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BBC interview with RMS
An anonymous reader submitted an interview with RMS running over at the BBC. Doesn't really say much of anything
that you haven't heard before but it's a nice little interview, and its
not like much else is happening today :)
"Yeah, we posted this cause it was a damn slow news day" Totally makes my day seem a bit less boring.
What, me worry?
BBC: Is it true you get what you pay for?
RMS: Well, in my case... yes.
What a great publicity shot!
Brought to you by the author of such childrens' classics as "Some Kittens can Fly!" and "All Dogs go to Hell."
telnet://towel.blinkenlights.nl
bash$ grep "interesting" bash$ sleep
--
Vote for your hopes, not for your fears - Vote Third Party
except kde 3.0 is out and lots of busy athlon boxes are busy building the sources today (for the lucky ones who were able to get the sources :)
Does that make you a son of a bitch? ;-)
I didn't like the tone of the interview; RMS came across as very idealistic, with a very "hippy" view. I know this is not how the whole story goes, but that's the impression this interview gives. I'd have liked to have seen some more concrete discussion of what benefits there are to business users, or home users. I'd have liked to see the word "monopoly" in there and discussion about how much software is costing various users, how free software would affect business models. Better yet, I'd have liked to have seen discussion of how free software has and is affecting several fields - academic, educational, scientific, server-farms. The man in the street doesn't know that other systems exist, some quick pointers to some prominent e-business sites or famous projects would setup association between "free software" and "good" rather than "free software" and what Cartman would call, "tree hugging hippy crap".
Stallman interview
By uptight British network
Meant to excite me?
I have an uncle who looks outright like Richard, minus 100lbs or so...Is this 'Free Software' idealism a genetic thing or what?
On another note, we should have an RMS-shirt watch...There's that maroon one again!
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
Isn't he RIGHT?
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
It's a lot less complicated than worrying about proprietary licenses - and if you think license conditions are easy to follow in MS licenses, read this:
We sat down and tried to figure this out step by step by step by step. We actually looked up the license agreements to ensure compliance. We think we have a handle on this.
Here's the scenario.
I'm at my local municipal library, and I want to check my Groupwise address book for a name. So I quick connect to my Citrix server from the library Windows95 machine. Here is the thought process that every user must use to make this legal, and prevent MS from labeling you a software pirate.
Hmmmm. This machine is a Win95 machine, and the office Terminal server is a Winnt 2000 Advance Server, so because the remote OS level is less than the Terminal Server, I'm going to need to allocate one of my NT server CALs and a Terminal Server CAL (TCAL) to this library machine. I'll have to call the IS guy to make sure the licensing hofix has been applied to the server, just in case it isn't and the license allocation is permanent and unreclaimable. If I already have a TCAL assigned to my primary computer at the office, I can purchase a Terminal Server Work at Home license instead to save some cash. If I've never connected to the Terminal Server from my desk at the Office, then I'll need to allocate a full TCAL for this library machine. Hmmm... maybe I should check with Joe, because I know he connected from here a few months ago, and it's possible that the Work At Home TCAL, and the Office licensing we purchased for this library machine is still valid.
Because the Terminal Server has Office installed, even though I don't want to run the blasted Office software, I'll also need to verify whether Office is installed locally here at the library. If it is, I can get away with purchasing a Work At Home Office license. Wait. Better check first with the IT guys again to verify that we have not upgraded our Select 3 license agreement which implied home use licenses. I should probably also verify whether the Work At Home license applies if I'm not at home. If we have a Select 4, or 5, or Enterprise 4, or 5, agreement at the Office, then we can purchase and apply a Work At Home license to the connection. In any case, the IT guys should know whether they have more WorkAt Home licenses purchased than they own in full Office licensing, because Microsoft only allows one Work At Home license per full license. If they tell me that we only have an Open license agreement at the Office, Work At Home licenses do not apply and in this case I would need to purchase an entire Office Suite for the library computer so I can find the address in my GroupWise Address book. This is because it happens that the Terminal server has Office installed on it, and every device that connects to the server will also require an equal Office license.
With large corporations producing "quality" and supported software that they force onto the market, the only reason that open source software is still around is because it is an excellent way to get started. It is free to start on and learn with, so most people do. The only reason that people don't always continue to use open source is because business don't want to get "infected" by it.
