Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American
software developer
Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invo ...
,
open-source software
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. ...
advocate, and author of the 1997 essay and 1999 book ''
The Cathedral and the Bazaar
''The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary'' (abbreviated ''CatB'') is an essay, and later a book, by Eric S. Raymond on software engineering methods, based on his observations of the Linux ...
''. He wrote a guidebook for the
Roguelike
Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a subgenre of role-playing computer games traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player charac ...
game ''
NetHack''.
In the 1990s, he edited and updated the
Jargon File
The Jargon File is a glossary and usage dictionary of slang used by computer programmers. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) and others of the old ARPANET ...
, published as ''The New Hacker's Dictionary''.
Early life
Raymond was born in
Boston, Massachusetts, in 1957 and lived in
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
as a child. His family moved to
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
in 1971. He developed
cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, stiff muscles, weak muscles, and tremors. There may be problems with sens ...
at birth; his weakened physical condition motivated him to go into computing.
Career
Raymond began his
programming career writing
proprietary software
Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and i ...
, between 1980 and 1985.
In 1990, noting that the
Jargon File
The Jargon File is a glossary and usage dictionary of slang used by computer programmers. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) and others of the old ARPANET ...
had not been maintained since about 1983, he adopted it, but not without criticism;
Paul Dourish
Paul Dourish (born 1966) is a computer scientist best known for his work and research at the intersection of computer science and social science. Born in Scotland, he holds the Steckler Endowed Chair of Information and Computer Science at th ...
maintains an archived original version of the Jargon File, because, he says, Raymond's updates "essentially destroyed what held it together."
In 1996 Raymond took over development of the open-source email software "popclient", renaming it to
Fetchmail
Fetchmail is an open-source software utility for POSIX-compliant operating systems which is used to retrieve e-mail from a remote POP3, IMAP, or ODMR mail server to the user's local system. It was developed from thpopclientprogram, written by Car ...
. Soon after this experience, in 1997, he wrote the essay "
The Cathedral and the Bazaar
''The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary'' (abbreviated ''CatB'') is an essay, and later a book, by Eric S. Raymond on software engineering methods, based on his observations of the Linux ...
", 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 The Linux Kongress was an annual conference of Linux developers from around the world, that took place every year from 1994 to 2010. It started as a two-day conference in 1994, when Linux was in the early stages of development, and by 2003 had becom ...
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. The internal white paper by Frank Hecker that led to the release of the
Mozilla
Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, ...
(then
Netscape
Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was on ...
) source code in 1998 cited ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar'' as "independent validation" of ideas proposed by
Eric Hahn
Eric Hahn (born March 19, 1960) is an American serial entrepreneur and computer software programmer who founded an early e-mail-based groupware company called Collabra Software in 1992. Netscape acquired Collabra in 1995, and in 1997 Hahn became ...
and
Jamie Zawinski
Jamie Zawinski (born November 3, 1968), commonly known as jwz, is an American computer programmer, blogger and impresario. He is best known for his role in the creation of Netscape Navigator, Netscape Mail, Lucid Emacs, Mozilla.org, and XSc ...
. Hahn would later describe the 1999 book as "clearly influential".
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
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the steward of the Open Source Definition, the set of rules that define open source software. It is a California public-benefit nonprofit corporation, with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
The organization wa ...
(OSI) in 1998, taking on the self-appointed role of ambassador of
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...
to the press, business and public. He remains active in OSI, but stepped down as president of the initiative in February 2005. 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.
In 1998 Raymond received and published a Microsoft document expressing worry about the quality of rival open-source software. He named this document, together with others subsequently leaked, "''The
Halloween Documents
The Halloween documents comprise a series of confidential Microsoft memoranda on potential strategies relating to free software, open-source software, and to Linux in particular, and a series of media responses to these memoranda. Both the lea ...
''".
In 2000–2002 he created
Configuration Menu Language 2 (CML2), a source code configuration system; while originally intended for the
Linux operating system
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whic ...
, it was rejected by kernel developers. (Raymond attributed this rejection to "kernel list politics", but
Linus Torvalds
Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and, historically, the lead developer of the Linux kernel, used by Linux distributions and other operating systems such as Android. He also ...
said in a 2007 mailing list post that as a matter of policy, the development team preferred more incremental changes.) Raymond's 2003 book ''
The Art of Unix Programming
''The Art of Unix Programming'' by Eric S. Raymond is a book about the history and culture of Unix programming from its earliest days in 1969 to 2003 when it was published, covering both genetic derivations such as BSD and conceptual ones such ...
'' discusses user tools for programming and other tasks.
Some versions of ''
NetHack'' still include Raymond's guide.
He has also contributed code and content to the
free software
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
video game ''
The Battle for Wesnoth
''The Battle for Wesnoth'' is a free and open-source turn-based strategy video game with a high fantasy setting, designed by Australian-American developer David White and first released in June 2003. In ''Wesnoth'', the player attempts to build ...
''.
Raymond is the main developer of
NTPSec, a "secure, hardened replacement" for the Unix utility
NTP.
