

In the beginning was the command line by Neil Stephenson - iamelgringo
http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html

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Readmore
This is a really great essay. I go back and read it every year or so. There is
actually an 'updated' version, not done by Stephenson but with his blessing.
It takes into account the rise of OS X (which Stephenson loves) and updates
some of the other arguments. Here is the updated text
<http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/commandline/index.html>

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eru
Great for people we read the original first, too. As the update consists of
clearly marked comments.

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christefano
This is an incredible essay by one of today's leading techgnostic writers.
It's the earliest writing I know of that talks about the commoditization of
software regarding open source projects.

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leoc
The "Halloween documents" (I and II) by Vinod Valloppillil and Josh Cohen were
talking about it the previous year: they were written and leaked in 1998.

<http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/>

~~~
eru
"This page originally continued with an anti-Microsoft jeremiad. On
reflection, however, I think I'd prefer to finish by thanking the principal
authors, Vinod Valloppillil and Josh Cohen, for authoring such remarkable and
effective testimonials to the excellence of Linux and open-source software in
general. I suspect that historians may someday regard the Halloween memoranda
as your finest hour, and the Internet community certainly owes you a vote of
thanks."

