6 ms·

Yep. He said Mozilla didn't deserve to exist because they removed Eich as head after that debacle. And yeah, he's an awful person. But he does, to some extent,

Yep. He said Mozilla didn't deserve to exist because they removed Eich as head after that debacle. And yeah, he's an awful person. But he does, to some extent, deserve the title "Hacker," because he genuinely is a talented programmer. We don't have to stoop to his level, and discrininate based on ideology: even if we hate him, we can admit he's got talent.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
> Yep. He said Mozilla didn't deserve to exist because they removed Eich as head after that debacle. And yeah, he's an awful person. I don't get how a person can get labeled "awful" or "scum" because he doesn't agree with you. Personally I'm fine with Mozilla existing, but I do consider the Eich debacle to be one of the bigger examples of SJWism going way too far.
- DonHopkins 10y ago
  It's not simply because he doesn't agree with you, it's because of his long and vile track record of racism, bigotry, misogyny, and attacking people by twisting facts and outright lying, and of course trying to make a career out of destroying Richard Stallman and his work. I've known him for decades, since the 80's, and while it's true he totally went off the deep end after 9/11, he has always been a vile awful person. And remember: Eich wasn't "removed", he CHOSE to resign of his own free will -- Mozilla even begged him to stay and offered him a well paid important position! But ESR's revisionist history never mentions that.
DonHopkins 10y ago
His software work is unremarkable (fetchmail is trivial and buggy, and CML2 was rejected by the Linux kernel developers), and he's made his career not by writing software but by attacking real hackers like Richard Stallman and trying to bring down their work, not by actually constructively developing any useful software himself. Attacking real hackers and trying to discourage people from using "free software" isn't "hacking". When I knew him during the 80's, he would go on and on ad nauseum about his beloved "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle NetNews Reader" and how so much better than every other netnews reader. But he never collaborated with anyone, and he never released it under any license. Much more Bizarre than Cathedral.
- jff 10y ago
  > When I knew him during the 80's, he would go on and on ad nauseum about his beloved "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle NetNews Reader" and how so much better than every other netnews reader. But he never collaborated with anyone, and he never released it under any license. Much more Bizarre than Cathedral. The world is full of such things, and was much more so back in the 90s and early 2000s. People brag about how great their tool is, but refuse to share it. I've never been sure if they're exaggerating the features, or if they're insecure about criticism on their magnum opus, or if they just have such a weird and idiosyncratic evolved setup that they cannot effectively package the software for others to use. Edit: I mean, it's not like ESR had qualms about releasing fetchmail, which has always been a buggy pain in the ass and far less impressive than he makes it sound.
  - DonHopkins 10y ago
    I think you missed the dripping irony that the person whose sole topic of conversation during the 1980's was the newsreader software he was developing, but he never shared it or collaborated with anyone or ever even published it under any license, also wrote "The Cathedral and the Bazar".
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  Fair enough, but how about GPSD?
  - DonHopkins 10y ago
    The fact that GPSD is the best thing you can come up with that he wrote pretty much proves my point, doesn't it? If that's all it takes to brand yourself a "hacker", in spite of executing a vicious multi-decade jihad against Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation, then being a "hacker" doesn't mean anything. I'd like to think that vitriolically disagreeing with the part of the Hacker Manifesto that says "We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religous bias," and other violent acts like sending a death threat to Bruce Perins then trying to excuse it by explaining he was only trying to "defame" him, would disqualify him from branding himself as a hacker. But I'm an idealist.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

> Yep. He said Mozilla didn't deserve to exist because they removed Eich as head after that debacle. And yeah, he's an awful person. I don't get how a person can get labeled "awful" or "scum" because he doesn't agree with you. Personally I'm fine with Mozilla existing, but I do consider the Eich debacle to be one of the bigger examples of SJWism going way too far.

DonHopkins 10y ago
It's not simply because he doesn't agree with you, it's because of his long and vile track record of racism, bigotry, misogyny, and attacking people by twisting facts and outright lying, and of course trying to make a career out of destroying Richard Stallman and his work. I've known him for decades, since the 80's, and while it's true he totally went off the deep end after 9/11, he has always been a vile awful person. And remember: Eich wasn't "removed", he CHOSE to resign of his own free will -- Mozilla even begged him to stay and offered him a well paid important position! But ESR's revisionist history never mentions that.

DonHopkins 10y ago

His software work is unremarkable (fetchmail is trivial and buggy, and CML2 was rejected by the Linux kernel developers), and he's made his career not by writing software but by attacking real hackers like Richard Stallman and trying to bring down their work, not by actually constructively developing any useful software himself. Attacking real hackers and trying to discourage people from using "free software" isn't "hacking". When I knew him during the 80's, he would go on and on ad nauseum about his beloved "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle NetNews Reader" and how so much better than every other netnews reader. But he never collaborated with anyone, and he never released it under any license. Much more Bizarre than Cathedral.

jff 10y ago
> When I knew him during the 80's, he would go on and on ad nauseum about his beloved "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle NetNews Reader" and how so much better than every other netnews reader. But he never collaborated with anyone, and he never released it under any license. Much more Bizarre than Cathedral. The world is full of such things, and was much more so back in the 90s and early 2000s. People brag about how great their tool is, but refuse to share it. I've never been sure if they're exaggerating the features, or if they're insecure about criticism on their magnum opus, or if they just have such a weird and idiosyncratic evolved setup that they cannot effectively package the software for others to use. Edit: I mean, it's not like ESR had qualms about releasing fetchmail, which has always been a buggy pain in the ass and far less impressive than he makes it sound.
- DonHopkins 10y ago
  I think you missed the dripping irony that the person whose sole topic of conversation during the 1980's was the newsreader software he was developing, but he never shared it or collaborated with anyone or ever even published it under any license, also wrote "The Cathedral and the Bazar".
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Fair enough, but how about GPSD?
- DonHopkins 10y ago
  The fact that GPSD is the best thing you can come up with that he wrote pretty much proves my point, doesn't it? If that's all it takes to brand yourself a "hacker", in spite of executing a vicious multi-decade jihad against Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation, then being a "hacker" doesn't mean anything. I'd like to think that vitriolically disagreeing with the part of the Hacker Manifesto that says "We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religous bias," and other violent acts like sending a death threat to Bruce Perins then trying to excuse it by explaining he was only trying to "defame" him, would disqualify him from branding himself as a hacker. But I'm an idealist.