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Wired on Bruce/Eric Meltdown 195

chrisd writes "Anyone folowing the blowtorches being wielded lately in the Linux community might want to check out this saturday Wired News article featuring some commentary on the latest from Eric and Bruce."
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Wired on Bruce/Eric Meltdown

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    move along, nothing to see here. I SAID....
    MOVE ALONG NOTHING TO SEE HERE!!!
  • by Anonymous Coward

    From my perspective it is Bruce Perens that has made this fight public by posting that email excerpt.

    It wasn't private email; it was on a mailing list.


    ESR was trying to avoid mutual public defacing in the interests of the open source community.

    Actually, he was quoted in the Wired article saying that he would publically defame Perens. He denied using the word "defame" (as if that made any difference), but announced an intention to "make [Perens] look like a fool and an asshole". He said this to a Wired reporter. That's a public statement.


    It takes a little bit of maturity to refrain from acting in like manner when attacked in public.

    And, in the recent dustup with Raymond, Perens has consistently shown that maturity. For example, Perens published an open letter questioning the APSL. It was a very mellow, reasonable letter; he was clearly trying not to start a fight, but rather to open a discussion. Now, we get to the immaturity part. Raymond interpreted that letter as a "public insult" and felt that it "endanger[ed] our tribe", and responded to it by flaming and threatening Perens on a mailing list.


    to my knowledge ESR has never INITIATED a public attack.

    Well, now that you have some more facts you can make up your own mind about it.


    If someone truly believes that he is hurting the community, then let's have some specifics.

    This has been gone over in great detail, time and again. The current scandal is a good example. Not only is it embarrassing, but look at the genesis of it: Eric "Open" Raymond went ballistic because somebody dared to disagree with him in public. As it happens, he was trying to silence dissent about some terms of the APSL about which a number of reasonable people had some questions. I saw quotes in the press from figures at Apple who indicated a willingness to work with the community. Bear in mind that the QPL, the Jikes license, and the MPL were all hashed out a bit in public, which resulted in a lot of good will towards the vendors concerned. Whether Raymond likes it or not, this is a diverse community, and most vendors are willing to accept the realities of that. Next, we have Raymond's "Nazi Gates" picture; it was a jpeg of a group of triumphant Nazis, with Bill Gates leading them. A lot of people felt that it was childish and in poor taste. It was also blatant emotionalistic propaganda, from somebody who claims to have fact and logic on his side. It was originally posted on OSI's web site; later, he moved it to his own personal page. It may since have been removed entirely.

    Raymond has reacted very badly to criticism at other times, as well. Read his two recent "Take My Job" essays for ample proof of that. He simply feels that he is above criticism. Anybody who disagrees with him is written off as a "testosterone-poisoned twerp". He doesn't behave like a representative of a community; he behaves like the owner of a company.

    I'm at work, so I really don't have time to go into more depth. Sorry.

  • The subject says it all. If you want some evidence, look into archives of /. postings.

    Seems to be a reasonable, and quite intelligent guy when he keeps his flamethrower off. I must admit that, since he left OSI, my opinion of him has improved greatly.

    ESR, on the other hand, keeps sinking and sinking, IMHO.

    ---

  • Bruce's hand is all over Debian. He was one of the most important contributors.

    ---

  • "If you ever again behave like that kind of disruptive asshole in public, insult me, and jeopardize the interests of our entire tribe, I'll take it just as personally -- and I will find a way to make you regret it," wrote Raymond. "Watch your step."

    Is that the type of tactful person we want trying to market Free Software/Open Source for us? Not only is he implicitly comdemning public debate, which is bad enough, but the method by which he does it is not very tactful.

    I think I've had enough of ESR.
  • I believe Bruce's paper advocated having around ten spokespeople for the Free Software community. Currently, OSI seems to have several board members, but only one spokesman. The rest of the Free Software spokespeople (Perens, Stallman, etc.) are not connected with OSI, and there aren't a whole lot of them either.
  • Posted by jtizard:

    For many people I'm afraid the resonant phrase that comes out of all this is "Gun Nut". Following the Wired story I looked at ESRs "Geeks with Guns" web pages. I don't know about the US, but from Australia, this sort of stuff reduces the credibility of its author to absolutely nil.
    Bad bad move guys.
    JT
  • Posted by The ULTIMATE Crippler:

    I engaged in what started as a friendly email conversation with ESR to try to give him some constructive feedback on what I think he is doing well, and where I think he needs to adjust his course a bit in order to better represent our community. In his position, it is easy to get out of touch or biased by corporate sponsored perks and I was just hoping to offer some grounding.

    What I got was some very rude chest thumping and ego pumping.

    "Hah. I helped *shape* those ideals. I was one of the original GNU contributors. In fact I was writing free software before GNU existed. Please don't lecture me about roots; mine very likely back to before you were *born*."

    This is the man who represents you.

    What is worse:
    1) Bill Gates selling totally proprietary software to those who don't care about freedom?
    2) ESR enticing programmers to work on sort-of-free software but ultimately catering to corporate interests and seeking public recognition of his name?

    I say #2. Why? The various "Open Source" licenses all look good on the surface. But upon closer examination, you find that they aren't so attractive. Why didn't Apple use the GPL? Because the GPL levels the playing field, and corporations don't like having the same rights as Joe Hacker in his basement.

    I totally believe this threat that ESR issued Perens. And while Perens has a checkered past of his own, I am fully in support of his idea to endorse 10 or more public spokespeople for the free software movement and to back Bruce's idea of each person taking about 1/10 of ESR's current workload.

    ESR is running around, unchecked, and while I appreciate his efforts I really would feel much better if he were one of ten rather than one of one. I don't want him to quit. But I do want him to listen to us and I do want him to start distributing some of his load to others in the community. Based on emails I have recieved from ESR, and those recieved by others in recent history, I really think we are being represented by a walking time bomb right now.
  • Posted by Art Pepper:

    I can hardly hear any of this over B.G.'s laughter. Both of them sure are making open source/free software looks pretty pathetic.

    I'm embarassed by it all.
  • I've held a pretty nonchalant view of Perens and Raymond since they were appointed (appointed themselves?) speakers for the "movement". Now I'm just embarassed by them. The fight over "Open Source," and now this spat over the APL is distracting outsiders from the forward movement that Free Software projects have made.

    When a company's speakers do more harm than good, they get canned. Free Software's "speakers" should be treated no differently.





  • The real party to get incensed at here is the Media and the way they protrayed this. Everybody has flamewars from time to time. Everybody says dumb things. Sometimes they do it in public. But that's not the issue. Regardless of if you agree with Bruce or ESR or neither, there is a much bigger problem here: The media portrayed this as if this was something that would affect the OpenSource community. It won't.

