
In which, alas, I must rattle a tin cup - duncan_bayne
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7348
======
myrandomcomment
"That’s the real problem. Call it arrogant if you like, but I think the world
needs my creativity where it’s going now, even if that need doesn’t readily
translate into a flow of cash in my direction."

Your right, that is just arrogant. We are all thankful for the work you have
done but I promise the internet will still be here tomorrow if you stop. Get a
job or figure out how to setup a foundation to fund your work (i.e., like
Mozilla, OpenBSD, et.al.). As the foundation is something you should have put
together years ago I would suggest that you should go the job route.

When the bubble burst in 2001 I went from being on the top of the network
stack to struggling to find work. I took every contract I was offered no
matter how much is was below my skill set. I worked doing help desk contract
work, etc. In the years before I designed and built a freaking backbone and
did a HW company. I am back and successful now but I worked my ass off to get
here and I never forget it. I am a better person for it.

Before my last startup hit my family and I lived in a 2 bedroom place in
Menlo/PA area. The rent was expensive but the schools were the most important
thing. We had a neighbor, an Mexican family. They also lived in a 2 bedroom
with 4 kids. I would hear the fathers car leave the garage at 5AM and here him
come back at midnight. He worked 3 jobs to pay for that apartment in such an
expensive area. I asked him why. "It is my job to provide for my family. The
schools are the best here and I want my kids to have a good future, thats
why."

Get a job.

~~~
wmf
The foundation already exists
[https://www.coreinfrastructure.org/](https://www.coreinfrastructure.org/) but
it's not clear why they stopped funding ESR.

~~~
dfc
Page 13 of the CII annual statement clearly places NTPSEC in the short term
category. Who knows esr was under the same impression.

[https://www.coreinfrastructure.org/sites/cii/files/cii_annua...](https://www.coreinfrastructure.org/sites/cii/files/cii_annualreport_2016_fnl_digital.pdf)

------
jlgaddis
> _Thus, even with the Patreon, we’re fast approaching the point where if
> someone were to offer me a day job, I’d have to take it._

Yes, that's the method that most of us implement in order to acquire money.

> _And that would be unfortunate for the long term; the infrastructure work
> I’m doing and expect to do in the future is tremendously important._

Wow, that comes off as extremely arrogant and egotistical (to me).

> _Somebody’s going to need to design and field NTPv5 to fully cover the IPv6
> transition, and it looks increasingly like that somebody needs to be me._

Are we taking a vote on this?

\---

Let me be blunt: get a fucking job.

To anyone who might be considering a donation in order to support NTP, allow
me to recommend directing your donation at the NTP Foundation [0] instead.

[0]:
[http://www.networktimefoundation.org/](http://www.networktimefoundation.org/)

~~~
justin66
Does NTP Foundation compete against the ICEI that Raymond mentions?

~~~
jessaustin
ESR commented: _ICEI is indeed rebooted. The reason for the long hiatus was
that CII spun up just as the first version of the org was about to go public.
That sucked all the oxygen out of the room for a while._

So CII definitely competes! In addition the CII report linked upthread has an
NTPD section in which the director of the NT Foundation is quoted praising
Harlan Stenn, right after the NTPSec section. So not only does CII compete
with ICEI, but NTF competes w/ NTPSec _within_ CII.

------
sfeng
I generally wouldn't criticize someone's situation, but he decided to make
this a political argument.

He bemoans the government deciding that 11 million people not having health
insurance was more important than his right to not have a job. You don't have
a moral right to work on open source projects all day, people do arguably have
a moral right to healthcare. The government did exactly what it was supposed
to, move money from people who were existing extravagantly to people who
desperately needed it.

All due credit to his wife, but generally if the marginal cost of insurance
was what was keeping you employed, how much value were you delivering?

~~~
jessaustin
Making this "a political argument" might be his best possible strategy
(although not necessarily a _good_ one) for encouraging donations? ESR is a
fairly divisive persona anyway, so it might be best to embrace that and really
appeal to some potential donors even if that repels others.

------
deadlyllama
The problem of being unable to delegate, to let go of a task which you think
that you are able to do better than anyone else can, is a problem with you,
not the task, and not other people.

I know because I can get that way. I'm one of those people who ends up knowing
how everything works because I'm wired that way. And it's really hard to hand
jobs off to colleagues who you perceive as less competent. That's
perfectionism. It's a great way to not get things done that need doing.
Because you don't have the time to do everything that needs doing.

There isn't enough time available for you personally to do everything you feel
you need to do, to the standard you feel it needs to be done, that you think
no one else can achieve. Certainly not if you also need to feed your family
and the things you need to do are not bringing in enough income.

The solution, as annoying as it is, is to drop your standards, to realise some
of those needs are actually wants. Having a cool, fulfilling job that pushes
all your buttons and pays really well is a luxury many people don't get.
Having random strangers pay for your living costs so you can do cool stuff is
a massive, massive luxury only a few people get.

What's really important to you: NTPsec or food & shelter? Sounds like you're
choosing the former.

Making these choices is hard. I've moved to a small town and as a one man band
cannot get the sort of technically sophisticated work that I really enjoy
doing. But hey, living here is cheap and people are friendly and laid back. We
have a lovely house. Trees the kids can climb. I can cycle from suburbia to my
office in 7 minutes.

To get this, I had to give up my dreams of having top notch IT work.

I don't have a Patreon. I could work on some cool infrastructure work, too, if
I had one and people donated enough to keep my family afloat. But I don't. I
have a job that is sometimes boring and sometimes not. And I have a roof over
my head, food on the table, access to good medical care, running water,
electricity, broadband ... I'm doing better than most of the world's
population. I can't complain.

------
danaliv
_> ...we’re fast approaching the point where if someone were to offer me a day
job, I’d have to take it. And that would be unfortunate for the long term; the
infrastructure work I’m doing and expect to do in the future is tremendously
important. Somebody’s going to need to design and field NTPv5 to fully cover
the IPv6 transition, and it looks increasingly like that somebody needs to be
me._

Eric, get a job. And let some air out of that ego.

