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{{short description|American computer programmer, author, and advocate for the open source movement}}{{Redirect|Eric Raymond}}{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2012}}

factoids

| birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts, US| alma_mater = University of Pennsylvania| nationality = American| occupation = Software developer, authorweblink}}, {{URLweblink}}}}Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American software developer, open-source software advocate, and author of the 1997 essay and 1999 book The Cathedral and the Bazaar. He wrote a guidebook for the Roguelike game NetHack. In the 1990s, he edited and updated the Jargon File, published as The New Hacker's Dictionary.BOOK, 0-262-68092-0, The New Hacker's Dictionary, Raymond, Eric S., 1996,

Early life

Raymond was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1957, and lived in Venezuela as a child. His family moved to Pennsylvania in 1971.WEB,weblink Man Against the FUD, July 7, 2008,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20071013123601weblink">weblink October 13, 2007, dead, He developed cerebral palsy at birth; his weakened physical condition motivated him to go into computing.NEWS,weblink April 1998, Let my software go!, Andrew, Leonard, Salon.com, Salon Media Group, San Francisco, November 23, 2009,

Career

Raymond began his programming career writing proprietary software, between 1980 and 1985.WEB,weblink Resume of Eric Steven Raymond, Eric S., Raymond, Eric S._Raymond, January 29, 2003, November 23, 2009, In 1990, noting that the Jargon File had not been maintained since about 1983, he adopted it, but not without criticism; Paul Dourish maintains an archived original version of the Jargon File, because, he says, Raymond's updates "essentially destroyed what held it together."WEB,weblink The Original Hacker's Dictionary, dourish.com, January 17, 2024, In 1996 Raymond took over development of the open-source email software "popclient", renaming it to Fetchmail.WEB,weblink Fetchmail, www.fetchmail.info, Soon after this experience, in 1997, he wrote the essay "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", detailing his thoughts on open-source software development and why it should be done as openly as possible (the "bazaar" approach). The essay was based in part on his experience in developing Fetchmail. He first presented his thesis at the annual Linux Kongress on May 27, 1997. He later expanded the essay into a book, The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary, in 1999. The essay has been widely cited.BOOK, Citations for "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", 1999,weblink ACM Digital Library, 9781565927247, 10 February 2015, 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.WEB,weblink Interview: Frank Hecker, Suarez-Potts, Louis, 2001, November 5, 2011, Hahn would later describe the 1999 book as "clearly influential".BOOK, 0-7382-0670-9, Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, Moody, Glyn, 2002, Basic Books,weblink {{rp|190}}From the late 1990s onward, due in part to the popularity of his essay, Raymond became a prominent voice in the open source movement. He co-founded the Open Source Initiative (OSI) in 1998, taking on the self-appointed role of ambassador of open source to the press, business and public. He remains active in OSI, but stepped down as president of the initiative in February 2005.WEB,weblink Open Source Initiative (OSI) Announces expanded programs, counsel, and board, Raymond, Eric S., Eric S. Raymond, January 31, 2005, January 14, 2010, In early March 2020, he was removed from two Open Source Initiative mailing lists due to posts that violated the OSI's Code of Conduct.WEB,weblink August 12, 2020, Co-founder of OSI Banned From Mailing Lists, In 1998 Raymond received and published a Microsoft document expressing worry about the quality of rival open-source software.WEB,weblink Internal Memo Shows Microsoft Executives' Concern Over Free Software, Harmon, Amy, The New York Times, November 3, 1998, November 5, 2011, He named this document, together with others subsequently leaked, "The Halloween Documents".In 2000–2002 he created Configuration Menu Language 2 (CML2), a source code configuration system; while originally intended for the Linux operating system, it was rejected by kernel developers.WEB,weblink CML2, ESR, & The LKML, KernelTrap, February 17, 2002, dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20070807034449weblink">weblink August 7, 2007, (Raymond attributed this rejection to "kernel list politics",WEB,weblink dead, Interview: Eric Raymond goes back to basics, IBM developerWorks, Rob, McMillan,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20030604101517weblink">weblink June 4, 2003, but Linus Torvalds said in a 2007 mailing list post that as a matter of policy, the development team preferred more incremental changes.WEB,weblink LKML: Linus Torvalds: Re: [ck] Re: Linus 2.6.23-rc1, ) Raymond's 2003 book The Art of Unix Programming discusses user tools for programming and other tasks.Some versions of NetHack still include Raymond's guide.WEB,weblink A Guide to the Mazes of Menace (Guidebook of Nethack), Raymond, Eric S., Eric S. Raymond, NetHack.org, December 8, 2003, December 15, 2008, He has also contributed code and content to the free software video game The Battle for Wesnoth.WEB,weblink People at Gna!: Eric S. Raymond Profile, Gna.org,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20170301021140weblink">weblink March 1, 2017, 2017-09-13, dead, Raymond is the main developer of NTPsec, a "secure, hardened replacement" for the Unix utility NTP.WEB,weblink January 9, 2020, NTPsec Project Blog, Raymond has written numerous open-source tools, including cvs-fast-export, a tool for exporting CVS repositories to Git fast-import streams, and "reposurgeon", a tool for exporting SVN repositoriesweblink

