Talk:Eric S. Raymond

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)

"Surprised by Cock"

I like throwing digital pies at ESR as much as the next person, but that "Surprised by Cock" article is just stupid. If I make a similar parody of Martin Luther King, or George Bush can I link to it from there pages? I suggest removing that link, but I can't think of a policy that could govern when links should be left, and when they should stay. It's not informative, and not very creative. For whatever reason, if someone wants to remove it, there'd be no argument from me. --Gronky 19:34, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The "Parodies" Section

I've removed the "Parodies" section. Some troll keeps adding links to gay smut or stupid stories that have ESR's name stuck in them. These articles are not sources of info about ESR, so I've removed them. They wouldn't stand on the pages for Martin Luther King, or George Bush so they shouldn't stand here. Note, the smut was originally being added by someone with IP 64.110.74.244 - before vandalising the ESR page, that IP regularly vandalised the Michael Moore page, and in the last hour or so he's moved to vandalising the Richard Stallman page - although he's changing his IP now (he's used 24.214.217.95, 65.110.54.92 and 151.202.154.243). The links are mostly to articles written by one person, so it could be that person trying to popularise their pages. I don't know if it's a pity to remove the link to trollse.cx, it was mildly funny, but not that great really. --Gronky 03:11, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"Arrogant Gas Baron"

I can't find any reference backing up the claim that ESR is commonly or notably referred to as "Arrogant Gas Baron". All Google turns up is the usual suspects promulgating their half-assed trolls on the usual sites, and copies of what may or may not be an old forgery from linux-kernel[2]. I trimmed the paragraph to its factual core to avoid feeding the egos of the trolls any more than necessary. --Saucepan 03:43, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Watch the NPOV!

Quoted from a very recent version of the article:

"The combination of ESR's dominating public persona, extremist opinions, and extreme hypocrisy have made him a consistently controversial, but interesting, character."

"Dominating public persona" is fine, but the other two things are NOT. Although his opinions may be "extremist" to many in the hacker community, Wikipedia's policy is one of NPOV. Watch it. --Fermatprime 02:49, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Scope is excessive, the concept Extremist is already defined in Wikipedia, would you want to delete it? Should the desire for, say, genocide be described as well rounded consideration? I think not. Extremism, therefore, does not imply an NPOV problem. There is no need for weasel words when one can refer to threat made to Bruce Perens http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/1999/04/msg00623.html

Verifiability of the Wikipedian category

The problem with categories is that it's impossible to annotate the entries. On what grounds do we conclude that ESR is a Wikipedian? The existence of User:Eric S. Raymond?

I went to the trouble of (manually!) checking this, and indeed, ESR has had a whopping 20 edits over 4 days[3], to various articles of obvious interest to him (not to belittle these edits, of course, it's not as if this IP has an enormous track record). Obviously, he might also have made some anonymous ones.

Since I presume the category isn't going to be turned into a list anytime soon (although I think that would be the best long-term solution), we should at least have a link or trivia note or whatever that establishes his Wikipedianity; the contributions list if we have to, even if this is hideous; a public/private quote, off-handed remark, blog entry or whatever else would be preferable. If we're going to have this category, we should at least be unambiguous about it. If people ask "yeah, but how do you know that ESR really edits on Wikipedia?" we should be able to answer them, and if at all possible, not by pointing at our intestines. Category entries should in theory be indisputable, meaning that the article should make it obvious why this category applies.

Either that, or this category (as I said) just shouldn't exist. Make it an annotated list on Meta or something. This is of service only to us, not to our readers. And who gets first priority? Thaaaat's right. I mean, if I created User:Richard Stallman or User:Linus Torvalds and added a few insightful comments to the GNU/Linux naming controversy, that wouldn't prove much of anything now, would it? :-) --82.92.119.11 23:00, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Biased? Oh, yes!

Let me just state right off the bat that I'm no fan of ESR, in fact I think he's a complete loon, and yet this article is basically a hatchet-job.

The fact is that he's done some very good things for the free software movement, while taking the full force of RMS and all of his fans in a Massive Snit on many occasions, and this article reads like slashdot sniping. Either make it objective, or nominate it for removal, already. The links to the messages on his dispute with Bruce Perens completely ignore Perens' provocation of ESR, and make it look like ESR came uncorked for no reason.

