On 07/16/2010 01:09 PM, Levi Pearson wrote: > ESR annoys me almost as much as RMS. At least RMS was a real hacker; > ESR is just kind of a hacker groupie with an inflated sense of > self-importance. He's had some good ideas, he's made a few code > contributions, and he's definitely been heavily involved in the > periphery of the whole open source/free software movement, but my > point is that the 'movement' aspect of software sharing and group > development is useless and annoying. People naturally share ideas and > help each other to work on projects. The early history of computer > software 'hacker' culture shows this, and it worked pretty well > without huge egos, figureheads, and organized movements. The fact > that 'users groups' and the like have existed almost as long as > computers have shows this, too. It worked just fine before RMS and > ESR went on their crusades, and I believe we would have largely ended > up in the same place we are now without the non-technical > contributions of either of them.
My experience has been different. More than a decade ago, Eric Raymond's papers convinced me to try something beyond Windows/Mac and take a serious look at Linux. I had to be convinced that free software and the people behind it were worth my time. Raymond's perspective made sense to me; Stallman's did not. So I think Raymond's writings were very valuable for inviting new people like me into the existing hacker culture. Consider yourself lucky that you were already part of that culture. Shane /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
