Leading items and editorials

lsbappchk · None of the claims are correct, which makes a kernel update unnecessary for this particular problem

runqueue_lock
Rules.make
make
Rules.make
Makefile.in
foo.o
CONFIG_BAR
Makefile.in
	select(CONFIG_BAR foo.o)

From: "Leather, sean P" <Sean.Leather@MW.Boeing.com>
To: "'letters@lwn.net'" <letters@lwn.net>
Subject: Three years ... and still counting!
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 09:12:00 -0600

Dear LWN,

I was very excited to see your article on Mozilla and how that project has
significantly improved.

In the weeks before this issue, I had researched Bugzilla (Mozilla's
web-based bug-tracking software) for use in a local setting. At first
download, I tested it out and, to my dismay, found an obvious bug.
Disappointed but not without hope (in the open-source philosophy), I logged
into the real Bugzilla to report my first bug.

As I was about to submit my report, a certain florescent light bulb went off
above me (i.e. the lights went out ... several times, but, fortunately, the
electricity stayed on): somebody else may have already sent in such a
report. So I queried. Somebody, actually several people, had already
reported it. Then I searched more and found a long discussion on the best
methods for squashing this particular insect-like problem.

It appeared as if three or four hackers had been submitting patches while
others conjectured about each. After each new patch was submitted, there
were less "I like this, but..." statements made. With this, I could read
through the steps of how a bug was fixed. I thought to myself: this is how
it should be, this is Open Source.

Cheesy though that thought is, my spirits were lifted (no, that does not
mean I was drinking). I realized that open-source software is where all the
action is (meaning inter-action). It also dawned on me that Mozilla has put
together a darn good collection of open-source projects that even facilitate
other open-source projects (Bugzilla, Bonsai, Tinderbox, etc.).

To say the least, I was impressed with not only Mozilla's software, but also
their methodology. Even though their programmers may not write the panacea
of programs or the code that solves every problem the first time (believe
me, I found several other bugs), they resolve their problems with expediency
unfound in most places.

Then I downloaded the latest "unstable" version and returned to my work.
Fortunately, it fixed all the bugs I had found and then some.

On a side note, if a user cannot have this kind of communication and
interaction with a developer, that person (who may see a solution right away
like I did) cannot propose the kind of answer or question that may be
needed. For example, a certain well-known large company that recently
announced the "release" of their source to other certain large companies
will not profit from the true benefits of open-source development.

The moral of the story is: "learn from the best, or die like the rest."

Yours truly,
Sean

 -----------------------------------------------------------------
   Sean Leather                    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   Cooperative Education Employee  . Sean.P.Leather@Boeing.com .
   Simulation Networking R & D     .                           .
   The Boeing Company              . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
 -----------------------------------------------------------------

From: Richard Kay <rich@copsewood.net>
Subject: Re: http://www.redpepper.org.uk/x-open-source.html
A World Without Microsoft
To: scott.redding@virgin.net
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 14:49:46 +0100 (BST)

Thanks for this on-line article. Software network economics have more to
do with the "chaordic" form of organisation than anarchism. You will
find some relevant articles about this on http://www.chaordic.org/

While the "chaordic" term was coined relatively recently it covers
structures which are not entirely new. The shape of such an organisation 
is fractal and not heirarchical, where the information needed to replicate 
the entire organisation is present in small parts of it and it exists 
on many levels.  A chaordic entity is capable of refining information. 
Here the chaotic patterns and experiments of creative change are balanced 
against there being just sufficient order to enable the entity to 
function coherently without centralised control, other than through
the shared guiding principles which underpin the existence of the 
organisation. 

This chaordic form of organisation is present in natural languages,
traditional markets, the telephone system and more recently the VISA 
and Internet networks.

In the case of open-source/free software the unifying principle behind this
movement is the benefit gained from the sharing of computer source code.
Does it matter that this benefit is partly moral and political and partly 
practical ?

In your otherwise excellent and balanced article Heather Sharp writes:

"It is the opposition between the pragmatic and the idealistic/libertarian 
rationales which now threatens to split the movement." 

