Talk:Eric S. Raymond/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

NPOV

How about a GREAT BIG NPOV tag on the top of this article? I can't say I know a lot about the subject (stumbled upon the article), but after reading the comments on this discussion page and looking at the history, it's neutrality is certainly disputed. It is clearly a place of frequent reversions and edit wars. So, how about it? -- xompanthy 23:44, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Other figures in the Free Software world have opinions that are just as controversial. RMS comes to mind. however their articles are like puff-pieces compared to this one. It reads as though the article writer doesn't agree with Raymond's POV on politics, and kind of implies that nobody else is supposed to either. It's not NPOV, and I agree that it deserves the warning. --208.204.155.241 14:49, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Why exactly? I can't find anything in the article that could be read as POV against Raymond (except, maybe, the pictures ;-) ). It only refers to things as "controversial" that are controversial (no matter what you thing about them). It also mentions some criticism against Raymond, but not in an indue amout or manner. As it is, the article seems quite fair and neutral to me (disclaimer: haven't been involved in writing it except for deleting a single link that was indeed very POV). --Chrissi 11:14, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Images

Lol, so why the image of him playing hte flute?! Though it does counter-balance the gun-wielding one below. Anyway, thanks for the chuckle... --Mikademus 11:15, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Take my job, please

Ashawley: Please read the essay before reverting this (again). "Take my job" IS a general response to criticism, both personal and related to open source. As such it DOES belong at the end of the section. Also, generally, please try to pay attention to grammar, syntax and felicitous language use during your edits. You keep reverting corrections, and re-casting sentences in ways that do not flow.

You've preserved more of the edits, then you did fixe. Regardless, thanks for fixing the duplicate mention of "email". Your including of "in fact" and the use of the present tense "has" is poor choice. On "Take my job please", I'm sure the attacks are both personal and related to open source, though Raymond doesn't provide any substance or even hint at the nature the "attacks" are, so we're left to only deduce. Regardless, let me convince you with one observation. The piece is written in 1999 and having its mention follows a paragraph that begins "Since 2003". This smells of being out of place.

The essay responds to the general antagonism that ESR has attracted due to his public profile. That antagonism didn't stop in 1999 - the later instances are a continuation of the earlier pattern. So, mention of the essay should come after community reaction to ESR has been summarised. But let me convince you with one observation - the paragraph that has been stuck slap bang in the middle of that section a number of times also includes mention of ESR's resignation from the OSI in 2005.

I don't disagree the antagonism continued after 1999. The ability to premptively respond to future critics is giving brilliance to ESR no moral being could attain. Your single observation is hardly convincing, since a mention of his OSI resignation is properly contexted in the mention of an article like "take my job, please".

Except, of course, that the "job" that was on offer was not the chair of the OSI, it was ESR's general role as an Open Source advocate: a "position" which ESR has not yet resigned from (though he may have been fired without realising it). The paragraph is in the right place: it serves as a counterbalance to the criticism accumulated up to the present day.

Sort of biased

About the "shut up and show them the code" essay. I see no reason to believe that the fact ESR isn't a major coder himself should render his argument useless. He actually acknowledges that RMS is a great hacker. That's the whole point of the essay. I'm not even an ESR fanboy, but I think we at least owe him some objective judgement here. Even if his coding isn't as important, its not as if he doesn't have the right to be critical of RMS.

See further discussion below. --216.114.169.36 06:43, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Flamefest

Wow. I have read through this talk page now, and I'm amazed at the vehemence screaming from between the lines here. I myself is neutral about ESR, by which I mean I am not a fan nor an atagonist, but this page does show a heavy dominance of the latter category. If the main article is in the hands of people with such strong negative opinions and predispositions about the subject then I cannot trust the neutrality of the page, a concern that I find substantiated in the considerable "criticism" header, which unbalances the article and is constructed from claims that seems to me, as an exteral party, to be argumentative, ad hominem and hostile rather than documentary and neutral, as is the Wikipedia ideals. Also, some of the criticism seems to suffer from the same lacks as ESR himslef is accused of, below. Perhaps "Hell hath no fury like programmers scorned"? This page should be revised and arbitred by a neutral party. Mikademus 11:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

