Xref: utzoo alt.folklore.computers:8021 comp.misc:10956 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!Tomobiki-Cho!mrc From: mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.misc Subject: Re: the jargon file Message-ID: <13187@milton.u.washington.edu> Date: 18 Dec 90 03:34:08 GMT References: Sender: news@milton.u.washington.edu Organization: Mendou Zaibatsu, Tomobiki-Cho, Butsumetsu-Shi Lines: 68 In article cstacy@ai.mit.edu (Christopher C. Stacy) writes: > In <1Yp1c0#8JTdOl0rXhNp21lzZf1Js8Lk=eric@snark.thyrsus.com>, and some previous > messages that I didn't see, Eric S. Raymond asserts that "all the ITS > partisans have now become Unix partisans, since the Unix philosophy is > the same as the ITS philosophy", and discusses his new edition > of our old jargon file. > >This topic came up again recently among a bunch of old ITS hackers, >and I thought I'd send a message to sort of correct the record. >In fact, most of the "ITS partisans" are really unhappy, discouraged, and >severely disapproving of this effort to re-write the jargon file. >Also, we are definitely not "Unix partisans". > >The rest of us are a little baffled at Guy Steele's cooperation >with him. Chris, I had an e-mail discussion with Guy about this very topic a while ago. He is not participating in the Usenet discussion for a reason; he suggested to me that I should ignore alt.folklore.computers too. What he had to say ameliorated my unhappiness somewhat. In fairness, we have to admit that we took and ran away with RF's original lexicon in much the same way as Eric has done so with ours. In a sense, we are the "establishment" and Eric is the Young Turk shaking things up... I have accepted Guy's statement that the other collaborators (Don, RF, RMS, Geoff, and I) will be consulted prior to any steps being taken to publish the finished product of Eric's efforts. I intend to take a major role in editing at that time. I intend, at that time, to insist upon folding the lexicon into a single section, restoring deleted text, and amending text that is obviously wrong (e.g. the allegations of the death of TECO). I also have a great many notations marked up in an older copy of Eric's document; there's a incorrect philologicial reference from very early days, new and commonly-used hacker jargon that Eric totally missed, etc. I don't intend to delete anything, although I question the inclusion of "BNF" and certain proprietary names such as "Church of the Sub-Genius" (which probably can't be used in a published text -- Lucas wouldn't allow us to use MTFBWY). But I do intend to correct a number of high-handed judgemental notions of what is "obsolete". I hope that my efforts will show sensitivity to all the various communities. I believe that, for scholarship reasons, it is probably a good idea to go to greater lengths to indicate usage and/or community for a particular term. Terms with are obviously closely tied to Unix, VAX, IBM, PDP-10, etc. should be labelled as such. My idea is that it should be possible to extract an "X-specific" lexicon for various values of X by use of some tool from the main file, as well as the unabridged lexicon. My proposal is that for now we let Eric go ahead and wait until he declares himself done. Then, those of us who've been giving him a hard time should be prepared to roll up their sleeves and put in some *serious* work. _____ | ____ ___|___ /__ Mark ("Gaijin") Crispin "Gaijin! Gaijin!" _|_|_ -|- || __|__ / / R90/6 pilot, DoD #0105 "Gaijin ha doko?" |_|_|_| |\-++- |===| / / Atheist & Proud "Niichan ha gaijin." --|-- /| |||| |___| /\ (206) 842-2385/543-5762 "Chigau. Omae ha gaijin." /|\ | |/\| _______ / \ FAX: (206) 543-3909 "Iie, boku ha nihonjin." / | \ | |__| / \ / \MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU "Souka. Yappari gaijin!" Hee, dakedo UNIX nanka wo tsukatte, umaku ikanaku temo shiranai yo.