice, and just a lot of differing opinions about how to best structure a program, no one of which may be *obviously* better.
Is it essential for individuals to first create a working model, incomplete and buggy it may be, before applying bazaar development? Or what would you suggest in terms of managing a bazaar approach to creating programs from a bare idea?
I know that you are on the board of directors at VA Linux, what does your job entail ? Could you describe to us what a typical work day is work you ? (If there is such a thing as a typical work day).
Vidi, vici, veni. (I saw, I conquered, I came)
You've always been involved in hacker projects outside of just coding (eg. the Jargon File), but over the last year or so the spokesperson role seems to have grown into a fulltime job. How long is it since you last sat down to write a major piece of software? Do you expect to go back to fulltime development work anytime soon, and if so, what would you work on? How do you manage to cope with the withdrawal symptoms?
Is the friction between Gnome and KDE, BSD and GPL, Free Software and Open Source, and the other sources of flame war a bad thing or a good thing for the movement? Many people seem to feel that the competition is devisive, but isn't it the opposite? We're always preaching that competition is a good thing for the entire market, but then we complain when any of our pet projects are pitted head to head with another. The passion felt by the proponents of each philosophy seems to result in better, more quality work. Isn't this proof that competition is the Good Thing we've been saying it is all along?