Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Thoughts on ESR and Perl

Author:Eric Kidd
Posted:8/26/1999; 1:11:35 PM
Topic:Opening Up Linux Journal and O'Reilly
Msg #:9988 (In response to 9983)
Prev/Next:9987 / 9989

(I'm still speaking for myself, not for UserLand.)

Thanks for the clarification Eric, and I want to also disclaim that when we're debating this way I am merely expressing my own opinion and not speaking for UserLand.

I've been impressed by this thread so far. It seems like lots of people were angry at first, but things have cooled down and people have looked at both sides of issues. In the online world, it's so often the other way around--people start out reasonable, and get upset. My thanks to everyone who participated!

Further, I saw all kinds of people who I knew to be software idiots repeating his words as if they had found some precious wisdom.

This reminds me of a funny story--I had first encounted "free software" in the writings of Richard Stallman. After reading his writings, I got mad at him. I felt like he had invalidated my work, and that his call to free all software was rude.

A few years later, I used some of Stallman's software. However much Stallman annoyed me, I had to respect him. He'd written a deep and powerful text editor, and designed GCC, one of the best CISC compilers ever written (GCC is an acceptable RISC compiler, but not a great one). Stallman might be annoying and hard to talk to, but he clearly knew something about software. And he was unflinchingly honest: "If you do what I suggest, you might make less money."

A year later, I started administering a Linux server. It was an old, overloaded box, and it had been assigned about a dozen different tasks over the years. I upgraded it, and learned my way around inside. Linux impressed me. It probably represented over 10 million programmer-hours, and it was a fine piece of work. Not perfect, but undeniably cool. I became a Linux-lover long before anybody ever coined the term "open source".

I've been watching the past 18 months in a daze. One moment stands out in my mind, though--it caused a nasty sinking feeling in my gut that I've never forgotten. One day, I was reading Slashdot and saw that Corel had vowed to support Linux.

Given Corel's track record, I was terrified that Linux might be doomed. Everything they've touched in the last five years has tuend out to be a lemon. I wondered whether I should run screaming and abandon Linux. Eventually, I decided that the hucksters and the spinmeisters don't matter, and that I should just ignore them entirely.

Cheers,
Eric

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