Well thank you for taking the time to give critique. I was hoping to return to the book at some point and work through the suggested readings in more detail. I will definitely approach it with more caution a second time round and even more so when recommending it to others.
As an aside, how do you know so much about Mr Raymond? :) That's an awful amount of very specific detail.
It's pretty well known stuff in the Free Open Source Software Dramatic Political Soap Opera Scene, since he always tries so hard to get attention by writing outrageous bullshit on his blog and throwing tantrums on mailing lists, like this: http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-Februa...
I've known Eric Raymond and Richard Stallman since the 80's, and I can confirm that Raymond has always been that way, isn't anything like the "hacker" he claims to be, and instead of writing or auditing code, he has made his career by self aggrandizing himself and tearing down Richard Stallman, who is and will always be a much better and more successful person than he is.
But the he got even crazier, and went off the deep end after 9/11.
His "many eyes" law that he shamelessly promotes has given many people and organizations a false sense of security in open source software, and that's led to many huge commercial corporations taking the free stuff without contributing any money or time back, and building all kinds of critical internet infrastructure on top of software like OpenSSL. And you know what that led to.
When he claimed that the mean old gays were bullying poor Brendan Eich, and his friend Russell Nelson took up and defended his argument, it made me recognize a pattern that explains their motivation very well:
Eric Raymond and Russell Nelson and Brendan Eich all served as the head of major free open source software companies: Eric Raymond was the first president of the Open Source Initiative, Russell Nelson was the second taking over when he resigned, and then resigned himself shortly thereafter, and Brendan Eich was CEO of Mozilla.
All three of them made bigoted statements and performed bigoted actions, and as a consequence of their own speech and actions, and of their high visibility leadership positions of free open source companies, they each felt compelled to resign from their jobs, and now feel very sorry for themselves because of how other people reacted, not because of how they acted.
It's disgusting how Eric and Russell are now whining about the mean "intolerant gay bullies" who didn't respect Brendan's right to be intolerant of oppressed minorities. They're just projecting from their own experiences as ousted bigots. The mean old community just couldn't tolerate their bigoted divisive beliefs which were embarrassing and damaging the free open source software movement.
That's their standard operating procedure, of ignoring criticism and calling their critics names instead of responding with logical arguments. So Karl Popper is a baby thinker in Russell Nelson's mind.
So naturally Raymond and Nelson both feel sorry for Eich. They're birds of a feather, cut from the same cloth: they all lay down with the same dogs, and wake up with the same fleas.
So what does it say about Eich that two of his most sympathetic and vocal defenders were also kicked out of their leadership positions in a Free Open Source Software company, because of divisiveness and bigotry, just like he was?
Eric Raymond and Russell Nelson are far beyond redemption. And Brendan Eich finally put himself into the same boat as they are, and it's all his own damn fault, so of course those guys are his biggest advocates and defenders, and they all deserve each other.
And now Eich's legacy is not just tarnished by his donation to support Proposition 8, but by the fact that two of the most notorious douchebag in the free open source software community have come out of the woodwork screeching a full throated defense of him.
I think it's wonderful that the community refused to be led or fooled by people like them, who would pay money to make TV commercials demonizing gays and destroying sex marriages, or race bait and call the victims of their own bigotry bullies for standing up for themselves and exercising their right to free speech.
As an aside, how do you know so much about Mr Raymond? :) That's an awful amount of very specific detail.