See the section #Andyluciano "Criticism" section edits and please don't add duplicative and uncited material to the article. Your comments are welcome here. --64.91.162.120 15:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Is this article a battlefield? Removing an entire section that attempts to add balance and to a problematic article just like that does not feel like good wikipedia behaviour. Contribute to it instead. If you've got any insight into the history surrounding ESR you'd be as capable as me to att the references you desire. Otherwise you seem t0 be part of the anti-ESR bias taking that seems to be place on this page. Mikademus 22:21, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Adding a section as you have turns the page into a battlefield. Your contribution was duplicative material. I'm actually one of the voices critical of Andyluciano's embelisshments in the "Criticisms" section. I think we're more on the same side on how to improve the flamebait nature of this article. However, if you want to respond to the "anti-ESR" bias, then edit the existing material, don't add more. That's "good Wikipedia behavior". --216.114.170.66 22:57, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I fully agree that duplicate materials are to be avoided. But it seems to me that the layout out this article itself constitute much of its ad hominem ambience. If there is such a large and conspicious "criticisms" section it really should be balanced in some way by something. Perhaps the criticism can simply be condensed a bit. Anyway, this article seems highly flammable, and since I don't want to risk involving myself with the meaningless burns even the best intended edits will likely elicit I'll probably simply stay away from it altogether. Mikademus 18:37, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Greetings. I got around to making the edits we both agreed needed to be made. --216.114.169.36 06:49, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

That's a big improvement: I've been meaning to do something similar for a while. A few small points, though. Firstly, I think that more information on the kernel community's reaction to CML2 is warranted - as written, the article gives no context as to why the community was upset about his methods, or why CML2 was rejected. Similarly, I think the "Shut up and show them the code" incident needs to be explained better. I'm going to make modifications to this effect: see what you think. -- Anonymous

Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately, what you've added is closer to more editorialization, poor wording, and deletions of material that had citations and the addition of material without citations (like the material on the Jargon file). Some of your changes were good, and are worth keeping. As mentioned previously, the material about "Take my job please" should be placed in its proper context, which is closer to the beginning of the "Criticism" section. Notice, "Take my job please" isn't a response to those critical of his Web log, its in response to the "open source" controversy. --Ashawley 19:39, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, firstly, I don't think the place to put "Take my job please" is smack in the middle of the criticism section: it gives the section a hap-hazard, unstructured feel. Yes, ideally it should be close to the material it's responding to, but given the current structure of the article the end of the criticism seciton is the best place for it. Secondly, I don't see any "poor wording" in the edit you're responding to - quite the contrary: some poor wording and incorrect grammar has been fixed. If you do find poor wording, though, feel free to fix it. Thirdly, yes, it is hard to give a complete account of critical opinion without appearing to editorialise. Once again, please feel free to recast the wording, but please don't remove crucial information. For example, the previous wording of the "Shut up and Show Them" section seems to imply that the community is critical of Raymond because he had the temerity to criticize Stallman. That's not the case: the current edit, editorializing and all, gives a more accurate reflection of why the article caused such a ruckus. -- Anonymous

I have removed the Microsoft recruitment incident from the criticism section. Someone, perhaps under the misguided impression that they were removing "editorialising" has edited this paragraph to the point where it now seems like petty carping rather than criticism. That said, think it's such a minor incident that I don't think it's worth trying to restore it. Anyone want to justify why it should be in there? -- Anonymous

Please, what is this!?:

In 2005, Raymond made pleas to Wikipedians to remove criticisms found in his biographical article on "Wikipedia. His arguments were about correctness but also persuasions "to meet a higher quality standard" on Wikipedia."

Yes, factually true, but does it really belong in the article? It really seems like nothing but small-minded spitefulness, trolling and a pitful attempt at denigrating the subject. I would remove it but this article is too flammable for me to touch. It should really be adorned with a "NPOV disputed" tag. Mikademus 14:18, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed this self-reference. Raymond's feedback was understandable, properly attributed, and even relatively routine IMO, and not nearly notable enough to be mentioned in the main article. Besides, do we really want to get into the habit of having articles reference their own talk page as a source? That seems highly questionable to me. --Saucepan 22:37, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I took it out, but Ashawley put it back in. Perhaps he/she can come up with a rationale? -- Anonymous

POV quote

[quote] It is exasparating, to some hackers, to see papers like "How To Become a Hacker," by someone whom they do not consider to be anywhere close to a hacker, or to be publically represented by someone they view as ignorant or incompetent without their permission. [/quote]

A bit harsh wont you say... Back it up or I'll remove it :)

Holy crap. I wonder how that got in there. It reeks of stealth vandalism. --→Raul654 07:13, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)

It just might be --→Raul654 07:15, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)

