Interview: OSI's new president

Posted Feb 2, 2005 5:30 UTC (Wed) by mark (guest, #1921)
Parent article: Interview: OSI's new president

"The economist is here, and boy is he pissed."

I was unfortunate enough to share a mailing list with this guy. In response to certain types of questions, he would often post incomplete script fragments, with the offer to finish the code - for a fee. Whilst this behaviour is completely within his rights, shamelessly profiteering on a software user's mailing list is not what I would have expected from someone who is to be a champion of "open source" software.

In fact, Russ Nelson appears, from my reading of his angry economist blog, to be an anarcho-capitalist - or, at least, far right of center, economically speaking. I'm not sure how this can benefit a social organisation such as the "open source" movement. I find the structure of his arguments and the nature of his assumptions on his web site to be mildly alarming.

The shouting in the interview is just strange.

After reading his manifesto and other documents, I formed a great deal of respect for Richard Stallman, but the OSI just leaves me cold. Russ Nelson, his odd interview, and weird pseudo- economics just don't do it for me, and I'm very glad that the FSF is the more influential organisation of the two.

Interview: OSI's new president

Posted Feb 2, 2005 6:01 UTC (Wed) by piman (guest, #8957) [Link]

This is no different than the ultra-capitalist Libertarian (big L) opinions of ESR. The OSI has (regrettably) never been about a social movement. Don't ask me what it has been about though, I haven't quite figured that out yet either...

Interview: OSI's new president

Posted Feb 2, 2005 9:57 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (6 responses)

The shouting in the interview is just strange.

I think it was meant to be humorous (certainly I found it so, although a tad out of place).

His political opinions are odd, but the OSI has always been packed with people with strange political opinions (hell, so's the whole open source/free software movement: probably because we think for ourselves, we end up with a higher proportion of unusual beliefs than those that follow the crowd).

(I still think that decrying socialism is strange, given that it continues to be the philosophical backbone of many powerful European political groupings, and Europe not only has not collapsed but has spent much of the past sixty years *anti*-collapsing. I consider this conflation of socialism and communist dictatorships simply a peculiarity of many people brought up in the US, and otherwise ignore it.)

Interview: OSI's new president

Posted Feb 3, 2005 3:40 UTC (Thu) by marduk (subscriber, #3831) [Link]

I actually thought the shouting and not-so-funny jokes were immature and, frankly, annoying. But maybe I just didn't get it. Perhaps the OSI could use an image consultant.

Interview: OSI's new president

Posted Feb 3, 2005 16:22 UTC (Thu) by mcopple (subscriber, #2920) [Link] (1 responses)

It was certainly meant to be humorous, but I would think someone serious about furthering the adoption of open source would be more, uhm, professional.

I respect the fact that he does not wish to be seen as a "mealy-mouthed corporate" type, but a little professionalism now and then is a good thing.

Interview: OSI's new president

Posted Feb 3, 2005 16:41 UTC (Thu) by mmarsh (subscriber, #17029) [Link]

On the other hand, this was an interview that he knew was going to be read by a friendly (and generally informal) audience.

Interview: OSI's new president

Posted Feb 7, 2005 16:40 UTC (Mon) by RussNelson (guest, #27730) [Link]

probably because we think for ourselves, we end up with a higher proportion of unusual beliefs than those that follow the crowd

Yes! This is good!

I still think that decrying socialism is strange,

Read Hayek's _The Road to Serfdom_. Hayek was not brought up in the US. Neither was von Mises.
-russ

Interview: OSI's new president

Posted Feb 10, 2005 13:45 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

I expect Russ is American...

Speaking as a European, I just don't see how Free/Open Software people can be anti-socialist!

Something like linux is a pretty pure form of Popular Socialism (that is, socialism by the people for the people of the people. Where we do it ourselves because we see it is to our personal advantage to share).

Yup, if you equate socialism and Communism, yes I can see where he's coming from. The trouble with America today, as I see it, is it's becoming a fascist state - government of the people, by the corporation for the corporation. Lets hope America rediscovers its SOCIALIST roots again, with things like barn-raisings etc etc.

Cheers,
Wol

Interview: OSI's new president

Posted Feb 10, 2005 20:53 UTC (Thu) by Brandybuck (guest, #27827) [Link]

Linux is voluntary, socialism is not. Perhaps you meant to use a different word, but when I hear "socialism" the first thing I think of is Karl Marx and a whole slew of political philosophers who argue for state control/ownership of the means/fruits of production.

Free Software is about freely sharing your code, which is a completely different thing from socialism. Free Software does not have a state. There is no government to ensure that people give their fair share of code. No one gets fined if they don't give enough code. There are no bureacracies to determine where best to allocate code contributions. Free Software works because it is about freedom, and not about central management by the state.

Interview: OSI's new president

Posted Feb 7, 2005 16:17 UTC (Mon) by RussNelson (guest, #27730) [Link]

he would often post incomplete script fragments,

Actually, complete scripts, but untested (and I would be happy to provide them as a solution for a fee). One of the good things about the non-open-source qmail on which I made my living for a number of years is that with the inability to redistribute modified versions of qmail, everything about an installation is known. So, in order to help somebody, instead of having to ask them "Well, where is it installed, in /opt/package, /usr/lib/package, or /usr/local/lib/package?" with qmail you can give actual shell script commands that a user can cut and paste.

I think that qmail would be a better MTA if it were open source, but one of the ways in which it would be harmed is that you could no longer assume the installation location. In order to be an advocate of open source, we must be clear on what is lost and what is gained.

The shouting in the interview is just strange.

Perhaps I assume too much? I thought everyone knew that OSI and the FSF have more or less been at loggerheads for many years. One of the last official actions ESR took was to begin negotiations with RMS on joint cross-linking of our license pages. I'm going to continue that project and try to find ways to improve relations between our two organizations. The shouting definitely wouldn't be funny if you didn't know that we haven't gotten along in the past. Sorry if you didn't enjoy it.
-russ