    As long as they continue to view this phenomenon as if it were one big monolithic company, they are doing it a disservice. When the heads of a company has a dispute over policy, it affects the output of that company. Projects get cancelled, new alternate projects are created, etc. With OpenSource it isn't like that. ESR, Bruce, and RMS could all die tomorrow and it would have only a tiny effect. Wine people will still work on Wine, Gnome people will still work on Gnome, Samba people will still work on Samba, and so on.

    So, yeah, I'm peeved by this public flamewar. Not at the flamewar itself, but at the ignorant media's response, spreading the FUD that this is somehow a drastic problem in the OpenSource community.

    Argument is healthy! That's partly the whole point of OpenSource - the best designed software is software that airs its dirty laundry for public comment.

  • I totally agree with an earlier post: You can talk all you want about how much these guys have contributed to OSS and Free Software and Linux and blah, blah, blah. But this kind of behavoir embarrasses the crap out of me. Every time I hear footsteps in my cubicle, I flinch because I just KNOW that one of my wonderful IT/NT buddies is getting ready to "rib" me about the latest flame war/holy crusade/bitch-fest going on in the Community. Linux people aren't the only people who read Slashdot and newsgroups, Bruce and Eric. The whole world is watching, and you guys are showing your asses.
    Please guys, for the sake of the Community, if your going to disagree at least do it in a civilized manner. And if you can't keep it civilized, then for God's sake at least keep it private.
  • I've written to RMS before and he has always flat out ignored me. I asked him for advice on how to


    Odd. I've written to RMS before and had timely and helpful answers. I guess YMMHV

    If you ever do get an email from RMS, notice how the "king of all hackers" doesn't even understand the simple email courtesy of quoting the the text he is responding to with any kind of dilineating characters.


    Um, nope. I have mail from him using ' ' (four spaces) as an indent. Which may not be the "industry-standard" angle bracket, but hey - at least it isn't supercite

    -dan
  • What ESR wrote in the quote is correct. Whether or not it is appropriate depends on the context. If your mail wasn't as friendly as you claim, then the quote is fine.

    In any case, quoting private email on public forums without permission is poor style.
  • No, I always find it rude when someone quotes a message they got privately. However, there are times where other concerns are more important than politeness, for example if you feel treatened. If Bruce *really* thought Eric might use violence, then his behaviour is excusable.

    That RMS believe people should always be able to share all information they have is not surprising. I never have second thought about quoting private email from him. But that doesn't mean ESR share the same values.

  • Seriously, a good deathmatch in doom would let these guys blow off a lot of heat so they could get back to doing real work. I worry about people who don't relax enough.
  • And I suppose UNaltered DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED?
  • Except, well, I did point this out. But good eye!

    Chris DiBona
    Evangelist, VA Research
    --
    Grant Chair, Linux Int.
    VP, SVLUG

  • I did point it out to the reporter, and he knew. But really, what I said I would have said had Eric not been on the board.


    --
    Grant Chair, Linux Int.
    VP, SVLUG

  • by Andy ( 2990 )
    I agree Bruce. If ESR had written such a note in a corporate environment he would be fired. End of story. He made ugly threats. You did rightly by publicizing the letter.
  • As is the APSL needs works. As is both ESR and Apple know this and have publicly stated that it will be revised as issues come. Bruce himself acknowledges this. Keep in mind that what you see is APSL 1.0 and that it went thru changes before even being released. Taking a vote on this is probably just academic because everyone involved, ESR, Bruce & Apple all admit that the APSL will change sooner if not later as things are worked out. No point in shooting a moving target unless you want to kill it. Too many people around here apparently want to kill it instead of reforming it :-(
  • ...anonymously tho'.
    I'm the same Apple list Bruce was on so I cut-n-pasted some email from that list into a submission. I keep all those digests so if anyone wamts to see the relevant ones, feel free to email me.
    The list sure is quiet now that Bruce is gone.
    Otoh, while I miss his sane comments I can't express how glad I am that those Debian goons are off the list. What a jerk that Stephen Crowley was. He had nothing productive to add to the list and just emailed out misinformed insults all the time.
  • you said:
    'nor ares personality conflicts'(sic)
    Ares is the god of War :-)
  • ...Apple paid its internal developers umpty bajillion dollars in development expenses to develop MacOS X.

    It is my understanding that Darwin (the part of OSX that has been "open sourced") was developed mostly by BSD developers, not by Apple developers.

    Apple is "open sourcing" something that was already open sourced. How nice of them.

    --
    Mark Fassler
    fassler at frii dot com
  • Its more amusing that he doesn't realise that out of all of this, HE is the one that looks like the fool and the arsehole.

    I was never terribly impressed with his writings. I cannot say that I am impressed with his schmoozing with corporates. I am not sure that ESR, with his rampant unchecked libertarian ideology, can see that his actions end up selling our freedom (Just as rightwing economic orthodoxy trades the freedom of ordinary folk for higher profits and less restrictions for big corporations.)

    *sigh*

  • Please point out any "veiled public insults and a lot more" in Bruce Perens' press releases. I can't find any.

  • Autoscoring is almost as annoying as listening to this.

    Anyone ever see the movie "He Said, She Said"?

    For never having been married to each other, they sure sound like a pair of bitter divorcees.

  • It came in at 3. Blame the moderators for those extra 2 points.

    Actually, I'm doing my best to convince Rob that this autorating nonsense is undooing all of the good that moderating does for slashdot in the first place (while staying nominally on topic).

    What just astounds me is that I can't blow my nose without it showing up in Wired.

    The media is a heartless beast and the law in the US (and other countries) says that, upon achieving celebrity status, one loses their right to privacy. Just don't do something disgusting like blow your nose on your sleeve (or worse, on Eric's sleeve).

    Agreed that this is all quite silly. Next time anything like this happens, I'll do my best to bury it.

    I can't help but be a Doubting Thomas here, Bruce. Specifically, the fact that you say 'Next time this happens', indicates that you've still not grasped the key to the situation (i.e., DON'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN). The only thing I can say at this point that is even remotely relevant (having never held true celebrity status) is this: As high-visibility members of this community, you, Eric, and others have an obligation (or at least 'should feel one') to conduct yourselves in a manner which sets a higher standard for others to emulate. -- The mundane members of this community must wear the reputation that its celebrity icons create.

    If I were your mother or your 2nd grade schoolteacher, I'd say "You two should be ashamed of yourselves. I want you to shake hands and apologize to each other immediately." -- Alas, adult lives don't seem so easily remedied.

    This while bombs were falling in Europe.