All other rights can be derived from freedom of speech.
I've always felt that free (free in the context of this interview) software is a great supplement and alternative for expensive proprietary software if you can't afford it or have no need for it.
HOWEVER, I have a hard time invisioning a world where all software is free and open. Companies have the right to protect intellectual property, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing.
And if you want to talk about OS's specifically, let's not forget the common user out there... Joe "Dumbass" Schmoe. I'd wager that most regular consumers would be at a terrible disadvantage if they didn't have a standardized platform like windows to use. Say what you want about Microsoft and their monopoly, but for many consumers, it works. What would happen to them if all of a sudden there was 5 different versions of Office XP? One version with increased security, another with enhanced menus, etc. It would blow their minds!
Regardless of what we think in this forum, most people are still pretty stupid when it comes to computers... I don't think the world is ready for the kind of variety that would arise from a completely open software market.
My sig sucks.
Oh yeah, those poor Jews! I mean, how can they possibly live in such a little country that was given to them? No, they're not satisfied with having an entire country created for them, they'll go and invade several Arab teretories, then they'll cry like Jews in a shower when the people who own the land they've invaded get pissed about it. Yeah, and then the US and Europe, being the pussy-whiped bitches they are, support the invaders Oh, sure, my heart bleeds for Isreal. Really.
...sounds great...until you mention GPL.
Quote RMS:
That's part of the freedom. You can make copies and sell it. Everyone has the freedom to do that.
Except that in addition to selling it, you have to offer it for free, too. (minus assembly, heh). Hmmmm, commerce through ignorance? That must be Rad Hat's plan. Sell shiny boxes for $70, don't let on that you can get it for free if you ask. (The gurus know anyway).
Yeah, great idea!
----
New sig:
free as in "shipping on orders of $99 or more of merchandise, excluding gift-wrap charges and taxes" or free as in "-fall"?
Well, he sure looks like Jesus...
Alfred Hermida: I am just going to repeat the same questions that have been asked for a zillion times, so could we just quit the interview.
RMS on availability of source code:
It means that you can see what the program does. So if you are concerned it might have a back door, you can check what it really does. And you can study it to learn how you do those jobs. You can study it to see precisely what it does.
Yes, it might be free to have, but no one at my job knows Linux or anything else about free software, therefore we'd have to hire a consultant at perhaps $80.00 an hour to analyze the code and solve the problem.
This is major $ compared to the price of licenses. Sometimes the "free software" argument is grasping at straws, since there is cost to maintaing software, no matter whose software it is.
If I weren't nailed to the penis, I'd be pushing up the daisies!
From the article, excerpted by the BBC themselves:
S'funny, I would have said the single biggest criticism of free software was that it doesn't usually measure up to commercial alternatives in terms of power. Most of it is either "good but not great" or "it'll be finished one of these years..."
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
One day a friend of mine told RMS in a chatroom interview "RMS! You're my hero!" to which RMS replied: "Bite me, Fanboy." Priceless.
Does RMS admit that gnome is dead and KDE is the future? If not, i'm not interested in the article.
Uh, I count 31 instances of "free" or "freedom" in that interview. Is anyone else getting a strange blind spot in their brain when they hear or read those words? The word means so many things to so many people that we're in serious danger of it losing all meaning, and simply becoming a synonym for "good", which is pretty much the way politicians and industry use it already.
Perhaps the FSF could consider coming up with a new angle. I mean, I'm marching firmly behind the Freedom Flag, but it seems like we're slipping into a weird Braveheart parallel universe when two sides rush headlong into battle, both screaming "Freeeeeedom!" at the top of their lungs.
There are other words, and other concepts that represent the FSF's ideals. Open. Shared. Community. Perhaps we could embroider some of those words onto our flag for a while, just until the Freedom Fad blows over.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
He's cut his hair. Now that could have been a good angle instead of the "it's a slow day" nonsense.
You only have to make the source available to people you distribute the binaries to. So if you sell source & binaries in the same box for $70, there is no need for you to provide either for free. Of course, you can't prevent your customers from giving it away for free, but that's a separate problem.
--
E_NOSIG
Read the article carefully zealots.
This clearly shows that Stallman isn't interrested in the developers choice. He wants to force his will on everybody. You MUST live in a share economy (socialism) no matter if you like it or not.
