Talk:Eric S. Raymond

THE Eric Raymond?

We disambiguated the other one as "Eric Raymond (villan)". Shouldn't we rename this one to "Eric Raymond (hero)" to save confusion? 172.203.199.18 00:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Lollerskate. Lewis Collard! (baby i'm bad news) 14:47, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Unsubstantiated Info

Under criticism: "Raymond's public claim to be a "Core Linux Developer" is disputed by one anonymous source." Why is this in the article? Some random, unnamed person disagrees with him? It sounds like the most meaningless comment possible... Can somebody at least source this, or if that's not possible, it should go.

• Besides terminfo and a crappy mail program, what else did he do? The burden of proof is on him, and doubly so for so an audacious claim.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.183.180.100 (talk • contribs).

Why no reference to 2nd amendment?

Why is referring to gun rights as Second Amendment to the United States Constitution gun rights controversial? Particularly when the person under discussion claims his rights derive from the 2nd amendment? It seems to be introducing a point of view by removing it. RussNelson 21:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Since many of the people who want to ban guns rely on interpreting the 2nd ammendment in such a way that it doesn't actually give gun rights, just writing '2nd ammendment gun rights' implies that it does, countering their point of view. I get the logic, even though it is extremely intellectually dishonest to try to interpret the ammendment that way, but as US politics has shown for 200 years, intellectually dishonest people have points of view too. BillWallace 16:44, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

The Second Amendment is part of the United States Constitution, which is a simple fact. So, when someone is said to be supporting "Second Amendment gun rights", that would implicitly assert a particular interpretation of it and consequently that opponents hold an unconstitutional view. That would thus be a violation of NPOV. -- Dissident (Talk) 15:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, Dissident, I get that, however, this is not an article about the 2nd Amendment, it's an article about Eric Raymond. The article about the 2nd Amendment is a click away for anybody wanting to find out why Eric might feel that the 2nd Amendment is the source of his gun rights, or why other people might disagree with him. The referenced web page documents Eric's belief, so the fact that he makes that claim is well substantiated, and not anybody's point of view. RussNelson 20:10, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

The straightforward interpretation of "Second Amendment gun rights" is "gun rights as guaranteed by the Second Amendment". The fact that ESR believes in "gun rights" is itself uncontroversial as well as his belief that it emanates from the Second Amendment, but both beliefs must be explicitly attributed rather than implicitly taken as a fact. If you think, not unreasonably, that dwelling on the Second Amendment in the intro of ESR is misplaced, then you shouldn't be against my earlier action of simply removing the mention of the "Second Amendment". -- Dissident (Talk) 17:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I guess that I don't understand why you would remove a documented fact about someone. Do you disagree that Eric ascribes his ability to own guns to the 2nd Amendment? Other people might think that they have a right to own a gun simply through human rights or natural law. Eric seems not to, so I think it's worthwhile to leave the text as you have currently written it. RussNelson 21:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

The Second Amendment is a piece of supporting evidence; he doesn't own a gun because of the Second Amendment, it's just an argument he uses to justify his decision. Chris Cunningham 14:13, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Controversial opinion statement

I've altered the controversial opinion section to change the insupportable and gratuitously inflammatory "African-Americans are responsible for a disproportionate percentage of crimes because they have lower IQs", which the cited blog entry does not say at all, to the more accurate and neutral claim that is actually found in the blog entry, namely "median intelligence varies across gender and racial lines." palecur 08:09, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not interested in restarting this flame war, but the blog entry does have this nugget:

In the U.S., blacks are 12% of the population but commit 50% of violent crimes; can anyone honestly think this is unconnected to the fact that they average 15 points of IQ lower than the general population? That stupid people are more violent is a fact independent of skin color.

If the orignal paraphrasing "does not say at all" what the blog entry, then it is a weak argument to replace it with the neutered "median intelligence varies across gender and racial lines" which surely does not characterize the thrust of Raymond's article. That statement would be the summary of an academic paper from the 1920s, not an opinion piece. --69.165.73.238 13:35, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

The new phrasing crosses the line into whitewashing IMO, and leaves the reader wondering just what is so controversial about Raymond's view anyway (and perhaps why his critics are so apparently thin-skinned). If anything the original phrasing had already toned down Raymond's claim by stating it as "lower IQs" when actually, as the editor above me notes, he came right out and used the word "stupid". To be fair, though, the original phrasing is in need of the word "average" before "IQs". Maybe the best solution is to just use the direct quote, if we are unable to agree on an accurate paraphrasing. --Saucepan 18:04, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Note that he doesn't actually *say* blacks are stupid. He says that blacks have a lower average IQ, that blacks commit more violent crimes per capita, and that stupid people are more violent. The implication is there, but should an encyclopedic entry chase down implications? If Eric wanted to say "blacks are stupid" or "blacks are lazy", let him say it, but don't put those words in his mouth. RussNelson 19:02, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Explanation of minor change to ESR's claims of having contributed to his first open source project in 1982

No open source license existed in 1982. ESR used to claim that he had contributed to the GNU project as early as 1982, but that claims has been refuted, and Eric has changed the entry at his website to read,

I was one of the original GNU contributors back in the mid-1980s, and I've been at it ever since.

Thus, I've change the text to reflect same. (Personally, I can't find a record of Eric's contributions before 1987 or early 1988, but I'm willing to let the "mid-1980s" claim stand. in no case can the 1982 date stand, because the GNU project didnt' start until at least a year later, and nobody could have contributed before 1985 or so. Gonzopancho 02:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

He may have been talking about early versions (4.1?) of BSD. --69.54.29.23 15:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

"may have been"?

