Stallman Responds To GNOME Questionaire

proclus writes: "Stallman's response to the GNOME board election process is a lesson in the application of free software principles. For Stallman, GNOME is a GNU project, and the main goal is to promote free software. His consistancy and ethics are admirable, but one wonders if GNOME has grown beyond its roots in the free software community. Is Stallman's view of GNOME too narrow? The GNU-Darwin Distribution and The Fink projects are a case in point. It is simply amazing how many people want to use GNOME together with Mac OSX, and yet in Stallman's view, this would be an example of GNOME falling short of its goals. If free software is used together with proprietary, then the movement has failed to displace proprietary software, and free the users. Is it possible to reach such users with free software ideals, and is it necessary to divorce free software from proprietary in order to accomplish that goal?"

Comments

Stallman

[supernaut]

You know, sometimes he remains calm enough to actually make rational and well thought out choices.

But, OTOH, he has shown himself in the past to be a purveyor of utterly ignorant dogma, almost on the level of religious zeal, that, as such, I dont consider him a leader of anything. He does not stand for me. And, to be honest, I dont think he stands for anyone.

He stands for the unrealistic little bubble world he has created in his own mind.

Yes, I like Free Software. Yes, I like Open Software. But, I am not about to embrace a surrealistic, and wholly unrealistic and non reality based approach.

OS/FS has its issues. But, if you ask me, there will be bumps in the road with any revolution.

The real question is, can we find a happy medium, across the whole map. I think we can. But, I dont think Stallman is our Jesus. I think, while he is an intelligent man, he also has the propensity to come off as a flaming idiot.

Which is why I really dont understand why OSDN gives him so much press. Yes, he has done his part. But, it really ticks me off how you think we all hang off his every word. I dont, and I am willing to bet only a very tiny percentage do.

Re:I think

[MSBob]

Yes. But guess what, it doesn't matter. Just like most muslim moderates believe that Islam can coexist with other religions, most of FS advocates believe different software licencing modules can coexist and compliment one another. However, every social movement (provided it's strong enough) tends to breed fanatics. Fanatics don't care about the cost of enforcing their viewpoint upon the rest of the society. Because they see their viewpoint as the only right way they will attack opposing views with full force of a blind zeal.

This begs the question: is RMS at all similar to Osama bin Laden?

Well, at first I thought, no. Osama bin Laden is a destructive force for the most part (terrorism) while RMS's actions have been mostly constructive (writing free software). But then I thought about the way he treated the KDE project and realised that RMS has a fair amount of "software terrorism" behind his belt. On the other hand OBL has indeed done some good in some parts of the world, such as building the highway network in Sudan. In other words RMS and OBL fight for completely different ideals but the methods they use are very alike. Both will trample on anything they don't fully agree with and both will show some compassion towards what they feel is a just and noble cause. We must ask ourselves however, whether we would like to have someone so strikingly similar in his behavioural patterns to OBL at the helm of the Free Software Foundation... Food for thought.