[ Thanks to Bob Brand
for this link. ]
“No longer am I just another small voice howling at the New York
Times about distorted and misleading reporting on various aspects
of the Internet. [Past articles: Net Depression?, eBay Addict?, Net
Privacy, EBay in the News.] On June 27, NYT’s Critic’s Notebook
contained “When the Geeks Get Snide” by Michiko Kakutani. This is
typical, “Indeed geek-speak is flush with disparaging or defensive
references to the real world and flesh-and-blood human beings. The
nonvirtual world, so much messier than the one on line, is
derogatorily referred to as a “carbon community” or “meatspace”.
The piece generated a rapid response from head geek spokesman, Eric
Raymond. Operating at Internet speed, the following day, June 28,
Salon Magazine printed Raymond’s retort, “Don’t Tweak the
Geeks!”
“Arguably, two of the most misunderstood and inaccurately
reported aspects of the Internet are hackers and open source
software (OSS) programmers. Both belong to the species: geek.
These subjects do not fit into neatly crafted 15 second media sound
bites. Eric Raymond (known throughout geekdom as simply ESR)
reluctantly emerged as spokesman for these arcane realms of
Internet-land. (I heard ESR talk at a Connecticut Free Unix Group
meeting in 1999.) While much has been written about this outspoken
über-geek, the May 1997 seminal paper “The Cathedral and the
Bazaar” (CatB) stands as the document that put him on the radar
screen.”