Views on open source

File:Eric Raymond 2019.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Raymond at the SouthEast LinuxFestSouthEast LinuxFestRaymond coined an aphorism he dubbed Linus's law, inspired by Linus Torvalds: "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow".NEWS, Greenstein, Shane, The Range of Linus' Law, 32, IEEE Micro, 1, IEEE Computer Society, January 2012, It first appeared in his book The Cathedral and the Bazaar.BOOK, 1-56592-724-9, The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary, Raymond, Eric S., 1999, O'Reilly Media, {{rp|30}}Raymond has refused to speculate on whether the "bazaar" development model could be applied to works such as books and music, saying that he does not want to "weaken the winning argument for open-sourcing software by tying it to a potential loser".WEB,weblink Afterword: Beyond Software?, Raymond, Eric S., 2000, July 24, 2007, 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 fails, he said, "not because his principles are wrong, but because that kind of language ... simply does not persuade anybody".WEB,weblink Shut Up And Show Them The Code, Raymond, Eric S., Eric S. Raymond, Linux Today, July 28, 1999, July 5, 2017, June 30, 2017,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20170630183629weblink">weblink dead, In a 2008 essay he defended programmers' right to issue work under proprietary licenses: "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."WEB,weblink Why I Hate Proprietary Software, Eric S., Raymond, Eric S. Raymond, October 1, 2008, November 5, 2011, In the same essay he said that the "logic of the system" puts developers into "dysfunctional roles", with bad code the result.

Political beliefs and activism

Raymond is a member of the Libertarian Party and a gun rights advocate.Richard Stallman, Free Software, and Copyleft {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170624201402weblink |date=June 24, 2017 }} 2011 He has endorsed the open source firearms organization Defense Distributed, calling them "friends of freedom" and writing "I approve of any development that makes it more difficult for governments and criminals to monopolize the use of force. As 3D printers become less expensive and more ubiquitous, this could be a major step in the right direction."WEB,weblink Defense Distributed, Eric, Raymond, Eric S. Raymond, Armed and Dangerous, August 23, 2012, January 14, 2013, NEWS, Kopfstein, Janus, Guns want to be free: what happens when 3D printing and crypto-anarchy collide?,weblink The Verge, April 12, 2013, In 2015 Raymond accused the Ada Initiative and other women in tech groups of attempting to entrap male open source leaders and accuse them of rape, saying "Try to avoid even being alone, ever, because there is a chance that a 'women in tech' advocacy group is going to try to collect your scalp."NEWS,weblink Linus Torvalds targeted by honeytraps, claims Eric S. Raymond, 2017-11-25, en, NEWS,weblink Is This Crazy Anti-Feminist Rumor the Platonic Ideal of the Men's-Rights Internet?, Select All, 2017-11-25, en, Raymond has claimed that "Gays experimented with unfettered promiscuity in the 1970s and got AIDS as a consequence", and that "Police who react to a random black male behaving suspiciously who might be in the critical age range as though he is an near-imminent lethal threat, are being rational, not racist."WEB, Raymond, Eric, 2002-06-16,weblink The Elephant in the Bath-House, 2018-08-27, WEB, Raymond, Eric, 2016-09-24,weblink Dilemmatizing the NRA, 2018-08-27, A progressive campaign, "The Great Slate", was successful in raising funds for candidates in part by asking for contributions from tech workers in return for not posting similar quotes by Raymond. Matasano Security employee and Great Slate fundraiser Thomas Ptacek said, "I've been torturing Twitter with lurid Eric S. Raymond quotes for years. Every time I do, 20 people beg me to stop." It is estimated that, as of March 2018, over $30,000 has been raised in this way.NEWS, Jeong, Sarah, 2018-03-08, Meet the campaign connecting affluent techies with progressive candidates around the country,weblink The Verge, 2018-03-08,

Religious beliefs

Raymond describes himself as neo-pagan.

Bibliography

• Hamerly, Jim, Paquin, Tom and Walton, Susan; Freeing the Source: The Story of Mozilla, in Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution, O'Reilly, 1999. 280 pp, {{ISBN|1-56592-582-3}}
• Wayner, Peter; Free for All: How LINUX and the Free Software Movement Undercut the High-Tech Titans, HarperCollins, 2000, 340 pp, {{ISBN|0-06-662050-3}}
• Suarez-Potts, Louis; Interview: Frank Hecker, Community Articles, May 1, 2001, www.openoffice.org, OpenOffice website
• Moody, Glyn; Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, Basic Books 2002, 342 pp, {{ISBN|978-0-7382-0333-1}}

By Eric Raymond

Books

• The New Hacker's Dictionary (editor MIT Press {{ISBN|0-262-68092-0}}) – printed version of the Jargon File with Raymond listed as the editor.
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar (O'Reilly; hardcover {{ISBN|1-56592-724-9}}, 1999) – includes "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", "Homesteading the Noosphere", "The Magic Cauldron" and "Revenge of the Hackers"
• The Art of Unix Programming (Addison-Wesley, 2003; {{ISBN|0-13-142901-9}})
• Learning GNU Emacs (3rd Edition; editors Debra Cameron, James Elliott, Marc Loy, Eric, Raymond, and Bill Rosenblatt (O'Reilly Media, 2004; {{ISBN|978-0-596-00648-8}})

Writings posted or archived on his website

• The Art of Unix Usability, the book about programming and user interface philosophy in UNIX
• How to Ask Questions the Smart Way, mirrored on personal site
• Release Early, Release Often, excerpt from The Cathedral and the Bazaar, mirrored on personal site
• Eric Raymond's FAQ collection, mirrored on his personal site. Includes links to Linux Documentation Project.

See also

• Revolution OS (film)
• Hacker ethic
• Halloween documents
• Release early, release often

References

{{reflist}}

Further reading

• WEB, Byfield, Bruce, The Decline and Fall of Eric S. Raymond, Linux Magazine, 2015-12-22,weblink en-US, 2018-07-15,

External links

{{commons|Eric S. Raymond|Eric S. Raymond}}

• {{official website}}
• Blog ("Armed and Dangerous")
• {{Gutenberg author |id=4705| name=Eric S. Raymond}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Eric Steven Raymond}}
• {{IMDb name|0713253}}

{{Linux people}}{{Authority control}}