Secondary it shows that he isn't interrested in any workable bussinessmodel for free software since he hails the good in people swapping software without paying the creator.
Sentiment in the occupied territories has definitely shifted in the past eight years or so, with the general perception being that the Palestinians interpreted the 1993 Oslo accords as weakness on Israel's part, since before the accords suicide bombings were an extremely rare occurence. Very few people here are willing to make that mistake again, and it's clear that the system that spoon-feeds unreasoning hatred to the Palestinians at every level of society, from grade-school textbooks to the evening news, is going to have to be gutted and eradicated, much as had to be done to post WWII Germany
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
This story is hilarious... I half expected to see it posted so we could get in our usual Microsoft bashing in for the day...
As I write this, they still don't have that wehavethewayout.com web site working yet.
Also, be sure to check out wehavethewayin.com site....
Manhunter is a far superior film.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
"Fundamentally it means that you are free when your friend says 'hey, that looks nice, can I have a copy?', you can openly and lawfully make a copy for your friend. You are not reduced to doing that as an underground activity in fear."
Is it just me, or does this statement sound like if a friend asks you for some software, you will automatically give it out whether it is legal or not. I wish he'd be more careful with how he states things like this, otherwise it is going to be hard to shed the reputation that free software users are all a bunch of software pirates.
I've got a mind like a steel trap - it's got an animal's foot stuck in it.
I've been hanging out on K5 more often. Better advertising and not so BORING.
Does anyone have the sneaking suspicion that Richard Stallman is Karl Marx reincarnated? I think Marx would have had the same views about free software that Richard Stallman does. And did you see the picture? Give him a few years and some gray hair and he'll be a dead ringer for Marx. I mean, has anyone ever seen them together? Eerie.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Compare the cost of hiring a consultant to fix something you have access to, to the productivity costs of having to work around the problem because your vendor won't fix it now/ever.
RMS and others have not yet brought up the underlying reason that Open Source is so important in the OS and in common large "container" type applications.
:)
If you view a computers running environment as a software universe, with rules which govern its operation just like the laws of physics govern our physical universe, then it becomes a lot more obvious why closed source is really, really bad.
Unlike the physical universe, the rules in a computer environment can change. If you can't trust the person who is controlling the properties of the universe (the OS provider), and you can't change the environment yourself, then you are at the mercy of that person, group, or company. Imagine if there were no God, and Bill was controlling the universe. He could and would simply make everyone who didn't agree with him have to breath water instead of air and we would all quickly asphyxiate. The same thing is true of the OS. It is simply too much power to place in the hands of any one company, person, or organization. Thus the solution is to have it be completely open with everyone working together to ensure that no one person abuses the rest of us.
This philosophy should be extended to all container-model software applications. Apache is better than IIS because it is a container for web services (SOAP, CGI, mod_*, HTTP, etc...) and those services are not directly provided by the container. Just like in the case of IIS, any product that becomes popular is quickly either purchased and absorbed (often by less-than-honest means) by the owner of the container, or choked off and killed because it is a threat.
This is my problem with Weblogic, IIS, Microsoft's OS and any other system where I am writing code dependant on someone else's proprietary idea of how I should get things done. I simply don't trust anyone unless they trust me first.
This philosophy can even be extended to entertainment with very little modification. Our real problem with the RIAA and MPAA is that we can't trust anyone with the power to dictate what we are allowed to see and hear because they abuse it. They abused it when they started brainwashing us to listen to their idea of what was good music and by restricting and controlling the artists that produced that music. They are like the OS of the music industry.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Any container model is absolute power over the contained objects. OS, J2EE, Web Services, Entertainment, News and the list goes on.
Free the source in all cases, not just the OS.
Of course, when you start applying this to government you get the whole Democratic system and we all know how terrible that turned out...
Imagine if anyone who wanted to could just plug into the kernel CVS tree and change the current distribution source to fit their proprietary purposes. That's why there is a governing body of people with the ability to decide what does and does not belong in the kernel. Thus: a republic.
So we have come full circle peeps: Let's create a on-line open-source republic with independent governing bodies for every single container system out there, from open source to government.
