Considering the current state of academia and the many articles regularly posted here, they probably would have burned out and left. That would have been the real waste in my opinion.

Wrote Cathedral and the Bazaar, and was responsible for a lot of the realpolitik and branding that got Open Source to where it is today.

Had varying amounts of a hand in gpsd, ncurses, reposturgeon, and various other tools people actually use.

The big problem is that his worldview is exceptionally conservative culture war while at the same time being fairly social liberal. If something isn't productive to expanding Western Civilization (by his definition), for whatever reason, it must go. This includes Islam, this includes a lot of SJW theory, this includes homosexuals (not out of malice, but because they by definition can't make more population), and so forth.

He's quite interesting to read, and he makes very interesting points--unfortunately, if you have a visceral reaction to his politics it is quite hard to bear him.

He also has an annoying habit of claiming expertise and skills that aren't quite there, such as forensic critique of a police shooting.

"Interesting insufferable intellectual independent" would be my classification of him.

He literally believes that black people are biologically incapable of being as smart as white people and that they are genetically predisposed to violent behavior.

His delusions even extend to his own health status. He thinks he could use martial arts to beat up an intruder on his house. The guy has cerebral palsy so bad he can barely stand. It'd be tragic if he wasn't such a dick.

It's Eric Steven Raymond. That Scott fellow has a Wiki entry but it's not who you're talking about.

Here's the ESR guy's Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond

Author of the Cathedral and the Bazaar.