Talk:Eric S. Raymond/Archive 2

"Surprised by Cock"
I like throwing digital pies at ESR as much as the next person, but that "Surprised by Cock" article is just stupid. If I make a similar parody of Martin Luther King, or George Bush can I link to it from there pages? I suggest removing that link, but I can't think of a policy that could govern when links should be left, and when they should stay. It's not informative, and not very creative. For whatever reason, if someone wants to remove it, there'd be no argument from me. --Gronky 19:34, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The "Parodies" Section
I've removed the "Parodies" section. Some troll keeps adding links to gay smut or stupid stories that have ESR's name stuck in them. These articles are not sources of info about ESR, so I've removed them. They wouldn't stand on the pages for Martin Luther King, or George Bush so they shouldn't stand here. Note, the smut was originally being added by someone with IP 64.110.74.244 - before vandalising the ESR page, that IP regularly vandalised the Michael Moore page, and in the last hour or so he's moved to vandalising the Richard Stallman page - although he's changing his IP now (he's used 24.214.217.95, 65.110.54.92 and 151.202.154.243). The links are mostly to articles written by one person, so it could be that person trying to popularise their pages. I don't know if it's a pity to remove the link to trollse.cx, it was mildly funny, but not that great really. --Gronky 03:11, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"Arrogant Gas Baron"
I can't find any reference backing up the claim that ESR is commonly or notably referred to as "Arrogant Gas Baron". All Google turns up is the usual suspects promulgating their half-assed trolls on the usual sites, and copies of what may or may not be an old forgery from linux-kernel. I trimmed the paragraph to its factual core to avoid feeding the egos of the trolls any more than necessary. --Saucepan 03:43, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Watch the NPOV!
Quoted from a very recent version of the article:
 * "The combination of ESR's dominating public persona, extremist opinions, and extreme hypocrisy have made him a consistently controversial, but interesting, character."

"Dominating public persona" is fine, but the other two things are NOT. Although his opinions may be "extremist" to many in the hacker community, Wikipedia's policy is one of NPOV. Watch it. --Fermatprime 02:49, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Scope is excessive, the concept Extremist is already defined in Wikipedia, would you want to delete it? Should the desire for, say, genocide be described as well rounded consideration? I think not. Extremism, therefore, does not imply an NPOV problem. There is no need for weasel words when one can refer to threat made to Bruce Perens http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/1999/04/msg00623.html

Verifiability of the Wikipedian category
The problem with categories is that it's impossible to annotate the entries. On what grounds do we conclude that ESR is a Wikipedian? The existence of User:Eric S. Raymond?

I went to the trouble of (manually!) checking this, and indeed, ESR has had a whopping 20 edits over 4 days, to various articles of obvious interest to him (not to belittle these edits, of course, it's not as if this IP has an enormous track record). Obviously, he might also have made some anonymous ones.

Since I presume the category isn't going to be turned into a list anytime soon (although I think that would be the best long-term solution), we should at least have a link or trivia note or whatever that establishes his Wikipedianity; the contributions list if we have to, even if this is hideous; a public/private quote, off-handed remark, blog entry or whatever else would be preferable. If we're going to have this category, we should at least be unambiguous about it. If people ask "yeah, but how do you know that ESR really edits on Wikipedia?" we should be able to answer them, and if at all possible, not by pointing at our intestines. Category entries should in theory be indisputable, meaning that the article should make it obvious why this category applies.

Either that, or this category (as I said) just shouldn't exist. Make it an annotated list on Meta or something. This is of service only to us, not to our readers. And who gets first priority? Thaaaat's right. I mean, if I created User:Richard Stallman or User:Linus Torvalds and added a few insightful comments to the GNU/Linux naming controversy, that wouldn't prove much of anything now, would it? :-) --82.92.119.11 23:00, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Biased? Oh, yes!
Let me just state right off the bat that I'm no fan of ESR, in fact I think he's a complete loon, and yet this article is basically a hatchet-job.

