Ein Microsoft-Rekrutierer hatte vor einiger Zeit die bestechende Idee, Eric S. Raymond, seines Zeichens Open Source Enthusiast, für die Softwareschmiede aus Redmond abzuwerben:
Eric,
I am a member of the Microsoft Central Sourcing Team. Microsoft is seeking world class engineers to help create products that help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential.
Your name and contact info was brought to my attention as someone who could potentially be a contributor at Microsoft. I would love an opportunity to speak with you in detail about your interest in a career at Microsoft, along with your experience, background and qualifications. I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have and can also provide you with any information I have available in regard to the position s and work life at Microsoft.
Please take a moment to visit My Calendar online to schedule a convenient time for me to contact you. You can learn more about our vision for the New World of Work at http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail.
Additionally, if you are aware of any current or previous colleagues who might also be interested in opportunities at Microsoft, I would be happy to speak with them as well. Referrals are always welcome, and are greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance and I look forward to an opportunity to speak to you in the near future
Best regards,
Mike
Es folgt Erics Antwort (köstlich):
I’d thank you for your offer of employment at Microsoft, except that it indicates that either you or your research team (or both) couldn’t get a clue if it were pounded into you with baseball bats. What were you going to do with the rest of your afternoon, offer jobs to Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds? Or were you going to stick to something easier, like talking Pope Benedict into presiding at a Satanist orgy?
If you had bothered to do five seconds of background checking, you might have discovered that I am the guy who responded to Craig Mundie’s “Who are you?” with “I’m your worst nightmare”, and that I’ve in fact been something pretty close to your company’s worst nightmare since about 1997. You’ve maybe heard about this “open source” thing? You get one guess who wrote most of the theory and propaganda for it and talked IBM and Wall Street and the Fortune 500 into buying in. But don’t think I’m trying to destroy your company. Oh, no; I’d be just as determined to do in any other proprietary-software monopoly, and the community I helped found is well on its way to accomplishing that goal.
On the day *I* go to work for Microsoft, faint oinking sounds will be heard from far overhead, the moon will not merely turn blue but develop polkadots, and hell will freeze over so solid the brimstone will go superconductive.
But I must thank you for dropping a good joke on my afternoon. On that hopefully not too far distant day that I piss on Microsoft’s grave, I sincerely hope none of it will splash on you.
Cordially yours,
Eric S. Raymond