I must disagree, because you might as well talk about splitting
the Internet itself or the telephone network, because not everyone
who uses these things agrees with everyone else. These ideas are 
non-starters and seem based on fundamental misconceptions based on
a complete lack of technical understanding. 

Given that software once made available to the free software/open source
pool cannot be taken out of it, the benefit is greater than the loss if 2 
development groups go off and create competing programs or promotional 
initiatives, as they sometimes do, because no differences of
opinion on technical or ideological issues can prevent the best software
from migrating between these groups unless they deny to themselves the 
evolutionary advantages of wheel-reinvention avoidance and open public review 
and contribution which derives from code sharing in the first place. If 
one part or another of this movement denies to themselves these benefits 
they are no longer part of a movement which derives from no more than 
these benefits in the first place. Consequently a movement based on
this definition cannot be divided QED.  

If the free software/open source movement were a form of organisation which
required heirarchical relationships to function as such and were incapable of 
otherwise effectively coordinating activities led through the contribution
of many centres, organisations and individuals this kind of perspective 
difference might be capable of dividing rather than strengthening our 
movement. But if this were so we would be unable to offer any 
genuinely revolutionary perspective or possibilities in any case.

Richard Kay
rich@copsewood.net

Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 06:58:11 -0600 (MDT)
From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
To: rich@copsewood.net
Subject: Re:  http://www.redpepper.org.uk/x-open-source.html
A World Without Microsoft

    In your otherwise excellent and balanced article Heather Sharp writes:

    "It is the opposition between the pragmatic and the idealistic/libertarian 
    rationales which now threatens to split the movement." 

The mistake is in the phrase "threaten to".  This is half wrong, and
half wrong.

Philosophically, the disagreements between views like mine and views
like Eric Raymond are so large that we should not be considered one
movement.  But these disagreements are nothing new--we have disagreed
in this way for 15 years or more.  It is too late for them to
"threaten" to cause a split; whatever splitting they are going to
cause has already happened.

At the same time, we remain one community, still working together much
of the time despite these philosophical disagreements.  I see no sign
that our disagreements threaten the community's overall state of
cooperation.  Of course, it is not perfect cooperation, but perfection
is too much to ask.

I have not seen the article you refer to, and I am not sure where it was
published.  Could you possibly mail me a copy, and perhaps tell me
how to send email to its author?

Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 09:18:46 -0400
From: "Eric S. Raymond" <esr@thyrsus.com>
To: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: http://www.redpepper.org.uk/x-open-source.html
A World Without Microsoft

Richard, I wrote the following in response to the article.  I'm glad we
broadly agree on the extent to which the article exagerrates the divisions.

>Way too much of this article is breathless nonsense, beginning with
>the claim that "the community is cracking along its ideological
>faultlines".  The fatuity of this claim is demonstrated by the fact
>that even the most extreme partisans of both tendencies Ms. Sharp
>describes still share code and use each others' licenses, and show no
>signs that they will ever cease to do so.  
>
>Throughout the article, Ms. Sharp ascribes to hackers motivations that
>most of us would find either irrelevant or repugnant. Among us, the
>act and the the personal rewards of craftsmanship easily trump
>politics and other toxic social games.  Her proposal that we are "a
>living alternative to the individualism of the average big-buck
>business environment" is particularly ironic, since we generally
>regard ourselves and behave as individualists par excellence, and
>reject the corporate world precisely for its deliberate suppression of
>that quality.  Reflexive leftist cant has blinded her to what is
>actually going on here.
>
>Ms. Sharp's "there is a strand to the thinking of the more radical
>sections of the Open Source community which could be classed as
>libertarian" is an amusing instance of the same blindness.  One of the
>few points of agreement between libertarians like myself and
>anti-libertarians like Paulina Borsook (the author of "Cyber-Selfish")
>is that libertarian thinking and values are not merely a "strand" but
>all-pervasive in the hacker culture.  The issues hacker activism has
>themed itself on (privacy, free speech rights, access to strong
>cryptography, DeCSS) are libertarian/individualist at their core, and
>our behavior is far more simply explained by reference to libertarian
>ideals of individualism and autonomy than through Ms. Sharp's
>distorting lens of categories like "neo-colonialism".
>
>Political categories aside, in the last paragraph Ms. Sharp pulls a
>clever bit of ambiguity that confuses a major collision of world-views
>with a minor and relatively superficial factional dispute.  The gulf
>between the proprietary world and the open-source/free-software
>community is vastly more important to all parties involved than the
>relatively insignificant differences between the idealists and
>pragmatists within our community.  Indeed, by exaggerating the
>importance of the latter division, Ms. Sharp plays into the hands of
>Microsoft and the proprietary-softeware behemoths.
>
>Fortunately, Ms. Sharp's misconceptions matter very little.  However
>much theory and rhetoric may superficially divide the hacker culture,
>practice fundamentally unites us.  We may argue with each other about
>why we do what we do, but we'll keep doing it together nevertheless --
>and that propaganda of the deed, that ongoing and successful co-option
>of the infrastructure of 21st-century society, will be far more
>important in changing the world than any amount of rhetorical vaporing
>by Richard Stallman or myself or anybody else.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