~~~
bsder
Unfortunately, ESR's personality is the absolute antithesis of somebody you
would want to hire.

And, in terms of software output, he's just not that productive.

~~~
rbanffy
Those two can be quantified, so, there would be a price where ESR would be
hireable.

------
scandox
> and Cathy – who grew up poor and thus finds a state of no income viscerally
> terrifying in a way I do not

I had to laugh - somewhat grimly - at that. My wife is the same. She came from
an unusually tough background and it has a profound impact on the way she
feels about being short of cash. I'd say Mr Raymond's going to find himself in
a job whether he likes it or not - unless he really pulls off a coup.

------
Analemma_
Get a job, Eric. That is, if anyone will hire you after your long history of
sub-par software, racism, and just generally being an asshole.

------
brandur
A little off topic, but this is the first time I've heard of this particular
set of grievances with the ACA (that it's "job destroying").

If anything I would have thought that it left too many jobs in place by fully
institutionalizing the role of the very expensive middle man insurance
companies, and thus ensuring that it'll always be fundamentally more costly
than a more pure universal healthcare system.

~~~
triangleman
The ACA mandated that anyone employing someone more than 30 hours per week
must provide them with health insurance (small businesses excepted). This led
to businesses cutting hours and eliminating jobs.

~~~
jonstewart
Triangleman, triangleman, please support your posts with data, if you can.

~~~
triangleman
I found this: [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/yes-some-companies-
are-...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/yes-some-companies-are-cutting-
hours-in-response-to-obamacare/)

At the very least, the ACA does mandate what I said it does. I am not saying
it necessarily leads to job losses, nor am I saying that the costs outweigh
the benefits.

------
qntty
In which an outspoken libertarian asks for support from society.

~~~
zeveb
Correction: in which an outspoken libertarian asks for the freely-given
support of his fellow free citizens, which is _exactly_ in accordance with his
principles.

Libertarians don't object to charity: we object to robbing Peter to pay Paul
and then congratulating oneself on one's charitable activities.

~~~
qntty
Strictly speaking, libertarians wouldn't want to make this illegal, I agree,
but that doesn't necessarily make it in accordance with libertarian
principles. Much of the debate about libertarianism comes down to questions
about how much we value work that benefits all of society but which doesn't
directly create wealth for the people doing it. Many libertarians, for
example, don't care too much about finding a way to pay women for doing the
work of raising children, work that has a very positive impact on the economy
overall. The work that Eric is doing is that kind of work.

------
felixgallo
ahem:
[http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/1999121000105NWLF](http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/1999121000105NWLF)

~~~
wmf
Ah, VA Linux. Their main achievement that I can remember was hiring the
developers of Enlightenment. Good times.

IIRC the stock dropped before ESR sold and he did not become absurdly rich in
real money.

~~~
no_protocol
From [0]:

> By the time Raymond could legally sell his VA Linux shares in June 2000,
> they had plunged $31 million in value to a still-impressive $5.5 million.

> Thanks to the dot-com bust -- fed in large part by big-hype, no-hope
> companies like VA Linux, the worth of Raymond's shares had dropped to
> $195,000, a loss of more than $5 million.

From [1]:

> Back at IPO time I wrote an essay called "Surprised By Wealth" in which I
> tried to deal with how weird it felt to have a theoretical net worth of $41
> million. Am I upset that all that "wealth" is gone, at least until the stock
> bounces back? Well...yes and no. As a member of VA's Board, it's my job to
> worry about our stock price, on behalf of all of our stockholders. So I care
> about that.

> But personally? Nah. I wasn't in this for the bucks then, and I'm not now.

[0] [http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/3149/eric-s-raymond-
baza...](http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/3149/eric-s-raymond-bazaar-
financial-advisor)

[1]
[http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2001022100120OPBZCY](http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2001022100120OPBZCY)

------
bykovich
"Though I'm a techie, I'm in a situation similar to a fine artist because the
market has not figured out how to value and reward the work I feel called to
do."

Keep jackin' it to the market, dude. "The meddling of the ACA destroyed my
life! By the way, no one will pay me for my labor."

------
M2Ys4U
Aww, diddums.

Get a job.

