Thank you, hannahurr! What a very worthwhile interview; the tech world greatly lacks such things.
Thank you!
Interview with Steve Klabnik
11–20 of 36 posts
Re: Interview with Steve Klabnik
#12"The free-software ethos and the founders of the open-source movement are mega-racist libertarian people, and so it’s always really weird to me that a bunch of Leftists are so into open source; it explicitly manifests capitalist social relations." Mega-racist? What? Lost me a bit there. It's weird to me that he speaks about the free software movement as if it were dead...as if the only motivator to write open source…
> Mega-racist? What? Lost me a bit there. I assume that was mostly a thinly-veiled jab at ESR; who is a racist and generally a giant asshat, IMO; but it probably isn't worded in the best way when taken out of context of the paragraph preceding it since it sounds like the speaker is conflating ESR with the Free software people (who I also tend to disagree with on a great many things but for different reasons). At the…
Yes, I was referring to ESR, who is mega libertarian and mega racist, and a large part of 'open source' rather than 'free software.'
Re: Interview with Steve Klabnik
#13Just discovered Steve on Twitter yesterday so this is a coincidentally well timed article. What initially drew me to his Twitter account were the obvious references to Deleuze and Guatarri - specifically his reference to the concept of the body without organs (BwO) in his twitter handle. Glad to see a like-minded programmer coming to many of the same conclusions I've been reaching recently.
You caught me on a good day: I've been changing my twitter handle multiple times a day some days. It's a reference to ATP, p150:
> You never reach the Body without Organs, you can't reach it,
> you are forever attaining it, it is a limit.
Re: Interview with Steve Klabnik
#149 times out of 10 when I see some "controversial" (for HN) economic/political post that I totally agree with, it was posted by user steveklabnik. That aside, I have to admit I still prefer Go over Rust. In any case, very interesting interview. I'd love to see more like this even if the subject was someone on the opposite end of the political/economic spectrum from me, I found it much more interesting than the typical…
Hehe, thanks. I do often think about how my posts here are perceived. It's weird being an anti-capitaist, hanging out on message boards that are, in many ways, at a center of capitalism.
Re: Interview with Steve Klabnik
#15Steve is a really great guy. He's super friendly and incredibly accessible. I've emailed or tweeted him a handful of times and he's always been very helpful. I don't agree with everything he says but he has turned me onto a lot of issues I didn't know anything about especially feminism.
<3
Re: Interview with Steve Klabnik
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Mega-racist? What? Lost me a bit there. I assume that was mostly a thinly-veiled jab at ESR; who is a racist and generally a giant asshat, IMO; but it probably isn't worded in the best way when taken out of context of the paragraph preceding it since it sounds like the speaker is conflating ESR with the Free software people (who I also tend to disagree with on a great many things but for different reasons). At the…
Yes, I was referring to ESR, who is mega libertarian and mega racist, and a large part of 'open source' rather than 'free software.'
I wish you had made a stronger distinction between freedom and zero-price.
Re: Interview with Steve Klabnik
#17"The free-software ethos and the founders of the open-source movement are mega-racist libertarian people, and so it’s always really weird to me that a bunch of Leftists are so into open source; it explicitly manifests capitalist social relations." Mega-racist? What? Lost me a bit there. It's weird to me that he speaks about the free software movement as if it were dead...as if the only motivator to write open source…
It's true that the free software movement isn't dead, but the open source movement has taken the fore as being socially significant. Furthermore, in many programming communities, preferring the GPL over BSD is something that will get you a _lot_ of hate.
Re: Interview with Steve Klabnik
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, I was referring to ESR, who is mega libertarian and mega racist, and a large part of 'open source' rather than 'free software.'
I wish you had made a stronger distinction between freedom and zero-price.
I don't see it as freedom vs. price, I see it as ethical position vs. cost reduction. That said, you're right that I could have gone into it further, but this was a spoken interview over lunch, so it's not as tight as it could be, and this magazine is also not for programmers, so it's a little harder to dig into the details.
Re: Interview with Steve Klabnik
#19I do find myself in many of the same communities as Steve, and in much the same starting position whereas I tend to get bored and leave things he puts in the effort to do something for the community. I jointed Rust to write an ML project and contribute, I gave a talk on the philosophy of programming, I think I was speaking one conference behind him at one point too. And yesterday he opens metaphysics.io and I program…
Don't stress it. You probably have the time to actually enjoy things in life... workaholism isn't inherently positive.
Re: Interview with Steve Klabnik
#20I find it interesting that he contrasts free software with open source as "ethical position vs. cost reduction", apparently without ever considering cost reduction as an ethical position. (Enabling people to do things for less cost seems (to me), to be at the heart of any non-zero-sum strategy for improving the world. Otherwise you're just re-shuffling the same cards that have already been dealt.)
I also thought it was curious that he's advocating for capturing 100% of the value you create, apparently not considering the value he gets from other people without paying them.
This didn't resonate with me. It made me a little curious, but left lots of "How did you get to that conclusion?" questions. Any recommendations on what his best writing is?