I think he's fantastic, his [Art of Unix Programming] is the reason I first installed Linux. I agree that the article is biased. The reasons I think this are:

1. The criticism section is twice as long as the achievements section - this is a man who has written 3 books, contributed to at least 3 major open source projects, and widely publicised open source programming. It seems to indicate that a vocal minority don't like him, and the page is treated as a vehicle for criticism.

2. We are treated to a 7 line dissection of a joke that Raymond made to a recruiter (paragraph 3), with the payoff that this "is typical of what many of Raymond's critics find disagreeable." Who exactly is this relevant to? Dilaudid 00:55, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

that image is to be deleted

It appears the image was uploaded prior to may 2005 and so will be deleted. -- Jon Dowland 4 July 2005 15:22 (UTC)

bias

I got here by accident - I never heard of this person before, however, still from what i've seen this entry seems biased.

The current text referring to "shut up and show the code" makes it seem as if in this article ESR is disparaging the programming ability of Richard Stallman. However, when I looked at the article he is in fact doing the complete opposite, and is praising Stallman's programming and disparaging his talking. It seems misleading to me.

Also, if you say there he claimed to be more of a programmer than he is, you should substantiate this.

I agree. He makes a point of praising Stallman's coding and only disagrees with his tactics. The previous wording completely misrepresented the essay. I changed the article to reflect this but somebody changed it back to the original. However, they did somewhat take the misrepresentation into account by leaving in the phrase about the disagreement being over tactics. What's left still doesn't work as it now implies that esr disparaged stallman and the paragraph's intent is muddled by the concession. Sprewell 10:05, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Cerebral Palsy a defining ESR characteristic?

I suggest moving this:

He also suffers from a mild form of congenital cerebral palsy.

out of the intro. I'm not going to debate its truth, or whether it is deserving of any mention at all, but I will say it's not intro material. It's not a defining characteristic of ESR. If a friend ran up to me and said "I'm meeting someone called ESR in 90 seconds time - who is this guy?", I think I'd spend 50 seconds talking about free software and open source, and give 10 seconds each to Linux kernel development, gun ownership, poorly thought-out blog entries, and maybe "GPL is not needed".

(...and speculation that cerebral palsy is the reason for ESR being the way he is, is still not enough to make this into intro material.) Gronky 04:07, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I've just restored my above comment after an anon deleted it and replaced it with a summary. The anon also added this note: "A later comment by ESR to this talk page says he doesn't "object" to its mention."

Which may be interesting, but should not be considered while deciding whether to include the information, or what importance to give it. I'll take this opportunity solicit comments from others on this thread. If there are no comments after a while, I'll probably move this information myself to a lower place in the article. Comments? Gronky 15:11, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Support moving to a lower place. Arvindn 17:44, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

It deserves being in the introduction. Why minimize our "disabilities"? It seems akward now that its placed further down. -- "Anon"

The Threat

I don't believe that "the threat" belongs in this article. If you read what Eric actually wrote, without reading Bruce's interpretation of it, it is in no way a threat. It's more along the lines of a warning. There is no reason why Bruce should have thought he was in any danger. Sure, Bruce interpreted it as a threat, but that says more about Bruce than it does Eric, so, really, it belongs in Bruce's bio, not Eric. RussNelson

Response by the target of the article

The Criticism section contains both negative value judgements and numerous statements that are false to fact. The value judgments I have let stand; the false-to-fact statements I have removed.

The claim that I have added pro-gun-control and pro-Iraq-war entries to the Jargon File is factually false, as can be readily verified by keyword searches for "Iraq" , "gun", "firearm" and similar keywords. In fact, the author of the original accusation (Danny Cohen) has apologized to me personally for making it. Anyone who wishes to reassert this claim should be required to actually cite the supposedly offending entries and explain in detail why they constitute editorial bias.

The essay "Shut up and show them the code" was not received "derisively" at its time of publication; this is a back-reading in light of criticisms that were directed at me later. In fact, that whole paragraph on my claim to be a "core Linux developer" repeats claims that are easily falsified by a look at my software page. At least five of my projects (fetchmail, gpsd, ncurses, bogofilter, giflib/libungif) are carried in the core portions of major Linux disributions, and I have made significant contributions to over a dozen other such projects including Python, groff, and lbpng.

