From: dwex@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (david.e.wexelblat)
Subject: Re: The Great 1992 UNIX Dream Machines Bake-Off --- Progress Report #1
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 12:57:43 GMT

In article <1g828J#5xD0yh3j5tXG1zD0SF0C74v2=eric@snark.thyrsus.com> eric@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
> It's late, I'm tired, and I'm fed up with being polite to utter pinheads.
> 

 [stuff deleted]

> 
>>It's not even clear that you're really bootstrapping people up to an awareness
>>of the Unix market or that no one else has ever assembled such information. 
> 
> Fine, asshole.  You go *find* that information.  *Then* flame me.
>  

Personally, I would have given a lot to have this information.  As it turns
out, I got relatively lucky with my purchase.  Whether you realize it or
not, the results of this study, informal as it is, are going to be
incredibly useful to a lot of people.

>>Why does this remind me of your explaining that you were publishing the
>>Hacker's Dictionary in order to benefit programmers?  At least Brad Templeton
>>never claims that his sole motivation is helping mankind... 

Because you are a programmer/user, not a hacker.

> 
> Nor have I ever done so, idiot.  I have a healthy self-interest involved in
> *all* my projects.  I'm surrendering that $80 an hour because I *like* being
> a paladin of the net --- because I groove on doing good stuff for other
> hackers like me, and on the prospect of having thousands of the brightest
> people in the world think "Eric Raymond, yeah, he does crazy useful things no
> one else would quite have both the smarts and the chutzpah to try".
> 

Now, calm down, Eric.  You of all people should recognize the signature
of a luser (a jealous one, at that).  Personally, with my hacker mentality,
my first thought was "What a jerk.  He didn't ask for volunteers, so I can't
get in on it!", immediately followed by "What a stud!  I wish I'd thought
to do that!".

> The fact is, I *am* "helping mankind" --- for good selfish reasons of ego
> satisfaction and a hell of a lot more effectively than your snotty comments
> will *ever* do.  I've put literally *years* of my life into free software; if
> you use any UNIX EMACS or play nethack or use kermit the odds are damn good
> that you've run your bleeding program counter through code I wrote and gave
> away.  When you can claim as much *and* show me a book you did that's delighted
> as many netters as TNHD, *and* utter in two weeks from a cold standing start a
> 1200-line FAQ that experienced netters are willing to call "the most useful
> posting I've seen in years" in public --- when you can do these things, *then*
> I will listen respectfully while you poor-mouth my motives and methods.

Also - I have never seen an FAQ before that invited both user and vendor
contribution (not to say that there isn't one - just that I haven't seen it).
I'm also not sure that I would really call it an FAQ.  It's more like the
kind of objective comparison with subjective review that I would expect to
see in trade journals, but rarely do.

If anything, Eric's FAQ should convince people of his honest and fair dealing.

> 
> In the meantime, I will thank Goddess my chosen role doesn't *always* require
> me to suffer fools gladly, and cordially invite you to bugger off.
> -- 
>       Eric S. Raymond = eric@snark.thyrsus.com  (mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)


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