Criticisms

Hmm, reading this article I was struck by the sheer amount of relatively harsh criticism, most of which are of less interest except for a relatively narrow group of people. This acts to unbalance the article and give it a somewhat FUD-propagandistic appearance. It would benefit from a corresponding "Contributions" rubric. Wikipedia is not a forum for personal vendettas or revenge, but rather neutrality and balanced accounts, right? Also, the final picture seems chosen for silliness value rather than objectively or accurately portray him. Mikademus 11:01, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[quote] His greatest code contribution was in a revision of popclient into fetchmail, a project that would take a competent programmer maybe a few weeks. [/quote]

It's a pretty bald statement without anything to back it up! And the 'treath' he made to Perens were (as Perens stated later on the debian-list) an over-reaction from his side. Overall, I think this article is a bit skewed. While the criticism has it clear place, It's just a bit 'heavy' compared to the rest. Or?

I agree. As I said above, a lot of those criticisms seem like stealth vandalism. I think someone a bit more informed than I should give this article a once over and remove some of the troll-ish stuff. --→Raul654 00:23, Feb 10, 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the article is maybe somewhat imbalanced (although I don't think it is exceedingly imbalanced). However, I don't think the solution is to remove the criticism. None of the criticism section is incorrect, or poorly written, or in itself wrong or non-objective. I think the solution is to make it into a longer article, and balance it out by adding acomplishments elsewhere. The critcisms are valid, and are held by a fair portion of the upper echelon of Linux kernel hackers, as well as other open source/free software advocates, though in most cases, privately. One core issue is that while CatB is very eloquent, compelling, and well-written, it by and large does not reflect how free software is actually developed, if you look at the mailing lists and follow how most free software is actually developed.

I don't think it is "stealth vandalism," and I think it's fairly rude to call it that. The information is well-researched, and well-written. I would change "few weeks" to "couple of months" for how long it would take to write fetchmail.

I will look into finding more references for the criticisms when I have more time this weekend. In the meantime, if people want to make the page more positive towards Eric, I would sugggest that you lengthen the "Achievements" section, so that the "Criticism" section forms maybe a small fraction of the article, rather than a third of it. When/if I get time, I'll also try to find a longer bio, so we can better document Eric's progress.

I agree. That is, 1. the criticism reflects what is often said about esr in the community; 2. the criticism section is well-researched and attributed; 3. the whole article isn't quite NPOV because the good things esr has done are underemphasized. I've never met Eric Raymond personally, but I do find some of the things he says to be horrific. I know I am not by any means alone in thinking this; hence I would not characterize the "Criticism" section as vandalism. --Connelly 03:12, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It would be nice to have a source for some sections, notably:

[quote]His greatest code contribution was in a revision of popclient into fetchmail, a project that would take a competent programmer maybe a few weeks. Until recently, the fetchmail page did not credit popclient. His other contributions are minimal.[/quote]

Neutrality dispute

Ok, is anyone disputing the neutrality of the article as it currently exists? If no one responds, I am going to remove the dispute tag. --→Raul654 22:47, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)

The paragraph beginning "He is further criticized..." is, frankly, ridiculous. Give me some time to work on it. Most of the rest is fine. --Arvindn 06:55, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

How much time do you need? That warning has been there quite a while, and (quite frankly) I'd like it gone. --→Raul654 04:37, Mar 15, 2004 (UTC)

Go ahead and remove it, then. I only noticed the problem after your comment yesterday, and I haven't got any time today, and anyway I don't think having the header or not is a big deal. There are 2 n's in my username, BTW ;^) --Arvindn 11:47, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The paragraph on Acheivements could use some more neutral wording, though I think the content is ok. I espically don't like the sentence that ends in limelight. I am not sure how I would replace that sentence but it does not sound very encyclopedic the way it is. --Dalf | Talk 22:34, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

More On the subject of Criticism

• 1 Many critics accuse him of hijacking the free software movement for the sake of self promotion and profit. In that context, he has, it is argued, often worked to undermine other leaders/speakers of the movement.

He has also been accused of using his position in order to further other political goals.

• • 1a Who are the many critics in the passage above? Who has argued?

• 2 He has also, on several occasions, been accused of directly selling out. For instance, he agreed to lecture at Microsoft, allowing them to better counter open source software, in return for the opportunity to meet a couple of his favorite science fiction authors.

• • 2a Who are the accusers above. When did he lecture at MS and is a transcript available?

• 3 He is further criticized for writing about open source/free software development, without much knowledge or experience of how it works. His greatest code contribution was in a revision of popclient into fetchmail, a project that would take a competent programmer maybe a few weeks.