You cannot even run an open-source browser without using code I wrote! Anybody who wishes to claim that my technical contributions have been trivial should be required to show that their code is at least as widely used and distributed as mine.

It is also dubious to claim that I have "removed" terms from the Jargon File, as they are all available in a chaff section on the project website. In general, the assertions in the following paragraph require actual sources and cites:

Raymond initially became famous for his adoption of the [[Jargon File]]. Since then, some hackers have become dissatisfied by his centralized control over submissions to the File, the allegedly questionable additions and edits he has made, and the removal of certain terms on the grounds of being dated (unusual in historical dictionary projects).

I have removed it pending those cites.

There are some further claims in the Criticism section which I think are inappropriate but will not remove on my own; I invite others to consider them. Notably:

During the summer of 2003, Raymond expounded his opinions about politics, racial IQ differences [11], terrorism and the Iraq war on his weblog ([12] for instance), provoking heated critism.

In what way, exactly, is this informative? All it really does is repeat the datum that I have critics. I think it violates NPOV. My blog has attracted a great deal of praise as well as criticism; the above belongs in "Criticism" only if one accepts the POV evaluation that my positions on these issues are somehow bad or wrong. That assumption, and the attempt to foist it on the reader, doesn't belong in Wikipedia.

As other discussants have noted, the account of my dispute with Perens fails to note either the provocation or the fact that Perens himself has since described his response to it as an unfortunate overreaction. I don't think this transitory snit belongs in Wikipedia either.

The fact that I was invited to lecture at Microsoft was, at the time in 1998, universally viewed as a victory for the movement, not as any kind of sellout on my part. In any case, I received no compensation that appearance other than having my travel expenses covered. The claim that this "increased friction" has the appearance that its author was desperately looking for anything possible to bash me with. Is this what Wikipedia wants to be?

I am not a thin-skinned individual by any means (I couldn't be and do what I do) but as previous discussants have noted, much of this article reads like character assassination with a boatload of "they said" and vague unattributed "people believe" claims in it. Personally, I could ignore this; I'm used to taking arrows in the back. But Wikipedia ought to meet a higher quality standard than this.

It is a depressing reality of my situation that I am going to be attacked no matter what I do by a vocal minority of ideologues. Wikipedia should not become a football in this kind of disputation. Therefore I ask all editors to be especially careful for this entry about statements that are vague, unattributed, not supported by checkable cites, or which violate NPOV.

For the record, I don't object to having my cerebral palsy mentioned.

Esr 05:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

About what you say about "Shut up and show them the code", if this is correct then that criticism should indeed be updated to note that it was a criticism made later on.

On your defense of your "core Linux developer" claim, I'm not convinced by your reference to your software page. Fetchmail was not wholly yours, and is known for it's bad security holes and your maintainership and shelving of it is criticised. Gpsd - never heard of it. Ncurses, ok, that's a significant project, used and respected, someone should check how much you contributed to it, but I expect your contribution will indeed be significant. Bogofilter, didn't you write v0.1 and hand it off to another group who went on to criticise the code? giflib - that's a useful program.

Being a talented arguer, you could probably hang me based on what I've said in the previous paragraph, but if you do you won't actually be responding to my main points (which would be a motivation to do so).

Your style, useful in politics but not in Wikipedia, is based on getting a Win, not on correctness. You display this when you ask for a defense from "Anybody who wishes to claim that my technical contributions have been trivial" - when triviality was not the accusation, not being a "core Linux developer" was the accusation. Secondly you make a mine's bigger than your's request that Wikipedians wishing to correct this article must first prove they've coded more than you? That is not at all required of Wikipedians, just as you can edit Wikipedia without having to show that you've contributed as much as any other Wikipedian.

Details of which entries to your blog have drawn criticism is certainly informative and I'd go further and say that such specifics are required. Your blog may have some fans, but in general it is famous for controversial entries which have rubbed people up the wrong way. If everybody loved Eric Raymond, or if a lot of people did, surely someone would have set up a site of that name? Oh.

I can't comment on your Microsoft invite being seen as a sell out, but it was most certainly not seen as a victory!

...and a nice finale about your critics being "a vocal minority of ideologues" I'd love to know how you devine this without saying the same about the fans you claim to exist for your blog?

