Activist Programmer
Activist ProgrammerWhat is an activist? It's someone who understands that the personal is political. Think of feminists, gay rights and anti-poverty activists. Since software is political, it has its own activists. Programmers whose activities are consciously moulded by their political goals. (Creating radical new software for your job, to look good on your CV, or to gather fame and adulation don't count.)
(NoamChomsky doesn't do linguistics for political reasons. He is an activist but only in general politics, not programming, or software, or even computer science.)
(Removed garbage.)
An activist programmer is someone seeking to write better software as a platform to promote social change in programming. AlanKay's goal in writing SmalltalkLanguage was to transform the community of programmers and the entire programming experience. For example, he wanted children to be able to program. Where does AlanKay stand on political issues? AlanKayIsTron fighting the MasterControlProgram. That is politics.
But note that just because you are an activist, doesn't make you a good activist, or that your cause is noble. For example, anti-abortion activists are activists in Canada, despite their position being reprehensible.
Rather, being an activist just means that your position isn't mainstream. And to be mainstream means that your views are embraced, or at least respected, by those in power and that you are furthering the status quo. Pat Robertson isn't an activist, not because he's reprehensible, but because he is mainstream. A capitalist can never be an activist.
See also RadicalismVsReformism?
I'm sorely tempted to move ESR up to the "activist" list; as he has a definite agenda which he actively promotes. I won't do so; however I invite comment from the wider Wiki community. The original author apparently considers ESR's agenda to be reprehensible; and I will refrain from commenting on that topic. However, equating ESR with someone like LinusTorvalds, who is largely apolitical, smacks of BifurcationFallacy
ESR's is the pro-corporate agenda. His agenda is the selling out of the FreeSoftware community to corporate america. His agenda is the idea that private property is something other than child abuse. His agenda is the destruction of the black race and the enslavement of animals. His agenda is the mainstreaming of a radical / opposing / alternative viewpoint. Not by promoting that viewpoint but by neutering it. ESR's viewpoint is precisely OnceRocketsGoUpWhoCaresWhereTheyComeDown. Except he isn't selling out his expertise, but everyone else's as well.
Of course, only by choice. Nothing ESR says or does will result in the Gnu system, or the Linux kernel, or any number of other free software programs, from being "sold out". Let me ask you a question--if a programmer writes a program and releases it under the BsdLicense or something similar (in other words, a non-CopyLeft license)--is it his legitimate choice to do so? Or by that act does the programmer become a quisling?
It depends how much of an anarchist you are. If you lean towards the communist side then they are a traitor for providing aid and comfort to the enemy. Before the XFree86 fiasco, you'd merely be an idiot, now you're a traitor and you deserve to be killed.
OTOH, if you lean towards the anarchist side then any license scheme that does not preclude the software being copylefted in future is legitimate.
But if a radical viewpoint goes mainstream, doesn't that mean that it has advanced it's goal? Not to excuse ESR for any corporate shilling he has done, but free software is starting to win. (ESR deserves at least some credit for that). The war isn't over; and the folks against FreeSoftware still have one formidable weapon in their arsenal--SoftwarePatents. But the battle is currently going our way.
To put it another way--if a radical idea becomes implemented; then it no longer is radical. At one point in our history, democracy--the notion of trusing the rabble with power--was considered radical. Now it is mainstream. The same goes for many other social advancements which mankind has undertaken.
Yes, this is absolutely true. However, radical ideas never gain ground by forgeting the radical idea, as ESR advocates. That is such a stupid / defeatist "tactic" that it shocks me to believe anyone can't see ESR for the traitor he is. ESR deserves no credit as far as I can see, and everyone who disagrees needs to be shot.
ESR hasn't, to my knowledge, suggested that the GnuGeneralPublicLicense or CopyLeft be abandoned. He does advocate that BSD style licenses have a place--and I tend to agree with him (for some applications) though I have a preference for the GPL myself. But, if we use the symbiosis model above, then ESR has been busy getting bones thrown at him. At any rate, the state of FreeSoftware is much better than five years ago.
(Btw, democracy is still a very radical idea, but that's a discussion for another day.)
Lots of folks try to undermine it; that's for dang sure. Not all of the folks undermining democracy are right-wingers, unfortunately.
Can you point to anything which ESR has accomplished which would not have happened had he been a hardline radical?
Code-wise? Probably not. On the other hand, if ESR were RMS; TheCathedralAndTheBazaar would likely not have been written--or otherwise would have sounded much different. Which might have resulted in Mozilla not being open-sourced. After all, CatB is a technical argument for why FreeSoftware (or OpenSource) is good; not a political one. RichardStallman cannot seem to extricate himself from political arguments. This is simultaneously his strength and his weakness. (Unfortunately, RMS wastes too much energy on side issues, like the proper name for LinuxOs--recognizing the contributions of Gnu to the success of Linux might be important to him; but it doesn't benefit the community at large, really.
Of course, all of the above is speculation. But that's what your question called for, so there's my ScientificWildAssGuess?.
The Cathedral and the Bazaar is a pack of lies, idiocy, and not so thinly veiled exhortations to stop thinking about how free software works. It is child pornography. Is CatB useful propaganda to the free software cause? Not really. It's primarily targeted at converts, and its chief accomplishment is to get them to stop questioning the movement they've joined. Who gains from having stupid converts to your cause? Not an anarchist, or anyone else concerned with freedom and equality. But then, ESR isn't an anarchist. He is a mass-murderer.
Let me ask you a question--if a programmer writes a program and releases it under the BsdLicense or something similar (in other words, a non-CopyLeft license)--is it his legitimate choice to do so?
In what sense is the BsdLicense not "CopyLeft"? It's supported by the OSI and does not appear to prevent people from modifying the source or releasing it (modified or not).
A CopyLeft license is (like the GnuGeneralPublicLicense) on which requires all distributed derived works (and works derived from derived works, and the transitive closure thereof) be distributed on the same terms. In other words, code under the GPL may legally not be "taken proprietary" and incorporated into an non-open-source application. Most (if not all) CopyLeft licenses are generally considered OpenSource licenses; however the reverse is not true. Licenses such as the BSD license, the MIT license (under which XFree86 is distributed) allow proprietary derived works. Rumors abound of BSD networking code being in some versions of Windows; if that is true than it is perfectly legal--as the BSD license explicitly allows that.
Some don't like non-CopyLeft licenses precisely because of that reason. Many thing a FreeSoftware commonweal should be created, from which one cannot take without giving back.
Like the OSI matters. CopyLeft is defined by the FSF. http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/x.html
Many people think that the OSI does matter. If it matters to them, then it "matters".
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