    No one ever accused the media or a government of having good taste.
  • I have a brilliant idea. Let's autoscore these two embarrassments really high so we can keep a close eye on their childishness.

  • Agreed. It would be more useful if you were to include the text of your message, and perhaps his response verbatim. I know it's a lot longer, but you're asking people to make a judgement on someone based on a snippet from an email... I don't think it's right to base such a judgement on so little evidence.

    Leilah
  • Maybe instead we need to re-examine the idea that in order to be a community, there must not be any kind of disagreement between anyone. The idea that total harmony was essential in family situations was disproved long ago.

    Flamings happen, whether they happen online or whether they are hashed out on the front walk - it doesn't really matter. I think the entire Open Source community is able to realize that two people sniping at each other is not going to somehow destroy the whole thing. If the rest of the world is unable to grasp the idea that the petty grievances of two people isn't going to stop this movement, then that's their own (expletive) problem. They'll find out soon enough. Corporate America is sending out internal emails like this all the time - maybe what needs to happen is that more of those emails should make it public.

    Not that I'm supporting people acting like a bunch of spoiled 3-year-olds, but I think we should remember that the world's been through a hell of a lot of 3-year-olds in its time.

    Leilah
  • I think you're right here. I'm embarassed by all this.

    It seems to me that Bruce Perens has been involved in more than his share of debacles recently.

    Now boys... Take a deep breath...

  • I've never dealt with him personally, but given what he wrote to Bruce and what some other people have said he wrote to them, it sounds like this guy has some serious issues he needs to work out. If he can't conduct himself in a reasonable manner, he needs to go away.

  • I have little time for people that make personal mail public without asking if it is ok first

    Neither have I, but Bruce didn't do that. The thing is, I also have no time for people who make public and personal threats in response to reasonable and polite disagreement.


    the public fight is limiting the acceptace of open source, [but] it is of no consequence to Bruce.

    If you go back and read Perens' posts on Slashdot about APSL etc., he's been covering for Raymond's misbehavior in a big way -- up until the threat, to which IMHO he overreacted. Still, we all deserve to know what kind of person claims to represent us.
    -j

  • I worked hard to learn how to spell received correctly . . . and I'll be damned if I'll sit by and watch someone else get it wrong.

    Be that as it may, I assume you are aware of the fact that spelling flames are generally perceived on the net as gratuitous personal insults? In all the excitement [sic :)] here I don't recall if you were one of the voices invoking netiquette to condemn Perens' posting of Raymond's threat . . . Ha, ha. One way or another, it was irrelevant and tacky by commonly accepted standards, especially in view of the fact that it may very well have been a typo, or a garden-variety mistake by somebody who does know better. I proofread posts carefully, and I generally revise them several times, but errors do slip through. I think that's why spelling flames are so annoying: The implied assertion is, "I'm perfect and you're an idiot." Fortunately, most spelling/grammar flamers lash out without proofreading, and leave careless mistakes in their own posts -- like your dangling preposition, for example, or your extra 't' in "commitment". :) They usually know better, but IMHO it's considerate of them to refute themselves so neatly. This is the only hard evidence I've yet seen that indicates the existence of a benevolent Deity. Now that I've criticized your spelling and grammar, I can pretty much guarantee that the Almighty will led my hand to type somehting stupid, just to keep me humble.

    Of course, since spelling flames are generally held in low esteem, you did your own credibility more harm than you did his. So why am I complaining? Ummm . . . Good question. :)


    We really don't know what ESR's threat was in response to, do we, because Bruce took it out of context.

    If you read the text of Raymond's threat, he makes it very clear that it was in response to a "public insult", IIRC Peren's tactful and diplomatic disagreement with the APSL. The bottom line here is that Eric Raymond seems to perceive ('i' before 'e' except after 'c', right? :) polite disagreement as a personal insult. By normal standards in American society, that perception is a bit, well, odd. To be tactful.



    -j

  • ESR is one of six, soon to be seven.

    I think he meant public advocates, not board members.


    received is spelled received, not recieved.

    And "spelling flame" is spelled "ad hominem". Then again, I'm beginning to get the impression that ad hominem attacks are SOP for OSI. After all, this whole mess began with Eric Raymond calling Bruce Perens an "asshole" because Perens had the temerity to disagree publically with Raymond. Apparently that's not allowed. The rest of Raymond's justification of his endorsement of the APSL was, in essence, "It's okay because we say it is and we're in charge here".


    ESR really *was* there from the beginning. I know; I was there too.

    The beginning of what? OSI? The FSF? Or was Raymond active in the 1970's or earlier? On this point, I'm really just curious. I had always thought that Raymond surfaced in the late 1980's. I don't think it has much relevance to the present issue one way or the other.


    . . . merely letting people know that Bruce's behavior is typical of Bruce.

    I assume you mean that Bruce is always admirably tactful and diplomatic in disagreements? That's not what most people seem to think. In fact, most of them think that in general, he's as bad as Raymond. Or are you trying to maintain the absurd fiction that Bruce's open letter WRT the APSL was somehow a personal attack on Raymond? Look, we've all read that letter, and we've all read Raymond's somewhat hostile and defensive response to it. If at the time Bruce's letter was perceived as the start of a fight, that was not because of what Perens had done, but because of what we all knew Raymond would do -- namely, take it personally and start a fight. Lo and behold. We were right.



    -j

  • "I did not use the phrase 'defamation of character,' nor any semantic equivalent thereof," he wrote. "[On the other hand], the intent of my threat certainly was that I would make Bruce look like a fool and an asshole."

    Am I the only one laughing out loud about that little masterpiece of doublethink?


    -- Yet another former admirer of Eric "I, thy Advocate, am a Jealous Advocate" Raymond.


    -j
  • Sigh.

    That's because 'certain people' have been on the net long enough to remember when there was such a thing as netiquette. One of its tenents was that private email is just that; private, unless both parties wish to reveal it.

    ESR's post was childish, but Bruce's response of public reposting and calling the police (!) was _way_ overblown.

    --Brian
  • I believe your analogy falls apart when you realize that emails are in essence written down and can be stored for an indefinite time whereas phone conversations are generally not and you have an expectation that they (phone conversations) are not.

    These days, everyone knows that email from years back can come back and haunt you.

  • OK, I'm a little tentative after getting smoked in Atlantic City last week, but I could be tempted if someone out there gives me some good odds on this fight. No guns allowed, of course!

    On a side note, I'm a little disappointed how slow Slashdot was to report this. Freakin' _Mac advocacy groups_ have been talking about this for a week now, after Bruce posted Eric's threat to the APSL list. Heh, never thought I'd see the day when Mac newsgroups started scooping Slashdot on open source news. ;-)

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • You can look at this incident in a number of ways, and you can point fingers and lay blame anywhere you want, and anyone can support any take on this just by presenting the "facts" in their own way. However, one thing remains quite clear and indisputable:

    ESR sent Bruce Perens a private email, and Bruce posted that message to a public forum.