Hell, I just solved the worlds problems... time for a coffee break.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
Did RMS just give them a list of questions he wanted to answer, so he can easily voice his dogma? What about the glaringly obvious question:
"If software can be freely distributed, how can developers be assured of making money from their software?"
Also, RMS's assertion that "inertia" is the reason everyone isn't using free software ignores the fact that the bulk of free systems and software packages have lousy usability. But it goes unchallanged in the interview.
Oh well. RMS continues to live in his little fantasy world, while the real world shrugs its collective shoulders and ignores the true benefits of free software.
dinner: it's what's for beer
There's nothing else happening?
Geez - so long as Richard Stallman looks like some silly old hippie 60's throwback, no-one will take him (and what he stands for) seriously.
It is nice to see that open source is getting into the mainstream press. RMS is our usual spokesman, but unfortunately his views are a bit to radical....I mean he almost preaches the evils of closes source. I do not think that that is the view that we want the CEO's and the public to have.
Perhaps RMS should yield the layman press to someone with more moderate views...perhaps Linus or Alan Cox.
I am sure there are probably more people with decent public skills who are also moderate OSS activists, unfortunately I do not know their abilities that well....perhaps Bruce Perens
(all I know about him is that he has some ties with the business world, and he has contributed many great pieces to the community--thank you for efence, it has saved my life many times).
Anyway, what I am trying to say is that we need to find moderate representatives, not radicals. We want to advertise (ughh, bad wording, perhaps promote), not preach or threaten.
badness 10000
I much prefer the PROMIS/Inslaw case.
It's a lot geekier conspiracy.
Your whole argument falls down here...
"So I quick connect to my Citrix server from the library Windows95 machine."
How many of the average Windows users have a Citrix server installed or hell even know what one is? Most would just use some web scheduling/address app that is accessable anywhere or pull out a regular address book or a Palm/WinCE based device.
So basically what you are looking at is the average school or business. If you are in any kind of business the bar of using most software is higher. Schools likewise have to jump through hoops. Yes it sucks but thems the breaks. But back to the point.
What you seemed to need was a service (access to your data) not a specific program. I'll bet with the time you took to analyse and read the licenses you could have searched Google (web+newsgroups) and found a solution. That's how you stop licensing madness, avoid the licencing madness and let the corp know they lost your business because of it and you had to resort to feeding their competitors.
How much more effort would it have taken to write "Richard Stallman" instead of just RMS? That is poor journalism, you never assume something like that. Even the DOD is usually written out as "Department of Defense" in the press.
RMS encourages distributors of GPL software to
charge what the market will bear
I understand it like this. Imagine that in the
future colonists around Alpha Centurii want some GPL
software. Hiring a big radio telescope and a powerful
transmitter for long enough to send the software might cost
$30000. If the radio telescopes available are booked solid,
charge $100000 and get rich. Of course, if others notice
your wealth and discover how you came by it, they might go
into the business themselves. They could build their own
transmitting station and charge $70000 for sending the next
release. Which still leaves fat enough profits to encourage
other to get into the business of distributing GPL software.
Economics is full of unhappy entailments. If you say that
GPL software should be distributed for a low fee, it is
inherent in this that GPL software will not reach places
that are difficult and dangerous to get to. The inhabitants
of such places will have to buy non-GPL software. This is
not what RMS wants, so he wisely refrains from seeking to
limit distribution fees. Is RMS a moralist after the style
of Adam Smith, happy enough when greed guides persons, as
though by an invisible hand, to serve the common good? It
seems so to me.
When was the last time you tried Mozilla?
I won't debate the merits of KDE or Gnome, but I must say that I find Mozilla to be as fast or faster than MSIE for most important things on Win98 and Win2000 (PIII-933 or Athlon XP 1600+ systems).
Open office certainly isn't equal to MS Office, but it's only terrible if you need some specific little feature OO doesn't have, or if you're too stuck in the MS-rut to adjust to a few small UI differences.
Anyway, I won't even start on all of the ways Mozilla is superior to MSIE on Win32 feature-wise. I'll just say that for my needs, Mozilla is the best browser by far. Ask my girlfriend - I nearly explode with irritation every time I'm forced to use MSIE on a PC without Mozilla installed. But that's just me...
Christopher
Mozilla
Sorry, I meant to say X-Windows and StarOffice. Pardon the typos. My point still stands.
