---
created_at: '2015-06-04T15:01:57.000Z'
title: 'BSD Unix: Power to the people, from the code (2000)'
url: http://www.salon.com/2000/05/16/chapter_2_part_one/
author: vezzy-fnord
points: 82
story_text: 
comment_text: 
num_comments: 16
story_id: 
story_title: 
story_url: 
parent_id: 
created_at_i: 1433430117
_tags:
- story
- author_vezzy-fnord
- story_9659721
objectID: '9659721'
year: 2000

---
Third, even if Joy did not piss off his fellow programmers by saying
"Read the protocol and write the code," no one who knows him well will
deny that it is the kind of thing he *could* easily have said. Joy's
colleagues and professors are unanimous in describing him as a
fundamentally nice guy. But like so many great hackers, Joy is also
almost unconsciously arrogant. And that arrogance has been,
historically, a key part of the BSD legend. As a general rule,
programmers tend to have a high opinion of themselves. And as a class,
Unix programmers are well known for demonstrating their own special
blend of high-priest orneriness. But BSD Unix hackers, with some notable
exceptions, are especially virulent in their self-assuredness. They
aren't wrong very often, and when they are, convincing them of that fact
requires several armies and quite a bit of heavy artillery. Indeed, the
easiest explanation for why BSD hackers watch in dismay while
Linux-based operating systems sweep the world is that, for years,
subsections of the BSD community have been endlessly imitating the
mulishness that marked Joy's original reluctance to compromise on
TCP/IP.