Writing in a bit of a rush, Gronky 15:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, Gronky, the easy answer to your last question is that one of the skills I've had to cultivate is reading audiences. I meet a lot of hackers when I give talks, and they tend to throw roses at me rather than brickbats. (Which isn't to say I don't catch a few brickbats, it's not like the zealots are shy about showing up!)

Unfortunately, the people who dislike my positions for ideological reasons are more strongly motivated to express that dislike than the majority behind me is to support me. This is not just me, you'll see the same asymmetry around a lot of controversial people and issues.

Your comments leave me unsure what you would consider a "response to your main points". Yes, I could hang you for that paragraph as you have most of your facts wrong, but my purpose is to correct errors not to get into a flame war with you. Esr 19:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

<chuckle> A few responses to Eric, here. Firstly, regarding your rather humorous statement that one can't even run a browser without running your code.... Tell us: how many thousands of people would you say could make the same claim? Tens? Hundreds? Where are their flattering Wikipedia entries? Your claim to be a major Open Source software developer is risible, and your claim that you have been "statistically" proven to be one is a falsehood (please show us citations to these "statistical" studies). Secondly, regarding your infamous "Show them the Code" essay. I followed the public reception of the essay at the time, and if you think that no-one was "derisive" of the essay, you're deluded. Please see the comments to the original Linux Today article: [4]. Thirdly, regarding the Jargon File. No, no-one is going to bother writing a minor sociology essay in order to justify criticising you for your management of the JF. But it doesn't take much to see that entries like the political description of the hacker community (which is just your totally unsupported opinion) and entries like "anti-idiotarianism" (which is tendentious) and poor, tired, old "Aunt Tillie" (which is your own silly invention) smell naff, and are certainly not received hacker jargon.

One major fault that is found with the jargon file (just look at any /. article on the topic) is the entry/ies like anti-idiotarianism. There are no people in the western left who support islamic terrorism, knowingly. There are definitley none who sympathize with it. There are hackers (some, in any case) in the western left. Those hackers are offended by that statement, and with good reason. The western left doesn't support Carlos the Jackal style stalinesque idealogy. In America, at any rate, the western left is basically moderate, with some progressive influence. Your claim that there IS a pro-islamic terrorisism sect of the western left wing is true, but there are about 50 people like that in North America. And anti-idiotarianism is just a corny idealogy. We're all against people being idiots, but we do not all agree on who idiots are. The other controversial entry is the J. Random Hacker Politics one, obviously. I think perhaps people would like you to build up some empirical evidence to support your findings on that one (among other things). So, in conclusion, some of the stuff in the JF isn't based on actual proof, though it may be factual. I would think that hackers would like some statistics, interviews, and other kinds of social research. This is supposed to be anthropoligical data, right? Well, last I checked, anthropology is a social SCIENCE. In conclusion, there is plenty of reason to criticize you, just not enough to hate your guts simply because you are a gun-toting-libertarian-sf-fan. (PS- I wonder if that usenet trial balloon version of JF could be made public)

Recent ESR updates

The old version listed a critcism relating to whether ESR is, as claimed, a "Core Linux Developer" and then plays down the extent to which he has contributed code to open source. Now ESR, has added: Raymond has written enough code that his name has been flagged as a top contributor by two different statistical analyses of the open-source corpus. In my view, he is being overly defensive and as a result has included details that no reader would care about. My point is that ESR is not famous for writing open source code, he's known for his involvement in the Open Source Initiative. I've probably contributed as much code yet there is no article on me (and nobody would read it if there was). Can't we just have something that states that he has contributed code to ncurses, libungif, etc. without trying to quantify it.

I've just removed some parts of that paragraph. Unsourced claims of being "flagged as a top contributor by two different statistical analyses of the open-source corpus" are mud. At a guess, he could be alluding to being voted #1 on sourceforge (which is actually a popularity contest among people with source forge accounts - something which many notable free software contributors such as Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds don't have). Not sure what his second "statisticaly analysis" (which he doesn't care to quote a source for) is. (has anyone confirmed that User:Esr is indeed Eric?) Gronky 14:39, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Gronky, the two analyses in question were (1) the codebase audit that VA Linux did when putting together its friends-and-family list, and (2) a 1999 study by an academic associated with the Boston Consulting group. Your deletion is reasonable, however, and I will accept it.Esr 19:27, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Folks, we need to keep some perspective here. Raymond was NEVER known as a software developer, whatever else he may say. There are many, many hundreds of open source developers out there who don't have Wikipedia entries, who have made FAR more significant development contributions to the community. The "core linux developer" claim is, in fact, a piece of self-aggrandisement that is entirely consistent with Raymond's public persona, and, arguably, with the function that he fulfilled for the community. The fact of the matter is that he was, in the past, an important part of the Open Source PR engine, but that due to the problems outlined in the criticism section, his role is now much, much more modest. As for the claims of statistical analysis above: I'm frankly sceptical. Citasions, please, Eric.