Even ESR doesn't claim this, why do you?

Cripes, BSD 4.1 wasn't an "open source" project. You had to have an AT&T license in order to get it.

Eric's own resume [1] has makes no claim to having contributed to any "open source" project prior to May 1985, and this period included 'Maintainence and extension of the GNU Emacs editor'. The period from May 1983 to June 1985 was at Rabbit Software, and this is where Eric first ran 4.1 BSD, and by his own admission (private communication) the 4.1 BSD experience was new to him.

Eric has claimed [2] that " I wrote the core of what became their console speaker driver on an SVr4 box in 1985." This is not 1982, and he makes no claim for having contributed same directly to BSD. (It got picked up in the 386BSD effort, which didn't start until 1989 [3].

So no, he did *NOT* contribute to any "open source" project in 1982. The earliest date I can find for any contribution by ESR to ANY "open source" project is 1988. [4] Gonzopancho 11:43, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Eric *used to* claim that he had contributed to the GNU project starting in 1982, but that claim was found to be false, so Eric changed his claim to "mid-1980s". I find it too likely that the claim in Wikipedia was based on this faulty claim on Eric's "software" page. Eric used to claim he had code in cnews as well [5], but the cnews authors set that straight [6]

I know ESR has said silly things, but I don't think he would claim he conributed to GNU software in 1982. He has better sense than that. Cite your accusations. --71.169.128.3 00:05, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

gpsd maintainer?

Does anyone have a source for ESR being the maintainer of gpsd? The best I could find is that he is maintaining the gpsd manpages[7]. I have asked the contributor[8], to no avail. Jayvdb 11:37, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, I ignored you, because you're a moron. But since you're a persistent moron, I suppose I must deal with you. Click on the gpsd link. Click on the Berlios link. Click on the "change log" link. Observe gazillions of contributions by ESR. Not finding that link is "The best [you] could find"? Tell me you only pretended to try and I'll apologize for calling you a moron. Otherwise, the facts are the facts. RussNelson 13:37, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. I was looking for a source that explicitly backed up the claim, but as you are a previous maintainer I am happy to accept your word on it. The search for an explicit source is due to a policy that Wikipedia does not accept original research. Perhaps you can point out an email from the lists that discusses a transfer of maintainership, or something similar? It would be great to know when ESR took on this role.

Please remember when contributing to wikipedia that is your duty to find sources to back up any additions you make, when required. That is why I first asked you directly. My best implies all the time that I could spend trying to sources for another persons contributions, at that time.Jayvdb 17:33, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Here at Wikipedia there's etiquette to assume good faith. It's useful for a host of reasons, but largely to avoid flame-fests. I have no reason to believe User:Jayvdb was not acting in good faith. Raymond does appear to be the greatest contributor gpsd, it's just not listed anywhere that he's officially the "maintainer" which was what your edit conjectured, nor is the author and maintainer information--or any really useful information--at the gpsd article, yet. There seem to be 4 maintainers, yourself included. --69.54.29.23 15:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Good faith cut both ways. Entries do not need to be doumented to an idiot's standard. Try reading the mailing list achives. Try to succeed, not to fail. RussNelson 19:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately Mr. Nelson, none of the four mailing lists are searchable to my knowledge. You must remember that material submitted here needs to be verifiable, and that goes even for individuals with first-person experience with a topic. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.161.219.200 (talk • contribs) .

Oh. My. God. You are truly pitiful. I don't understand why I am wasting my time with you, but try Clicking ON This Link: [9] If you don't know how to do that, you put your mouse cursor over the link and click on the left button. I know it's hard, but, really, try to spend a few minutes backing up your ignorance with facts. RussNelson 06:29, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Russ, tone it down a little bit, OK? Not everyone who disagress with you is and idiot, or truly pitful. You need to work out the stress, guy. Go ride your bike, or get laid, or if you can't get laid, go stroke off to a Laffer curve... something. The previous unsigned comment was added by GonzoPancho.

I just get frustrated when somebody puts more effort into defending their failure to find something than they put into the effort to find it. In this case, there's one link to a wikipedia article, which has one link to an external article, which has a link for the 'announcements' mailing list, which has a link to the archives, which has exactly one contribution announcing a new release. It's not like work to click on the only or the obvious link every time. If somebody is unwilling to work, they should be called out for it. RussNelson 18:20, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

RussNelson, the reason that I responded at length the second time was to ask for addition information and sources (e.g. adding the date that ESR became involved in the project, or links to online reviews of the software you may know of that mention ESR and the project in the same article) and also to point out a few Wikipedia policies you didnt appear to be aware of. As it currently stands, the addition you made to the article is a sentence fragment, and does not meet the encyclopedic standards required. You know a lot more about ESRs involvement in gpsd than I do, so I assume you can do a better job than I can. Jayvdb 20:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

RussNelson -- Please remember to stay civil in discussions. Attacking your fellow editors (i.e. calling them "idiots", "pitiful", etc.) is strictly against policy and can lead to being blocked from Wikipedia. Thank you for your understanding in this. Happy editting. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 02:15, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

No Halloween documents Reference

I was just reading the Halloween documents article and noticed that it links here. However, I don't see anything about the documents in this article. Is this the same Raymond that received the leak? If so, shouldn't they be mentioned here? Dallben 17:25, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Explanation for deleted material

I've removed all of the following from the "Criticism" section:

Critics accuse Raymond of hijacking the free software movement for the sake of self promotion and profit. In that context it is argued that he has often worked to undermine other leaders/speakers of the movement. His forthright rejection of the moral and ethical arguments of Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation in favor of a less idealistic (though arguably more pragmatic) market-friendly stance has exacerbated some pre-existing political tensions in the community.