An unprecedented orgy of bloodshed, with Israel's "Defense Force" summarily executing people in the street for resisting collective punishment measures, and shooting at foreign journalists who try to run the blockades around the death camps, is NOTHING HAPPENING?
Right on, Neville Chamberlain.
Not much happening today ... man ...
Looking for a great online backup: Green Backup
I do not know about India, but in Maghreb
(I think Algeria and especially Libya
which is more or less out of the world trade
system anyway) people couldn't care less about
pirating software. I think there is not even
a representative of Microsoft in some of those
countries ! so they end up working with age old
versions of pirated stuff. That's why indeed
they should switch to free software, to have something younger than six or seven years and
which actually works !
On the opposite, in 1st world countries, the
price of 1 licence of XP/Office Pro/whatever
represents maybe 4 hours of pay of an averaged
qualified worker, including overhead...
think installation and configuration
time for some free stuff !
Some businesses shell out 100K/year on some software to spare one or two workers, so free
software has really to be competitive in
performance and stability to convince some
management to switch.
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
I wish Bill Gates would GPL Windows and then charge about a quadrillion dollars for access to the source code. Then we'd have a ridiculous solution to a ridiculous complaint.
but why wasn't he drawn with a beard?
And my heart really fucking bleeds for the Palenstinians. During peace talks they went on a suicide bombing rampage. And now look what happened. Big fucking surprise. Arafat really did his best to stop the bombings.
It's not all one-sided. Try viewing the events with eyes not filled with hatred and you might see that both sides are to blame. As well as some other countries.
If toilet designers invent a method for creating a toilet that uses 50% less water when flushed, and never back up, should they not be allowed to market and profit from this method?
When your employer sells a license - do you get a royalty? You are paid for the time you write code -- as am I -- why do you expect to be paid again, and again, and again - see the plumber point again please. Further, think about "Intellectual Property" (which is borne by a moment and act (like anything else)) vs "Property".
I make a contractual agreement with my employer: what I invent is sold to them, and becomes their property. It's called terms of employment. What they do with their own property (e.g., put it in shrink-wrapped boxes and sell it) is up to them. I don't expect to be paid again and again, because I've agreed to sell the rights to another party. If I don't like the arrangement, I can go work somewhere else, or become a plumber.
dinner: it's what's for beer
Hey dipshit, read the fucking history. And I quote from the Guardian:
... declread the foundation of the state of Israel on May 15, 1948. Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan invaded but were beaten back."
"1947: Britain gave up its mandate and the United Nations took over supervision. The UN suggested two states: one Arab, one Jewish. The Jews accepted; the Arabs rejected the plan. David Ben-Gurion
Yeah, poor Jews being invaded by other fucking countries. Why would they ever thinking about fucking fighting back?
*Handing ass back to you* Here is your ass. Now, if you would like to make an intelligent statement, support it with some facts (links to "creditable" news sources would be good) and add some objectivity. Neither side is angels hear, but you are making it sound like they are completely fucking evil. I doubt the suicide bombers are fucking angels, killing innocent civilians.
there would be a clause in the GPL stating that you cannot run GPL software on proprietary systems or Operating Systems....
In this article RMS demonstrates the freedom to freely fling the words "free" and "freedom" while discussing how he feels about the freedom of free software and how it can free people everywhere.
True believers seek redemption from the sin of death.
I have to shake my head at this kind of reasoning. It's something like this: We have to revile RMS at every possible opportunity, or else he will instantly force us all to live in some hippy commune. Boo, RMS!
I don't have a problem with RMS living his life the way he wants to live it. I have a big problem with his shoving his version of "freedom" down my throat.
The chance of this ever happening is miniscule compared to, say, Elvis taking over your brain by shooting zoobie rays from the flying saucer he got from the elves. Come on! It isn't going to happen.
If I want to use closed source, proprietary software, then dammit RMS stay the hell out of my machine.
What, did he come to your house, break down the door, and force you at gunpoint to erase all your proprietary sofware licenses? Or are you being just a teensy bit paranoid?
The best we can hope for is a world in which some free software continues to exist and is not made totally illegal under pressure by the MPAA, RIAA, international media companies, etc. It's like a tug-of-war, and if you're outnumbered, you have to pull the rope really hard. I'm not like RMS, but I'm very glad he's out there and getting interviewed.
