Interview: Ask Eric Raymond What You Will 126
Author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar and The Art of Unix Programming, Eric S.Raymond (ESR) has long been an important spokesperson for the open source movement. It's been a while since we talked to the co-founder of the Open Source Initiative so ESR has agreed to give us some of his time and answer your questions. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.
Re:Slashdot Beta (Score:0, Insightful)
Still Surprised By Wealth? (Score:2, Insightful)
Did you get to cash out before the crash? After you infamous gloating here, http://news-beta.slashdot.org/story/99/12/10/0821224/esr-writes-on-surprised-by-wealth, inquiring minds want to know.
In all seriousness... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you still deny a link between HIV and the disease known as AIDS [ibiblio.org]?
Do you still blame Alan Turing for his fate? [ibiblio.org] So have you become a total crackpot since September 11th, or was it something that was always sorta brewing under the surface.
Re:In all seriousness... (Score:5, Insightful)
We can go on like this for days, by the way. [rationalwiki.org]
In all seriousness, why is this guy still a thing in the Open Source movement? He wrote a few books in the 90s, very good ones, but he's been irrelevant for years and he's a nut. He has nothing to offer.
Re:In all seriousness... (Score:5, Insightful)
So have you become a total crackpot since September 11th, or was it something that was always sorta brewing under the surface.
It was always brewing under the surface.
He is a blind follower of extreme libertarian ideas. For example, a long time ago in a personal discussion I showed him how under the specific libertarian rules he was suggesting I could buy all the land around a person's house and starve them to death since they couldn't leave. He didn't bat an eye. He kept insisting that "free market rules" wouldn't allow this, as if by magic, rather than rethinking his simplistic position.
Frankly ESR is an embarrassment to the open source movement.
Re:In all seriousness... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, because political ideology makes everything else in a persons life irrelevant. What have YOU done for the open source community? I mean other than make bad political analogies that have no baring on reality. Any political system taken to an extreme is bad. A glass of water is good and healthy, downing in an ocean is not. That doesn't make water bad.
Re:In all seriousness... (Score:3, Insightful)
That one is incredible. The fact that he isn't asking "Do you accept these negative observations about black people as fact without any evidence?" shows what a massive, unthinking racist he is. And I've emphasized "unthinking" for a reason; for all his squawking about rationality, he consistently makes judgements based on his emotions and prejudices rather than basic logic, in a way that a barely-educated child would have learned not to do.
Every esr argument ends up with him insisting what he wants to be true is absolute fact, and that his detractors are illogical idiots. It's a stunning lack of awareness or capability. The man should be a case-study.
Re:In all seriousness... (Score:0, Insightful)
That's a longwinded way to say "yes, I'm an AGW denier and conspiracy theorist".