"...The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document. The First
Amendment doesn't say you have a right to speak out unless the
government has a 'compelling interest' in censoring the Internet. The
Second Amendment doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms
until some madman plants a bomb. The Fourth Amendment doesn't say you
have the right to be secure from search and seizure unless some FBI
agent thinks you fit the profile of a terrorist. The government has no
right to interfere with any of these freedoms under any circumstances."
	-- Harry Browne, 1996 USA presidential candidate, Libertarian Party

Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions On the Desktop Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Linux History Letters See also: last week's Development page.	Development projects News and Editorials Larry Wall on the design of Perl 6 Larry Wall has posted a column entitled Apocalypse 1: The Ugly, the Bad, and the Good describing where the Perl 6 language definition process stands: "What I will be revealing in these columns will be the design of Perl 6. Or more accurately, the beginnings of that design, since the design process will certainly continue after I've had my initial say in the matter. I'm not omniscient, rumors to the contrary notwithstanding. This job of playing God is a little too big for me. Nevertheless, someone has to do it, so I'll try my best to fake it. And I'll expect all of you to help me out with the process of creating history. We all have to do our bit with free will." The Perl 6 design process became stalled for a while due to the complexity of the task: "I couldn't get enough of the problem into my head at once to make good progress, and I'm not actually very good at subdividing problems. My forte is synthesis, not analysis." After pondering the difficulty of organizing RFCs, Larry came up with the following strategy: "it occurred to me (finally!) that the proper order to think about things was, more or less, the order of the chapters in the Camel Book." And that naturally lead to: "I intend to produce one Apocalypse for each Chapter, so Apocalypse 1 corresponds to Chapter 1: An Overview of Perl." The RFCs were organized along the lines of the Camel Book chapters and were rated with Problem, Solution, and Acceptance levels. The following RFCs were selected for coverage in Apocalypse 1: RFC 141: This Is The Last Major Revision RFC 28: Perl should stay Perl RFC 16: Keep default Perl free of constraints such as warnings and strict RFC 73: All Perl core functions should return objects RFC 26: Named operators versus functions Larry's comments about RFC 141 cause a bit of concern: "First, Perl will support multiple syntaxes that map onto a single semantic model. Second, that single semantic model will in turn map to multiple platforms. Multiple syntaxes sound like an evil thing, but they're really necessary for the evolution of the language. To some extent we already have a multi-syntax model in Perl 5; every time you use a pragma or module, you are warping the language you're using. As long as it's clear from the declarations at the top of the module which version of the language you're using, this causes little problem. This idea certainly violates the Simpler is Better principle. Perl is already well known for trying to be everything to everyone. That is, no doubt, a factor that has made the language popular, but we wonder if the idea is being carried too far. Time will tell whether this proves to be a good idea or an addition that will forever more confuse Perl programmers. Another point of view on the Perl 6 design process comes from Perl developer Damian Conway, who talks about his contributions to Perl 5+i: "One thing that is becoming apparent, though, is that Larry is targeting Perl 6 as a meta-language, as well as a programming language in its own right. It seems likely that a large number of other languages will be built in-, with-, and