Who did and where? (Stallman and friends have often accused Raymond, and the open source movement as a whole, of hijacking the free software movement, but when have they ever thrown doubt on his motives?

I've edited this and re-added this paragraph. —mako (talk•contribs) 00:49, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

He has also been accused of directly selling out. He agreed to lecture at Microsoft in return for the opportunity to meet a couple of his favorite science fiction authors. [10] In addition, he accepted millions of dollars in stock options in return for giving VA Research/VA Linux Systems credibility as their hired "moral compass". [11] [12]

This is stealth POV, because none of the sources cited actually have any criticism of ESR for his actions. They are just documentation that such actions occurred, which is not the same thing. (Well, there may be some criticism in the comments for this source, but a) that doesn't really count b) screwed if I have to (or anyone has to) read through them all in order to verify the article.)

Raymond's claim to being a "Core Linux Developer" has drawn criticism since he has never had code accepted into Linux (the kernel), and his largest open source code contributions amount to portions of fetchmail, Ncurses, and Emacs (as well as a long list of small projects listed on his homepage). This lack of credentials led to a less-than-inspiring reception [13] to his essay "Shut Up And Show Them The Code" which he levelled at Richard Stallman, the original author of Emacs, GCC, GDB, GNU Make, among other things.

As above: comments on Linux Today does not count. Find such criticism from someone who is qualified to give it.

Raymond addresses some of these assertions in his essay "Take My Job, Please!" [14], where he argues that if anyone is qualified and willing to take his job and present the case for open source to the world, he would "back them to the hilt".

Given that basically all the criticism in the section was either unsourced or irrelevant, this is no longer needed. Lewis Collard 18:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for going through this!

I'm going to have disagree with removing the vast majority of what I think was a decently written and even reasonably well cited first draft of a criticism seems a little knee-jerk. It needed work, but for the most part that work doesn't seem too hard to do.

For example, if you think that the problem in the first paragraph is the references to the motives of Raymond, remove the references to the motives and not the whole (it's only half a sentence). If you are unhappy with the references, put tags where you think they are warranted.

I'm going to go through the removed text and try to edit for POV and re-add much of it. I'm going to restore criticism that I am independently familiar with and add cite tags. —mako (talk•contribs) 00:36, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

{{fact}} tags are badly overrated. While we're at it, I've struck this out:

Raymond's public claim to be a "Core Linux Developer" has been disputed since he has never had code accepted into the Linux kernel. His only known contribution to the kernel (the CML2 configuration system) was rejected by kernel developers.

Run this Google search (which excludes WP mirrors). What do we have?

1. This, or sites discussing (or mirroring) it. An anonymouse somebody with a web page on a free host does not constitute notable criticism.
2. This, discussing an earlier version of this talk page. Nuh-uh.
3. The usual comments on news websites (if I post "esr iz a fag lol" at Slashdot, does this mean we can start a subsection titled "Allegations of homosexuality")?

Etc, etc. You can disagree with Eric's claim as much as you like, but the criteria here is verifiability. Lewis Collard 02:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with your dismissal of the first anonymous criticism. That page was passed around heavily in the free and open source software community and has been mirrored and repeated by notable people. For example, this mirror by Baishampayan Ghose who is a well known member of the Ubuntu community. The fact that people have mirrored it at all is an important indication of this. In fact, the top hits on Google for "core linux developer" point to criticism of Raymond!

Anonymous and freely-hosted material may still be noteable (and, IMHO, is here). I was independently familiar with this material and criticism and am quite sure it qualifies.

FWIW, I don't particularly care about Eric's claims in this regard (I think they stem in part of different use of the term "linux") but it's criticism that I've heard in the community. —mako (talk•contribs) 16:21, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, but I'll refrain from removing it again. What I have done is changed "disputed in the community" to "disputed by one anonymous source". This is because it's not at all clear that our anonymous source is, indeed, part of the open source/free software community. Lewis Collard 18:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Core Linux Developer

I've edited the Criticism section to reflect mako's suggestion that the criticism uses "Linux" to mean Linux kernel, whereas Eric uses "Linux" to mean Linux. RussNelson 06:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. But I've changed the cite, to cite someone in the open source community who made that defense. It seemed OR-ish to synthesise the claims ourselves. :) Lewis Collard 02:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Really an Anarcho-capitalist?

The statement towards the top of the article that he's an anarcho-capitalist seems to contradict the statement lower down that he supports American invasions abroad. Don't anarchists of all sorts oppose any major government action, including massive military action? Norman314 07:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

It's quite common these days for self-described libertarians to have no problem with massive military spending and action. There isn't really a separate term which describes this phenomenon. Chris Cunningham 09:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Pragmatic. Ninjadroid 18:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Liberventionist. It redirects to Neolibertarian. — Graf Bobby 02:57, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

It's "one anonymous source", not "many".

Since several people have tried to make one anonymous source on a free web host into "many", and since most people are too lazy to check the talk page before reverting (or even had the nerve to invite people to prove the "one anonymous source" on the talk page, despite the fact that I've already done that, and haven't had anyone dispute it yet. Did they even check the talk page themselves?!). So here we go again, in its own section so nobody can miss it (and hence, if they refuse to discuss it here, have no reason to go around crying because I keep reverting "many"):

Run this Google search ("eric" and "raymond", with "core Linux developer", the phrase "lived on three continents" excluded to make sure we're not getting any WP mirrors). The sites that come up are either:

1. Mirrors of the source, or sites that copy text from it.
2. Discussions about this Wikipedia article.
3. The occasional comment on news sites and forums, and on Eric's blog. (These do not count; for the same reasons that the free website shouldn't count, but even more so.)
4. An "ESR facts" page.