    This is unacceptable behavior on the part of a theoretically responsible adult. Private correspondance should remain private. I know that I would never post an email from someone else without checking with them first, and I'd be mightily pissed if someone posted an email of mine.

    So Bruce, if you've got a beef with ESR, don't take it to the people. It's between you and him, not us.

    -Snibor Eoj
  • I do not mean to say that you cannot quote personal email. Legally, you are perfectly within your rights to do so. What I'm saying is that you should not do so. If I say something to you, then I mean for you to read it, not the rest of the world. I know that I (and many, many other people) will adopt a different tone when interacting with a single individual than with an entire community.

    If Eric was actually making threats against Bruce (I haven't seen the email, so I don't know the precise details), then I think that it was within reason for Bruce to go to the police; that's what they're there for. But to take a personal fight to the Open Source community is, to me, unacceptable behavior. This isn't our fight, leave us out of it. And respect Eric's privacy.

    -Snibor Eoj

  • In recent years I've noticed that certain people have fanatically expounded the idea that the contents of an email message are private and cannot be quoted without permission from the author. [...] Excepts from email clearly fall under the Fair Use doctrine in copyright law.

    You may be legally correct, I'm not a lawyer. However, I believe the violation of etiquette, not law, is what people complain about most.

  • `und Drang' or `Brightblade'?

    Anyway... when your NT buddies start ribbing you over an OSS flamefest, tell them, "Yeah! Isn't it great!"

  • What if the ancestors wanted him/her to say ``fuck''?

  • Social Darwinism is about the surviving and thriving of ideologies, not people. And yes, it does exist, it's just a lot more complicated than most people think.

  • Bruce is afraid Eric might shoot him like I'm afraid you might shoot me. He was just looking for an excuse to make Eric look stupid.
  • Someone needs to whack ESR with the Clue Hammer(tm) real soon now. We can't have a "leader" that responds to criticism with even ugly character defamation, let alone what looks like the threat of violence.

    I don't really care how many lines of code ESR has done in his life, that doesn't make him qualified to be the "leader" (read: dictator) of the Open Source movement. Really, I don't see what programming experience has to do with it at all. I bet all that coding made him less social in fact. He sure does act like he's 31337 or something.

    I'm sure this isn't helping Bruce get any of his work (whatever that may be) done. Bruce has better things to do then worry about when ESR will decide to flame him again. Once again, Bruce doesn't deserve this kind of treatment, even through private e-mail. I guess I'd have to support him on making the threat public, if only because I feel the public has the right to know about our leaders' behavior.

    What we need is a leader who isn't afraid to take suggestions and can disagree with them courteously (unless they're truly insane and stupid), and is a PHB type who can explain to other PHBs all the advantages of OSS so that it actually sounds attractive, yet has enough guts to stand up against perversions of Open Source.

    So, any takers?
  • have you noticed that there are two kinds of "leaders" in our "movement"?

    there's the guys who do the work, and make things like Linux kernels and Perl compilers happen.

    then there are other guys who are esteemed most highly as they code and least lightly as they flame.
  • I also have a 17. And a nice SIG 229. I don't carry either. They spend their time in a vault. I enjoy shooting in competition. It is a challenge, and it is at the same time exciting and safe. It is not the implement, but the mind, which is the most dangerous weapon on earth.
  • Well, if someone says, "Watch your step" and immediately follows that with a quote about the pistol being the "best form of exercise", don't you think that you'd be a little concerned? I know that I would.

    As a life member of the NRA, and a former rifle competitor and pistol competitor I have to say that I am very disapointed in ESR. People who are so public about their shooting hobby have to be very careful about what they say, just to make sure that they don't give the wrong impression. ESR should have known that. He let his judgement be clouded by his dislike of Mr. Perens.

    This is just one more reason for me to think that ESR is doing more harm than good. Of course in this case the harm that he is doing is not just to the cause of his "tribe", but to the cause of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

  • Eric wants general acceptance of open source, he sent a private email telling Bruce to pull his head in, for very good reason. Bruce is damaging his cause. Bruce wants a particular model ahead of popularity of any model, for him a public fight is of no consequence. Eric's email is now public.

    Personally I have little time for people that make personal mail public without asking if it is ok first, but that my view.

    No use complaining that the public fight is limiting the acceptace of open source, it is of no consequence to Bruce.

    I think the lesson for Eric is very clear, be very careful of "free radicals". They limit you life span, and it would seem affect ones calm-a.
  • Since a lot of people with blowtorches are going to be coming through here, maybe I can redirect you. On this [netbabbler.com] site, someone has started a Gnome Vs. KDE flame war. If you want to vent and simply flame, maybe this would be a place to do it, and leave poor Rob's server alone. BTW...Gnome was dogged first, just so you know.

    ...Never ask an Electrical Engineer why, just nod your head and back away slowly.
  • If Eric, Bruce, or anyone else in a highly visible position starts to do damage to the "Open Source" community they will simply be ignored and someone else will get a chance to speak. It's a good thing that nobody elected these guys to their position- it makes it easier to take away their power if they head off into the weeds.
  • . . .by the time someone gets worked up enough to entertain thoughts of premeditated physical harm it really doesn't make much sense to single out the gun owner vs. the non-gun owner...someone in that state is going to cause trouble regardless. It is absolutly trivial for anyone, anywhere to make, buy, improvise or steal any number of possible/potential deadly weapons. . .

    I have to disagree. It is not absolutely trivial for anyone, anywhere to come up with weapons as deadly as guns. Take my dear old mother, for example. Even with her sharpest kitchen knife, she doesn't present a threat to any sort of healthy young person. With a gun, however, all she has to do is pull a trigger, and if she's close enough she can kill anybody. That's a huge difference. A non-gun owner who gets angry and wants to kill someone (using a gun) has to either find someone who has a gun and steal it from them, or find their local gun store and pass background checks and find the money to purchase the gun. These steps may not be difficult, but they make things different than for the person who has a loaded gun sitting in the drawer.

    If you have a gun handy, it is easier to act on a violent impulse than if you do not have a gun handy. That is why I argued that Bruce was correct to be more concerned with a threat from an armed ESR than he would be with a threat from an unarmed ESR.*


    *my main motivation was in debunking the AC's claim that such logic was bunk, when I believe it to be sound. It is the logic of the argument, rather than the conclusion that Bruce came to, that I was interested in. Fate of the philosophy major.
  • . . . it was a pretty damn yellow thing of Bruce to feel more fear about his safety just because ESR is a gun fan. This is the sort of bullshit "logic" that makes the most visible gun control advocates look like fools.