Consistency of Standards

As it stands now, I think the criticism section looks pretty good. With a guy like this, I think you really need to cite *everything*, and make sure that people's opinions don't get stated as fact. So long as that's done (which I think is currently true), it's probably all good.

That said, I'd like to ask why things that ESR does get considered volatile, when comparable behavior by comparable people goes unnoticed. I'm not saying that, if this is truly how the world reacts, Wikipedia shouldn't note it --- but rather, Wikipedia might want to note that this is exceptional to ESR.

Consider the case of Cory Doctorow. He's an EFF guy, very much in favor of relaxing copyrights, and yet I don't see accusations of "selling out" (or somesuch) because he gave a talk at Microsoft.

Likewise, why isn't there any mention that Richard Stallman has been called insane, arrogant, abrasive, etc. A cursory google will reveal plenty of accusations of that nature. He also doesn't seem to be getting in trouble for his political activities, which certainly seem to be on a scale comparable to ESR's.

What I'm saying is that, it probably is true that Cory and RMS simply haven't created notable friction with the New Age of Intellectual Property folks (yeah, that's straight outta my ass) by these actions. Likewise, it makes sense that their actions don't get mentioned as doing such on their Wikipedia pages. But if ESR can do essentially the same things, yet enflame The World, I think his Wikipedia page ought to note that, for whatever reason, he seems to get judged at a higher standard than his contemporaries (for lack of a superior phraseology). --Ninjadroid 18:18, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

This belongs in the better titled "Criticisms" section above.

Skipping that, I hate comparisons in the name of some holy "consistency", but for the record, I do think the RMS article includes unwarranted criticisms, also. It reads, "Stallman is characterized by some as being extremely difficult to work with.", among others. This is not only likely unfairly harsh, but not really useful. Eric's personal criticisms are well documented.

I bet most personalities written up in encyclopedias were or are difficult people to work with. Strong willed people probably have a problem of the rest of the world being extremely difficult to work with them. Realisticly, for a majority of RMS's days on earth he probably gets along with his acquantainces fine.

Now, George Bush on the other hand is opposed by a majority of the planet and supported by a minority in the US... Anyone else seeing this devolve into a slashdot thread? --216.114.171.95 05:47, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Let me quote the important part of my preceding entry, as a method of emphasis:

"But if ESR can do essentially the same things, yet enflame The World, I think his Wikipedia page ought to note that, for whatever reason, he seems to get judged at a higher standard than his contemporaries (for lack of a superior phraseology)."

It's not a matter of "unwarranted criticisms," but rather, noting that, between comparable entities A and B, when A does X, nobody cares, but when B does X, many people are perturbed. --Ninjadroid 19:26, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Andyluciano "Criticism" section edits

I have no personal disagreement with the material added to the "Criticism" section, I just feel its flamebait and is counter to where the direction the article was heading, which was in avoidance of flame wars on the article, and on this discussion page. The addition of headings and an introduction to the section aren't improvements worth keeping either. The edits made were so broad that it isn't conducive to review by others who follow and contribute to the article's edits.

Further, the article "Take My Job, Please!" was written 7 years ago as a response not to all these criticisms but in the context of ESR v. RMS, which was better expressed in the previous edit. --132.198.104.164 15:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was in a very unclear state before. It contained a lot of dated information, and his more recent controversies were lost in a sea of references to things from 1999. I tried to give it more emphasis on more current information. I'll admit that it is not very balanced, but I found what it was before to not be an accurate reflection of what a critic would say. – Andyluciano 01:18, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I toned down some bits. Perhaps more needs to be done. I will say this format (breaking down the varied criticism into sections) is much more readable than it was before. – Andyluciano 01:25, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Breaking things into sections can be helpful, but over sectioning can break a section into categories when it is better in chronological or narrative format. Encyclopedias aren't some "hot list" of recent facts, they emphasise material that is and will be historically relevant in the long-term. What a "critic would say" is a recipe for flamebait. --132.198.104.164

To AndyLuciano: I don't mean to be unkind, but many of your edits have taken sentences and paragraphs written in perfectly good, flowing, English, and recast them to be gramatically incorrect, clumsy, and sometimes nearly incomprehensible. Please: when you are editing (as you appear to be doing) to correct slant or bias, change only what you need to, and don't tamper with the sentence structures for no reason at all.