Views on open source
![Eric Raymond 2019](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Eric_Raymond_2019.jpg)
Raymond coined an
aphorism
An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by tra ...
he dubbed
Linus's law
In software development, Linus's law is the assertion that "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow".
The law was formulated by Eric S. Raymond in his essay and book ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar'' (1999), and was named in honor of Linus T ...
, inspired by
Linus Torvalds
Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and, historically, the lead developer of the Linux kernel, used by Linux distributions and other operating systems such as Android. He also ...
: "Given enough eyeballs, all
bugs are shallow". It first appeared in his book ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar''.
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".
Raymond has had a number of public
disputes
Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The word was coined from the Latin ''controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an opposite d ...
with other figures in the
free software movement
The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users, namely the freedoms to run the software, to study the software, to modify the software, and to share copies of the s ...
. 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
Richard Matthew Stallman (; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...
and the
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)#501(c)(3), 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...
fails, he said, "not because his principles are wrong, but because that kind of language ... simply does not persuade anybody".
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." 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
Active parties by country
Defunct parties by country
Organizations associated with Libertarian parties
See also
* Liberal parties by country
* List of libertarian organizations
* Lists of political parties
Lists of political part ...
and a
gun rights
The right to keep and bear arms (often referred to as the right to bear arms) is a right for people to possess weapons (arms) for the preservation of life, liberty, and property. The purpose of gun rights is for self-defense, including securi ...
advocate. He has endorsed the open source firearms organization
Defense Distributed
Defense Distributed is an online open-source hardware organization that develops digital schematics of firearms in CAD files, or "wiki weapons", that may be downloaded from the Internet and used in 3D printing or CNC milling applications. Among ...
, 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."
In 2015 Raymond accused the
Ada Initiative and other
women in tech
''Women In Tech: Take Your Career to the Next Level with Practical Advice and Inspiring Stories'' is a 2016 professional career guide written by Tarah Wheeler and published by Sasquatch Books. The book began as a Kickstarter project, with 772 ...
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."
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." 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.
Religious beliefs
Raymond describes himself as
neo-pagan
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a term for a religion or family of religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Afric ...
.
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,
* Wayner, Peter;
Free for All: How LINUX and the Free Software Movement Undercut the High-Tech Titans', HarperCollins, 2000, 340 pp,
* Suarez-Potts, Louis;'
', 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,
By Eric Raymond
Books
* ''The New Hacker's Dictionary'' (editor MIT Press ) – printed version of the
Jargon File
The Jargon File is a glossary and usage dictionary of slang used by computer programmers. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) and others of the old ARPANET ...
with Raymond listed as the editor.
* ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar'' (O'Reilly; hardcover , 1999) – includes "
The Cathedral and the Bazaar
''The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary'' (abbreviated ''CatB'') is an essay, and later a book, by Eric S. Raymond on software engineering methods, based on his observations of the Linux ...
", "
Homesteading the Noosphere "Homesteading the Noosphere" (abbreviated HtN) is an essay written by Eric S. Raymond about the social workings of open-source software development. It follows his previous piece "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" (1997).
The essay examines issues of p ...
", "
The Magic Cauldron" an
"Revenge of the Hackers"* ''
The Art of Unix Programming
''The Art of Unix Programming'' by Eric S. Raymond is a book about the history and culture of Unix programming from its earliest days in 1969 to 2003 when it was published, covering both genetic derivations such as BSD and conceptual ones such ...
'' (Addison-Wesley, 2003; )
* ''Learning GNU Emacs'' (3rd Edition; editors Debra Cameron, James Elliott, Marc Loy, Eric, Raymond, and Bill Rosenblatt (O'Reilly Media, 2004; )
Writings posted or archived on his website
*
The Art of Unix Usability', the book about programming and user interface philosophy in UNIX
*
', mirrored on personal site
*
', 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
''Revolution OS'' is a 2001 documentary film that traces the twenty-year history of GNU, Linux, open source, and the free software movement.
Directed by J. T. S. Moore, the film features interviews with prominent hackers and entrepreneurs incl ...
'' (film)
*
Hacker ethic
The hacker ethic is a philosophy and set of moral values within hacker culture. Practitioners believe that sharing information and data with others is an ethical imperative. The hacker ethic is related to the concept of freedom of information, ...
*
Halloween documents
The Halloween documents comprise a series of confidential Microsoft memoranda on potential strategies relating to free software, open-source software, and to Linux in particular, and a series of media responses to these memoranda. Both the leaked ...
*
Release early, release often
Release early, release often (also known as ship early, ship often, or time-based releases, and sometimes abbreviated RERO) is a software development philosophy that emphasizes the importance of early and frequent releases in creating a tight feed ...
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
Blog ("Armed and Dangerous")*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Raymond, Eric S.
1957 births
American bloggers
American gun rights activists
American technology writers
American libertarians
American speculative fiction critics
Free software programmers
Geeknet
Living people
Members of the Open Source Initiative board of directors
Open source advocates
American modern pagans
People with cerebral palsy
Science fiction fans
Science fiction critics
Writers from Boston
University of Pennsylvania alumni
21st-century American non-fiction writers