I haven't logged in to comment in a while. But this one got me. I for one am now a fan of Zed. While you sit and fuss over his words and his public outbursts, I wonder what open source software you have written that has half the impact that his work has?

My curiosity is why do people really hate Zed? Is it because he says things that hit at the core of their insecurities? Or is it simple jealousy?

I honestly don't think it's because he's wrong.

Let me respond as somebody who was the target of one of Zed's rants. When Zed gets into one of his little rantboxes, he absolutely refuses to listen to the other side. He's very often right, but he's not comprehensively right, which is to say, he makes good points and he makes shitty points, and he frequently refuses to acknowledge his errors. Furthermore, he's got a holier-than-thou stance in which Zed is on the cause of Good and Sanity and the person he's decided to rant against is scum.

The man is incredibly immature when he gets into those states. He ignores all evidence going against him, doesn't listen to his debaters, and proceeds as if everybody on the planet other than him is shit-filled. I think he's very bright but do wish he'd learn to act his age.

While you sit and fuss over his words and his public outbursts, I wonder what open source software you have written that has half the impact that his work has?

People's having done certain things doesn't exempt them from being judged. Did Zed stop from insulting DHH during his whole Rails rant? Because I'm pretty sure Rails is used more than anything Zed may have added on to it. I'm not blaming Zed for attacking DHH, but the whole "I did shit" defense is paltry and lame.

Is it because he says things that hit at the core of their insecurities? Or is it simple jealousy?

A lot of smug pricks like to use that word, "insecurities", as if every time somebody gets pissed off at them for being a blowhard it's due to insecurity. Myself, I don't write for open source, I'm not a huge fan of the open source community, I'm not much of a programmer at all. I just think he's a prick.

I may be a jealous person, but let's be honest, I'm jealous of people who are far more successful than Zed. He's a minor Internet celebrity at best. I reserve my jealousies for 37signals-level celebrities at the least.

Been a while since I've been called a smug prick. Thanks!

I'm sorry, I didn't know that there was a better term for the guy that suggests people don't like Zed Shaw because he's better than them and they're jealous, when the man in question used to title his site "ZED'S SO FUCKING AWESOME" and spent his time telling people they could suck his dick.

Responding to multiple people with the snide "I guess I'm a smug prick" doesn't help things either.

Lighten up.

Sorry; I wasn't trying to offend. For what it's worth, I didn't downvote your original comment. You were at 0 and I thought your post was worth a debate.

It was smug of you to suggest that we didn't like Zed because of feelings of inferiority, but my response was not intended to be a personal insult in any way.

HN lightened up your comment

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

zed's done good work, no quarrels with him - but this was hilarious. after a week of issues with gpl, i'm not going to link to gpl stuff because i don't want to be gpl, maybe we should give open source authors free shwag like t-shirts, and all that --- this is actually a funny attempt at a solution (satire of course but accomplishes solving the problem: getting credit to the authors of good bsd software without having to switch to gpl, can't be taken too seriously, but hey, it works!).

the problem zed brought up is one worth thinking about, and this convo revolves around his name and works as the example case, i see this a satire for the convo more than a satire of zed personally -- i don't know tho... but thats my reaction. i hope he laughs too - it is, in the end, poetically funny that it started with, i need some attention for what i do, and now him as open source maker is headlines for a week....(once again, because it's a convo worth having)...

I love Zed. I wrote that to help him gain additional publicity.

I guess I missed the sarcasm. But being a smug prick sometimes causes me to miss a lot of things.

EDIT: Sincerely - sorry. I get the sarcasm.

Since when does an apology get down voted?

It's because he's frequently right, and has little patience for people that can't hack it. He expects a higher level of coding maturity and complexity than most people do. Zed's attitude results in a less welcoming image but a higher level of technical expertise. Whether that is a good thing or not in the long run is an open question in my mind.

I usually can't stand people like that, but there are two reasons why I like him. First, if someone finds a bug in his code or shows (with proof) that he did something wrong, he takes it just as well as he gives it. And second, he actually writes some pretty damn good code.

I think we need more people like him. There are too many ex PHP turned Rails developers who assume just because they can deploy a decent web app that they know everything. Hell, some of Zed's most vocal disagreements have been about performance. Zed actually knows his stuff and can back up his point of view with statistics. Most Rails developers on the other hand have no idea about some of the computer science concepts needed to talk about performance in an informed way.

Zed's got a lot of public opinion against him. Just watch some of his keynotes to get a better idea of what he is actually like.

You don't have to hate Zed to love this. :)

Exactly. I enjoyed reading his thoughts on the GPL/BSD.

so did I actually. What I love most about open source is that there are multiple licenses to choose from -- actually closed source is yet another type of license :)

That's why it's called freedom. To some extent the drama is silly b/c there is a license for everyone... but that doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss the merits of various licenses.

Oh hi,

His rants and software has had zero impact on me. I don't use Mongrel, Lamson, Rails or any of the shit he punts. Sorry, his rants have had more than zero impact on me. They've had +1 impact because I've had to put up with his rants being posted on HN and voted up by people.

Sorry if the above sounds harsh, but I don't really care about Zed. I don't see him as some contributor to open source stuff that I don't use. I see him as some guy that clogs up my RSS reader. That is all. He's no different to Mike Arrington from where I sit.

This is awesome, but I for one have had enough Zed Shaw to last for a while.

A well-written satirical post knocking some stuffing out of the guy is A-ok in my book. Zed's obviously bright, but he's an asshole about it, and as much as he says he writes the stuff he writes just to get change happening, he revels a bit too much in the controversies he causes.

I hope when Zed is done with Python he will turn to Erlang. Now THEN will be the time to watch HN front page.

Sorry, but this smacks a little of "I Can't Believe the Zed Shaw Posts They Make Me Read!" http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33604

zed's reaction[s]: http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/2657767864 http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/2657753053

This is just petty. Zed made some reasonable arguments -- for acknowledgement and the release of modified code -- for his choice in licenses. I actually disagree with his choice, but it's his to make.

This is a dim attempt at humour — apparently based on some perceived arrogance. That particular perception is a form of hype in my opinion. Some folks seem driven to judge his words more critically because of all the blog-fights and threads on reddit/hacker-news, rather than addressing what is actually being argued.

I think that Zed is great (not that I know him personally), and find this little piece of satire to be hilarious as well. I don't see why the two positions have to be mutually exclusive... and I don't get the impression that it was actually written in anger.

Indeed. It was just intended to be some good natured ribbing and also an expression of admiration of Zed's viral marketing skills.

See, I was just taking things way to seriously :)

I actually think the Zed haters have finally jumped the shark.

If anyone but Zed wrote that essay on open source licenses, one would be hard pressed to call it a rant. It was quite well reasoned and didn't seem particularly brash. Many of the people chiming in on the discussion are trolling at magnitudes far beyond what his essay merited.

This isn't directed at OP per se, I just finally got around to commenting on this here.

I am not a fan of the amount of time spent worrying about "low quality" posts on Hacker News, but I do believe this marks a new low. This is essentially a personal attack post, and adds nothing to the discussion.

It's intended to be satire, with a lot of focus on Zed's personality. As you may recall, this is the same mission statement as the now defunct ZSFA blog.

I'm sure Zed would approve...

if it was a personal attack it missed the mark: http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/2657767864

not at all, that was the intention :) I respect Zed for being great at viral marketing.

never mind then, my apologies

frakking hilarious

license wars are so 1997

let's all fight about the subtle difference in our shared ideology

left wing groups have been crippling themselves with this for centuries