Celebrity advice

[Terry Reedy]

"A.M. Kuchling" <amk at amk.ca> wrote in message
news:Kv-cnVDMbb1qmdOiRTvUqg at speakeasy.net...
> On 28 Aug 2003 04:17:56 -0700,

> It's really a pity that open source has no really effective
spokesperson at
> this time.

>      * Linus does a pretty good job as a public speaker, and he
doesn't have
>        any of RMS's or ESR's baggage, but he's also not very
interested
>        in the job.  (The same goes for Guido.)

He may get drawn into it more anyway.  Nothing like being kicked in
the pants to stir up a little adrenalin.  Here is his take on SCO's
dog show:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1227128,00.asp
(much shorter than the Perens analysis).  Key line: "They are smoking
crack".

> The best candidate is Bruce Perens, IMHO.  He has the technical
background
> of working on a non-trivial project (Debian), yet writes and
presents in a
> style that doesn't attract attention and doesn't let irrelevancies
intrude.
> Compare his commentary on SCO
(http://www.perens.com/SCO/SCOSlideShow.html)
> with ESR's counterblast.  (To be fair, ESR's analysis of the code is
also
> pretty good; the OSI letter is where it becomes unacceptable.)

Revolutionary movements need both firebrands and sober analysts.

The SCO suit will prompt me to keep better 'audit trails' than I might
of overwise.

Prediction: If Torvalds and Perens are correct in what they said and
the courts (including the 'court of public opinion') agree, Linux and
the Open Source Movement will emerge stronger for the SCO challenge.

Terry J. Reedy