The first sign that this article has attracted flamebait is in the section #Flamefest on this talk page and in the attempt to add a competing section called "Contributions". Ugh. --216.114.170.66 23:00, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I've refactored the section following the old adage, "Just the facts, Mam." Hopefully, its closer to readable. --216.114.169.36 06:47, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I've merged the "Criticisms" section, so it no longer exists. I found merging the material with the "Biography" section was useful for plumping the article up and better organizes the article. Besides, if the criticisms are worth mentioning they should exist alongside the main thread of the article without POV commenatry. However, I have no intention of deleting or hiding such criticisms. Coincidentally, I've previously ever moved and defanged contributions made to the "Crticisms" section to the main biography a few times.

Finding a place for mentioning Raymondond's CP is proving difficult. Perhaps it could go back to the intro section? See discussion above. --64.223.120.172 18:02, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

The criticism section that disappeared

Here's the old criticism section that an anon merged into the article, apparently without discussion. I'm not contesting the move, but I don't know the environment here, but I prefer having the details out in the open. Gronky 04:34, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

There wasn't "discussion" per se, but there was a posting made to the talk page. --64.222.93.135 04:42, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Raymond initially became known for his adoption of the Jargon File. Many hackers have become dissatisfied with the resulting character of the work due to the inclusion of material invented by Raymond or reflecting his own political views. Objectors to Raymond's stewardship are of the opinion that the Jargon File should be an impartial record of "hacker culture".[5]

Raymond has had a number of public disputes with other figures in the free software movement. His disagreement with Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation's views on the ethics of free software in favour of a more market-driven stance has exacerbated some pre-existing tensions in the community. He agreed to lecture at Microsoft [6] and accepted stock options from VA Software to provide credibility and be a hired "moral compass".[7] [8] In 1999, Raymond published an article entitled "Shut Up And Show Them The Code"[9]. The article criticized Richard Stallman over tactics to promote free and open source software, implying Stallman spent too much time prozletizing and not producing code. In fact, Stallman is the original author of some of the most widely used and sophisticated pieces of free software in the world, including Emacs, GCC, GDB, and GNU Make.

His behaviour has also caused tension between himself and other Open Source advocates, including Bruce Perens who once publicised a threatening email from Raymond, citing safety fears.[10][11]

Raymond's public claim to be a "Core Linux Developer" is disputed since he has never had any code accepted into the Linux kernel. His sole attempt to contribute to Linux (the CML2 configuration system) was rejected by Linux kernel developers.

[12][13][14]

Since the summer of 2003, Raymond has used his web log[15] to promote his views on politics, race and the Iraq war. Controversial opinions he has attempted to defend include that African Americans are responsible for a disproportionate percentage of crimes because they have lower IQs [16], and that the United States should embark on a campaign of "deliberate cultural genocide" against the Islamic world [17].

Raymond addressed some of his critics from the software development community in his 1999 essay "Take My Job, Please!" [18], stating that he was willing to "back to the hilt" anyone qualified and willing to take his job and present the case for open source to the world. In February 2005, Raymond stepped down as the president of the Open Source Initiative.

Removal of text involving Stallman

User:Robust Physique seems to be going on an anti-GNU crusade recently across various articles on wikipedia, and has been continually removing the balancing text from this one which notes Stallman's coding efforts after ESR's statement about him not spending enough time coding, from the Criticism section from the article. I feel this edit makes the article POV. Opinions? - Fuzzie 16:30, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

This is an article about Eric S. Raymond, what stallman has coded has no relevence here. Robust Physique 20:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

The article says "The article criticized Richard Stallman over tactics to promote free and open source software, implying Stallman spent too much time proselytizing and not producing code.", clearly bringing Stallman's coding into the topic. Removing the latter clause of that sentence would satisfy my issues with POV too. - Fuzzie 20:21, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

His advocacy of Second Amendment gun rights and support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq has nettled many, but he seems to enjoy the controversy those positions engender.[19] Deleted this since 1)I don't know how to quantify many. 2)His enjoyment is not demonstrated by the link. The link points to an account of his experiances with mysticism in the tradition of Robert Anton Wilson's “Cosmic Trigger” or Philip K Dick's "Exgesis".