• • 3a As I am not a programmer I cannot judge this, however he seems to have alot of stuff on his website (see http://www.catb.org/~esr/software.html )

• 4 The threat by email.

• • 4a (see http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/1999/debian-devel-199904/msg00205.html ) I also note that this took place in 1999 and yet he and Perens evidently collaborated on an open letter addressing the SCO lawsuit. Is the intent of this paragraph to demonstrate that ESR is a menace?

• 5 Some have described this ranting as a descent into insanity, because of the unbalanced strong opinions and denial of opposing ideas.

• • 5a This was posted on what I assume is an anti-war blog. Who is Amir Butler and what qualifications does he have to diagnose insanity? Also, how was the Jargon File modified and is there any documentation to that effect.

In conclusion, I have no objection to the criticism in the entry. I just want some verification instead of "many feel" "accused by some" etc. --Murph

You make valid points. We had noticed that the article was a little unfair, and were getting around to cleaning it up. --→Raul654 13:49, Mar 30, 2004 (UTC)

Raul654:

I was the one with the questions above.

I (murph) went ahead and removed all the criticism from this page. I have been doing research on this topic for the last month and have not been able to find any reputable source for it. The bit about not crediting popclient was inaccurate.

see http://web.archive.org/web/19990508051541/www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail/design-notes.html.

The vast majority of the criticism on the web about esr "seems" to come from anonymous sources.

If I am mistaken, i.e. if there is criticism of esr that comes from actual people willing to be identified who also can show they have the credentials to justify such criticism I will have no problems with that.

I also have no problem with criticism that actually addresses what esr says/does as long as it can be demonstrated that he is wrong, i.e. not criticism that just asserts that a position or action is wrong.

I have seen a lot of paper tiger criticism where a quote from esr is given, then an interpretation of the quote is given, then the interpretation is criticized.

I have also seen a lot of criticism that just asserts he is wrong without any demonstration.

On the comment on the difficulty of coding fetchmail. I have spoken with the three computer programmers that I personally know and they were all of the opinion that when the program was written it would have been a major undertaking.

I guess thats all for now anyone want to discuss I will check back in the next day or so. --murph 09:11,April 23,2004

Wow, Arvindn, that was fast.

Ok I will check back tommorrow and see what it looks like. --murph 09:24, April 23, 2004

Took out the many because I couldn't figure out if it was accurate on the "some, many, most, all" continuim(sp?). Took out "largly due to ...because found two sides to the story. Links reflect both sides. Inserted links to show meeting at microsoft and stock options, added link on perens email threat. --murph 19:12, April 30, 2004

Re: Criticisms (response to Murph's point-by-point criticism of the article)

> 1a Who are the many critics in the passage above? Who has argued?

Read several of his diatriabes against RMS. An early version of CatB (I can no longer find it online) refered to RMS as "the former leader" or "previous leaders" or something similar even. He has worked consistently to undermine RMS. Most people in the free software camp (as opposed to the OSS camp) would fall into this category. One only needs to talk to them. These views are fairly commonly held by probably about half of the upper members of the community. Most will not publicize them in public forums for obvious reasons.

>2 He has also, on several occasions, been accused of directly selling out. For instance, he agreed to lecture at >Microsoft, allowing them to better counter open source software, in return for the opportunity to meet a couple of his >favorite science fiction authors.

>

>2a Who are the accusers above. When did he lecture at MS and is a transcript available?

I don't believe the transcript is available, but it was webcast around Microsoft. http://linuxgazette.net/issue43/jacobowitz.esr_microsoft.html has an interview about it. Also slashdot, and a number of other news sites.

I know plenty of people don't believe helping Microsoft is wrong. If Eric was one of those people, him speaking at Microsoft would not pose a problem to many people. Nevertheless, Eric is one of the most outspoken critics of Microsoft. He is (or at least claims to be) very actively trying to undermine/destroy it. For someone with those views to talk at Microsoft is a bit hypocritical, to say the least.

>3 He is further criticized for writing about open source/free software development, without much knowledge or experience >of how it works. His greatest code contribution was in a revision of popclient into fetchmail, a project that would take >a competent programmer maybe a few weeks.