The fact is that he's done some very good things for the free software movement, while taking the full force of RMS and all of his fans in a Massive Snit on many occasions, and this article reads like slashdot sniping. Either make it objective, or nominate it for removal, already. The links to the messages on his dispute with Bruce Perens completely ignore Perens' provocation of ESR, and make it look like ESR came uncorked for no reason.
 * I think he's fantastic, his The Art of Unix Programming, [Art of Unix Programming] is the reason I first installed Linux. I agree that the article is biased. The reasons I think this are:
 * 1. The criticism section is twice as long as the achievements section - this is a man who has written 3 books, contributed to at least 3 major open source projects, and widely publicised open source programming. It seems to indicate that a vocal minority don't like him, and the page is treated as a vehicle for criticism.
 * 2. We are treated to a 7 line dissection of a joke that Raymond made to a recruiter (paragraph 3), with the payoff that this "is typical of what many of Raymond's critics find disagreeable." Who exactly is this relevant to? Dilaudid 00:55, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

that image is to be deleted
It appears the image was uploaded prior to may 2005 and so will be deleted. -- Jon Dowland 4 July 2005 15:22 (UTC)

bias
I got here by accident - I never heard of this person before, however, still from what i've seen this entry seems biased.

The current text referring to "shut up and show the code" makes it seem as if in this article ESR is disparaging the programming ability of Richard Stallman. However, when I looked at the article he is in fact doing the complete opposite, and is praising Stallman's programming and disparaging his talking. It seems misleading to me.

Also, if you say there he claimed to be more of a programmer than he is, you should substantiate this.

I agree. He makes a point of praising Stallman's coding and only disagrees with his tactics. The previous wording completely misrepresented the essay. I changed the article to reflect this but somebody changed it back to the original. However, they did somewhat take the misrepresentation into account by leaving in the phrase about the disagreement being over tactics. What's left still doesn't work as it now implies that esr disparaged stallman and the paragraph's intent is muddled by the concession. Sprewell 10:05, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Cerebral Palsy a defining ESR characteristic?
I suggest moving this:

He also suffers from a mild form of congenital cerebral palsy.

out of the intro. I'm not going to debate its truth, or whether it is deserving of any mention at all, but I will say it's not intro material. It's not a defining characteristic of ESR. If a friend ran up to me and said "I'm meeting someone called ESR in 90 seconds time - who is this guy?", I think I'd spend 50 seconds talking about free software and open source, and give 10 seconds each to Linux kernel development, gun ownership, poorly thought-out blog entries, and maybe "GPL is not needed".

(...and speculation that cerebral palsy is the reason for ESR being the way he is, is still not enough to make this into intro material.) Gronky 04:07, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I've just restored my above comment after an anon deleted it and replaced it with a summary. The anon also added this note: "A later comment by ESR to this talk page says he doesn't "object" to its mention."


 * Which may be interesting, but should not be considered while deciding whether to include the information, or what importance to give it. I'll take this opportunity solicit comments from others on this thread.  If there are no comments after a while, I'll probably move this information myself to a lower place in the article.  Comments? Gronky 15:11, 25 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Support moving to a lower place. Arvindn 17:44, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

It deserves being in the introduction. Why minimize our "disabilities"? It seems akward now that its placed further down. -- "Anon"

The Threat
I don't believe that "the threat" belongs in this article. If you read what Eric actually wrote, without reading Bruce's interpretation of it, it is in no way a threat. It's more along the lines of a warning. There is no reason why Bruce should have thought he was in any danger. Sure, Bruce interpreted it as a threat, but that says more about Bruce than it does Eric, so, really, it belongs in Bruce's bio, not Eric. RussNelson

Response by the target of the article
The Criticism section contains both negative value judgements and numerous statements that are false to fact. The value judgments I have let stand; the false-to-fact statements I have removed.

The claim that I have added pro-gun-control and pro-Iraq-war entries to the Jargon File is factually false, as can be readily verified by keyword searches for "Iraq", "gun", "firearm" and similar keywords. In fact, the author of the original accusation (Danny Cohen) has apologized to me personally for making it. Anyone who wishes to reassert this claim should be required to actually cite the supposedly offending entries and explain in detail why they constitute editorial bias.

The essay "Shut up and show them the code" was not received "derisively" at its time of publication; this is a back-reading in light of criticisms that were directed at me later. In fact, that whole paragraph on my claim to be a "core Linux developer" repeats claims that are easily falsified by a look at my software page. At least five of my projects (fetchmail, gpsd, ncurses, bogofilter, giflib/libungif) are carried in the core portions of major Linux disributions, and I have made significant contributions to over a dozen other such projects including Python, groff, and lbpng.