over- Perl 6". We sincerely hope that the Perl 6 design process will stay on course and guide the ship of Perl through the rocky channels ahead. A well designed Perl 6 could provide the many Perl programmers with smooth sailing for years to come. Documentation LDP Weekly News, April 4, 2001. The latest updates for the LDP have been posted, including updates for the NetMeeting, Plug-n-Play, Modem, DSL and DocBook HOWTO's, plus a new document describing the SGML document type definition linuxdoc. Education SEUL/Edu report for April 2, 2001. The April 2, 2001 edition of the SEUL/Edu report is out. Topics include Open Source software in UK education, the IT4Schools project, and 8 new educational programs released since the last report. One interesting new programs is Papyrus, a Java based multi-platform library management software tool. Embedded Systems The State of Embedded Linux (LinuxDevices.com). Rick Lehrbaum has published the slides from his talk on The state of Embedded Linux from last week's CLIQ conference. Multimedia Streaming Media With Linux Resources Page (O'Reilly). The O'Reilly Linux DevCenter has published a new Resource Page that contains numerous links to Linux streaming media tools and sites. Network Management OpenNMS Update, Vol 2., Issue 14, April 3, 2001. This week's update for the OpenNMS project includes notes on preparing for the 0.7.2 release, SCM changes and more detailed information on the changes to the event subsystem planned for 0.7.2. Science Why FreePM? (Linux Med News). Linux Med News looks at FreePM, an open source medical Practice Management application. "A key reason for using opensource is the security of knowing that there will never come a time when your business is forced to change or upgrade applications because of market forces outside of your control. As long as you have the complete source code, are permitted by license to modify it and it is written in a reasonably popular programming language you will be able to maintain it." Web-site Development Zope Weekly News. The increasingly misnamed Zope Weekly News has come out with a new issue. Amusingly, it's dated December 6, but, since it covers things like the Zope 2.3.1 release, we're not buying that. Zope 2.3.1 released. Zope 2.3.1 is out; see the announcement for details. Among other things, it includes some security fixes, an IA-64 binary distribution, and a number of catalog changes. Improving mod_perl Driven Site's Performance (ApacheToday). Stas Bekman discusses mod_perl optimizations, in part 6 of a series on ApacheToday. "It's desirable to avoid forking under mod_perl. Since when you do, you are forking the entire Apache server, lock, stock and barrel. Not only is your Perl code and Perl interpreter being duplicated, but so is mod_ssl, mod_rewrite, mod_log, mod_proxy, mod_speling (it's not a typo!) or whatever modules you have used in your server, all the core routines, etc." Window Systems GTK, GLib 1.3.3 released. GTK 1.3.3 and GLib 1.3.3 have been released. Both versions are considered developers releases intended for programmers working on porting to the upcoming 2.0 libraries. The release of these two versions of the popular GTK+ set of libraries is intended as a tentative API-freeze release, meaning major API changes (aside from those listed as open 2.0 bugs) are unlikely to occur before GTK+-2.0 is released. ICS adds themes to Motif. According to this press release, ICS has started a project to add theme support to Motif, including planned support for existing GNOME and KDE themes. Gnocl version 0.0.1 released. The first release of gnocl, a Tcl extension which implements gtk and gnome widgets, has been announced. Gnocl is released with a BSD license. Section Editor: Forrest Cook	April 5, 2001 Application Links GIMP Mozilla Galeon High Availability ht://Dig mnoGoSearch MagicPoint Wine Worldforge Zope Open Source Code Collections Berlios Freshmeat OpenSourceDirectory Savannah Le Serveur Libre SourceForge Sweetcode

