From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Mon Jul 23 2001 - 10:10:47 MDT
Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
> >
> > Miriam English wrote:
> > >
> > > Even Richard Stallman, the most hard-line free software advocate doesn't
> > > suggest people steal software. He wants people to cease using any
> > > closed-source software -- bought or stolen. His point is that it is not in
> > > their best interests. He alway reminds people that he means "free" as in
> > > free speech, not free beer.
> >
> > Yet his purpose in launching the GNU was to drive his former colleagues
> > into the ground without making a profit, thus keeping his 'hands
> > clean'... Stallman is nobody that should be held up for respect or
> > adulation in the open source movement. It is he who is primarily
> > responsible for the degree of socialist ideology in OSM.
>
> Bullshit. There is nothing to justify this wild assertion
> except your dim memory of some magazine article sometime in the
> past that could have well got it very much wrong.
Bullshit yourself, Samantha. I've specifically referenced the writer who
made that assertion in Billboard Magazine, and he was specifically
quoting a Stallman interview in BYTE magazine years before. For you to
contest this, you'd have to show he never actually made that interview
and admitted those things.
> Stallman is a saint. He saw something he considered wrong and
> limiting and he devoted himself to offering an alternative at
> tremendous personal cost. Profit is irrelevant to what he was
> concerned with and anyone who reads him knows this. There is no
> sense of vengeance there. Besides, if that were his motive he
> would embrace the Open Source world fully instead of continuing
> to distinquish what he thinks is important from what has the
> most potential to change the face of software broadly right now.
Actually, it is that motive that prevents him from embracing the OS
world fully, rather than just staying in his snotty little GNU corner
and pouting as he has been doing.
GNU is not the only OS methodology, and it is actually a rather weak and
pontificating one at that. The FreeBSD movement, for example, is far
more saintly.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:09:03 MST