QED.

That's why the wording "one anonymous source" is there: the site in question is written by an unnamed person (hence "anonymous source"), and there's one of them (hence "one"). There's no POV in that at all: pointing out that it's one anonymous source is necessary (in lieu of other sources), because it means that a reader is less inclined to treat Eric's claim as more controversial than it actually is (however true or untrue it may be). The burden of proof is upon anyone that would like to make one free web site into "many". Lewis Collard 09:46, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia article, not a gossip column. If it isn't notable enough to be a legitimate criticism it should be removed per WP:BLP. Until then, it should be written like it matters, not in a way which makes it look like amateur partisan journalism. Chris Cunningham 12:53, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Good point: it's not notable enough, so I've nuked the whole "core Linux developer" thing, in lieu of a real source for it. Lewis Collard 14:22, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Flame war on Fedora mailing list

"...leading to a flame war on the Fedora development mailing list.[17]...".

I haven't readed all the mailing list thread but it will be nice if someone could read the whole thread and check if it was really an absurd flame war or only a long list of argumented responses and critics from angry fedora users and developers due to Eric manners. I also think that Alan Cox and Luis Villa replies are important (specially Luis Villa one).

Well, that's only my opinion. I'm not going to start a flame-war here or a war of editions, and of course i'm not going to insult anyone: it will be a waste of time and it will hurt Wikipedia's reputation; I also apologies for my recent edits on this article but i really think that the article need several people with a NEUTRAL POV (and seeing the history of this article that exclude RussNelson and me, for example). --213.97.187.239 18:15, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

As you said, you "haven't readed (sic) all the mailing list thread". Try doing that first. Calling it a "flame war" is entirely accurate (even, nay, especially if it involves "angry fedora users" -- and I never used the term "absurd"), and a whole lot easier than saying "then Matthias Saou said this, then Denis Leroy said this, and elsewhere Rahul Sundaram said this, and Raymond said this, to which Konstantin Ryabitsev responded...".

You're right that this article needs more neutral editors: that's exactly what I'm trying to be. I definitely don't have any posters of the guy on my wall, but I'm sick and tired of this article turning into a magnet for every two-bit sh*thead with a grudge against Raymond. I care about WP:BIO, not about Raymond. And hey, if you want to talk about "neutrality", perhaps you would like to explain this edit? Big kiss, Lewis Collard 20:50, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

If you read slowly my second paragraph you should note this: "I also apologies for my recent edits on this article". And yes, as a non-english native speaker i know that my english is terrible, thanks for remarking it. A bigger kiss for you :).--213.97.187.239 00:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

It didn't seem like a very sincere apology, since you then went on to imply that you were trying to make the article more neutral. Lewis Collard 16:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The author of the anonymous article you link to may in fact be a two-bit sh*thead (we can't know for sure) and certainly has a grudge against Raymond. But he's also made leveled a widely distributed and frequently repeated set of criticism about Raymond. I don't agree with all or even most of the it -- but that doesn't make it any less notable. —mako (talk•contribs) 14:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

"May in fact be", well, "if it looks like a duck...". "Widely distributed" it is not (one mirror, one copy-and-paste into softpanorama.org, and Nikolai Bezroukov is almost as close to bottom-of-the-barrel as a free web site). "Frequently repeated" is refuted by my Google test elsewhere on this page. Feel free to continue the discussion in the above section. Lewis Collard 16:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The Luis Villa reply is especially unimportant. The point of Eric's article is to say that past suggestions have been ignored. Eric isn't asking "How do I fix this problem?" He's stating his reasons for leaving Fedora. He's not asking any questions, thus it's a waste of electrons to point to Eric's article on Smart Questions. It's cute, but it's not helpful, and it's certainly not encyclopedic. There's two ways to leave a project: quietly or noisily. Quietly allow people to ignore problems, but it doesn't hurt their feelings. Noisily throws the problems up in people's faces and gets them angry, but at least they know why somebody is leaving. RussNelson 21:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

There's a third way: stay and try to help instead maiking noise. Anyway, I respect your POV, although it seems biased towards Eric. Anyway there're a bunch of more productive things out there that keep wasting your (and my) time with non-sense paragraphs. Have a good time and good luck with the article. --213.97.187.239 00:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I am biased towards having a NPOV article on Eric. Being a public figure with strong opinions, he attracts people with opposite strong opinions. That's fine, but this article is about him, not them. RussNelson 02:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

You may be "unbiased toward Eric" but your personal and close institutional relationship with Eric makes your edits suspect when almost every edit you make serves to revert or remove criticism about him.

Between you and Collard, I've seen you challenge or remove a majority of the criticism in this article as I've been watching it over the last couple months. I have been able to make minor POV and wording changes and add a large amount of removed text.

Most of your edits are fair but you have consistently erred toward removing text instead of rewording -- but only when it involves criticism of Eric -- with the result of what appears to be a very one-sided edit history on this article.

The fact that Eric attracts strong opinions that you think are wrong may upset you. But that fact, and much of their criticism, is notable if presented with a proper POV. —mako (talk•contribs) 14:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

You're right that I've erred towards removing text; in the cases of major removal likely to be controversial, I've discussed it here first. That's not because I plan on taking showers in the wee hours of the morning with ESR. It's because the material I have removed has been crap, and crap has no place in any article, least of all in a biography of a living person. (Note also that I have reinstated criticism in at least one recent edit.) Lewis Collard 15:47, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Jargon File Mismanagement

More recently, Raymond has been accused of introducing terms into the Jargon File to fit his own views on the war in Iraq, as well as introducing terms in use primarily by himself.