	Programming Languages Caml Caml Weekly News for March 30, 2001. The March 30, 2001 edition of the Caml Weekly News is available. News this week centers on the first release of CDK, the Camel Development Kit. Java IRC bot dreams (IBM developerWorks). David Seager shows how to write a Java based IRC bot in an IBM developerWorks article. "On a basic level, a bot is just a program that simulates an IRC client. It listens for messages and chat it recognises, and it performs useful functions and sends messages to users. The bot I've detailed in this article can respond to private messages from IRC users and can be easily extended to handle different commands, as well as perform other tasks." Lisp New CMU Common Lisp Documentation. A new release of the EncyCMUCLopedia collection of Common Lisp documents has been made available. Perl Perl 5 Porters for April 1, 2001. The April 1 edition of Perl 5 Porters is out. Topics this week include Perl and HTML::Parser, Autoloading Errno, Math::Big, pack, unpack, and Taint testing. Python This week's Python-URL. Here is Dr. Dobb's Python-URL for April 2, 2001, covering Guido's April Fool joke, the Parrot language, and some serious stuff too. Python-Dev summary for March 28. Here is the Python-Dev summary for March 28. Topics discussed include the 2.0.1 release, generator implementation, and portable filesystem information modules. Extreme Python (O'Reilly). Stephen Figgins writes about the use of Extreme Programming techniques in developing Python code. "Extreme Programming (or XP) is a set of 12 programming practices for rapid application development for small development teams. The rapid nature of the development has a natural appeal to Python programmers." Shell Scripts Common threads: Awk by example, Part 3 (IBM developerWorks). Daniel Robbins digs into the mysteries of AWK in the third article on IBM's developerWorks. For the full story, check out Part 1 and Part 2 in the series. Tcl/Tk This week's Tcl-URL. Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL for April 2 is out, with the usual collection of news from the Tcl/Tk development community. PHP PHP Weekly News for April 2, 2001. The April 2, 2001 edition of the PHP Weekly News is out. Topics include the XML-RPC extension, problems with Midgard, a PHP-GTK user Web site, and more. XML Spinning your XML for screens of all sizes (IBM developerWorks). Alan Booth and Kathryn Heninger Briton discuss the use of HTML as an intermediate language for displaying XML on a variety of screen sizes. Section Editor: Forrest Cook*	Language Links Caml Caml Hump Tiny COBOL Erlang g95 Fortran Gnu Compiler Collection (GCC) Gnu Compiler for the Java Language (GCJ) Guile Haskell IBM Java Zone Jython Free the X3J Thirteen (Lisp) Use Perl O'Reilly's perl.com Dr. Dobbs' Perl PHP PHP Weekly Summary Daily Python-URL Python.org Python.faqts Python Eggs Ruby Ruby Garden MIT Scheme Schemers Squeak Smalltalk Why Smalltalk Tcl Developer Xchange Tcl-tk.net O'Reilly's XML.com Regular Expressions

Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions On the Desktop Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Linux History Letters See also: last week's Letters page.	Letters to the editor Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@lwn.net. Preference will be given to letters which are short, to the point, and well written. If you want your email address "anti-spammed" in some way please be sure to let us know. We do not have a policy against anonymous letters, but we will be reluctant to include them.	April 5, 2001

