Eric S. Raymond

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Eric S. Raymond
Eric S Raymond portrait.jpg
Raymond at Linucon 2004
Born (1957-12-04) December 4, 1957 (age 55)
Boston, Massachusetts
Residence Pennsylvania
Nationality American
Other names ESR
Alma mater University of Pennsylvania (dropped out)[1]
Occupation Software developer, author
Website
www.catb.org/~esr/

Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. After the 1997 publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond was for a number of years frequently quoted as an unofficial spokesman for the open source movement.[2] He is also known for his 1990 edit and later updates of the Jargon File, currently in print as the The New Hacker's Dictionary.[3]

Contents

Biography[edit]

Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1957, Raymond lived in Venezuela as a child. His family moved back to Pennsylvania in 1971.[4] Raymond said in an interview that his cerebral palsy motivated him to go into computing.[5] Raymond has spoken in more than fifteen countries on six continents, including a lecture at Microsoft.[6]

He wrote CML2, a source code configuration system; while originally intended for the Linux kernel, it was rejected by kernel developers.[7] Raymond attributed this rejection to "kernel list politics".[8] Linus Torvalds on the other hand said in a 2007 mailing list post that as a matter of policy, the development team preferred more incremental changes.

In 2000–2002 Raymond wrote a number of HOWTOs still included in the Linux Documentation Project. His personal archive also lists a number of non-technical and very early non-Linux FAQs. His books, The Cathedral and the Bazaar and The Art of Unix Programming, discuss Unix and Linux history and culture, and user tools for programming and other tasks. In 1998 he received and published a Microsoft document expressing worry about the quality of rival open-source software.[9] This, along with other documents subsequently leaked, became known as the Halloween Documents. Noting that the Jargon File had not been maintained since about 1983, he adopted it in 1990 and currently has a third edition in print. Paul Dourish maintains an archived original version of the Jargon File, because, he says, Raymond's updates "essentially destroyed what held it together."[10]

Raymond is currently the admin of the project page for gpsd, a daemon that makes GPS data from a receiver available in JSON format.[11] Also, some versions of NetHack include his guide.[12] He also contributes code and content to The Battle for Wesnoth.[13]

Open source[edit]

Raymond says he began his programming career with writing proprietary software, between 1980 and 1985.[1] In a 2008 essay he "defended the right of programmers to issue work under proprietary licenses because I think that if a programmer wants to write a program and sell it, it's neither my business nor anyone else's but his customer's what the terms of sale are".[14] In the same essay he also said that the "logic of the system" puts developers into "dysfunctional roles", with bad code the result.

Raymond also coined an aphorism he dubbed "Linus' Law", inspired by Linus Torvalds: "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow", that first appeared in The Cathedral and the Bazaar.[15]

Raymond became a prominent voice in the open source movement and co-founded the Open Source Initiative in 1998, taking on the self-appointed role of ambassador of open source to the press, business and public. The internal white paper by Frank Hecker that led to the release of the Mozilla (then Netscape) source code in 1998 cited The Cathedral and the Bazaar as "independent validation" of ideas proposed by Eric Hahn and Jamie Zawinski.[16] Hahn also described the book as "clearly influential".[17] Raymond has refused to speculate on whether the "bazaar" development model could be applied to works such as books and music, not wanting to "weaken the winning argument for open-sourcing software by tying it to a potential loser".[18]

Raymond has had a number of public disputes with other figures in the free software movement. As head of the Open Source Initiative, he argued that advocates should focus on the potential for better products. The "very seductive" moral and ethical rhetoric of Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation fails, he said, "not because his principles are wrong, but because that kind of language ... simply does not persuade anybody".[19] Raymond stepped down as the president of the Open Source Initiative in February 2005.[20]

Political activism[edit]

Raymond is a member of the Libertarian Party. He is a gun rights advocate.[21]

Bibliography[edit]

By Eric Raymond[edit]

Books by Raymond[edit]

Writings by Raymond posted or archived on his website[edit]

See also[edit]

Portal icon Free software portal

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Raymond, Eric S. (2003-01-29). "Resume of Eric Steven Raymond". Retrieved 2009-11-23. 
  2. ^ "Hackers cut off SCO Web site". 2003-08-25. Retrieved 2009-08-22. 
  3. ^ Eric S. Raymond, The New Hacker's Dictionary, MIT Press, (paperback ISBN 0-262-68092-0, cloth ISBN 0-262-18178-9)
  4. ^ "Man Against the FUD". Archived from the original on 2007-10-13. Retrieved 2008-07-07. {dead link}
  5. ^ Leonard, Andrew (April 1998). "Let my software go!". Salon.com (San Francisco: Salon Media Group). Retrieved 2009-11-23. 
  6. ^ Open Source Advocate Invited To Microsoft
  7. ^ "CML2, ESR, & The LKML". KernelTrap. 2002-02-17. 
  8. ^ McMillan, Rob. "Interview: Eric Raymond goes back to basics". IBM developerWorks. 
  9. ^ Harmon, Amy (1998-11-03). "Internal Memo Shows Microsoft Executives' Concern Over Free Software". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-11-05. 
  10. ^ "The Original Hacker's Dictionary". dourish.com. Retrieved 2011-11-05. 
  11. ^ "GPSD – Summary". savannah.nongnu.org. Retrieved 2011-10-30. 
  12. ^ Raymond, Eric S. (2003-12-08). "A Guide to the Mazes of Menace (Guidebook of Nethack)". NetHack.org. Retrieved 2008-12-15. 
  13. ^ "People at Gna!: Eric S. Raymond Profile". Gna.org. Retrieved 2009-11-23. 
  14. ^ Raymond, Eric S. (2008-10-01). "Why I Hate Proprietary Software". Retrieved 2011-11-05. 
  15. ^ Raymond, Eric S.; The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary, O'Reilly Media 2001, 241pp. ISBN 0-596-00108-8. p30
  16. ^ Suarez-Potts, Louis (2001). "Interview: Frank Hecker". Retrieved 2011-11-05. 
  17. ^ Moody, Glyn; Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, Basic Books 2002, 344 pages. ISBN 0-7382-0670-9. p. 190
  18. ^ Raymond, Eric S. (2000). "Afterword: Beyond Software?". Retrieved 2007-07-24. 
  19. ^ Raymond, Eric S. (1999-07-28). "Shut Up And Show Them The Code". Linux Today. Retrieved 2009-11-23. 
  20. ^ Raymond, Eric S. (2005-01-31). "Open Source Initiative (OSI) Announces expanded programs, counsel, AND board". Retrieved 2010-01-14. 
  21. ^ Richard Stallman, Free Software, and Copyleft 2011

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