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He wrote ], a source code configuration system; while originally intended for the ], it was rejected by kernel developers.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://kerneltrap.org/node/17 | title = CML2, ESR, & The LKML | work = KernelTrap | date = 2002-02-17 }}</ref> Raymond attributed this rejection to "kernel list politics".<ref>{{cite web | url= http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-ivesr.html?ca=dgr-lnxw09EricRaymond | title = Interview: Eric Raymond goes back to basics | work = IBM developerWorks | first = Rob | last = McMillan }}</ref> Linus Torvalds on the other hand said in a 2007 mailing list that as a matter of policy, the development team preferred more incremental changes. He wrote ], a source code configuration system; while originally intended for the ], it was rejected by kernel developers.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://kerneltrap.org/node/17 | title = CML2, ESR, & The LKML | work = KernelTrap | date = 2002-02-17 }}</ref> Raymond attributed this rejection to "kernel list politics".<ref>{{cite web | url= http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-ivesr.html?ca=dgr-lnxw09EricRaymond | title = Interview: Eric Raymond goes back to basics | work = IBM developerWorks | first = Rob | last = McMillan }}</ref> Linus Torvalds on the other hand said in a 2007 mailing list that as a matter of policy, the development team preferred more incremental changes.


In 2000-2002 Raymond wrote a number of ]s still included in the ]. His personal archive also lists a number of non-technical and very early non-Linux FAQs. His books, '']'' and '']'', discuss Unix and Linux history and culture, and user tools for programming and other tasks. In 1998 he received and published a Microsoft document expressing worry about the quality of rival open-source software.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/11/biztech/articles/03memo.html |title=Internal Memo Shows Microsoft Executives' Concern Over Free Software |last=Harmon |first=Amy |work=nytimes.com |date=1998-11-03|accessdate=2011-11-05}}</ref> This, along with other documents subsequently leaked, became known as the ]. Noting that the ] had not been maintained since about 1983, he adopted it in 1990 and currently has a third edition in print. One purist, , maintains an archived original version of the Jargon File, because, he says, Raymond's updates "essentially destroyed what held it together."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dourish.com/goodies/jargon.html | title = The Original Hacker's Dictionary | work = www.dourish.com | accessdate=2011-11-05}}</ref> In 2000-2002 Raymond wrote a number of ]s still included in the ]. His personal archive also lists a number of non-technical and very early non-Linux FAQs. His books, '']'' and '']'', discuss Unix and Linux history and culture, and user tools for programming and other tasks. In 1998 he received and published a Microsoft document expressing worry about the quality of rival open-source software.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/11/biztech/articles/03memo.html |title=Internal Memo Shows Microsoft Executives' Concern Over Free Software |last=Harmon |first=Amy |work=nytimes.com |date=1998-11-03|accessdate=2011-11-05}}</ref> This, along with other documents subsequently leaked, became known as the ]. Noting that the ] had not been maintained since about 1983, he adopted it in 1990 and currently has a third edition in print. One purist{{pov statement|date=November 2011}}, , maintains an archived original version of the Jargon File, because, he says, Raymond's updates "essentially destroyed what held it together."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dourish.com/goodies/jargon.html | title = The Original Hacker's Dictionary | work = www.dourish.com | accessdate=2011-11-05}}</ref>


Raymond is currently the admin of the project page for ], a daemon that makes GPS data from a receiver available in JSON format. <ref>{{cite web |url=https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/gpsd | title = GPSD - Summary | work = savannah.nongnu.org | accessdate=2011-10-30}}</ref> On the gaming front, several versions of ] include his guide.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nethack.org/v343/Guidebook.html |title=A Guide to the Mazes of Menace (Guidebook of Nethack) |last=Raymond |first=Eric S. |work=NetHack.org |date=2003-12-08 |accessdate=2008-12-15}}</ref> He also contributes code and content to ].<ref>{{cite web | url = http://gna.org/users/esr | title = People at Gna!: Eric S. Raymond Profile | work = ] | accessdate = 2009-11-23 }}</ref> Raymond is currently the admin of the project page for ], a daemon that makes GPS data from a receiver available in JSON format. <ref>{{cite web |url=https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/gpsd | title = GPSD - Summary | work = savannah.nongnu.org | accessdate=2011-10-30}}</ref> On the gaming front, several versions of ] include his guide.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nethack.org/v343/Guidebook.html |title=A Guide to the Mazes of Menace (Guidebook of Nethack) |last=Raymond |first=Eric S. |work=NetHack.org |date=2003-12-08 |accessdate=2008-12-15}}</ref> He also contributes code and content to ].<ref>{{cite web | url = http://gna.org/users/esr | title = People at Gna!: Eric S. Raymond Profile | work = ] | accessdate = 2009-11-23 }}</ref>

