12 ms·

Could you expand a bit on this? I've read his Cathedral and Bazaar book, and quite enjoyed it. I didn't realize there was a whole context that I should be aware

• StavrosK 14y ago
  I would also like this explained. I know very little about who ESR is.
  • pja 14y ago
    He was a "big deal" in the 90s, at least within hacker circles: wrote a lot of early free software / hacker culture reated stuff & was heavily involved in the rebranding of "free software" into a form that corporate suits could feel comfortable with ("open source") & selling that idea to a wider audience. See 'The Cathedral & the Bazaar' and other works. He wasn't all talk: way back in the day, he worked on emacs & authored fetchmail (fair warning: reading the fetchmail source will make your ears bleed.) More on his wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond
  • excuse-me 14y ago
    ESR was an evil prophet of the dark god Cthullu. Reading sendmail configs out-loud are believed to summon the evil one and bring about his reign of terror. So fetchmail is the equivalent of an evil prayer wheel
• RobAley 14y ago
  For some, it's his views on homaphobia[1], and his views on race[2]. For others, it's his lack of actually doing anything useful recently. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4157324 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4157324 [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3826846 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3826846 The link in [2] is dead, it previously linked to http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4270 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4270
  • tomjen3 14y ago
    Also if you go back an read his early stuff during the Bush administration, you can add hater of muslims to the list as well.