> >3a As I am not a programmer I cannot judge this, however he seems to have alot of stuff on his website (see >http://www.catb.org/~esr/software.html )

Most of these are trivial hacks, ranging from a few hours work, up to maybe a week for a competent programmer. I don't know how long they took Eric. Fetchmail was the only significant one. CML2 and some of the intentionally-useless portions may be moderately large scaled projects as well, but they are useless and unused. (CML2 was intended for use in the Linux kernel, but got laughed off of the Linux kernel mailing list). Fetchmail itself was a revision of a program written by someone else (popclient). Depending on who you ask, Eric either rearchitected it and basically rewrote it from scratch, or did some minor restructuring of the code, accepted patches from other people, and did very little work on fetchmail himself.

>4 The threat by email.

> >4a (see http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/1999/debian-devel-199904/msg00205.html ) I also note that this took place in >1999 and yet he and Perens evidently collaborated on an open letter addressing the SCO lawsuit. Is the intent of this >paragraph to demonstrate that ESR is a menace?

This was fairly harshly received. It was a threat of physical violence from ESR against Perens. I don't think it was issued in anger, and not really a genuine threat. Nevertheless, issuing an actual physical threat to someone else in the community says a lot about the issuer. Once there was a publicity backlash, ESR backpaddled on the threat (obviously), apologized (obviously). Perens forgave ESR. The above message is a reflection of that. The two have since both argued on some things, and collaborated on others since then.

Regardless, a threat of "defamation of character" unless another character agrees with your worldviews is not a polite thing to do either, especially coming from someone who had, at this point, fairly successfully defamed RMS.

>5 Some have described this ranting as a descent into insanity, because of the unbalanced strong opinions and denial of >opposing ideas.

> >5a This was posted on what I assume is an anti-war blog. Who is Amir Butler and what qualifications does he have to >diagnose insanity? Also, how was the Jargon File modified and is there any documentation to that effect.

I don't know about the pro/antiwar thing. I think what Eric does outside of his role as self-proclaimed speaker for the OSS community is his own business. In terms of the jargon file, there are different revisions available on-line. I have not looked at it with regards to pro/antiwar, but, indeed, it is trivially apparent from even a cursory inspection that ESR has added a large number of articles that reflect his particular world-view, rather than that of the general community. For instance, from his definition of "Open Source:"

>Five years after this term was invented, in 2003, it is worth noting the huge shift in assumptions it helped bring about,

>if only because the hacker culture's collective memory of what went before is in some ways blurring. Hackers have so >completely refocused themselves around the idea and ideal of open source that we are beginning to forget that we used to >do most of our work in closed-source environments. Until the late 1990s open source was a sporadic exception that usually >had to live on top of a closed-source operating system and alongside closed-source tools; entire open-source environments >like Linux and the *BSD systems didn't even exist in a usable form until around 1993 and weren't taken very seriously by >anyone but a pioneering few until about five years later. (http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/O/open-source.html, May 1, 2005).

It is hard to credit the entirety of the part of the cultural shift that occured during those five years to the new term he may-or-may-not-have coined (there are disputes over who coined "open source," although it is clear that ESR popularized it, largely in order to deemphesize the FSF). The Jargon File is very clearly now aligned with ESR's worldview, and is used as a tool to propagate ESR's views.

That said, it's not clear how easy it is to maintain a document like the Jargon File with letting your own views propagate in. A community review process, such as the one on Wikipedia, helps a lot. As a one-man job.... it's almost impossible to maintain a document like this without having it become a mirror of one's own views (although ESR doesn't appear to try particularly hard- I think he views it more as another forum for propagating his views).

Part 2

I have more criticisms but I'm iffy about adding them because criticisms of him are taking over the article. I don't actually mind that too much since I think the man is an over-hyped self-promoter, but from reading this discussion page, I see you folks are concerned about the existing level of criticism. Maybe the criticism section should be renamed to "Contraversy"? This would be more accurate since there are paragraphs about "Take My Job Please!", which is not a criticism.

My other criticisms are about him rewriting history via the Jargon File and the book "The Art of Unix Programming". I also have a criticism about his blind self-promotion, E.g. the press release for the just mentioned book says that he "has been rated the #1 hacker in the world by a hundred thousand of his peers on the SourceForge community development site"[1] which is lying by ommission since the only options in the poll were people with sourceforge accounts, and very few hackers worth their salt actually have sourceforge accounts (not Linus, not Stallman, etc.). Also, he sat on the board of directors of the company that conducted the survey (VA Systems, who own sourceforge).

Oh, and one more thing, he developed his "Art of Unix Programming" book in a Cathederal style and then released it under a non-OpenSource license. (he used the most restrictive Creative Commons license (Attribution required, derivative works forbidden) plus some additional restrictions which he wrote himself.

