Eric S. Raymond

From RationalWiki

Eric S. Raymond is an advocate of open source software and the author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, an essay explaining why the Linux operating system should be called GUN/Linux^[1]^[2]. (The essay also — unintentionally, of course — makes an economic case for open source software.^[3])

He is also the self-appointed maintainer of the Jargon File, a repository of hacker culture (in the wizard programmer sense, not the 1337 sense) that originated in the DEC PDP computer cultures of 1970s computer labs at universities like MIT and Stanford, but under Raymond's maintenance has become rather Unix-centric and no longer specifically representative of the culture from which it originated. For this reason he is listed as the author of The New Hacker's Dictionary, a book reproducing the Jargon File, with Raymond's additions and changes, in text form.

[edit] Open Source

Raymond helped popularize the Open Source movement and term partially out of frustration with the Free Software Foundation and its leading light, Richard Stallman. The difference is one of political style more than substance. Raymond's political and economic views are anarcho-libertarian and right-wing; Stallman's are green, left-progressive, and anti-corporate.

Open Source and Free Software are legally the same thing, but advocated from two different angles; Open Source attempted to separate the machinery of Free Software from its politics, so the likes of Raymond could participate in it without feeling any discomfort about consorting with those for whom Free Software had a "disagreeable" political motive.

It can be argued that the Open Source movement helped gain respectability for the Free Software movement. The Cathedral and the Bazaar popularized the aggressively collaborative development model that is now par for the course, but was originally started by Linus Torvalds, whom Stallman believes to be leading people astray from the True Path of Free Software.

[edit] Idiotarians

Eric Raymond was one of those unfortunate souls who went completely nuts after 9/11. This self-proclaimed "anarchist" turned overnight into a nuke-the-Middle-East fanatic and began posting tedious manifestos to teh Internets such as "The Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto"^[4], proclaiming the duty of all good Americans to support George W. Bush and his transcendent crusade to crush "Islamofascism".

Raymond's "idiotarians" include consistent anti-war Libertarians (such as himself before 9/11), "idiotarians of the left" (the peace movement and antiwar Democrats), "idiotarians of the right" (conspiracy theorists and those like Jerry Falwell suggesting 9/11 was God's punishment of America), and anyone else not fully on board with invading Iraq. The term and concept quickly spread to pro-war bloggers, who have continued the tactic of lumping together the peace movement and antiwar Democrats and Libertarians with David Duke, Lyndon LaRouche, Fred Phelps, far-left Communist cults, 9/11 conspiracy theories, etc. as all being part of the same anti-war tent. See also: Conservapedia's description of Fred Phelps as a liberal activist. This tactic is used to discredit the peace movement and mainstream opposition to the war. Thankfully nobody's buying it anymore.

He followed that up with some bizarre writings on race^[5], homosexuality^[6], and HIV denial^[7], which suggest he has come completely off his hinges.

He has most recently suggested that Barack Obama's recent win in the past Presidential race is due to voter fraud and the mainstream media's ability to mask Obama's weaknesses.^[8] Never mind the fact that, in 2004, he himself stated that the mainstream media lost its power to sway elections.^[9]

His influence and involvement in Open Source advocacy has, needless to say, been greatly diminished and he is now best known as a notorious Internet crank, leaving Stallman to fight the ninjas alone.