LA Weekly: Man Against the FUD

"How Eric Raymond became the ambassador for the open-source movement -- and why he hasn't quit..."

"There's nothing wrong with getting what you want, of course, and according to Raymond, that's what open-source software is really all about. "I want to live in a world where software doesn't suck," he says, and so far, he's doing a pretty good job of realizing that dream. In the last year, this boyish-looking, unemployed 40-year-old who lives in a small Pennsylvania town has become, arguably, the most important voice in an exploding movement among businesses and engineers. With his paper "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," a candidate for high rank in the huge canon of letters on technology, Raymond inspired Netscape to give away the source code to its Web browser. With his proclamations around and about the Net, he's given Microsoft reason to fret about the open-source phenomenon. Lately -- and no small thanks to Raymond -- that specter has been looming ever larger."

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