From: "Leather, sean P" <Sean.Leather@MW.Boeing.com> To: "'letters@lwn.net'" <letters@lwn.net> Subject: Three years ... and still counting! Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 09:12:00 -0600 Dear LWN, I was very excited to see your article on Mozilla and how that project has significantly improved. In the weeks before this issue, I had researched Bugzilla (Mozilla's web-based bug-tracking software) for use in a local setting. At first download, I tested it out and, to my dismay, found an obvious bug. Disappointed but not without hope (in the open-source philosophy), I logged into the real Bugzilla to report my first bug. As I was about to submit my report, a certain florescent light bulb went off above me (i.e. the lights went out ... several times, but, fortunately, the electricity stayed on): somebody else may have already sent in such a report. So I queried. Somebody, actually several people, had already reported it. Then I searched more and found a long discussion on the best methods for squashing this particular insect-like problem. It appeared as if three or four hackers had been submitting patches while others conjectured about each. After each new patch was submitted, there were less "I like this, but..." statements made. With this, I could read through the steps of how a bug was fixed. I thought to myself: this is how it should be, this is Open Source. Cheesy though that thought is, my spirits were lifted (no, that does not mean I was drinking). I realized that open-source software is where all the action is (meaning inter-action). It also dawned on me that Mozilla has put together a darn good collection of open-source projects that even facilitate other open-source projects (Bugzilla, Bonsai, Tinderbox, etc.). To say the least, I was impressed with not only Mozilla's software, but also their methodology. Even though their programmers may not write the panacea of programs or the code that solves every problem the first time (believe me, I found several other bugs), they resolve their problems with expediency unfound in most places. Then I downloaded the latest "unstable" version and returned to my work. Fortunately, it fixed all the bugs I had found and then some. On a side note, if a user cannot have this kind of communication and interaction with a developer, that person (who may see a solution right away like I did) cannot propose the kind of answer or question that may be needed. For example, a certain well-known large company that recently announced the "release" of their source to other certain large companies will not profit from the true benefits of open-source development. The moral of the story is: "learn from the best, or die like the rest." Yours truly, Sean ----------------------------------------------------------------- Sean Leather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cooperative Education Employee . Sean.P.Leather@Boeing.com . Simulation Networking R & D . . The Boeing Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -----------------------------------------------------------------

From: Richard Kay <rich@copsewood.net> Subject: Re: http://www.redpepper.org.uk/x-open-source.html A World Without Microsoft To: scott.redding@virgin.net Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 14:49:46 +0100 (BST) Thanks for this on-line article. Software network economics have more to do with the "chaordic" form of organisation than anarchism. You will find some relevant articles about this on http://www.chaordic.org/ While the "chaordic" term was coined relatively recently it covers structures which are not entirely new. The shape of such an organisation is fractal and not heirarchical, where the information needed to replicate the entire organisation is present in small parts of it and it exists on many levels. A chaordic entity is capable of refining information. Here the chaotic patterns and experiments of creative change are balanced against there being just sufficient order to enable the entity to function coherently without centralised control, other than through the shared guiding principles which underpin the existence of the organisation. This chaordic form of organisation is present in natural languages, traditional markets, the telephone system and more recently the VISA and Internet networks. In the case of open-source/free software the unifying principle behind this movement is the benefit gained from the sharing of computer source code. Does it matter that this benefit is partly moral and political and partly practical ? In your otherwise excellent and balanced article Heather Sharp writes: "It is the opposition between the pragmatic and the idealistic/libertarian rationales which now threatens to split the movement." I must disagree, because you might as well talk about splitting the Internet itself or the telephone network, because not everyone who uses these things agrees with everyone else. These ideas are non-starters and seem based on fundamental misconceptions based on a complete lack of technical understanding. Given that software once made available to the free software/open source pool cannot be taken out of it, the benefit is greater than the loss if 2 development groups go off and create competing programs or promotional initiatives, as they sometimes do, because no differences of opinion on technical or ideological issues can prevent the best software from migrating between these groups unless they deny to themselves the evolutionary advantages of wheel-reinvention avoidance and open public review and contribution which derives from code sharing in the first place. If one part or another of this movement denies to themselves these benefits they are no longer part of a movement which derives from no more than these benefits in the first place. Consequently a movement based on this definition cannot be divided QED. If the free software/open source movement were a form of organisation which required heirarchical relationships to function as such and were incapable of otherwise effectively coordinating activities led through the contribution of many centres, organisations and individuals this kind of perspective difference might be capable of dividing rather than strengthening our movement. But if this were so we would be unable to offer any genuinely revolutionary perspective or possibilities in any case. Richard Kay rich@copsewood.net

Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 06:58:11 -0600 (MDT) From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> To: rich@copsewood.net Subject: Re: http://www.redpepper.org.uk/x-open-source.html A World Without Microsoft In your otherwise excellent and balanced article Heather Sharp writes: "It is the opposition between the pragmatic and the idealistic/libertarian rationales which now threatens to split the movement." The mistake is in the phrase "threaten to". This is half wrong, and half wrong. Philosophically, the disagreements between views like mine and views like Eric Raymond are so large that we should not be considered one movement. But these disagreements are nothing new--we have disagreed in this way for 15 years or more. It is too late for them to "threaten" to cause a split; whatever splitting they are going to cause has already happened. At the same time, we remain one community, still working together much of the time despite these philosophical disagreements. I see no sign that our disagreements threaten the community's overall state of cooperation. Of course, it is not perfect cooperation, but perfection is too much to ask. I have not seen the article you refer to, and I am not sure where it was published. Could you possibly mail me a copy, and perhaps tell me how to send email to its author?

Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 09:18:46 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" <esr@thyrsus.com> To: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> Subject: Re: http://www.redpepper.org.uk/x-open-source.html A World Without Microsoft Richard, I wrote the following in response to the article. I'm glad we broadly agree on the extent to which the article exagerrates the divisions. >Way too much of this article is breathless nonsense, beginning with >the claim that "the community is cracking along its ideological >faultlines". The fatuity of this claim is demonstrated by the fact >that even the most extreme partisans of both tendencies Ms. Sharp >describes still share code and use each others' licenses, and show no >signs that they will ever cease to do so. > >Throughout the article, Ms. Sharp ascribes to hackers motivations that >most of us would find either irrelevant or repugnant. Among us, the >act and the the personal rewards of craftsmanship easily trump >politics and other toxic social games. Her proposal that we are "a >living alternative to the individualism of the average big-buck >business environment" is particularly ironic, since we generally >regard ourselves and behave as individualists par excellence, and >reject the corporate world precisely for its deliberate suppression of >that quality. Reflexive leftist cant has blinded her to what is >actually going on here. > >Ms. Sharp's "there is a strand to the thinking of the more radical >sections of the Open Source community which could be classed as >libertarian" is an amusing instance of the same blindness. One of the >few points of agreement between libertarians like myself and >anti-libertarians like Paulina Borsook (the author of "Cyber-Selfish") >is that libertarian thinking and values are not merely a "strand" but >all-pervasive in the hacker culture. The issues hacker activism has >themed itself on (privacy, free speech rights, access to strong >cryptography, DeCSS) are libertarian/individualist at their core, and >our behavior is far more simply explained by reference to libertarian >ideals of individualism and autonomy than through Ms. Sharp's >distorting lens of categories like "neo-colonialism". > >Political categories aside, in the last paragraph Ms. Sharp pulls a >clever bit of ambiguity that confuses a major collision of world-views >with a minor and relatively superficial factional dispute. The gulf >between the proprietary world and the open-source/free-software >community is vastly more important to all parties involved than the >relatively insignificant differences between the idealists and >pragmatists within our community. Indeed, by exaggerating the >importance of the latter division, Ms. Sharp plays into the hands of >Microsoft and the proprietary-softeware behemoths. > >Fortunately, Ms. Sharp's misconceptions matter very little. However >much theory and rhetoric may superficially divide the hacker culture, >practice fundamentally unites us. We may argue with each other about >why we do what we do, but we'll keep doing it together nevertheless -- >and that propaganda of the deed, that ongoing and successful co-option >of the infrastructure of 21st-century society, will be far more >important in changing the world than any amount of rhetorical vaporing >by Richard Stallman or myself or anybody else. -- <a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a> "...The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document. The First Amendment doesn't say you have a right to speak out unless the government has a 'compelling interest' in censoring the Internet. The Second Amendment doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms until some madman plants a bomb. The Fourth Amendment doesn't say you have the right to be secure from search and seizure unless some FBI agent thinks you fit the profile of a terrorist. The government has no right to interfere with any of these freedoms under any circumstances." -- Harry Browne, 1996 USA presidential candidate, Libertarian Party

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