RussNelson, this text was added and worked on by a variety of people, reverted by Ken Arromdee, restored by me, and then reverted by you again. You've said, in your edit summary reverting me:

If he's actually done it, then it can be documented. If he's merely been accused of doing it, how is that encyclopedic? As Ken says, anybody can be accused of anything. Accusation != truth.

Eric has been accused of manipulating the Jargon based on his own political views in very public venues. This includes NTK (which was referenced), an extremely widely read newsletter, and in a variety of places including Slashdot [15] which is where I read it several years ago. The criticism in question is widely known and frequently referred to in the free software and open source communities. These accusations may be in fact just be accusations. If so, please, temper the language and link to evidence to the country or to notable refutations. As it is, this is a well-known and frequently mentioned criticism of Raymond and it belongs in this article regardless of how much you disagree with it. —mako (talk•contribs) 00:11, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it is a well-known and frequently repeated accusation. Document the accusation or stop repeating it, I say. If there is evidence that Eric has done something, then point to the evidence and say that he's done it.RussNelson 04:15, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it's pretty obvious that this criticism is false. After all, nobody's ever been able to name a particular pro-Iraq-war Jargon File entry added by him. I'd think that if the criticism is true, someone would have been able to name one. Moreover, Eric has already said that the person who made the accusation apologized for it, which we only can't use because he wrote it on a Wikipedia talk page rather than on his own web site (self-published sources can be used in articles about the author). We don't need to put accusations with no credibility in the article. If someone says "Eric inserted so-and-so entry as a pro-Iraq-war entry" and named the entry, there might be more credibility to the accusation. Ken Arromdee 15:06, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Which particular accusation are you disclaiming here? The charge that Raymond does not impose any of his own sociopolical views on the Jargon File is trivial to dismiss, insofar as the definition of "hacker" happens to indicate in a self-authored section that a majority of hackers have a sociopolitical worldview which happens to be tending towards, well, Raymond's. I don't believe he's added anything specifically pro-Iraq war, but I'd think it would be hard to dispute that he's edited things to be explicitly right-wing where they previously weren't. Chris Cunningham 16:42, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm disclaiming the accusation given at the top of this talk page section: "More recently, Raymond has been accused of introducing terms into the Jargon File to fit his own views on the war in Iraq, as well as introducing terms in use primarily by himself." That has two accusations in it. The first is the Iraq war one. I doubt this accusation; if he actually added such entries, I'm sure people could name one.

The other accusation is true (though it needs a good source). He added, among others, the term "GandhiCon", which used to have a stub Wikipedia article until I personally proposed a deletion for it on the grounds that nobody uses it except him. Ken Arromdee 18:40, 2 March 2007 (UTC) (Google suggests that it is still true that no one uses it except him.) LuisVilla 22:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

For examples of political issues (not Iraq-specific, but certainly right-wing): in jargon file 4.4.0 (May 2003) Eric added anti-idiotarianism, which the jargon file claimed was 'very common' but was in fact coined only a year before by a very right-wing blogger [16], and is used almost exclusively [17] by right-wing political bloggers. It is impossible to prove the negative, of course, but using google I was unable to find a single use of the term in a programming context which was not either from Eric himself or in reference to Eric's stewardship of the Jargon File. Ditto fisking- no googleable examples of it being used by non-Eric hackers; coined and used heavily by politically right-wing bloggers. And of course there is the infamous addition in the same version (4.4.0) of "more recently moderate-to-neoconservative (hackers too were affected by the collapse of socialism)" from the description of hacker politics. Given the lack of any proof that these terms and philosophies are used by hackers other than Eric, one has to assume that these changes indicate that Eric has lost touch with hackerdom, and has fallen prey to the trap of conflating his own warblogging with the broader hacking movement which he claims to be an expert in. Of course, we can't prove that his claims aren't true, but Eric can't prove that they are true either, and they are clearly strongly rejected by many hackers (particularly European hackers). I don't know how much 'proof' one needs to show that it is rejected, given that no proof is offered that it is true- maybe this [18] would be sufficient? :) LuisVilla 22:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Besides these specific examples, I think the bottom line is that Eric puts himself forward as a 'voice of the community'. That is the only substantial reason he is notable at this time. As such, counterclaims by community members that he does not stand for them or understand them are notable and important- when speaking of such nebulous notions as being the 'voice of the community', it is he-said/she-said, and this article as it stands has come fairly close to cutting out all the 'she said'. Hardly balanced or NPOV. LuisVilla 22:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

You've just given a hefty paragraph as to why you think the accusations of ESR forcing his own political views into the Jargon file are true, and have offered almost no proof at all that anyone other than you offers the same criticisms (save for one CafePress link -- no points for that). Your opinion of Eric may or may not be valid, but that does not justify including it in the article, unless you've written about it in a non-Wikipedia context too. Verifiability, not truthen. If this kind of criticism is as widespread as you say, go right ahead and cite it -- that is the sort of thing that should be in the article. Lewis Collard 23:45, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Google for 'esr anti-idiotarian jargon file', or 'esr gandhicon jargon file'. The first three results are not actually ESR or the jargon file as you'd expect if the articles were liked and respected, but people criticizing inclusion of that term in the jargon file. (Similar but not quite as definitive results for 'esr fisking jargon file'). All three of those links have been cited here, but you've dismissed them all, and... huh, now you say you want links to criticism. Others have thoroughly documented here that he's been criticized in some of the highest profile forums our community has; I've documented (as if the many comments in /. and/or ghoseb's article were not enough) that the criticism is not slander as you claim, but has extensive factual basis. I have no idea what more can possibly be demanded before it goes back in the article, but if you've got something more clear and less circular, please do tell- I'm all ears. LuisVilla 05:12, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Read what I said again: What I am trying to do is draw a hard distinction between what you think ESR has done with the Jargon File (a question of truth) and what the hacker community at large think (one of verifiability). I apologise for not being totally clear on this: I'm fine with having the criticism from NTK (for example) included in the article. /. comments don't count, though; we shouldn't take them as being representative of hackers anymore than we should take LGF comments as representative of the conservative movement, or Daily Kos comments as being representative of liberalism. Lewis Collard 10:07, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

