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Stallman And Bero Interviewed

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the that-and-warm-milk dept.

Juraj Bednar writes: "I have done two interviews: one with Bero from RedHat and one with Richard Stallman, the GNU and FSF founder. I usually write in my native language, but since these interviews were done in English, I asked myself why not to share them" Readers may want to also visit Bero's shared-source.com, and bookmark it as a FUD antidote.

4 of 262 comments (clear)

  1. Re:don't forget the other interview! by bero-rh · · Score: 5, Informative

    First of all, this is not some generic interview section - it's just a pointer to some questions about "shared source" I answered a while ago.

    But since I'm reading this, guess there's no reason not to reply. ;)

    1) Ever since the Qt license problems have been resolved, RH hasn't had problems with KDE. Actually, most people in this office use KDE.
    There have been a couple of internal flamewars of course, but nobody really takes them seriously.

    2) Sure - some of the most serious gripes I've had with Red Hat Linux when I started BeroLinux have been fixed for quite a while - for example, the lack of a possibility to add a non-root user during installation (added in 6.1), KDE integration (initially added in 6.0, updated to a sane version in 7.1), or wasting space by not compressing man/info pages (fixed in 6.1 or 6.2, don't remember), or the lack of optimizations (all 7.x releases are compiled with -march=i386 -mcpu=i686). There are still some things I'd do differently, but overall, I'm quite satisfied with the current version (the current beta in particular).

    3) Yes, to an extent. It annoys me even more that RH never bothered to make an official statement regardning the compiler.
    I think the whole thing wouldn't be the way it is if someone in power had taken the time to communicate it correctly, preferrably before the 7.0 release.

    4) That strongly depends on what you want to do - I personally want to eliminate the need for non-free OSes, which means usability (and thereby KDE) needs the most attention at the moment. But then, things like scaling down to embedded devices and up to high-end servers are not exactly useless either... I think going ahead in all directions the way it's happening now is a good thing.

    5) We have a more generic approach to prelinking (needs a patched ld.so and binutils though). This is part of the current beta of RHL.

    --
    This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
  2. Re:Free Software, Intellectual Property & Freedom by Alpha+State · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is value in the capitalist system, I'm sure most people would agree. To me the value is this: in the capitalist system if I contribute to society by producing something of value, I make money. If I am intelligent and work hard I can make a very good living, even become "rich". Those who are too lazy to contribute do not make money. Thus there is a very high incentive to do something worthwhile. Of course, this is in theory and there are plenty of holes in the system, but it does work.

    If there is no intellectual property, the capitalist system will not work for it. Thus there will be no incentive to work on IP and loafers will get a free ride. I do not believe this really appplies to free software because it is produced by cooperation between people who need the software, I write a program because I want to use it and share it because I wish to, and it may make the program better.

    There are other ways to provide incentive for IP, such as the above, or commissioned work, or street performer protocols, etc. But they won't work for every kind of IP, and there will be big problems in integrating with the capitalist system.

    I agree that IP laws are becoming more draconian, but before the relatively recent WIPO treaties and associated laws there was a fairly good balance between the needs of IP producers and consumers. What will happen when this balance is disturbed? I predict that IP consumers (ie. the general public) will become more and more willing to break the restrictively laws. It could end messily unless the laws are changed, just like most regimes who have sought to enslave their citizens.

  3. They did give a challenge - two years ago. by DeeKayWon · · Score: 5, Informative

    Right here.

  4. don't forget the other interview! by reaper20 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm glad we finally get an interview with bero, one of the most underrated hackers out there imo, i've always been fascinated with the Bero Linux distribution from a while back and everything he's done with RH so far. I would have asked some other questions, so since we all know he reads slashdot I have a few questions:

    1) You apparantly host dot.kde.org and post regulary, though RH 'sponsors' GNOME. Anyone at redhat have any comments towards you? Hate mail? Unexpected nerf ambushes? Do they sign you up for GNOME mailing lists? Do they make fun of the 'KDE guy in the corner'? (BTW, this is what makes open source so cool, the freedom to choose what you want).

    2) Any of the ideas from bero linux make their way into the main RH distro? I know Mandrake did, but since RH is mostly conservative, I'd like to hear your opinion.

    3) Does it piss you off that every complaint about the gcc in RH is answered on your website and you have to post the URL for the last 2 red hat releases including the betas? (that must suck).

    4) You get paid to work on Linux, that rocks! What do you think needs the most attention?

    5) Any chance that prelinking stuff will make KDE2.2? How about any of the other RH packages?

    Thanks, and thanks for the kde daily builds ... they rock.