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He didn't get famous from writing Mongrel. He got famous when he called Rails a ghetto. You can look this past up. Right or wrong that is what propelled him

He didn't get famous from writing Mongrel. He got famous when he called Rails a ghetto. You can look this past up. Right or wrong that is what propelled him into the news. This is the same formula. I would say Zed knows more about marketing than he leads on because drama is one way to really advertise things. People and programmers especially, love a good versus, it is a natural, competitive, easily manipulated feature/function of psychology. It is possible that Zed was motivated entirely to write this just to have the GPL vs. BSD argument in public. Maybe that was the whole point.

mattyb 17y ago
If that was the point, I'm glad he did it. I'd read both licenses before, but hadn't given their ramifications too much thought. I'm probably not speaking for just myself when I say that I used to believe that 'FOSS' == 'GPL'. The discussion about his (and Jacob's) articles has cleared up some issues for me, and I'm sure more people give the license choice more thought now.
rbanffy 17y ago
"He didn't get famous from writing Mongrel" His whole rant is because he didn't get famous for writing Mongrel. In fact, I (and just about everyone else) never heard of him before he called Rails a ghetto. And yes, I also find him very predictable.
- drawkbox 17y ago
  Yeh, it is kinda sad really. A good engineer/software developer's job is to make things work, simplify them, and get out of the way. It is creative but you also painfully remove yourself from style in the software (other than simpicity, minimalism etc). If you have a creative side sometimes you need to let it out other ways. The backend is very forgetting. Zed is right, noone really does care who wrote it, they just want it and want it to work.
  - redcap 17y ago
    It's also nice to be paid as well. While I can understand saints who just contribute, I grok the argument that the author makes regarding making his latest package GPL instead of BSD-licensed if that will help him get acknowledgement and/or get paid. Sure an software engineer can be like an artist, but preferably not a starving one.
jonny_noog 17y ago
Well I would say it was a combination of the two that has led to whatever degree of fame it is that he now possesses. If he hadn't written Mongrel and been quite well known in the Ruby/Rails community, in close contact with some of the core members of that community, no one would have noticed when he did his "Rails is a Ghetto" bridge burning rant.

mattyb 17y ago

If that was the point, I'm glad he did it. I'd read both licenses before, but hadn't given their ramifications too much thought. I'm probably not speaking for just myself when I say that I used to believe that 'FOSS' == 'GPL'. The discussion about his (and Jacob's) articles has cleared up some issues for me, and I'm sure more people give the license choice more thought now.

rbanffy 17y ago

"He didn't get famous from writing Mongrel" His whole rant is because he didn't get famous for writing Mongrel. In fact, I (and just about everyone else) never heard of him before he called Rails a ghetto. And yes, I also find him very predictable.

drawkbox 17y ago
Yeh, it is kinda sad really. A good engineer/software developer's job is to make things work, simplify them, and get out of the way. It is creative but you also painfully remove yourself from style in the software (other than simpicity, minimalism etc). If you have a creative side sometimes you need to let it out other ways. The backend is very forgetting. Zed is right, noone really does care who wrote it, they just want it and want it to work.
- redcap 17y ago
  It's also nice to be paid as well. While I can understand saints who just contribute, I grok the argument that the author makes regarding making his latest package GPL instead of BSD-licensed if that will help him get acknowledgement and/or get paid. Sure an software engineer can be like an artist, but preferably not a starving one.

jonny_noog 17y ago

Well I would say it was a combination of the two that has led to whatever degree of fame it is that he now possesses. If he hadn't written Mongrel and been quite well known in the Ruby/Rails community, in close contact with some of the core members of that community, no one would have noticed when he did his "Rails is a Ghetto" bridge burning rant.