You cannot even run an open-source browser without using code I wrote! Anybody who wishes to claim that my technical contributions have been trivial should be required to show that their code is at least as widely used and distributed as mine.

It is also dubious to claim that I have "removed" terms from the Jargon File, as they are all available in a chaff section on the project website. In general, the assertions in the following paragraph require actual sources and cites:

Raymond initially became famous for his adoption of the Jargon File. Since then, some hackers have become dissatisfied by his centralized control over submissions to the File, the allegedly questionable additions and edits he has made, and the removal of certain terms on the grounds of being dated (unusual in historical dictionary projects).

I have removed it pending those cites.

There are some further claims in the Criticism section which I think are inappropriate but will not remove on my own; I invite others to consider them. Notably:

During the summer of 2003, Raymond expounded his opinions about politics, racial IQ differences [11], terrorism and the Iraq war on his weblog ([12] for instance), provoking heated critism.

In what way, exactly, is this informative? All it really does is repeat the datum that I have critics. I think it violates NPOV. My blog has attracted a great deal of praise as well as criticism; the above belongs in "Criticism" only if one accepts the POV evaluation that my positions on these issues are somehow bad or wrong. That assumption, and the attempt to foist it on the reader, doesn't belong in Wikipedia.

As other discussants have noted, the account of my dispute with Perens fails to note either the provocation or the fact that Perens himself has since described his response to it as an unfortunate overreaction. I don't think this transitory snit belongs in Wikipedia either.

The fact that I was invited to lecture at Microsoft was, at the time in 1998, universally viewed as a victory for the movement, not as any kind of sellout on my part. In any case, I received no compensation that appearance other than having my travel expenses covered. The claim that this "increased friction" has the appearance that its author was desperately looking for anything possible to bash me with. Is this what Wikipedia wants to be?

I am not a thin-skinned individual by any means (I couldn't be and do what I do) but as previous discussants have noted, much of this article reads like character assassination with a boatload of "they said" and vague unattributed "people believe" claims in it. Personally, I could ignore this; I'm used to taking arrows in the back. But Wikipedia ought to meet a higher quality standard than this.

It is a depressing reality of my situation that I am going to be attacked no matter what I do by a vocal minority of ideologues. Wikipedia should not become a football in this kind of disputation. Therefore I ask all editors to be especially careful for this entry about statements that are vague, unattributed, not supported by checkable cites, or which violate NPOV.

For the record, I don't object to having my cerebral palsy mentioned.

Esr 05:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * About what you say about "Shut up and show them the code", if this is correct then that criticism should indeed be updated to note that it was a criticism made later on.


 * On your defense of your "core Linux developer" claim, I'm not convinced by your reference to your software page. Fetchmail was not wholly yours, and is known for it's bad security holes and your maintainership and shelving of it is criticised.  Gpsd - never heard of it.  Ncurses, ok, that's a significant project, used and respected, someone should check how much you contributed to it, but I expect your contribution will indeed be significant.  Bogofilter, didn't you write v0.1 and hand it off to another group who went on to criticise the code?  giflib - that's a useful program.


 * Being a talented arguer, you could probably hang me based on what I've said in the previous paragraph, but if you do you won't actually be responding to my main points (which would be a motivation to do so).


 * Your style, useful in politics but not in Wikipedia, is based on getting a Win, not on correctness. You display this when you ask for a defense from "Anybody who wishes to claim that my technical contributions have been trivial" - when triviality was not the accusation, not being a "core Linux developer" was the accusation.  Secondly you make a mine's bigger than your's request that Wikipedians wishing to correct this article must first prove they've coded more than you?  That is not at all required of Wikipedians, just as you can edit Wikipedia without having to show that you've contributed as much as any other Wikipedian.


 * Details of which entries to your blog have drawn criticism is certainly informative and I'd go further and say that such specifics are required. Your blog may have some fans, but in general it is famous for controversial entries which have rubbed people up the wrong way.  If everybody loved Eric Raymond, or if a lot of people did, surely someone would have set up a site of that name?  Oh.


 * I can't comment on your Microsoft invite being seen as a sell out, but it was most certainly not seen as a victory!