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Eric S. Raymond
Raymond at Linucon 2004
Born (1957-12-04) December 4, 1957 (age 67)
Boston, Massachusetts
NationalityAmerican
Other namesESR
Alma materUniversity of Pennsylvania
Occupation(s)Software developer, author
Websitehttp://www.catb.org/~esr/

Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. After the 1997 publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond was for a number of years frequently quoted as an unofficial spokesman for the open source movement. He is also known for his 1990 edit and later updates of the Jargon File, currently in print as the The New Hacker's Dictionary.

Biography

Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1957, Raymond lived in Venezuela as a child. His family moved back to Pennsylvania in 1971. Raymond said in an interview that his cerebral palsy motivated him to go into computing. Raymond has spoken in more than fifteen countries on six continents, including a lecture at Microsoft.

He wrote CML2, a source code configuration system; while originally intended for the Linux kernel, it was rejected by kernel developers. Raymond attributed this rejection to "kernel list politics". Linus Torvalds on the other hand said in a 2007 mailing list post that as a matter of policy, the development team preferred more incremental changes.

In 2000-2002 Raymond wrote a number of HOWTOs still included in the Linux Documentation Project. His personal archive also lists a number of non-technical and very early non-Linux FAQs. His books, The Cathedral and the Bazaar and The Art of Unix Programming, discuss Unix and Linux history and culture, and user tools for programming and other tasks. In 1998 he received and published a Microsoft document expressing worry about the quality of rival open-source software. This, along with other documents subsequently leaked, became known as the Halloween Documents. Noting that the Jargon File had not been maintained since about 1983, he adopted it in 1990 and currently has a third edition in print. One purist, Paul Dourish, maintains an archived original version of the Jargon File, because, he says, Raymond's updates "essentially destroyed what held it together."

Raymond is currently the admin of the project page for gpsd, a daemon that makes GPS data from a receiver available in JSON format. On the gaming front, several versions of NetHack include his guide. He also contributes code and content to The Battle for Wesnoth.

Founded in June 2009 with Raymond's help, the hacktivist website NedaNet intended "to support the democratic revolution in Iran." Named in honor of Neda Soltan, a young woman killed in unrest after the Iranian elections, it offered help with proxy servers and anonymizers. Raymond volunteered to be the website's public contact, and in this capacity received on-line threats, including one death threat reported to the FBI, which he claimed the agency "is taking seriously". He has since ceased to participate in this movement, saying that he had started to doubt if his contacts really were connected to activists on the ground.

Open source

Raymond began his programming career with writing proprietary software, between 1980 and 1985. In a 2008 essay he "defended the right of programmers to issue work under proprietary licenses because I think that if a programmer wants to write a program and sell it, it’s neither my business nor anyone else’s but his customer’s what the terms of sale are." In the same essay he also said that the "logic of the system" puts developers into "dysfunctional roles", with bad code the result.

Raymond's models of how the open source community works were influenced by an early draft of a paper by Keith Henson describing religious fervor as an overstimulation of evolved responses to social status rewards.

Raymond also coined an aphorism he dubbed "Linus' Law", inspired by Linus Torvalds: "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." Often cited by writers arguing that project participants see and know how to remedy different problems, therefore having many participants increases the ease and likelihood of project improvements, the saying first appeared in The Cathedral and the Bazaar.