OK. I've seen no evidence for the arguments that Raymond is inserting Iraq-war related material in the jargon file. That definitely should be removed if no citations are forthcoming. However, we have two good references to an NTK article and to Slashdot article to very public and widely criticism that Raymond edited a variety of articles in the Jargon file including GandhiCon, Aunt Tillie, and the Hacker Politics article (IIRC, he edited to the last article describe how hacker politics had recently been moving quickly toward a political ideology quite clearly recognizable as his own). These were visible opinions published in two of the most import hacker news sources. That makes that part of the criticism notable. Was Raymond projecting himself into the Jargon file? I have no idea! That's not the point and it's probably a matter of opinion. You say no, clearly, other people have argued yes. The point is that it was public and notable criticism. If you think they are false and have been dubunked, please go ahead and suggest text that describes equally public and notable refutations of these points. —mako (talk•contribs) 02:46, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I said no? Where? (I'm guessing by the indentation that this is addressed to me...) Lewis Collard 10:09, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry. I was unfairly and incorrectly conflating your argument with Russ's. Apologies! —mako (talk•contribs) 16:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I find your edits to this article suspect. I don't know what your relationship to Raymond is today but you are clearly a long-time acquaintence of Raymond's, share a variety of political and philosophical views, and was even president of his organization (OSI) immediately after he stepped down (this is all from what I know or can infer from your Wikipedia article). In this context, I can't help but notice that almost every edit you've made to this article has been to remove criticism. In a few cases, you've merely tempered the language to make the criticism less strong. —mako (talk•contribs) 00:11, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem here is that Eric has strong opinions which some people disagree with. These people have made this article a target of their opprobrium. I feel that criticism of a living person should be well documented, and not just people's opinions. Not "Silvernil says that mako is a poopy-head". NPOV is not achieved by balancing praise and criticism without reference to their reliability. And given your former membership on the SPI board -- which has a long bad history with Eric -- you are hardly one to claim that your criticism is inserted neutrally. This is like the Pot calling the kettle black RussNelson 04:15, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem is not merely that Eric has strong opinions and the countering opinions are unprovable, but that both sets of opinions are unprovable (see my discussion above) and you're insisting on deleting all discussions as a result, leaving the impression that he's an uncontroversial community leader, when in fact he is controversial and his leadership is far from widely accepted. From an NPOV/balance perspective, what matters is not whether the controversy is grounded in fact (I think it is, and have given examples above to support that) but that it exists at all. LuisVilla 22:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The fact that someone has written very widely repeated lies about a person may, in fact, still be worthy of inclusion in an article. As it stands, the veracity of this statement seems to be on that is debatable. I think that the (now reverted) hacker politics article was an example of Raymond changing the jargon file to describe hacker politics as moving toward his politics in a way that was unsupportable (which, perhaps, is why he removed that language).

Any long and bad history between Eric and SPI was long over before I got to the board. I know that SPI's ownership of the opensource.org domain stemmed from some fight in the past but that's all I really knew (or care to). FWIW, I voted to return the domain to OSI as a sign of good will whenever the issue was raised. Those records should all be public. Sorry to disappoint. :) —mako (talk•contribs) 02:52, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Your calls in the edit summary to, "stop editing the page and talk about this on the discussion page," might seem a little more genuine if it wasn't made while reverting the restoration of previously removed text. Since you have what appears to be a conflict of interest, I think that removal of criticism would best be discussed on the talk page in the future. —mako (talk•contribs) 00:11, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

No conflict of interest. My interest is in an accurate article. Repeating accusations and innuendo does not add value to the article. Removing them does. RussNelson 04:15, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

You've got a clear conflict of interest, Russ; just from reading this talk page it is clear that you've known him and hacked with him for quite some time, and you succeeded him as president of OSI [19]. I have no idea how that fits with Wikipedia's policies on conflicts of interest (though a skim of the relevant policy section suggests that you're almost certainly in violation) but even without that, to claim you've got no conflict of interest is slightly surreal by any reasonable definition of the term. Disclosure: I've never met the man personally or worked with him; I think his early writings are brilliant and frequently recommend CATB to anyone looking to understand open source; and I (and many, many open source developers I know) think he's a pompous, self-promoting ass who has tried to hijack the meaning of the movement in order to promote his own career and political viewpoints. I think that to present an NPOV, this article should reflect the sources of that widespread disaffection, so that readers will better understand his mixed and controversial record and can form their own opinions. LuisVilla 22:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I have no conflict of interest in having an accurate article. There are, just as you say, people who despise Eric, and who are HAPPY to edit the article to include anything negative said about Eric. So who is going to ensure that the article is even moderately accurate? Them? You? mako (but he has his own conflict of interest) RussNelson 01:05, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I have no conflict of interest in having an accurate article. As far as I can tell, you have a conflict of interest, period. By definition, having a conflict of interest means you have a problem judging what it means for this to be an accurate article. One can't say 'oh, i've got a conflict of interest, but not one that affects having an accurate article.' You've either got one, or you don't, and it seems fairly clear from the guidelines and from what information you've chosen to remove from the article that you do have one. Again, I'm happy to be corrected, and it would be easy for you to demonstrate your good faith by working with Mako and others to correct and cite these criticisms (which are easy enough to find) instead of constantly reverting and deleting. If you can't do that, please step aside. LuisVilla 05:12, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