 * ...and a nice finale about your critics being "a vocal minority of ideologues" I'd love to know how you devine this without saying the same about the fans you claim to exist for your blog?


 * Writing in a bit of a rush, Gronky 15:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, Gronky, the easy answer to your last question is that one of the skills I've had to cultivate is reading audiences. I meet a lot of hackers when I give talks, and they tend to throw roses at me rather than brickbats. (Which isn't to say I don't catch a few brickbats, it's not like the zealots are shy about showing up!)

Unfortunately, the people who dislike my positions for ideological reasons are more strongly motivated to express that dislike than the majority behind me is to support me. This is not just me, you'll see the same asymmetry around a lot of controversial people and issues.

Your comments leave me unsure what you would consider a "response to your main points". Yes, I could hang you for that paragraph as you have most of your facts wrong, but my purpose is to correct errors not to get into a flame war with you. Esr 19:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * A few responses to Eric, here. Firstly, regarding your rather humorous statement that one can't even run a browser without running your code.... Tell us: how many thousands of people would you say could make the same claim? Tens? Hundreds? Where are their flattering Wikipedia entries? Your claim to be a major Open Source software developer is risible, and your claim that you have been "statistically" proven to be one is a falsehood (please show us citations to these "statistical" studies). Secondly, regarding your infamous "Show them the Code" essay. I followed the public reception of the essay at the time, and if you think that no-one was "derisive" of the essay, you're deluded. Please see the comments to the original Linux Today article: . Thirdly, regarding the Jargon File. No, no-one is going to bother writing a minor sociology essay in order to justify criticising you for your management of the JF. But it doesn't take much to see that entries like the political description of the hacker community (which is just your totally unsupported opinion) and entries like "anti-idiotarianism" (which is tendentious) and poor, tired, old "Aunt Tillie" (which is your own silly invention) smell naff, and are certainly not received hacker jargon.


 * One major fault that is found with the jargon file (just look at any /. article on the topic) is the entry/ies like anti-idiotarianism. There are no people in the western left who support islamic terrorism, knowingly. There are definitley none who sympathize with it. There are hackers (some, in any case) in the western left. Those hackers are offended by that statement, and with good reason. The western left doesn't support Carlos the Jackal style stalinesque idealogy. In America, at any rate, the western left is basically moderate, with some progressive influence. Your claim that there IS a pro-islamic terrorisism sect of the western left wing is true, but there are about 50 people like that in North America. And anti-idiotarianism is just a corny idealogy. We're all against people being idiots, but we do not all agree on who idiots are. The other controversial entry is the J. Random Hacker Politics one, obviously. I think perhaps people would like you to build up some empirical evidence to support your findings on that one (among other things). So, in conclusion, some of the stuff in the JF isn't based on actual proof, though it may be factual. I would think that hackers would like some statistics, interviews, and other kinds of social research. This is supposed to be anthropoligical data, right? Well, last I checked, anthropology is a social SCIENCE. In conclusion, there is plenty of reason to criticize you, just not enough to hate your guts simply because you are a gun-toting-libertarian-sf-fan. (PS- I wonder if that usenet trial balloon version of JF could be made public)

To quote ESR's defense from above:
 * The claim that I have added pro-gun-control and pro-Iraq-war entries to the Jargon File is factually false, as can be readily verified by keyword searches for "Iraq", "gun", "firearm" and similar keywords. In fact, the author of the original accusation (Danny Cohen) has apologized to me personally for making it. Anyone who wishes to reassert this claim should be required to actually cite the supposedly offending entries and explain in detail why they constitute editorial bias.

Now let's look at the definition of "Fisking":
 * [blogosphere; very common] A point-by-point refutation of a blog entry or (especially) news story. A really stylish fisking is witty, logical, sarcastic and ruthlessly factual; flaming or handwaving is considered poor form. Named after Robert Fisk, a British journalist who was a frequent (and deserving) early target of such treatment.

Note that here ESR is editorializing that Fisk was "deserving" of the treatement he received from Sullivan and co. Now, let's look at the definition of "anti-idiotarianiasm":
 * [very common] Opposition to idiots of all political stripes. First coined in the blog named Little Green Footballs as part of a post expressing disgust with inane responses to post-9/11 Islamic terrorism. Anti-idiotarian wrath has focused on Islamic terrorists and their sympathizers in the Western political left, but also routinely excoriated right-wing politicians backing repressive ’anti-terror‘ legislation and Christian religious figures who (in the blogosphere's view of the matter) have descended nearly to the level of jihad themselves.

