6 ms·

I don't really understand esr. I can't reconcile the elevated discourse of The Cathedral & the Bazaar and The Art of UNIX Programming with the constant self-pr

by phugoid 18y ago

I don't really understand esr. I can't reconcile the elevated discourse of The Cathedral & the Bazaar and The Art of UNIX Programming with the constant self-praise and trolling in his blog and elsewhere. He's just too smart to be that way. My instinct is to disagree with anyone who speaks in those tones, until I take time to really dissect what he said (and then disagree on better principles!).

Eliezer 18y ago
You put more effort into crafting books than blog posts; the difference can be enough to make you sound like a completely different person.
- gonzopancho 18y ago
  It may not be just individual 'effort'. There are editors involved in one process, and not the other. For all we know, he writes books that sound like his blog posts, and these get "cleaned up" in the editorial process.
  - davidw 18y ago
    Cathedral and the Bazaar was, originally, just an article on his web site. And it was quite well written.
    - neilk 18y ago
      Are you guys actually arguing that CatB was better sourced than this article? It wasn't. It was just one relatively unknown guy's impression of what he thought made free software work, with a similarly self-congratulatory tone. If you thought fame went to ESR's head, you're wrong; he was always like that.
      - davidw 18y ago
        Yes, I am arguing that it was a good article and did a good job of describing what was going on. ESR certainly has his flaws, but that paper really was a well-done summary of how this stuff works and why, much better than anything else that was out there at the time (I remember reading it in 1998, I think it was). I don't think he's done much since then that was worth writing home about, but that doesn't take anything away from that particular accomplishment.
        neilk 18y ago
        Ok, I went back and reread some of that essay and I have to withdraw some of my criticisms. You are right and I was wrong. CatB, although anecdotal, is trying to make a coherent case from evidence, and the author's ego is kept relatively in check. His later writings became more like opinion pieces, and are constantly self-referential. My irritation with those must have carried over to the original.
1gor 18y ago
It was fascinating to learn about your personal preferences for a tone of a discourse and I'll patiently wait until you decide to dissect the argument. Meanwhile, ESR's point is an excellent one. MIT license has proven to help a project to achieve commercial critical mass, and GPL is becoming an anachronism. Most of recent open source software that managed to build up market- and mind-share quickly was put out under MIT license. GPL-like licenses are becoming an off-putting factor nowadays simply because you expect to be offered a 'double-licensing' option somewhere down the line. Why would people invest in a project when they are only allowed to play with it, but never to use in a commercial environment? (Until you pay for a commercial license that is). RMS has been proven right. Software wants to be free, so it does not need chains attached to it, even when they are meant for its own protection.
- phugoid 18y ago
  If I understand his argument correctly, esr is claiming that companies can't profit from grabbing a handful of open source software and building their own product around it. The open source development model is so superior that said company will be left in the dust with their handful of code, while the open project will maintain dominance. So why scare anyone away with restrictive licenses when open source will naturally prevail anyway. But what about the advantage Microsoft gained from basically grabbing a BSD-licensed TCP stack for WinNT? Apparently they recoded most of that stuff since then, but it was probably a great help at the time. All you need to defeat esr's argument is one or two cases where it was proven wrong. In my opinion, the GPL is not just a legal document but a cultural artifact. When you see a GPL notice, you can feel warm fuzzy feelings of sharing certain beliefs with the authors about freedom and sharing. You can feel the peace that comes with source code. To paraphrase you, why should I invest my own free time in a project that could be subverted from bringing freedom to its users? Market- and mind-share are not everyone's measure of success. And I'm not prepared to have you redefine software freedom in the name of RMS today, alright? :)
  - shader 18y ago
    I don't think that the project can be 'subverted' from bringing freedom to users. A fork of it might be made "un-free", as in your Microsoft example. But Microsoft did a lot of their own work, and the original project is still around - completely free.

by phugoid 18y ago

Eliezer 18y ago

You put more effort into crafting books than blog posts; the difference can be enough to make you sound like a completely different person.

gonzopancho 18y ago
It may not be just individual 'effort'. There are editors involved in one process, and not the other. For all we know, he writes books that sound like his blog posts, and these get "cleaned up" in the editorial process.
- davidw 18y ago
  Cathedral and the Bazaar was, originally, just an article on his web site. And it was quite well written.
  - neilk 18y ago
    Are you guys actually arguing that CatB was better sourced than this article? It wasn't. It was just one relatively unknown guy's impression of what he thought made free software work, with a similarly self-congratulatory tone. If you thought fame went to ESR's head, you're wrong; he was always like that.
    - davidw 18y ago
      Yes, I am arguing that it was a good article and did a good job of describing what was going on. ESR certainly has his flaws, but that paper really was a well-done summary of how this stuff works and why, much better than anything else that was out there at the time (I remember reading it in 1998, I think it was). I don't think he's done much since then that was worth writing home about, but that doesn't take anything away from that particular accomplishment.
      - neilk 18y ago
        Ok, I went back and reread some of that essay and I have to withdraw some of my criticisms. You are right and I was wrong. CatB, although anecdotal, is trying to make a coherent case from evidence, and the author's ego is kept relatively in check. His later writings became more like opinion pieces, and are constantly self-referential. My irritation with those must have carried over to the original.

1gor 18y ago

It was fascinating to learn about your personal preferences for a tone of a discourse and I'll patiently wait until you decide to dissect the argument. Meanwhile, ESR's point is an excellent one. MIT license has proven to help a project to achieve commercial critical mass, and GPL is becoming an anachronism. Most of recent open source software that managed to build up market- and mind-share quickly was put out under MIT license. GPL-like licenses are becoming an off-putting factor nowadays simply because you expect to be offered a 'double-licensing' option somewhere down the line. Why would people invest in a project when they are only allowed to play with it, but never to use in a commercial environment? (Until you pay for a commercial license that is). RMS has been proven right. Software wants to be free, so it does not need chains attached to it, even when they are meant for its own protection.

phugoid 18y ago
If I understand his argument correctly, esr is claiming that companies can't profit from grabbing a handful of open source software and building their own product around it. The open source development model is so superior that said company will be left in the dust with their handful of code, while the open project will maintain dominance. So why scare anyone away with restrictive licenses when open source will naturally prevail anyway. But what about the advantage Microsoft gained from basically grabbing a BSD-licensed TCP stack for WinNT? Apparently they recoded most of that stuff since then, but it was probably a great help at the time. All you need to defeat esr's argument is one or two cases where it was proven wrong. In my opinion, the GPL is not just a legal document but a cultural artifact. When you see a GPL notice, you can feel warm fuzzy feelings of sharing certain beliefs with the authors about freedom and sharing. You can feel the peace that comes with source code. To paraphrase you, why should I invest my own free time in a project that could be subverted from bringing freedom to its users? Market- and mind-share are not everyone's measure of success. And I'm not prepared to have you redefine software freedom in the name of RMS today, alright? :)
- shader 18y ago
  I don't think that the project can be 'subverted' from bringing freedom to users. A fork of it might be made "un-free", as in your Microsoft example. But Microsoft did a lot of their own work, and the original project is still around - completely free.