Changed the weblog section as the blog entrys are mischaracterized. Raymond appears to be defending the concept of "IQ" not the concept "inferiority of African-Americans". It seems to me a violation of NPOV to cherry pick his writings on controversial subjects such as the war on terror and attempt to present it as representative of his writings because if I recall he has also written on movies and who makes the best chili among other topics. If I have screwed up here please feel free to contact me on my talk page. My access to the internet is going to be spotty until middle of april after which I hope to be able to play with the Wikipedia on a regular basis. Boatdrinks Murph 11:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

2nd npov edit attempt. Dear 64.222.104.90 Ok am not going to take out His advocacy of Second Amendment gun rights and support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq has nettled many. I guess this is relevant although IMO it is an awkward sentence structure. I think it would be more relevant in an entry on “The ESR does not speak for me movement”.

Took out ...but he seems to enjoy the controversy those positions engender.^[20] Because the link does not support the sentence. I won't have a problem with reinsertion if the link points to a source where Raymond says he enjoys the controversy.

I'll leave the rest alone for now. I still think the weblog section needs some revision. Not trying to start a Flame Fest. As I said way back in 2004 I don't object to critism of ESR, I just want it to be NPOV. I think the article as it stands now is much closer to NPOV than it was 2 years ago, and I'll still think that if this edit gets reverted. Boatdrinks Murph 07:31, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Why did you remove

• Everybody Loves Eric Raymond A fictional webcomic also featuring Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman et al.

from the External Links section? Because it has Stallman in it? Alphax ^τεχ 00:14, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

This article is not neutral at all. It is clear that dislike of the subject dominates the structure. BillWallace 07:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Since when external links have to be neutral? Are you suggesting we should remove links to xenu.net from the scientology articles? See [21] for a similar case. So I'm adding the link back until someone comes up with a real reason to have it removed. --Lost Goblin 20:20, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Claiming that he thinks "the United States should embark on a campaign of "deliberate cultural genocide" against the Islamic world" doesn't seem to be an accurate summary of his views. The linked article shows him using the phrase an example of how critics would describe his stance, not as his own characterization of it. He also compares his proposal to the occupation of Japan after World War II, which most of us would not call cultural genocide. Ken Arromdee 18:53, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

... then you should rewrite it. - Motor (talk) 21:54, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

It's false. He doesn't claim the US should embark on "deliberate cultural genocide". How can I rewrite it other than by deleting it entirely?

The best I can think of is "critics accuse him of wanting the United States to commit 'deliberate cultural genocide' although he does not say that", but the line is not in the criticism section, and I don't know any critics who say that anyway. Ken Arromdee 13:22, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

If you believe that the article is wrong... then you should rewrite it. Whether you do that by deleting things that are blatantly incorrect, or by putting them into context is your decision. - Motor (talk) 13:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Dude, did you even bother to read the article? "Deliberate cultural genocide" is EXACTLY what Raymond is advocating. Since you're evidently too lazy to follow the link and read the relevant part of ESR's rant, here is the quote with the relevant context:

"Some of my readers will be screaming in horror. Imperialism? Barbarians? How dare I use such language? How dare I argue that the U.S. has the right to commit deliberate cultural genocide?

There's a big hole in the ground in Manhattan. That's my argument.

If Pearl Harbor was good enough reason for us to conquer Japan and run it like a proconsulate until the Japanese learned manners, then 9/11 was damn good and sufficient reason for us to do the same number on the Islamists. That meant Afghanistan, it means Iraq, and down the road it may mean Saudi Arabia as well."