What is my conflict of interest? I once stood next to ESR in line at OSCON, have cited his papers (postively or neutrally, in every case I can recall) but don't ever recall writing anything negative about him. I don't ever recall having a conversation with him in any medium. —mako (talk•contribs) 01:40, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

My point is that you don't have a conflict of interest -- and neither do I. If you perceive that I have one, understand that I perceive (equally incorrectly) that you have one. RussNelson 03:31, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Because you have a percieved conflict of interest, it's important that you discuss major edits, and especially removals of criticism, on the talk page first.

Also, please respond to the part of my origial post about the reinclusion of the removed contenta bout he jargon file or how you would like to reword it or I will add it back. —mako (talk•contribs) 01:40, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Apologies. I misread the talk page and see that others have responded to my very last paragraph. The rest of my comment stands. —mako (talk•contribs) 02:54, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Do you understand that I continue to believe that false accusation (aka slander) is not notable? There is no end of slander of Eric that one could cite, nay even claim to be notable. If you want to re-insert the accusations about the Jargon file, then say "There is no evidence that Eric has inserted XYZ into the Jargon File, but people claim he has done so nonetheless[#]. There is no evidence that people use terms like GandhiCon, Aunt Tillie (&etc), but Eric has inserted them nonetheless." RussNelson 03:31, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Perfectly understood and reasonable. The NTK article cited listed a half-dozen articles controversial changes to the Jargon file. These included "Aunt Tille", "GandhiCon", "anti-idolitarianism" and "fisking". I think we should point out those, and the "hacker politics" changes which were also controversial.

Other than that, I'm happy with the roughly wording you chose although I tend to agree with you that it's not worth saying that we should point out that Eric has been accused of inserting things into the Jargon file that are not-notable when there is absolutely no evidence unless the accusations have been very public. I've said this elsewhere in the section but I've not even seen any evidence of notable criticism of Raymond adding any Iraq-war related entries so I don't intend to re-add that. I'm glad we could come to some consensus on this. —mako (talk•contribs) 16:19, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Why he thinks Wikipedia doesn't work

Eric believes that Wikipedia doesn't work the same way that Open Source works because there is no objective test for correctness, and no alternative for when there isn't. A computer program has to function. It has to do what its documentation says it does, otherwise it's wrong and everybody can see that, and anybody can fix it. A Wikpedia article doesn't have that test. It's all just people's opinions. Of course, people get opinionated about computer programs as well. That's why there are so many IRC clients, web browsers, file downloaders, etc. People have a choice about which one they use and so everybody tries to make their program the test. With Wikipedia, there is only one Eric S. Raymond article, and so people fight about what's right with no check on their behavior (other than internal Wikipedia rules). A better situation would be to allow multiple articles on the same subject, with an automagically created disambiguation page. People would then link to the version of the page they thought was best.

THEN you might get an open source effect going. RussNelson 16:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

And Wikipedia is not like open source because there are no barriers to entry in WP, and no barriers between "development" and "production" versions. If I submitted a patch to Fetchmail which replaced all the code with

int main() { while (1) { printf("ESR iz a fag!111"); } }

then the chances are very, very slim that the new Fetchmail maintainers would integrate it into their copy of the source. There's even less of a chance that it would make it into released code. But someone could do the exact same thing with a semi-obscure Wikipedia article and chances are 20 people would read it before it got corrected. And an unattributed "critics say" (which is Wikipedia-speak for "I think that...") will likely stay there for much, much longer before a reasonable editor will come along and axe it, or add a source, or whatever.

None of this is to say that Wikipedia is not good; I think it's wonderful. Is it anything like open source? No, but neither is my dog. Totally unbalanced and unfair? Infested with moonbats? All that is totally true (I'd add "the very worst kinds of atheists and liberals" to the latter). But I'd much rather set a good example and put things right, rather than than complain. Lewis Collard 22:07, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Raymondism redirects here but not mentioned or defined

Raymondism redirects here. The term is not defined in the article (nor apparently elsewhere on Wikipedia). The term is sometimes encountered in open source / Linux debates. Let's have a brief definition, here or wherever else on Wikipedia would be appropriate. -- Writtenonsand 16:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I know of no use of "Raymondism" except as part of "Vulgar Raymondism", the existance of which Eric denies here. -- RussNelson 18:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, see http://www.google.com/search?q=raymondism+-%22vulgar+raymondism%22 for "raymondism" -"vulgar raymondism".

