ESR’s fuckups

Friday, February 20th, 2004

ESR, also known as Eric S. Raymond wrote an open letter addressed at the CEO at Sun containing a ‘plea’ to set Java free. Simon Phipps of Sun responded to it in an interview in PCPro. To this letter ESR replied again.

Now, I don’t really care about Raymond’s personal oppinion, nor do I care about Sun’s. What I do care about is the way Raymond is assuming in his letters (as well in daily life) that he is the voice of the Open Source community. Or as he would rather see it, the Open Source Dictatorship with Raymond as the headhoncho. Where does this piece of sh…. wait, let me first cool down a bit before I continue… Where does he get off that he can speak for any of the Open Source community? Check out his carefully (*ahem*) chosen wording: “We don’t presume to dictate Sun’s strategy. But what we do require of anyone before we will accept them as a ‘friend of the open-source community’ is…“. Well, thank you very much, Raymond, for deciding for me what the definition of a ‘Friend of the open-source community’ is. Thank you for not accepting their friendship and putting the whole open-source community to shame with your conduct against a company who has done a whole lot more for the community than most companies. The way I see it is: There’s the enemies (bent on destroying open source), there’s the neutrals (perhaps using open-source and propriety but not contributing) and there’s the friends (those whose contribute). So.. that makes Sun a friend of Open-Source in my oppinion, Raymond.

Raymond always had this thing for playing god amongst the community. He seems to get his kicks on by being an extremely obnixious ‘voice of the open-source community’. Well Raymond.. my question to you than, just as you posed for Sun: Who the hell are you to decide that you are our voice? And don’t slap that ‘I never said that’ shit on me, ’cause it’s evident from your conduct in the last years. And you’ve also never protested against being called that in articles, so you can’t use that excuse now either.

Eric S. Raymond… What an asshole.