Here we have ESR attributing his opinions to the "blogosphere", as far as I can tell, an inserting a definition of a term that he invented, or at least championed with his "manifesto". -- Doom 03:51, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Recent ESR updates
The old version listed a critcism relating to whether ESR is, as claimed, a "Core Linux Developer" and then plays down the extent to which he has contributed code to open source. Now ESR, has added: Raymond has written enough code that his name has been flagged as a top contributor by two different statistical analyses of the open-source corpus. In my view, he is being overly defensive and as a result has included details that no reader would care about. My point is that ESR is not famous for writing open source code, he's known for his involvement in the Open Source Initiative. I've probably contributed as much code yet there is no article on me (and nobody would read it if there was). Can't we just have something that states that he has contributed code to ncurses, libungif, etc. without trying to quantify it.


 * I've just removed some parts of that paragraph. Unsourced claims of being "flagged as a top contributor by two different statistical analyses of the open-source corpus" are mud.  At a guess, he could be alluding to being voted #1 on sourceforge (which is actually a popularity contest among people with source forge accounts - something which many notable free software contributors such as Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds don't have).  Not sure what his second "statisticaly analysis" (which he doesn't care to quote a source for) is. (has anyone confirmed that User:Esr is indeed Eric?) Gronky 14:39, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Gronky, the two analyses in question were (1) the codebase audit that VA Linux did when putting together its friends-and-family list, and (2) a 1999 study by an academic associated with the Boston Consulting group. Your deletion is reasonable, however, and I will accept it.Esr 19:27, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Folks, we need to keep some perspective here. Raymond was NEVER known as a software developer, whatever else he may say. There are many, many hundreds of open source developers out there who don't have Wikipedia entries, who have made FAR more significant development contributions to the community. The "core linux developer" claim is, in fact, a piece of self-aggrandisement that is entirely consistent with Raymond's public persona, and, arguably, with the function that he fulfilled for the community. The fact of the matter is that he was, in the past, an important part of the Open Source PR engine, but that due to the problems outlined in the criticism section, his role is now much, much more modest. As for the claims of statistical analysis above: I'm frankly sceptical. Citasions, please, Eric.

Consistency of Standards
As it stands now, I think the criticism section looks pretty good. With a guy like this, I think you really need to cite *everything*, and make sure that people's opinions don't get stated as fact. So long as that's done (which I think is currently true), it's probably all good.

That said, I'd like to ask why things that ESR does get considered volatile, when comparable behavior by comparable people goes unnoticed. I'm not saying that, if this is truly how the world reacts, Wikipedia shouldn't note it --- but rather, Wikipedia might want to note that this is exceptional to ESR.

Consider the case of Cory Doctorow. He's an EFF guy, very much in favor of relaxing copyrights, and yet I don't see accusations of "selling out" (or somesuch) because he gave a talk at Microsoft.

Likewise, why isn't there any mention that Richard Stallman has been called insane, arrogant, abrasive, etc. A cursory google will reveal plenty of accusations of that nature. He also doesn't seem to be getting in trouble for his political activities, which certainly seem to be on a scale comparable to ESR's.

What I'm saying is that, it probably is true that Cory and RMS simply haven't created notable friction with the New Age of Intellectual Property folks (yeah, that's straight outta my ass) by these actions. Likewise, it makes sense that their actions don't get mentioned as doing such on their Wikipedia pages. But if ESR can do essentially the same things, yet enflame The World, I think his Wikipedia page ought to note that, for whatever reason, he seems to get judged at a higher standard than his contemporaries (for lack of a superior phraseology). --Ninjadroid 18:18, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

This belongs in the better titled "Criticisms" section above.

Skipping that, I hate comparisons in the name of some holy "consistency", but for the record, I do think the RMS article includes unwarranted criticisms, also. It reads, "Stallman is characterized by some as being extremely difficult to work with.", among others. This is not only likely unfairly harsh, but not really useful. Eric's personal criticisms are well documented.