    I seem to have missed your argument, mr. coward. If you could be so kind as to show us what's wrong with the following:

    -----

    Scenario 1 - someone who does not own any weapons is mad at me

    Scenario 2 - someone who owns deadly weapons is mad at me

    The 2nd scenario is more threatening, because, all else being equal, the person who is angry at me and has weapons could more easily act on his anger by harming me.

    -------
    This doesn't lead me to say that Bruce is justified in fearing harm from ESR, but it does suggest that he is justified in being more afraid due to ESR's ownership of guns than he would be if ESR didn't own guns.
  • Technical errors aside (you display ignorance of firearms)

    If I am ignorant, then enlighten me. What am I missing out on here? You're saying there's more to firing a gun than aiming and pulling the trigger?

    (Obviously there can be much more to it than that, but is there necessarily more?
  • Bias alert :) I'm licensed to carry in Massachusetts, own 1 firearm (Glock 17) and head to the range often enough that it makes economic sense for me to make/load my own 9mm ammunition.

    I shoot for target/sport only, I do not hunt, I do not conceal carry and I do not keep weapons in my home for self defense.

    jslag said:
    The 2nd scenario is more threatening, because, all else being equal, the person who is angry at me and has weapons could more easily act on his anger by harming me.

    I can understand where jslag was coming from with this -- although I would argue that by the time someone gets worked up enough to entertain thoughts of premeditated physical harm it really doesn't make much sense to single out the gun owner vs. the non-gun owner...someone in that state is going to cause trouble regardless. It is absolutly trivial for anyone, anywhere to make, buy, improvise or steal any number of possible/potential deadly weapons.

    I groaned to myself when I read that Wired article -- I personally believe that it was too big of a leap for someone on one end of a (public no less!) email flame war to jump to the conclusion that because ESR owns weapons, he represented a physical threat. My impression was that Bruce acted a bit to quickly in advance of better judgement -- it was a quick and dirty way to generate some press and attack a critic by playing on stereotypes that all firearm owners are lunatics or not in full control of their faculties.

    Mind you this is just my $.02 :) As individuals we are responsible for much of our own security and I don't want to knock Bruce for doing what any normal person would do if he/she felt threatened. I just personally feel that in this case it was a bit of stretch to reach that judgement and it brought a whole new negative light onto the whole deal.

  • I agree with you on most points, but let me offer you this as a devil's advocate.

    Apple should not have the same rights as Joe Hacker, as the Apple paid its internal developers umpty bajillion dollars in development expenses to develop MacOS X. They are a corporation, which means that they borrowed their umpty bajillion dollars from stockholders. They have a responsibility to those stockholders to safeguard those dollars (IE they can't just give the code away under GPL), but they are trying to find a way that they can protect their investors' dollars and also do open source.
  • Well said, dria!

    It's the code that is our representative.

    Flamewars happen. I think I'll go recompile a kernel or two.
  • Bruce Perens is unstable. He should be on Prozac. ESR is a gun-toting looney who is dilusional and secretly fantasizes that he is Richard Stallman. Neither makes a good spokesman for free software. If both of these clowns disappeared from the scene tomorrow the free software movement would be better for it.

    This is a meaning less side show, but it is fun (like Jerry Springer!).
  • We handcuff the two of them together, and drop them off in the middle of the wilderness with nothing but a bag of nacho chips and jar of salsa.

    By the time they make it out, they'll be best buds.

    Either that, or they'll get eaten by a pack of hungry racoons.

    One of the two.

    Either way, we won't have to put up with these rather senseless flamewars, which are beginning to drag on a bit long, and no longer appear to have anything to do with what they were orignally about (what were they originally about again?)

    -Lung
  • Self-elected. Self-promoting. Questionable anti-social tendencies.

  • I think that some people don't understand that Open Source and Freedom include the freedom to bicker in public. If people think that this will spell the end of Open Source, then they are sadly mistaken. Even MicroSoft has engaged in public disputes or, worse, private disputes that were made public.

    Public debates are our strength, even if they are sometimes childish. If we are afraid of letting others know how we feel, then we'd best shutdown /. now.

  • Hackers are excellent coders, great engineers and rather intelligent. However, they tend not to make the best public figure for courting the business world. An article like this is perfect FUD fodder. Unstable "leaders" make for an unstable community.

    We know that Bruce and Eric are not our lead developers or descision makers for our community, but an article like this doesn't convey that to Mr. Business Reader. In the beginning, the merits of our community were based on the stability of our code. Now the merits of our code will be based on our stability as a community. When we all sat in basements, bedrooms, labs and offices... flame wars were fine. Now that our "leaders" are the center of attention, I think flame wars need to be kept private, or not fought.

    Just my $0.02
  • It is not absolutely trivial for anyone, anywhere to come up with weapons as deadly as guns.

    Actually it is, and more so. Up until the Oklahoma City bombing, the worst mass-murder in this country was accomplished by something routinely available to, and purchased by, almost anybody: a can of gasoline.

    take my dear old mother, for example. [...] With a gun, however, all she has to do is pull a trigger, and if she's close enough she can kill anybody

    Technical errors aside (you display ignorance of firearms), if you really consider your mother capable of killing anybody (with a gun), then she's capable of killing anybody with any of a variety of other implements of death -- such as running over random pedestrians with her car. Perhaps you should seek help for her.

    I'm surprised that all those hoplophobes out there who seem convinced that mere possesion of a firearm is a danger because of the chance of being easily triggered into homicidal fury, are content to let even cops carry guns.
  • Making somebody look like a fool and an asshole isn't defamation if he really is a fool and an asshole, or if you don't fabricate any of the evidence by which you show that.

    Certainly in this context that doesn't seem to be much of a problem, although neither party is all saint or all sinner overall.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Someone says, "Watch your step," in an email and the conclusion is that he intends to use a gun against you? Stereotypes and gun control arguments aside, isn't that a bit of a stretch?
  • How DARE you suggest that programmers might sometimes overreact! Clearly, the entire programming community (which I represent) MUST question both your intelligence and your motives. I have a big dog. I just fed him a bowl of chili. I suggest you WATCH YOUR STEP.
  • From my perspective it is Bruce Perens that has made this fight public by posting that email excerpt. What was the purpose of that? If he was truly worried for his physical safety, then notify the police and leave it at that. What he did speaks of childish political posturing.

    On the other hand, ESR was trying to avoid mutual public defacing in the interests of the open source community. It takes a little bit of maturity to refrain from acting in like manner when attacked in public. Someone correct me (with specifics) if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge ESR has never INITIATED a public attack.

