[twoodfin]

I can't help but notice you managed to write something approximating the length of a short essay without once pointing out any "bullshit" in ESR's technical writing, let alone explaining how said "bullshit" must derive from his wrongthink.

[dredmorbius]

I'm afraid I must apologize for failing to make myself clear: it's that his practices call into question his statements in other areas.

I have to confess that I don't have specific instances at hand, for two reasons. One is that much of his more technical writing on programming is outside my own area of expertise. The other is that, given his tendencies, I largely ignore him.

My point, however, wasn't where he is specifically mistaken, but why the traits he exhibits in his rantings on other topics do have a bearing on his engineering judgement.

I do hope that's clear now.

[Frondo]

I pasted this link elsewhere in the comments; the rationalwiki page talks about ESR's objectionable ideas:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond

Now, his attitudes on HIV denialism and IQ and race don't deal with engineering, but they're pretty objectionable. And, you know, we can get good engineering writing and thinking from a lot of places. ESR doesn't have a monopoly on writing about operating systems. I'd rather promote the writers who don't carry around a ton of wrong/distasteful baggage.

[davidgerard]

I wrote a bit of that page, and I still listen avidly to his technical expertise, which is qualitatively greater than most people's. But the rest ...