I bet most personalities written up in encyclopedias were or are difficult people to work with. Strong willed people probably have a problem of the rest of the world being extremely difficult to work with them. Realisticly, for a majority of RMS's days on earth he probably gets along with his acquantainces fine.

Now, George Bush on the other hand is opposed by a majority of the planet and supported by a minority in the US... Anyone else seeing this devolve into a slashdot thread? --216.114.171.95 05:47, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Let me quote the important part of my preceding entry, as a method of emphasis:

"But if ESR can do essentially the same things, yet enflame The World, I think his Wikipedia page ought to note that, for whatever reason, he seems to get judged at a higher standard than his contemporaries (for lack of a superior phraseology)."

It's not a matter of "unwarranted criticisms," but rather, noting that, between comparable entities A and B, when A does X, nobody cares, but when B does X, many people are perturbed. --Ninjadroid 19:26, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Andyluciano "Criticism" section edits
I have no personal disagreement with the material added to the "Criticism" section, I just feel its flamebait and is counter to where the direction the article was heading, which was in avoidance of flame wars on the article, and on this discussion page. The addition of headings and an introduction to the section aren't improvements worth keeping either. The edits made were so broad that it isn't conducive to review by others who follow and contribute to the article's edits.

Further, the article "Take My Job, Please!" was written 7 years ago as a response not to all these criticisms but in the context of ESR v. RMS, which was better expressed in the previous edit. --132.198.104.164 15:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I thought it was in a very unclear state before. It contained a lot of dated information, and his more recent controversies were lost in a sea of references to things from 1999.  I tried to give it more emphasis on more current information.  I'll admit that it is not very balanced, but I found what it was before to not be an accurate reflection of what a critic would say.  – Andyluciano 01:18, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I toned down some bits. Perhaps more needs to be done.  I will say this format (breaking down the varied criticism into sections) is much more readable than it was before. – Andyluciano 01:25, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Breaking things into sections can be helpful, but over sectioning can break a section into categories when it is better in chronological or narrative format. Encyclopedias aren't some "hot list" of recent facts, they emphasise material that is and will be historically relevant in the long-term. What a "critic would say" is a recipe for flamebait. --132.198.104.164

To AndyLuciano: I don't mean to be unkind, but many of your edits have taken sentences and paragraphs written in perfectly good, flowing, English, and recast them to be gramatically incorrect, clumsy, and sometimes nearly incomprehensible. Please: when you are editing (as you appear to be doing) to correct slant or bias, change only what you need to, and don't tamper with the sentence structures for no reason at all.

The first sign that this article has attracted flamebait is in the section on this talk page and in the attempt to add a competing section called "Contributions". Ugh. --216.114.170.66 23:00, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I've refactored the section following the old adage, "Just the facts, Mam." Hopefully, its closer to readable. --216.114.169.36 06:47, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I've merged the "Criticisms" section, so it no longer exists. I found merging the material with the "Biography" section was useful for plumping the article up and better organizes the article. Besides, if the criticisms are worth mentioning they should exist alongside the main thread of the article without POV commenatry. However, I have no intention of deleting or hiding such criticisms. Coincidentally, I've previously ever moved and defanged contributions made to the "Crticisms" section to the main biography a few times.

Finding a place for mentioning Raymondond's CP is proving difficult. Perhaps it could go back to the intro section? See discussion above. --64.223.120.172 18:02, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

The criticism section that disappeared
Here's the old criticism section that an anon merged into the article, apparently without discussion. I'm not contesting the move, but I don't know the environment here, but I prefer having the details out in the open. Gronky 04:34, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

There wasn't "discussion" per se, but there was a posting made to the talk page. --64.222.93.135 04:42, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Raymond initially became known for his adoption of the Jargon File. Many hackers have become dissatisfied with the resulting character of the work due to the inclusion of material invented by Raymond or reflecting his own political views. Objectors to Raymond's stewardship are of the opinion that the Jargon File should be an impartial record of "hacker culture".


 * Raymond has had a number of public disputes with other figures in the free software movement. His disagreement with Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation's views on the ethics of free software in favour of a more market-driven stance has exacerbated some pre-existing tensions in the community. He agreed to lecture at Microsoft and accepted stock options from VA Software to provide credibility and be a hired "moral compass".   In 1999, Raymond published an article entitled "Shut Up And Show Them The Code".  The article criticized Richard Stallman over tactics to promote free and open source software, implying Stallman spent too much time prozletizing and not producing code. In fact, Stallman is the original author of some of the most widely used and sophisticated pieces of free software in the world, including Emacs, GCC, GDB, and GNU Make.


