ESR response

Simon Phipps

February 19, 2004

Despite the title of the post on Slashdot [ http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/18/2016233&mode=thread ], I've not issued a rebuttal to Eric Raymond's Java rant [ http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/let-java-go.html ] - I just conducted an interview [ http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/news_story.php?nid=20040217163903 ] with a PC Pro journalist. It's interesting the way these things get reported - I was asked at some point late in the interview "would you say Raymond's article was just a rant" I replied "yes, 100%" - but that was hardly my first comment. It's then galling to see the link on Slashdot is to a summary on another site, not even to the edited highlights in PC Pro. The digest of a digest of selective reportage of a conversation does not constitute a 'rebuttal' in my view...

However you look at it, though, Raymond's rant is unhelpful. I do wish he'd called or e-mailed before posting - there are several people who no doubt would have done some helpful commenting and turned the thing into helpful (if perhaps impatient) support for Sun's significant open source thrust. As it is, RR just hurts the people who are trying to make the right things happen.

Anyway, if you do want a decent response, look no further than Charles Ditzel's blog entry [ http://cld.blog-city.com/read/492917.htm ]. ESR has added a rider about share prices by the way, but still seems no closer to understanding that the share price at any point in time is not a useful indicator of the value of a company. Red Hat just hasn't done any stock splits.