ESR Switches to Ubuntu! February 21, 2007
Posted by Carthik in news, ubuntu.trackback
ESR (wikipedia), that prototypical open-source geek, the author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, to whom Linux and Open Source owes so much, has moved from Fedora/Red Hat to Ubuntu!
He announced his decision in an email to the Fedora Devel mailing list. Among other things, he notes about how the Linspire deal is actually good, and how it was easier to install Ubuntu Edgy from one cd, not five.
In less than three hours’ work I was able to recreate the key features of my day-to-day toolkit. The
after-installation mass upgrade to current packages, always a frightening prospect under Fedora, went off without a hitch. I’m not expecting Ubuntu to be perfect, but I am now certain it will be enough better to compensate me for the fact that I need to learn
a new set of administration tools.
Today is a big day for Ubuntu.
(via The World of a Penguin, where I first read the news. I knew the list of Ubuntu blogs could only lead to good.)
Ubuntu Blog 
Big day? You have got to be kidding. So the partial author of a popmail client switched distributions…wow.
We have to make the best of all positive news. One could probably deem this a “bad day” if one doesn’t like ESR, but how does Ubuntu gain from that? ESR’s reputation as a hacker or linux developer might be suspect, but his rep as an open source evangelist and attention-grabber is worthy of emulation.
Big deal…ESR switched to Ubuntu…so did my brother a few days ago.
esr is a bad coding bastard.
should probably switch to gentoo.
fetchmail is not a big achievement, and speaking badly doesn’t give ubuntu more fame.
In other news: some (http://blogs.gnome.org/view/xan/2007/02/21/0) other (http://www.advogato.org/person/svu/diary.html?start=84) who actually do some (http://blogs.gnome.org/view/xan/2007/02/18/0) code (http://www.advogato.org/person/svu/) consider switching to FC7. ESR lost his position as an evangelist long time ago, and right now his comments usually cause a negative effect.
He might have done good hypes for linux, but please do not consider a journalist and evangelist as a hacker. It seems uneducated to call people like him “hackers”, let alone “hacker prototypical”. You might rightfully argue that marketting and generating hypes would be beneficial to the open-source community, as it has been a (the) major factor in Microsoft’s success. However, the position of marketting people should not be confused with strong coders and hackers.
Also, please remember that many people do not like (or actually hate) his opinions regarding issues such as racism, gun control, … . Therefore, to many people it is actually considered a good event for fedora that he left.
You must remember that ESR joined the Linspire board — quite surprisingly in
fact — just months ago. Later he wrote World Domination 201 and in
LinuxWorld he suddenly spoke about iPods (DRM), binary drivers, and Linux
busine$$ opportunities (urgency, windows of opportunity). Then, Linspire
dropped the Debian project in favour of Canonical (Ubuntu codeba$e). Thus,
it was only natural for ESR to show obedience/acceptance and embrace
Linspire sooner or later. Linspire? Lindows? Ubuntu in a Win32 gown for ESR?
I think not. So he chose Ubuntu. In the process, he bashed one of
Lin-buntu’s main rivals. One E-mail to a public mailing list (with CC’s that
are intended to create big waves) is enough to give the company he work$ for
a $erious$ boo$t. Kevin and Robert$on must be plea$ed.
I use FC for many things and it’s excellent. Ubuntu is just… different.
Big day ? I think that the Fedora community is relieved that ESR will stop haunting the fedora-devel list, if you do enjoy his coming that’s fine for us. 🙂
In retrospect, over the past couple days, I have learnt some more about a “colorful” character. I hope this new user brings us some value, though a lot of you seem to think otherwise 🙂
ESR is a loathsome character, a rabid, gun-totin’ Islamophobe. Hope he likes Ubuntu but his move is nothing worth cheering about.
ESR’s “The Art of UNIX Programming” is a must read for anyone in the computer field. He lived, participated in and carefully documented the development of Unix from its days at AT&T. From his long experience, he teaches “..far too much software is poorly designed. Much of it suffers from bloat, is exceedingly hard to maintain, and is too difficult to port to new platforms..” And that’s just on the 1st page of the Preface. If you’re a system analyst or system designer or programmer, you can learn how to THINK CORRECTLY about your problems from this book. He is a giant in the IT field. Take his words seriously.
We have to make the best of all positive news. One could probably deem this a “bad day” if one doesn’t like ESR, but how does Ubuntu gain from that?
I don’t have any suggestions but I am sure the investment banking community have their lists and are checking them twice.
very interesting…thank you
Made me as glad as you are
esr is a bad coding bastard.
should probably switch to gentoo.
fetchmail is not a big achievement, and speaking badly doesn’t give ubuntu more fame.
Also, please remember that many people do not like (or actually hate) his opinions regarding issues such as racism, gun control, … . Therefore, to many people it is actually considered a good event for fedora that he left.
ESR’s “The Art of UNIX Programming” is a must read for anyone in the computer field. He lived, participated in and carefully documented the development of Unix from its days at AT&T. From his long experience, he teaches “..far too much software is poorly designed. Much of it suffers from bloat, is exceedingly hard to maintain, and is too difficult to port to new platforms..” And that’s just on the 1st page of the Preface. If you’re a system analyst or system designer or programmer, you can learn how to THINK CORRECTLY about your problems from this book. He is a giant in the IT field. Take his words seriously.
Please remember many people do appreciate ESR’s Libertarian stance on issues especially on gun control. To call FOSS communistic or even liberal I think is a gross misunderstanding, but I also don’t think it’s that conservative either, I think it’s something of higher caliber than either US or International political party’s . But please don’t bring your petty political disinformation into a tech article on Free software .
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