But, I don't feel like spending too long adding criticisms to a wikipedia page, so I sketched down my ideas here in case someone else wants to build on them or whatever.

Anyway. What do youse think of the s/Criticism/Contraversy/ idea? --Markvs 21:13, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

Restrictive license: Is "Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved." compatible with the GNU FDL? Or the DFSG? No. So this is hardly remarkable.

Criticism and controversy are different things. Perhaps two headers if there's a reasonable amount of each?

Just be sure not to put in "It is felt about Raymond that xxxx" about him if you mean "I feel about Raymond xxxx" - such things would really need attributions --David Gerard 22:12, May 11, 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I've addressed your "Why can't I modify the GPL and Stallmans essays?" question on the "Art of..." page. I disagree with your reply, so that's deadlocked, but I've already said that I'll leave that page alone now. I don't think there's enough material for a Criticism and a Contraversy header, the only additions I can think of are criticisms. Honestly I think the current page is too kind to him as it stands. It's like he made himself into a celebrity through enthusiastic self-promotion, and then people invented reasons for him to be famous because, well, he must have done something, right?

He contributed to Ncurses, he turned popmail into fetchmail (and dragged it through its security hole-ridden life cycle), he wrote the debugger frontend for Emacs, and he wrote some little toy projects. He wrote CatB which people like, TAoUP which hasn't really taken off (yet?), and some other stuffs that few care about. (some people like his "How to become a Hacker" document - I think it should be renamed "How to become ESR Junior", or even "Why ESR is a perfect example of [what ESR calls] a Hacker".)

The history presented in TAoUP is fiction and he's been editing the Jargon File to add words that he made up (part of his self-promotion), and pro-war terminology. He does his best to make RMS look insignificant whenever possible. He tries to turn people against free software advocacy by insulting it. He claims to be a "Core Linux Developer" when Linus won't even talk to him, and his other software doesn't exactly put him in the top 100. He throws pro-gun sentences into everything that he writes related to Open Source. He predicts things after they happen ("I knew Linus was going to burn out" ~1998, just after Linus announced he was taking a holiday). He fails to interact with the Linux developers after claiming to be an expert in Bazaar development style.

He jumps on the bandwagon (SCO, etc.) while ignoring important things like the DMCA and software patents. When asked about software patents, he said it would take a concerted effort from the community and him. This was highly offensive to the people working very hard on the software patents issue since ESR never lifted a finger to help, and yet he has the nerve to take credit for it. He develops closed source software for a living, he defends OpenSource companies turning to closed source (VA Linuxs' sourceforge).

Etc. etc. etc... I've restrained myself from putting this on the front page because I don't have time to word it correctly, and it would probably be reverted - not because it's incorrect - but because people think that ESR, being famous, must be a great guy, or at least an OK guy. Of course his website can be used to "confirm" that he's indeed a great guy, but that's how he operates.

Anyway, I'm not going to add the above stuff to the front page, and I'll take the page off my watch list so that I don't get sucked back into it. There'll be no edit war from me, but I had to air my views.

One last thing: How could Linux use the "open source development model" when the Linux project began 7 years before Open Source even existed? (oh, is history being rewritten again?) Linux was "Free Software" (originally proprietary but it was GPL'd in 1992), and it was developed in an open manner, a collaborative mannor, it was developed via the Internet and via volunteers. There was no "open source" when Linuxs' development model was being created.

sorry about the outburst, ESR just annoys me that much.

P.S. I think this is the first time I've edited the ESR page, any previous critics are someone else. --Markvs 23:58, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

I have some problems with the criticism section. Not criticism itself but the way it is worded and that most of it is not attributed or referenced. I also don't like the accusations that try to pass as convictions. I like markvs idea for changing criticism to controversy. How about a chronological account of the controversys he has been involved in. That way we could put in both sides of the story where available. example instead of accusing him of selling out it could say on such and such date ESR gave his open source talk at microsoft in return for meeting a couple of scifi writers. This angered some in the hacker community who view any association with MS as selling out. I think that would be more of a neutral point of view. Also I am still uncomfortrable with the accusations that arn't documented. The nature of wikipedia means that any accusations can be made and unless they are checkable it seems that they stay. So should they stay along with a note pointing out that accusation is not the same as conviction? --murph/4.34.128.64 08:29, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

I just went ahead and cleaned this section the best I could without eliminating actual content... I'm new here, so please do tell me if I did wrong. I think it's better now, though obviously still far from perfect. --Eivanec 4 July 2005 01:07 (UTC)