Eric Raymond converts to Ubuntu

From https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-February/msg01006.html:

If I thought the state of Fedora were actually improving, I might hang
in there.  But it isn't.  I've been on the fedora-devel list for
years, and the trend is clear.  The culture of the project's core
group has become steadily more unhealthy, more inward-looking, more
insistent on narrow "free software" ideological purity, and more
disconnected from the technical and evangelical challenges that must
be met to make Linux a world-changing success that liberates a
majority of computer users.

I have watched Ubuntu rise to these challenges as Fedora fell away
from them.  Canonical's recent deal with Linspire, which will give
Linux users legal access to WMF and other key proprietary codecs, is
precisely the sort of thing Red-Hat/Fedora could and should have taken
the lead in.  Not having done so bespeaks a failure of vision which I
now believe will condemn Fedora to a shrinking niche in the future.

You realise what this means!?

Yes! Another episode of Everybody Loves Eric Raymond is on its way! ;)

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3 Responses to “Eric Raymond converts to Ubuntu”

  1. Jakob Petsovits Says:

    > You realise what this means!?

    Er… that Ubuntu is on the way to being the most evil distro, because ESR is running it? That Ubuntu is on the way to letting the ideals of Free Software behind, in exchange for people like Raymond?

    Or maybe only that a confused ex-open-source-thought-leader is vocally changing from one distribution to another, neither one being the one that he actually endorses =)

  2. Neil Blakey-Milner Says:

    To summarise:

    ESR rants instead of being constructive. Not that unusual. Those who actually remember who ESR is, ignore him because they know better than to deal with him in this mood. And, of course, Cc’ing in LWN and newsforge and friends really helps the arguments of those who think ESR has a slight media whoring problem.

    Of course, ESR can’t even rant as well as others! I mean, check out https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-February/msg01027.html -

    “Who the hell made you the arbiter of what’s right and wrong? You?

    I’ve about had it up to here with this New Slavery crap, this
    pseudo-socialist movement in the Linux world being pushed by self styled
    self aggrandizing arrogant ivory tower elitists intent on a fascist
    enforcement of the licensing policies of THEIR choice dictated from
    inside a closed circle-jerk where everybody pats themselves on the back
    and laughs about how stupid the “outsiders” are.”

    Nice.

  3. Peteris Krisjanis Says:

    Jakob: most evil distro because ESR is running it? Errr…DID you actually read email ESR sent to fedora-devel list? I don’t claim to like a) closed codecs b) ESR or c) Ubuntu as it is now, but I agree with him almost on ALL levels about Fedora. Fedora is ruined and big guns like AC and rest of crowd knows that.

    Ubuntu tries to “just work”. There are lot of quirks and bugs, but they at least TRY. Fedora - if they can ship TWO cores in a row broken CUPS then I must say…sorry, it simply doesn’t cut it for me anymore.

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