Presumably, if the term is in use, then ESR's denial of its existence is moot. (Cf Invisible Pink Unicorn, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Colorless Green Ideas). It seems to me that this situation would warrent a note along the lines: "The term(s) "Raymondism" and/or "Vulgar Raymondism" are sometimes encountered; they're supposed to mean X; ESR denies that there is such a thing, ref here." -- And there is also that matter of the existing redirect. -- Writtenonsand 18:38, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The first link to Raymondism (without the vulgar) is in a FAQ maintained by the same person whose First Monday paper introduced the term vulgar Raymondism. The second link refers to Stallmanism in the same breath as Raymondism, but there is no article on Stallmanism. Only a very few people have used the term; I don't think it merits inclusion. -- RussNelson 19:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm with Russ here; I've never seen the word in the wild (though it does seem useful, so maybe I'll start using it ;), and if we're going to point out that the man has a habit of making up terms which no one else uses, the least we can do is hold his critics to the same standard. -- LuisVilla 22:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I second that. Anyone who bothers to read ESR knows that "Raymondism", as defined by Bezroukov, isn't something that ESR would actually subscribe to, so it shouldn't redirect here. Also, Bezroukov is an asshole. Lewis Collard 01:24, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I yield to RussNelson's argument that the term is apparently not in fact notable.

However, I reiterate that, if it were, neither ESR's individual opinion nor Bezroukov's personality or style would be at all relevant in the decision on whether to discuss the term.

-- :-) Writtenonsand 17:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Bezroukov's character is entirely relevant to this. He and the "Raymondism" he shat forth stinks of intellectual dishonesty to anybody that cares enough to compare what Bezroukov says ESR says and what ESR actually says. Therefore, he fails as a reliable source. Just because we're meant to be unbiased doesn't mean that we can't ignore people that deserve to be ignored. Lewis Collard 14:33, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Open Source anachronism

In 1997, Raymond became a prominent voice in the open source movement and was a co-founder of the Open Source Initiative.

That statment appears in the section titled Open Source, but there was no "open source movement" in 1997. The term "open source" wasn't coined until the following year. I'm not sure exactly how to fix it, as Raymond did become prominent in 1997 due to publication of CatB. Aardvark92 21:03, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Irrelevent Wikipedia Opinion

This page is little but a character assasination of Eric S Raymond. The following paragraph is a case in point:

"He has also strong views on Wikipedia. Reportedly, he stated that "‘disaster’ is not too strong a word for it".[16] He claims that the open source model does not work for an encyclopedia, that the Wikipedia article about him is "neither accurate, nor fair, nor balanced",[17] and that the site is "infested with moonbats".[16]"

How is this notable? A notable man doesn't like Wikipedia. So what?! This type of irrelevant muck doesn't belong in an entity that pretends to be an encyclopedia. Someone fix it. I can't be bothered.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kim.mason (talk • contribs).

ESR says stuff about Wikipedia to the mass media. But when someone else quotes him on it, that's "character assasination [sic]". Hokay!

Since you can't be bothered fixing it, I'll return the love and not bother commenting very much on the relevance of this passage; other than to say I hardly think ESR's opinions on these issues are irrelevant to his biography, given that he's someone that has come to prominence precisely because of his opinions on technological matters.

BTW, sign your comments. <3. Lewis Collard! (natter) 10:06, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

About Linspire deal with Microsoft and his work on Freespire

Does ESR still works on Freespire after the Linspire deal with Microsoft? If he does, it can be a very hypocrite act. -- 87.217.11.138 12:59, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

So?

So?, why discuss that here ?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.87.98.224 (talk • contribs).

What? Lewis Collard! (baby i'm bad news) 01:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I think this non-comment can safely be ignored. —mako๛ 03:11, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

But it could have been so much fun! ;( Lewis Collard! (baby i'm bad news) 05:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Another mini-rewrite

About the rewrite I just did:

• Nobody cares about the flame war with the Fedora list anymore. I didn't at the time, but I left it in while the /. kiddies were still upset. This silliness has been removed.
• Nobody cares about him sending an e-flaming-turd-in-a-paper-bag-through-the-e-letterbox to Perens anymore, nor that Perens crapped himself. Comments as above.
• The section "Criticism and conflicts" has been nuked, and the beaten, bloody pulp of such integrated into other sections in the article.
• The material about Wikipedia sucking has been moved into a more general discussion about whether he thinks the open source model can be applied to other kinds of creative works. This could do with some expanding.
• Material has been moved out of the introductory section and into other areas since it's not all that relevant to his notability.

I apologise in advance for making the article suck less. Lewis Collard! (baby i'm bad news) 07:34, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Is there an open source movement?

I wanted to change the sentence:

»Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is a computer programmer, author and advocate for the open source movement«

to

»Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is a computer programmer, author and advocate for the Open Source Initiative.«

And I wanted to change the entry in {{Persondata}}:

SHORT DESCRIPTION=computer programmer, author and advocate for the open source movement

to

SHORT DESCRIPTION=computer programmer, author and advocate for the Open Source Initiative

It is undisputely that the open source movement isn't the same as the free software movement, altough open-source software is almost always free software, too. The article of the open source movement has been poor and there were no reference indicating it exists at all. So it was decided to merge the article with the article about the Open Source Initiative. Is there an open source movement outside the Open Source Initiative? --mms 10:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Some people involved with open source do not like to call it a movement -- or at least not a social movement. Many others use this term frequently. I'm not opposed to the change you've suggested (and probably would even support it) but will defer to folks like User:RussNelson who edit this page and whose opinion on how people who identify with open source would feel about this I trust over my own. I'll leave a message on his talk page. —mako๛ 14:29, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Lil' change....

Before:

Raymond became a high-profile representative of the open source movement, and is today one of its most recognized and controversial characters.

After:

Raymond became for a number of years a high-profile representative of the open source movement.

I think it now better represents Eric's departure from the spotlight in recent years.

Lil' change....

Before:

Raymond became a high-profile representative of the open source movement, and is today one of its most recognized and controversial characters.

After:

Raymond became for a number of years a high-profile representative of the open source movement.

I think it now better represents Eric's departure from the spotlight in recent years. --Gunny01 10:39, 23 September 2007 (UTC)