    On the other hand, he has done a LOT to promote the growth of Linux and corporate acceptance of Open Source. His efforts have gone a long way in helping me decide to chart a path towards an enterprise solution on Linux for our university. If someone truly believes that he is hurting the community, then lets have some specifics. Otherwise, leave your immature feelings and vague denuciations at the door.
  • ESR is one of six, soon to be seven.

    received is spelled received, not recieved.

    ESR really *was* there from the beginning. I know; I was there too.

    ESR's threat is believable; not that it would involve violence, merely letting people know that Bruce's behavior is typical of Bruce.
    -russ
  • Unless you can give me the URL to an archive page containing ESR's threat, I'm going to continue to believe that it was private mail. It's not the sort of thing which ESR would have done publicly.
    -russ
  • Bruce, if you don't post a URL to the message you claim ESR wrote to a mailing list, I'm threatening never to believe you again. If you claim to be Bruce Perens, I'm going to ask for proof. Publicly.
    -russ
  • About the spelling flame: I worked hard to learn how to spell received correctly. It was in my master's thesis about a gazillion times (transmitted was also in there big-time) and I'll be damned if I'll sit by and watch someone else get it wrong.

    We really don't know what ESR's threat was in response to, do we, because Bruce took it out of context.

    Longevity in the free software movement matters. It shows a certain personal committment to it, as opposed to opportunism.
    -russ
  • by Aaron M. Renn ( 539 ) <arenn@urbanophile.com> on Monday April 12, 1999 @02:00PM (#1938461) Homepage
    In recent years I've noticed that certain people have fanatically expounded the idea that the contents of an email message are private and cannot be quoted without permission from the author. I do not understand this. Excepts from email clearly fall under the Fair Use doctrine in copyright law. Additionally, this is not the way we treat other forms of interaction. If someone called me on the phone, or we spoke face to face, the contents of the discussion would not ordinarily be considered private. Unless someone specifically requests that information be kept private normally we don't ask permission to repeat what people told us to others.

    Imagine that someone showed up at my house and screamed threats at me. Would you claim I should not be allowed to tell anyone that he did that without his permission? That seems like a dubious standard and one that is not followed in everyday life. We should apply the same standards to email that we apply to other interpersonal communication. The contents are not private unless specifically identified as such.
  • by Aaron M. Renn ( 539 ) <arenn@urbanophile.com> on Monday April 12, 1999 @01:25PM (#1938462) Homepage
    First off, that brief email quote almost certainly falls under the concept of Fair Use.

    Second, I do not understand why people think email messages are supposed to be considered totally private. If we spoke face to face, you would never consider the things we talked about private unless there was some specific reason to believe they were. (ie, I told you "don't repeat this"). We generally don't have to ask people for permission to relay the things they told us in person to others. I don't see why email is any different.
  • by Aaron M. Renn ( 539 ) <arenn@urbanophile.com> on Monday April 12, 1999 @05:10PM (#1938463) Homepage
    Hmm. I don't think that is much of a distinction. What is better, for me to paraphrase what you said, almost certainly getting something wrong in the translation, or to post exact words? People complained on this topic about posting a handful of words of context; imagine posting just someone else's interpretation of that snippet. How much more out of context and potentially misleading that is.

  • The message I replied to specifically made issue of posting private email message. (Which Bruce did not do, BTW). However, you are correct that things should not be taken out of context in order to mislead.
  • I think Raymond started hacking in the late 1970's. He was certainly around before the late 1980's. He claims to have been one of the first GNU volunteers back in 1982 or 83 and I have no reason to doubt him on that.
  • by doug ( 926 ) on Monday April 12, 1999 @11:54AM (#1938466)
    Hotheads are nothing new, nor ares personality conflicts. These two people seem to have strong feelings (understatement, eh?) and they erupt every once in a while. This is just normal human behavior. We've all seen it hundreds of times.

    The thing I don't get is why so many people make a big deal about it. I bet board members at MS, IBM or wherever get in fights too. But since that is behind closed doors, no one knows about them. In our little world, we don't have as many doors to hide behind, so our spats are public. Does that change anything?

    The only thing I can think of is that people look to Bruce, Eric, Linus, Richard and so on as our "leaders" and expect some sort of coup to happen after a fight. While I respect the "big names", I don't feel like I "follow" any of them. I don't have a leader. Our "movement" is lead from below. http://www.perl.org/news.html has a reference to Larry Wall saying that 'Perl culture mandates a "bottom-up" approach.' I think this is true of most (all?) of the open/free/whatever software packages.

    Let us listen what these "names" have to say, think about thier ideas, and get on with our lives.

    - doug
  • by vallee ( 2192 ) on Monday April 12, 1999 @12:28PM (#1938467)
    Since open-source is like an industry to itself, it's normal for there to be spats, battles, snipes and even all-out wars.

    Look at the database industry - do you think Oracle and Microsoft get along all of the time? Or Apple and Microsoft for that matter? Of course not, and when they disagree, we call it normal competition.

    The reason that Bruce and Eric's dispute is such big news is that open-source is being perceived as a "company", and not an industry model. For instance, an open flame-war between Ballmer and Gates would cause some eyebrows to be raised, for sure. But why would an open flame-war between Ellison and Gates cause that kind of response? Hell, there have been dozens of examples of that kind of conflict, and who cares?

    What we have to do is strive to promote the presentation and interpretation of the open-source movement as just that: a model for building software. And the same way any other "model" can have within it fierce competition and disagreement (witness the capitalist model), so too can open-source.

    No biggie. -p
    --

  • I didn't really have a problem with what Chris said in the interview. I mean, he could have said that insults and threats are not cool, but he said I over-reacted, which was fair.
  • by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) <bruce@perens.com> on Monday April 12, 1999 @07:44PM (#1938469) Homepage Journal
    It came in at 3. Blame the moderators for those extra 2 points.

    Agreed that this is all quite silly. Next time anything like this happens, I'll do my best to bury it.

    What just astounds me is that I can't blow my nose without it showing up in Wired. This while bombs were falling in Europe.

    Bruce

  • I mailed you the message. If you want a published URL, put it up on your own web server.

    Bruce

  • I'll mail the message to you, and you put it up on your own web server if you wish. Not me, I dropped the issue, remember.

    Bruce

  • I sent you the mail. Judge for yourself.
  • by Gromer ( 9058 ) on Monday April 12, 1999 @03:52PM (#1938473)

    I think leadership is really the essence of the problem. As I have posted elsewhere [slashdot.org], the hacker community doesn't have that much at stake as far as the OSI is concerned. Furthermore, neither of these guys matters all that much in terms of the software. Fetchmail can go on without ESR, and Debian can go on without Perens. These two aren't really that important. It's our strange relationship with leadership that really makes this such a point of contention.