 * His behaviour has also caused tension between himself and other Open Source advocates, including Bruce Perens who once publicised a threatening email from Raymond, citing safety fears.


 * Raymond's public claim to be a "Core Linux Developer" is disputed since he has never had any code accepted into the Linux kernel. His sole attempt to contribute to Linux (the CML2 configuration system) was rejected by Linux kernel developers.




 * Since the summer of 2003, Raymond has used his web log to promote his views on politics, race and the Iraq war. Controversial opinions he has attempted to defend include that African Americans are responsible for a disproportionate percentage of crimes because they have lower IQs, and that the United States should embark on a campaign of "deliberate cultural genocide" against the Islamic world.


 * Raymond addressed some of his critics from the software development community in his 1999 essay "Take My Job, Please!", stating that he was willing to "back to the hilt" anyone qualified and willing to take his job and present the case for open source to the world. In February 2005, Raymond stepped down as the president of the Open Source Initiative.

Removal of text involving Stallman
User:Robust Physique seems to be going on an anti-GNU crusade recently across various articles on wikipedia, and has been continually removing the balancing text from this one which notes Stallman's coding efforts after ESR's statement about him not spending enough time coding, from the Criticism section from the article. I feel this edit makes the article POV. Opinions? - Fuzzie 16:30, 5 March 2006 (UTC)


 * This is an article about Eric S. Raymond, what stallman has coded has no relevence here. Robust Physique 20:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The article says "The article criticized Richard Stallman over tactics to promote free and open source software, implying Stallman spent too much time proselytizing and not producing code.", clearly bringing Stallman's coding into the topic. Removing the latter clause of that sentence would satisfy my issues with POV too. - Fuzzie 20:21, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

His advocacy of Second Amendment gun rights and support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq has nettled many, but he seems to enjoy the controversy those positions engender. Deleted this since 1)I don't know how to quantify many. 2)His enjoyment is not demonstrated by the link. The link points to an account of his experiances with mysticism in the tradition of Robert Anton Wilson's “Cosmic Trigger” or Philip K Dick's "Exgesis".

Changed the weblog section as the blog entrys are mischaracterized. Raymond appears to be defending the concept of "IQ" not the concept "inferiority of African-Americans". It seems to me a violation of NPOV to cherry pick his writings on controversial subjects such as the war on terror and attempt to present it as representative of his writings because if I recall he has also written on movies and who makes the best chili among other topics. If I have screwed up here please feel free to contact me on my talk page. My access to the internet is going to be spotty until middle of april after which I hope to be able to play with the Wikipedia on a regular basis. Boatdrinks Murph 11:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

2nd npov edit attempt. Dear 64.222.104.90 Ok am not going to take out His advocacy of Second Amendment gun rights and support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq has nettled many. I guess this is relevant although IMO it is an awkward sentence structure. I think it would be more relevant in an entry on “The ESR does not speak for me movement”.

Took out ...but he seems to enjoy the controversy those positions engender. Because the link does not support the sentence. I won't have a problem with reinsertion if the link points to a source where Raymond says he enjoys the controversy.

I'll leave the rest alone for now. I still think the weblog section needs some revision. Not trying to start a Flame Fest. As I said way back in 2004 I don't object to critism of ESR, I just want it to be NPOV. I think the article as it stands now is much closer to NPOV than it was 2 years ago, and I'll still think that if this edit gets reverted. Boatdrinks Murph 07:31, 8 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Why did you remove


 * Everybody Loves Eric Raymond A fictional webcomic also featuring Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman et al.
 * from the External Links section? Because it has Stallman in it? Alphax &tau;&epsilon;&chi; 00:14, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

