> *spit* You mean esr sounds like Matt. :-)
>
> esr does echo good points (although he fits as "ankle biter" quite well),
> but he certainly didn't originate them. Neither did I, but then I'm not
> pimping myself to the media.
ESR's 'job' wasn't to originate anything....
>
> I hadn't realised esr had affected the outsiders' perceptions of open
> source to the degree you indicate. I had considered him inconsequential.
Eric S. Raymond inconsequential? I'm sorry, Matt, but where have you been over the last few years? 5 years ago no one had ever heard of 'open source' software - we all called it 'free software' and the model was essentially the GNU GPL license. Eric Raymond's work in getting the idea of 'open source' adopted - and remember, this was an effort which explicitely linked to getting 'free software' a toehold in industry - made a huge impact.
Also, if ESR is so inconsequential, then how did he get his manifesto published by Tim O'Reilly? O'Reilly and Associates' line of books has long been the most popular set of reference works for the Unix platform (not that they've had a monopoly, but every sysadmin / unix programmer / open source programmer I know has a couple of ORA books), and now for 'open source' software in general.
In terms of defining the 'open source' community, and building vital links between 'open source' code an industry, ESR has been key. Maybe less so these days - now that 'open source' has mainstreamed quite a bit, you find a different and slightly less prophet-like set of people (e.g. Tim O'Reilly, who spoke at the recent Bioinformatics Open Source Conference) doing the evangelism.
With people like ESR, we would probably still be in a position where I could not convince any of my superiors to take the 'risk' of using 'free software' for production use. (And I would probably still be a Unix sysadmin / systems programmer, rather than a bioinformaticist)
Peter -- Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844