It is good that RMS exists, and it is also good that he has extreme opinions, because they define the arena within which consensus is built. He'll never get his way, but because of him and others, the mega-corporations may not get their way, which would be no freedom for anybody, ever, under any circumstances.
That's the choice here. It isn't RMS's vision versus a more moderate one. Closed source, proprietary software isn't going away. Ever.
It has long been said that nobody would have listened to Martin Luther King if the Black Panthers hadn't been there as an alternative. I think this is accurate. Nobody would listen to Linus or ESR if RMS weren't there, either. Consensus-building just doesn't work that way.
Did you get an answer?
A binding (on Microsoft) answer?
If there are many many many people who could serve some function, any function, then we, as the human population benefit: we possess an unlimited and inexhaustible amount of Human Resource. The "employers", therefore, are merely facilitators that make use of this resource.
But spare me the ego and bravado you are encouraged to have. Non-Americans can tell by observation and casual contact that Americans are recipients of copious amounts of propaganda which fosters this illusion of personal power.
I don't understand this conception that there is an adversarial relationship between the employer and the employed. There isn't, anymore than there is an adversarial relationship between a field of corn and the farmer who farms it. Business, corporations, capitalism in general -- when it is properly adjusted and regulated -- is nothing more than a means of extracting a raw resource, i.e., human capacity, and using it to generate finished wealth.
dinner: it's what's for beer
Does anybody know how to get 60 Minutes or Consumers' Reports to do a story like this? Here's how I imagine it. You find a typical or even sophisticated user who is trying to do an ordinary thing. Preferably it should be someone who is adamant about how bad pirates are. Then you get a lawyer to go over the EULA, find out how much he had to do that was illegal, and explain it to him.
So with a license you get source code?
Where did RMS say that "you should be required by law to make your software free?" That would indeed be unreasonable, but I've never seen such a statement after reading RMS over a decade. He will not use proprietary software, and he would like to see it go away. He won't let you use HIS code unless you play by the same rules. That's a long way from wanting to outlaw proprietary code.
I might criticize your beliefs, but does that mean I'm infringing on your freedom of speech? No, I'm exercising my own free speech.
(Reality reasserts itself sooner or later.)
I couldn't even read that whole thing without getting bored out of my skull.
> Secondary it shows that he isn't interrested in any workable bussinessmodel for free software since he hails the good in people swapping software without paying the creator.
Think again. Remember that for many years RMS pay himself by writing free software. His opposition to business models just go to the extend that "if the business model ruin our freedom, than replace it as soon as we can".
So he call for trashing the current business model. But he doesn't say that all business models are bad.
Given Enron, the S&L "crisis" and various European bank bail outs this might be a good money saving step as well. ;)
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
there's a whimper of understanding of freedom of the free software in general public, mainly because they are not software writers. Most are gui users and have not had a fortune to create something that works, and completely their own creation. They have not had this baby, that they wanted to grow and better, by others contributing to it. Rather, there is plenty of *USERS* (in all negative senses of the word) who don't share the primodal creationist love that RMS and many of the software writers. Perhaps if RMS was to relate code to children in every step, he might recall some positive associations from *USERS*, about Free software(not only GPL). As it stands many people are illeterate now, even more are computer illeterate. Of this computer illeterate group there are small group that can use computers that is rather small. In the core there are wizards of Unix administration, programming and other talent who huddle around these opensource creations warming their hearts, before coming out to cold business world of stamping out software that will be forgotten before they even leave the company, and if it has fortune to live on, most will not see innards of it, as it will be stamped with ristrictive licence, protected by multiple layers of NDA.
What free software needs is more educated people, edified as some of my friends call, ourselfves, who are have insight into alot of software and we care deeply about the way we do things. As we do put alot of effort in doing this we like to share. RMS comments will definetly will sink in dark on uncouth masses, but it will live on amongst few of us, who want to pass on the love for deep understanding of computer related things.
BBC: Hey, RMS, what the fuck is up? I'm glad I got the opportunity to perform this interview with you. [coughs]
RMS: Hello, Mr. BBC. I'm glad I got the opportunity to speak to another individual, interested in Free Software, that will eventually reach millions with the message I wish to express in this interview.
