OT: Has ESR disappeared?

[Net Llama!]

On Fri, 7 May 2004, Michael Hipp wrote:
>
> Nope, never met him. Read alot of his stuff. It isn't hard to realize
> from his narrative writings that he is rather proud of his high IQ and
> probably thinks more highly of himself than warranted. But if the latter
> is reason to dismiss someone outright, then we're all in trouble.
>
>  > What OSS has he written and maintained that
>  > anyone is being used by anyone anywhere?
>
> 'fetchmail' is probably the best known of things he writes or maintains.
> There are 2 -3 dozen listed here:
>     http://catb.org/~esr/software.html
>
> Whatever his sins, it is worth note that 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar'
> and related material he authored is in no small way responsible for some
> goodly number of former staunch MS supporters (like, ahem, ME) actually
> waking up and being willing to smell the coffee. It is still influential.
>
> And things like this: http://catb.org/~esr/writings/prudential.html
> where he actually has an audience with a group of Prudential investors
> and attempts to educate them about the economic viability of open
> source. The overall impact of little efforts like this should not be too
> quickly dismissed.
>
> There is also some good documentation and general reading here:
> http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/ (tho much of that is becoming dated.) Given
> the sometimes scarcity of Linux documentation, any effort is appreciated.
>
> I'm probably defending him too much {I like his Linux stuff and his
> Libertarian politics, but his views about "toxic Christianity" sure need
> fixing.}
>
> Again, whatever his sins (we all have them), he is an ally and a good one.

He is an ally, but i'm not at all convinced that he's a good one.  He has
a nasty tendency to shoot off his mouth and put his foot into it.  Yes, he
wrote fetchmail, but that's about all that he's done that i'd consider
noteworthy.  And his political views are a bit on the extremist side.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lonni J Friedman				netllama at linux-sxs.org
Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo		     http://netllama.ipfox.com