This article is not neutral at all. It is clear that dislike of the subject dominates the structure. BillWallace 07:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Since when external links have to be neutral? Are you suggesting we should remove links to xenu.net from the scientology articles? See for a similar case. So I'm adding the link back until someone comes up with a real reason to have it removed. --Lost Goblin 20:20, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Claiming that he thinks "the United States should embark on a campaign of "deliberate cultural genocide" against the Islamic world" doesn't seem to be an accurate summary of his views. The linked article shows him using the phrase an example of how critics would describe his stance, not as his own characterization of it. He also compares his proposal to the occupation of Japan after World War II, which most of us would not call cultural genocide. Ken Arromdee 18:53, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * ... then you should rewrite it. - Motor (talk) 21:54, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * It's false. He doesn't claim the US should embark on "deliberate cultural genocide".  How can I rewrite it other than by deleting it entirely?
 * The best I can think of is "critics accuse him of wanting the United States to commit 'deliberate cultural genocide' although he does not say that", but the line is not in the criticism section, and I don't know any critics who say that anyway. Ken Arromdee 13:22, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * If you believe that the article is wrong... then you should rewrite it. Whether you do that by deleting things that are blatantly incorrect, or by putting them into context is your decision. - Motor (talk) 13:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Dude, did you even bother to read the article? "Deliberate cultural genocide" is EXACTLY what Raymond is advocating. Since you're evidently too lazy to follow the link and read the relevant part of ESR's rant, here is the quote with the relevant context:

"Some of my readers will be screaming in horror. Imperialism? Barbarians? How dare I use such language? How dare I argue that the U.S. has the right to commit deliberate cultural genocide?

There's a big hole in the ground in Manhattan. That's my argument.

If Pearl Harbor was good enough reason for us to conquer Japan and run it like a proconsulate until the Japanese learned manners, then 9/11 was damn good and sufficient reason for us to do the same number on the Islamists. That meant Afghanistan, it means Iraq, and down the road it may mean Saudi Arabia as well."


 * That's right. He claims that some of his *readers* will call it deliberate cultural genocide.  He doesn't call it that himself, and he compares it to occupying and remaking Japan.  Occupying and remaking Japan wasn't cultural genocide.  Doing the same thing to other countries may be imperialistic or a number of other adjectives, but it's not cultural genocide either. Ken Arromdee 20:09, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

No, you show a basic lack of reading comprehension. Please read the passage more carefully. ESR is providing what he thinks is an accurate description of his own argument, as is made clear in his next sentence. It really is entirely irrelevant whether or not you think that Japan was cultural genocide. What matters is how ESR is describing the course of action he's advocating himself. Please also read the rest of the article: "cultural genocide" is indeed just a pithy encapsulation of what he is arguing for.


 * He's describing the course of action as one which his readers will accuse of being cultural genocide. He himself claims he wants done to the Middle East what was done to Japan, and that *wasn't* cultural genocide. Ken Arromdee 23:19, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

That is just simply an incorrect reading of what ESR wrote. Readers of this article are not interested in whether Ken Arromdee thinks what the US did in Japan was cultural genocide. What they are interested in, is what ESR was arguing in the referenced essay, and that is as plain as day. I'm not going to let random semi-literate ESR fanboys bowdlerise this article to remove some of his more outlandish views. His controversial polemic is entirely relevant, and is on the public record for anyone to read. In case you need more convincing, and aren't just a troll, here are some other quotes from the same article:
 * On Islamic culture: "... our long-term objective must be to break, crush and eventually destroy this culture ..."
 * "We must win. And we must impose our will and our culture on the losers..."
 * "There's a word for the process of conquering a third-world pesthole and imposing your culture on it. It's called imperialism."
 * We broke and crushed Japan. We imposed our will and our culture on them.  We destroyed their culture, in some sense.  And it still wasn't cultural genocide. Ken Arromdee 14:30, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

If, after this, you still think that ESR was using the term "deliberate cultural genocide" as a weird reflexive prediction of unjust criticism, then I give up.

"Deliberate cultural genocide"
ESR doesn't say he supports this. He says he supports a policy that his opponents will characterize as "deliberate cultural genocide." Any version to the contrary is deliberately misleading and POV, especially if it removes the context of his argument. -- FRCP11 13:17, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
 * FRCP11, your version is a far better and clearer description of his views. There is no doubt that he supports a campaign of imperialism to civilise the Moslem world -- it's a fair reading of his blog entry. We can spend all day arguing over what his exact wording re: cultural genocide meant. - Motor (talk) 13:25, 9 May 2006 (UTC)