    Note:I must apologize in advance, this comment discusses U.S. politics, albeit in a non-partisan way, for purposes of comparison. My apologies to non-americans, who may not feel the full benefit of the comparison

    Hackers as a rule, do not take well to leadership. Witness how ready we are to barbecue anybody who achieves any sort of prominence in the community. Witness my own struggles and failures as president of my high school's computer club. Only the most incredibly self-effacing, such as Linus, are spared. This anti-autoritarian streak is generally a Good Thing, keeping us from being dragged down a questionable path by a charismatic leader. It does, however, give the community an anarchistic character which is sometimes a hindrance.

    Despite our hatred of them, we still have a very human need for leaders, if only as someone to blame things on. Thus figures such as RMS, Linus, and ESR rise to prominence and become our communitiy's equivalent of politicians. Unlike politicians, however, their prominence is not totally voluntary. We have so far avoided nosing into their personal lives for the most part. Their every public move, however, is subject to analysis, criticism, opposition, and flameage. The immediacy of the internet gives this a much more personal nature than is common in American politics. One is reminded, however, of William Safire's column a couple years back calling Hillary Clinton a "pathological liar," to which Bill essentially responed (in public, mind you) that if he were not the president, he'd give Safire a punch in the face.

    In the case of Perens and ESR, the politician comparison is even more apt, because they have deliberately made themselves very publicly visible, in order to create change, in the community and outside it. And, like many American politicians, their personal rancor is as much for the public's benefit as for each other. There is a reason that this battle is not being waged in private e-mails, but being posted on websites and in mailing lists. Ad hominem arguments make great propaganda, and are surprisingly persuasive, even to us self-describedly smart people. I know my opinions on the APSL jumped back and fourth on a daily basis based solely on whose response I had read most recently. And, as with the Safire incident, what started as an essentially political matter has become very personal.

    Reconciliation between ESR and Perens is probably impossible at this point. This particular issue will die out pretty quickly, although the flames will spring up pretty readily whenever the next liscencing debate comes up. The real lesson that I am taking from this, and that I hope others will take from this, is to question leadership. Oddly enough, this anti-authoritarian community has proved surprisingly ready to embrace authority and the assumptions that underlie it. Everyone equates ESR with Open Source, when the two are, of course, separate. ESR's faults are not Open Source's. Likewise, Free Software is more than RMS and Perens. More fundamentally, we are very willing to see these issues in black-and-white terms. Gnome xor KDE. Free Software xor Open Source. This sort of either-or thinking plays right into the hands of politicians. When there are only 2 ways of thinking, you have to not only agree with an idea, but you have to agree with a person, and that gives them power.

    So, the real solution to this conflict is not (as I was inclined to suggest) that ESR and Perens shut up. Rather, we need to learn to take them with a grain of salt, and realise why these battles don't have to matter to us. Leadership is useful, and often worthwhile, but not when it limits our options, constrains our thinking, or distracts us from real issues.

  • by dria ( 9758 ) on Monday April 12, 1999 @03:01PM (#1938474)
    In the long run, the OSS movement isn't about leaders or corporate acceptance or the public perception of this community. This movement is about software, dammit, nothing else. Sure, Linux and OSS are currently in the spotlight, but that's a new situation the community is being forced to deal with. Soon enough the spotlight will swing and focus elsewhere and Linux/OSS will continue to trundle along in relative obscurity again.

    This community doesn't have "leaders"...this community has "significant contributors". No one voted ESR or Perens or Raymond in as spokespersons, they just ended up there because of what they contributed (and continue to contribute) to this movement and to this community. Eventually other people will become the spokespeople for this movement...again, not because they're elected in any fashion, but because of what they do...because of what they contribute.

    I'll now hoist up our very own Commanding Taco as prime example. He's a guy with a website fer gawd's sake. No one voted him in as maintainer of this website, he just built the damned thing. And what happened? Boom. The website got popular. Linux/OSS ended up in the spotlight. Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda ends up with a full page spread in Wired, ends up on the Advisory Board for linux.com, ends up being interviewed by the media...blah blah blah. No one voted for this guy for anything. Rob just actively contributed to the movement, and in contributing has ended up as a highly visible potential-spokesperson.

    My point? Who the hell cares if Bruce and Eric fight like dogs?Who cares if they hate one another's guts and like airing their dirty laundry in public? I don't care. This doesn't change the amount of respect I have for them, because my respect is earned by their real-life contributions.

    Personally I don't give two hoots if there is a wide-spread corporate acceptance and adoption of Linux/OSS. I don't. Even if the current surge in popularity continues unabated, it's going to be *years* before I am able to use Linux full-time in the workplace. Corporate adoption isn't just about getting word out about the quality of the software. There's a whole lot of other issues that have to be overcome: changing platforms is high-risk; retraining staff who have been trained on Windows for years is an expensive proposition; hiring staff to create and maintain the networks is also expensive; there are huge gargantuan piles of data lying around in proprietary format; there are tons of widely used proprietary applications which do not have Open Source equivalents yet.

    Etc. As long as there are people who are willing to continue developing OS software, it doesn't matter at all if the corporate world adopts OSS. Not yet...not for years yet. This isn't going to be a Sudden Sweeping Change that zooms around the world leaving millions of smiling happy OSS users around the world. Right now the spotlight is on this community. The spotlight will move on long before Total Global Domination is a reality.

    So...who cares if these guys fight? Let 'em have at it. It's entertaining the hell out of the press, and it's not like none of us have seen a flamewar before.

    In the long run this movement will be a success not because of our spokespeople, but because of the quality of the code, documentation, and technical support. Not to mention the full-on support of open standards and a foundational philosophy that is non-exclusionary and puts powerful computing tools into the hands of the common people. Viva la revolucion, and all that.

    - dria
  • by richnut ( 15117 ) on Monday April 12, 1999 @12:26PM (#1938475)
    It boggles my mind that RMS is the guy here with
    the best grasp on reality. At least he has good reason for his holy war and continues to fight it without resulting to petty threats orname calling...

    If they could all just be like Linus and stay out of the holy wars. *sigh*


    -Rich
  • by Kaa ( 21510 ) on Tuesday April 13, 1999 @08:46AM (#1938476) Homepage
    Heh. Does a Ph.D. in history count as missing out on a decent liberal arts education?

    Kaa
  • by Kaa ( 21510 ) on Tuesday April 13, 1999 @08:51AM (#1938477) Homepage
    Just because you breed faster doesn't mean you leave more copies of your genes around. People in Mozambique, for example, have higher birth rates than in the United States, and yet the population of Mozambique declines (AIDS + civil war).

