Xref: utzoo alt.folklore.computers:8027 comp.misc:10957 Path: utzoo!attcan!lsuc!xenitec!maytag!watmath!watserv1!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!mintaka!ai-lab!life!cstacy From: cstacy@ai.mit.edu (Christopher C. Stacy) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.misc Subject: the jargon file Message-ID: Date: 17 Dec 90 20:17:39 GMT Sender: news@ai.mit.edu Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab Lines: 24 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". It's unfortunate that one of the side-effects of not taking steps to protect this material is that people can steal it and use it misrepresent us, but who would have guessed? Eric Raymond probably isn't doing this out of malice; I'm sure he just doesn't understand what the jargon file was really all about. The rest of us are a little baffled at Guy Steele's cooperation with him. For further insight into the whole affair, you should probably just look up "LOSER" in the original dictionary. I certainly don't want to get into a typical protracted net.discussion here about this whole sad mess; I just wanted the record to include what seems to be popular opinion of most of the old crowd who are aware of the effort.