With all due respect I think it is hard to call ESR the father of open source. Perhaps the champion of open source is more appropriate.

It is very disappointing that recruiters would make calls to people without even some peripheral knowledge.

True enough. I saw enough references to Raymond as "father of open source'' to make me comfortable with it. But in hindsight, ambassador probably is a better descriptor.

Well, maybe Michael, being the good journalist you are, you shouldn't believe *everything* you read on the web. :-)

Or perhaps we should start calling you (sorry Matt) the "Father of SV Venture Capital" because you write about it occasionally instead of actually work in the field? Gee, even Vint Cerf had to do TCP/IP (with Bob Kahn) to become the "Father of the Internet" and William Jolitz had to do an entire set of 386BSD OS releases and articles to become the "Father of Open Source BSD".

If only someone had told us we didn't have to do all this work to get the title - what a lot of time it would have saved all of us. But of course, we'd still be living in the "Valley of Heart's Delight" instead of Silicon Valley then, wouldn't we?

But perhaps out of this absurdity might arise a good article - Who is the "Father of Silicon Valley Venture Capital"? Don Valentine? Vinod Khosla? John Doerr? Michael Moritz? Jim Anderson? Or maybe even Eugene Kleiner or David Morgenthaler?

Not a woman in the bunch, by the way. So maybe we can mention Kathryn Gould just to be balanced.

Lynne Greer Jolitz
Chief Technology Officer
ExecProducer / CoolClip Network