BBC: Yeah, whatever. Let's get this over with... Firstly, let's talk about the origins of GNU. We all know it's Not UNIX. But where, exactly, did it come from? What was your prime inspiration for such a fine, grand, practical idea?
RMS: I'm glad you asked that.
BBC: I'm not.
RMS: Ah, [laughs] You have a unique sense of humor, comrade !
BBC: I know. And don't call me comrade. Or your friend, ally, brother, homey... I don't like you or your body odor. Now answer the question.
RMS: Ah [nervous laughter] yes... GNU. Well, after reading the works of Marx and Lenin, and having attended MIT and created several programs (GCC among them, of course) to which the source code was freely (as in speech, and beer) available, I began to see a certain communal effort begin to take shape among the software developers in the labs where I worked. However, the "administration" at MIT improperly thought that, since my works were created at MIT, they and their source belonged to MIT. This was in conflict with my embryonic philosphy--
BBC: Hey, could you just cut your ideological bullshit and get to the part where you were taking a dump and farted out the GNU / Free Software concept as we know it today?
RMS: Ah, I don't think I know what you're referring to, Mr. BBC. I certainly don't remember any toilet episodes being involved with the creation of GNU or Free Software...
BBC: Oh really? It's hard for me to imagine a toilet not having been involved in the creation of Free Software. No, I'm talking about how one day you were sitting in a stall at MIT's grand restroom facilities, peeped thru the glory hole bored in the stall wall to look for customers, and saw a man's ass tatooed with a bull or a yak or something.
RMS: WHAT!?
BBC: Okay, okay, okay-- Let's move on. How about your musical talents? From graphics posted at your homepage, it looks like you're fairly proficient on the flute. How did you obtain that talent?
RMS: That's rather simple: just a lot of practice and determination. The instruments you've seen me playing on my website are pan-pipes, actually, and not flutes. I began taking lessons from my father while him and I were still talking. I can play the flute, however, and--
BBC: Skin-flute.
RMS: Excuse me?
BBC: You heard me. Skin-flute. You play the skin-flute. That's why you're so good on those porn-pipes or whatever the Hell you called them. You are a skin-flute virtuoso and can play them like nobody's business. "Master skin-flutist RMS." Skin-flute.
RMS: Ah, I think this interview's getting a little off-track from its focus of Free Software and the GNU philosphy.
BBC: Of course it is. And why the fuck do you begin every sentence with "ah?" Anyway, I'll indulge you. New question. What's all this I hear about you dropping acid like there's no tomorrow?
RMS: Hey, look, I'm willing to spend my time discussing and even debating about the GNU concept and Free Software. I'm a very busy man--
BBC: No you're not.
RMS: I'm a very busy man and I simply cannot tolerate spending my valuable time digressing onto useless topics, much less helping you slander my good name--
BBC: Shut up.
RMS: I believe we're talking at cross-purposes here and I wish to terminate this interview now.
BBC: I believe your style is cross-dressing and I wish to inform you've been trolled. Do you know what a DGH is?
RMS: What? Excuse me? I said I wanted to stop this interview now!
BBC: A "DGH" is a Dirty GNU Hippy. You're a DGH. You're a pinko Commy too. Learn to bath, shave, and wipe your ass properly, and you'll make it in general society. But at least you aren't ESR so yo have something going for you already
writing code dependant on someone else?s proprietary idea
I typed a question mark there. I'd wager you didn't...
Don't be a hypocrit. Don't use IE!
The loser has to do something for a living, whereas the same time his MIT classmates are enjoying the luxury. The loser decided to live, now he is left with FSF and his ideas. I reckon that if he doesn't support his ideas he will probably end up the harbour side offering services but free as in beer.
The interviewer didn't understand what FS is about. Who cares a about earning money from it. The economic goal of a society is public welfare, the companys are just an efficient instrument to reach this. But Logicals like software can be duplicated without loss, the media is unimportant. So that kind of information goods can not be compared to the traditional economic sector, say steel and coal. We need new approaches for this sector. Perhaps it may even be more efficient when the public pays for fs development instead of massice licensing software from a company that provides the basic infrastructure for electronic work and trough monopolism gains 40 % growth a year. Monopolism is against the rules of free market and endangers a free society.
Andre