That's right. He claims that some of his *readers* will call it deliberate cultural genocide. He doesn't call it that himself, and he compares it to occupying and remaking Japan. Occupying and remaking Japan wasn't cultural genocide. Doing the same thing to other countries may be imperialistic or a number of other adjectives, but it's not cultural genocide either. Ken Arromdee 20:09, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

No, you show a basic lack of reading comprehension. Please read the passage more carefully. ESR is providing what he thinks is an accurate description of his own argument, as is made clear in his next sentence. It really is entirely irrelevant whether or not you think that Japan was cultural genocide. What matters is how ESR is describing the course of action he's advocating himself. Please also read the rest of the article: "cultural genocide" is indeed just a pithy encapsulation of what he is arguing for.

He's describing the course of action as one which his readers will accuse of being cultural genocide. He himself claims he wants done to the Middle East what was done to Japan, and that *wasn't* cultural genocide. Ken Arromdee 23:19, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

That is just simply an incorrect reading of what ESR wrote. Readers of this article are not interested in whether Ken Arromdee thinks what the US did in Japan was cultural genocide. What they are interested in, is what ESR was arguing in the referenced essay, and that is as plain as day. I'm not going to let random semi-literate ESR fanboys bowdlerise this article to remove some of his more outlandish views. His controversial polemic is entirely relevant, and is on the public record for anyone to read. In case you need more convincing, and aren't just a troll, here are some other quotes from the same article:

On Islamic culture: "... our long-term objective must be to break, crush and eventually destroy this culture ..."

"We must win. And we must impose our will and our culture on the losers..."

"There's a word for the process of conquering a third-world pesthole and imposing your culture on it. It's called imperialism."

We broke and crushed Japan. We imposed our will and our culture on them. We destroyed their culture, in some sense. And it still wasn't cultural genocide. Ken Arromdee 14:30, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

If, after this, you still think that ESR was using the term "deliberate cultural genocide" as a weird reflexive prediction of unjust criticism, then I give up.

"Deliberate cultural genocide"

ESR doesn't say he supports this. He says he supports a policy that his opponents will characterize as "deliberate cultural genocide." Any version to the contrary is deliberately misleading and POV, especially if it removes the context of his argument. -- FRCP11 13:17, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

FRCP11, your version is a far better and clearer description of his views. There is no doubt that he supports a campaign of imperialism to civilise the Moslem world -- it's a fair reading of his blog entry. We can spend all day arguing over what his exact wording re: cultural genocide meant. - Motor (talk) 13:25, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Why no reference to 2nd amendment?

Why is referring to gun rights as Second Amendment gun rights controversial? Particularly when the person under discussion claims his rights derive from the 2nd amendment? It seems to be introducing a point of view by removing it. RussNelson 21:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Since many of the people who want to ban guns rely on interpreting the 2nd ammendment in such a way that it doesn't actually give gun rights, just writing '2nd ammendment gun rights' implies that it does, countering their point of view. I get the logic, even though it is extremely intellectually dishonest to try to interpret the ammendment that way, but as US politics has shown for 200 years, intellectually dishonest people have points of view too. BillWallace 16:44, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

The Second Amendment is part of the United States Constitution, which is a simple fact. So, when someone is said to be supporting "Second Amendment gun rights", that would implicitly assert a particular interpretation of it and consequently that opponents hold an unconstitutional view. That would thus be a violation of NPOV. -- Dissident (Talk) 15:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, Dissident, I get that, however, this is not an article about the 2nd Amendment, it's an article about Eric Raymond. The article about the 2nd Amendment is a click away for anybody wanting to find out why Eric might feel that the 2nd Amendment is the source of his gun rights, or why other people might disagree with him. The referenced web page documents Eric's belief, so the fact that he makes that claim is well substantiated, and not anybody's point of view. RussNelson 20:10, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

The straightforward interpretation of "Second Amendment gun rights" is "gun rights as guaranteed by the Second Amendment". The fact that ESR believes in "gun rights" is itself uncontroversial as well as his belief that it emanates from the Second Amendment, but both beliefs must be explicitly attributed rather than implicitly taken as a fact. If you think, not unreasonably, that dwelling on the Second Amendment in the intro of ESR is misplaced, then you shouldn't be against my earlier action of simply removing the mention of the "Second Amendment". -- Dissident (Talk) 17:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I guess that I don't understand why you would remove a documented fact about someone. Do you disagree that Eric ascribes his ability to own guns to the 2nd Amendment? Other people might think that they have a right to own a gun simply through human rights or natural law. Eric seems not to, so I think it's worthwhile to leave the text as you have currently written it. RussNelson 21:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)