Raymond became a prominent voice in the open source movement and co-founded the Open Source Initiative in 1998, taking on the self-appointed role of ambassador of open source to the press, business and public. The internal white paper by Frank Hecker that led to the release of the Mozilla (then Netscape) source code in 1998 cited The Cathedral and the Bazaar as "independent validation" of ideas proposed by Eric Hahn and Jamie Zawinski. Hahn also described the book as "clearly influential." Raymond has refused to speculate on whether the "bazaar" development model could be applied to works such as books and music, not wanting to "weaken the winning argument for open-sourcing software by tying it to a potential loser".

Raymond has had a number of public disputes with other figures in the free software movement. As head of the Open Source Initiative, he argued that advocates should focus on the potential for better products. The "very seductive" moral and ethical rhetoric of Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation fail, he said, "not because his principles are wrong, but because that kind of language ... simply does not persuade anybody." Raymond stepped down as the president of the Open Source Initiative in February 2005.

Bibliography

By Eric Raymond

Books by Raymond

Writings by Raymond posted or archived on website

See also

References

  1. ^ Raymond, Eric S. (2003-01-29). "Resume of Eric Steven Raymond". Retrieved 2009-11-23.
  2. "Hackers cut off SCO Web site". 2003-08-25. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
  3. Eric S. Raymond,The New Hacker's Dictionary, MIT Press, (paperback ISBN 0-262-68092-0, cloth ISBN 0-262-18178-9)
  4. "Man Against the FUD". Archived from the original on 2007-10-13. Retrieved 2008-07-07.{dead link}
  5. Leonard, Andrew (April 1998). "Let my software go!". Salon.com. San Francisco, California: Salon Media Group. Retrieved 2009-11-23.{dead link}
  6. Open Source Advocate Invited To Microsoft
  7. "CML2, ESR, & The LKML". KernelTrap. 2002-02-17.
  8. McMillan, Rob. "Interview: Eric Raymond goes back to basics". IBM developerWorks.
  9. Harmon, Amy (1998-11-03). "Internal Memo Shows Microsoft Executives' Concern Over Free Software". nytimes.com. Retrieved 2011-11-05.
  10. "The Original Hacker's Dictionary". www.dourish.com. Retrieved 2011-11-05.
  11. "GPSD - Summary". savannah.nongnu.org. Retrieved 2011-10-30.
  12. Raymond, Eric S. (2003-12-08). "A Guide to the Mazes of Menace (Guidebook of Nethack)". NetHack.org. Retrieved 2008-12-15.
  13. "People at Gna!: Eric S. Raymond Profile". Gna.org. Retrieved 2009-11-23.
  14. Steinberg, Julie (2009-06-22). "Neda Agha Soltan's Death Inspires New Site". The Wall Street Journal.
  15. Raymond, Eric S. (2008-10-01). "Why I Hate Proprietary Software". Retrieved 2011-11-05.
  16. Henson, Keith (August 23, 2002). "Sex, Drugs, and Cults. An evolutionary psychology perspective on why and how cult memes get a drug-like hold on people, and what might be done to mitigate the effects". The Human Nature Review. 2. ISSN 1476-1084.
  17. Gruen, Nicholas (2009-01-29). "Reduce the bugbears with some beta-tested policies". theage.com.au. Retrieved 2009-02-05.
  18. Raymond, Eric S.; The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary, O'Reilly Media 2001, 241pp. ISBN-10: 0596001088. p30
  19. Suarez-Potts, Louis (2001). "Interview: Frank Hecker". Retrieved 2011-11-05.
  20. Moody, Glyn; Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, Basic Books 2002, 344 pages. ISBN-10: 0738206709. p. 190
  21. Raymond, Eric S. (2000). "Afterword: Beyond Software?". Retrieved 2007-07-24.
  22. Raymond, Eric S. (1999-07-28). "Shut Up And Show Them The Code". Linux Today. Retrieved 2009-11-23.
  23. Raymond, Eric S. (2005-01-31). "Open Source Initiative (OSI) Announces expanded programs, counsel, AND board". Retrieved 2010-01-14.

External links

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