    And you are not taking a long-term view. Having a BMW is not a survival trait. However, having a working society is. Ineffective societies die out, successful societies let their members multiply. Just don't think in terms of years, think in terms of centuries.

    Kaa
  • by BeNude ( 28969 ) on Monday April 12, 1999 @12:09PM (#1938478) Homepage
    Seems to me that Eric and Bruce's public disagreements have degenerated into personal attacks. Lets not the rest of us fall into the same trap.

    Lets also remember that there are real issues that face us at the root of their disagreement and that we as a community have to decide how to address them, although perhaps in a more civil manner?

  • by DonkPunch ( 30957 ) on Monday April 12, 1999 @03:34PM (#1938479) Homepage Journal
    ...is a private matter and is NOBODY'S BUSINESS but mine and his.

    Maybe if you took the time to read my brilliant essay "The Catheter is Bizarre" you might begin to recognize my DIVINE RIGHT to speak for programmers everywhere -- even the poor slobs using Visual Basic!
  • by DonkPunch ( 30957 ) on Monday April 12, 1999 @05:10PM (#1938480) Homepage Journal
    I've read better essays on the men's room wall! For some examples of REAL writing, I refer you to my MANY previous slashdot posts:

    "What does RMS stand for?" -- a brilliant ASCII tome (EBCDIC version also available) in which I point out that Free Software vs. Free Beer is irrelevant, because bars have been offering Free Peanuts for years. Indeed, if the FSF wants to be noticed, they should push for Free Nachos.

    "Where's a Moderator When You Need One?" -- in which I explain, in detail, the Rob Malda-led conspiracy to systematically REDUCE the scores of my posts through biased and unfair moderation.

    "Jon Katz Sux" -- pretty much speaks for itself.

    Of course, unlike you, I would NEVER stoop to threats of violins to make my point. I'll let my writing speak for me and the entire slashdot community, whether they like it or not.
  • by Aaron M. Renn ( 539 ) <arenn@urbanophile.com> on Monday April 12, 1999 @12:11PM (#1938481) Homepage
    Bruce Perens had a long history of blowups and angry exchanges prior to this. In fact, he once claimed on slashdot that he was through with free software forever. This history of instability did not appear to bother Eric Raymond until such time as Bruce split with him. Then all of sudden Raymond suddenly started noticing that Bruce has a tendency to go off half cocked.

    My understanding of Eric Raymond is also that he has had numerous spats like this with people in the past. There's this, the trademark dispute with SPI, the ncurses affair, and more I hear.

    Of course I'm in no position to complain. I've been in quite a few flame fests in my lifetime. People say things in the heat of anger that they regret later. Unfortunately, in the modern electronic world it is there for anyone to see forever. Most of us don't have our every electronic word or posting examined like these two guys do.

    How about the two of them just let it drop. And make a committment to try to not take things personally in the future, even if they think it should be.
  • by Aaron M. Renn ( 539 ) <arenn@urbanophile.com> on Monday April 12, 1999 @05:14PM (#1938482) Homepage
    It only seems to be a breach of "netiquette" if someone decides later they are embarrassed by an email message they sent. At least that is only time I ever hear people complain. There are a number of people (Richard Stallman is one, for example), who have never bought into your definition of netiquette. I fundamentally don't believe someone can send me an email full of threats and flames and legitimately expect me to keep that private.
  • by gavinhall ( 33 ) on Monday April 12, 1999 @11:43AM (#1938483)
    Posted by Mike@ABC:

    Geez...can't these guys take an anger management course or something? This isn't just a highly public flame war between two people -- it's something that effects everyone who's a part of the open source community.

    The suits -- the guys who eventually make decisions about implementing software -- are going to read this. They're going to say "Good Lord, this whole Linux thing is supported by gun-toting yahoos." And then they'll go run Solaris. Or Windows NT.

    What I don't think the community understands is that all of this stuff is public now. There's no such thing as a private flame war any more. My own mom can read any of this stuff. So can CIOs. For the good of the community, these two need to take their little feud into a private mailing list. If they want open source to prosper, these public flames will NOT help. With the rest of the world watching nowadays, y'all can't afford this BS.

    Again, this is just my opinion. I could be wrong.

  • by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) <bruce@perens.com> on Monday April 12, 1999 @03:46PM (#1938484) Homepage Journal
    The mail was not private - Eric wrote it on a mailing list. But the point here is that threats are never OK. Neither is it OK to stomp on opposition or shut off debate. Read the APSL Open Letter [perens.com] that Eric was responding to. It is a polite and welcoming letter pointing out some technical problems, and hardly worthy of a threat in response.

    I'd never been threatened before and really did not know how to react - I think I took it more seriously because of the .signature, which was some Jefferson quote about the pistol being the best form of exercise. That was the next sentence after "Watch your step". Of course Eric is smart enough that he won't ever do anything like this again.

    Eric communicated, through Dan Quinlan who was attempting to mediate, that he did not mean violence. At that point, I publicly dropped the issue. Dan did use the words "character defamation" in relaying Eric's message. Of course, it's hard to drop an issue when it's already in a mailing list. Both Eric and I made it clear to Leander at Wired that this was a non-issue. Other journalists, who I guess had more to write about, did drop the story when requested, including ZDNet and all of the various webzines. It felt really ironic having Eric and Brucie had a fight as the top headline at Wired while bombs were falling on Yugoslavia.

    I spent part of yesterday patching Electric Fence [perens.com], there's a new beta on my site. My DSL has been running full out for days serving downloads of the Digital U.S. Street Map [perens.com], which I hope will seed the development of many free mapping programs. All of this is much more important than any little fight with Eric.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • by Kaa ( 21510 ) on Monday April 12, 1999 @12:09PM (#1938485) Homepage
    Please note that our two flamethrower-toting friends are free people and clearly have the right to say anything they want in any public forum. I hope nobody is really disputing this.

    The real question thus becomes, was this public flamage a wise thing to do? Before your average Slashdot AC starts jumping up and down and shouting "Stupid! Stupid! Losers! Assholes!" I would like to point out that both Raymond and Perens are highly intelligent and articulate people. I am quite sure that they can decide on the wisdom of their actions without the help of more flamage directed at them. I really don't see the point of tsk-tsking at them.

    Having said that, I would like to point out that my carefree attitude towards this spat is mostly based on my belief in social Darwinian evolution: the losers will die out (and, yes, I know, they breed faster). I do NOT think that the corporate attitude towards Open Source is going to be influenced by private disagreements, even if vocal and highly visible.

    Kaa

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