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20th Anniversary of RMS's Original GNU Post
An anonymous reader writes "Sep 27, 2003 is the 20th anniversary of Stallman's original Usenet post describing his vision of GNU. Good time for reflecting over GNU's successes and failures, about how it has changed our world."
Thank you RMS
...of how incredible ideas, while adding enormous value, can also be bogged down and lessened when attached to extremist views or politics.
"Imagine in 20 years when this makes the front page of Slashdot on a Saturday morning at 1am. I bet no one will see it."
[Addendum, 9/26/2003]
It's GNU/Linux, dammit!.
--RMS
What is Usenet? What are newsgroups? Your opinions and thoughts please.
For a man on his way to hell, that is...
It is a lesson to think big. We take GNU and Linux for granted today. 20 years ago the did not exist.
Think big and see what you can do with your life!
For more information, contact me.
Arpanet mail:
RMS@MIT-MC.ARPA
What's an "ARPA", and why wont Network Solutions let me register one!?!?!
...that this simple beginning would end up being the last possible route to grabbing back the future from unnamed monopolistic parasites?
has been teaching us to love again. *sniff*
--------
Free your mind.
GNU is God and RMS is His Prophet.
GNU is God and RMS is His Prophet.
GNU is God and RMS is His Prophet.
There is no God but GNU.
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
All HAIL RMS! Agree with him or not, his efforts have made your life better.
Although he talks about his ideology, the focus of his post is on the software. When I read about anything he's said in the last few years, it's always ideology, with a little bit about the software thrown in. Might the GNU project be better served if their leaders would stop worrying about whether it should be called GNU/Linux and get back to the technical side of things?
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
karma bonus was on =/
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
Funny that this historic date falls on a time that the GPL gets a full vetting by SCO.
It's also the 20th anniversary of someone including the entire post in their reply, and adding "me too!"
For more information, contact me.
Arpanet mail:
RMS@MIT-MC.ARPA
Usenet:
Raise your hand if you ever had a "bang-path" email address. For that matter, raise your hand if you know what a bang-path address is.
Are your sources reliable?
I think that the GNU project has brought software freedom to the masses and we have only seen the tip of the iceberg so far. For computers to truly be a great asset to society, the software must be free and unhindered by any one entity or small group of entities. Indeed, the software must be owned by no one and should be used freely by society so that information can be exchanged without the influence of some corporate monopoly or oppressive government. GNU isn't just about free software, it is about the free exchange of ideas.
Smeghead every day of the week.
From the post:
To begin with, GNU will be a kernel plus all the utilities needed to write and run C programs: editor, shell, C compiler, linker, assembler, and a few other things. After this we will add a text formatter, a YACC, an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and hundreds of other things.
Dreaming of world domination was obviously among the top priorities already at that point... ;)
...try focusing on it being the "GNU GPL" instead of "GNU/Linux" and how GNU created the system of licencing that brought us Linux, which as more of a consequence also involved creating the first GPL'd programs. I think that would be more effective instead of focusing so much on the specific GNU utilities in a distribution.
People know their distribution (Red Hat), and the kernel (Linux). The "middleware" GNU will never be famous. But the GPL is, though the people that talk about it is a lot higher than those that have read it. That is not ment to undermine what they have achieved, it's just that sometimes I feel they're barking up the wrong tree...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Until The Hurd finally reaches beta
As far as I'm concerned, this person is just another lonely soul if he doesn't have a good partner to share life with. I want to know.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
It is interesting to look at how the ideas in the post agree and disagree with the state of GNU today.
For example, Stallman states that a kernel is a top priority, yet we still don't have a really stable, working kernel out of GNU (I don't think Mach or Hurd count).
Also interesting - filename completion is mentioned as a possibility. Now it is difficult for many people, including myself, to live without it. Yet Stallman implies that a Lisp-based window system is more important. What became of this idea?
By far, my favorite quote from this is:
Is this not what GNU started? Many projects with part-time distributed workers? This is a quote from RMS, stating that the development model most open source projects now use would be very difficult.
You insensitive clod.
Anyone remember when RMS tried to make Linus rename Linux to LiGNUx? Some food for thought...
Investing forum
This is not meant to indicate anything against GNU/Linux/Unix, but I thought this line was interesting in light of SCO's claims that their property is "part of Unix":
"Individual programmers can contribute by writing a compatible duplicate of some Unix utility and giving it to me".
I'm not sure what else to say. Could it be possible that SCO had a piece of their software copied and that's what their "evidence" is?
Join us now and share the software, you'll be free ... hackers!!! you'll be free!!
FSF Song
check out : E-Dreams for another rockin' performance of that song.
...to be moderated as Informative on slashdot for telling people that Linus Thorvalds wrote Linux. Personally, I would have guessed "-1, Extremely redundant, what rock have you been living under?"
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
One computer manufacturer has already offered to provide a machine. But we could use more. One consequence you can expect if you donate machines is that GNU will run on them at an early date. The machine had better be able to operate in a residential area, and not require sophisticated cooling or power.
Can someone give examples of donated computers that couldn't run in a residential area in 1983? Is he talking like building-sized supercomputers? Something like the WOPR?
Two details stuck out to me from that posting:
1) there was actual email "arpanet mail" back in '83
2) they were calling it "snail" mail back in '83 (while I was still in pre-school)
Jeez, I feel really behind the curve.
Transistors and Beer!!
The Arpanet address. *sigh* I miss the days when this dang intra-web-thingy wasn't so big and without all those fancy bells and whistles.
Gee golly, it gets confusing, Jeb!
See for yourself... in his personal ad
What an inspiration! I have a question, though, and maybe RMS or someone else on this site would be able to answer this. No, it's not about how the first thing he mentions is a kernel and the last thing to actually be done (if you can even say that) is the kernel.
It's about RMS switching between "I" and "we". What's up with that? Obviously this post is a shout-out to anyone interested in helping. But on that date, when RMS first shouted-out this revolutionary idea [chokes back tears, pauses to regain composure], who else was already involved? Who was this "we" he speaks of? Or was it a theoretical "we"? The Royal "we"?
While I'm writing, can I just say once more to Richard, Linus, Rusty, Alan, and all the other* millions who have contributed their code in the spirit of the GNU project: A MILLION THANK YOU'S!! You have already changed the world!
*If you're a big-kahuna-GNU/developer, please don't be offended that I left your name out. I love you too.
----
Not to be confused with Col.
TRUTH NOT TROLL. I live in Cambridge.
Word is thus:
RMS has been and always be a freak. Former asscociates at MIT AI labs tell me that the man was deathly fearful of
1)water
2)spider plants
So he basically was a big smelly freak who never bathed. Eventually he became smitten with one of the daughter's of an MIT faculty member who took pity on him and helped him overcome his fear of water just enough so that he would take sponge baths in the mens room at MIT.
Also, the spider plants thing helped people that wanted to avoid him. They wuld merely hang one of these common ornamental plants in their office doorway and he would never bother them.
Again, this is not flamebaitt or a troll. Anyone that has been near the MIT AI lab can confirm this if their tenure there intersected with RMS's
OK, I followed steps one and two. You fail to give any meaninful advice on step three. Gimme a break here, who do you think I have giving me advice? The Linux Psychic Network?!
No haircuts, shaves, or showers since then!
who gives a shit? I mean really. People get a life. I mean a real life. This isn't a troll. Go out and get a woman, see a movie, hey maybe even get laid. *sighs*
When you write something like this, does it even cross your mind that perhaps clicking 'Submit' puts you in the same boat as everybody else reading this?
where's the XIBO .sig file in it?
"no one can argue he [RMS] has helped to make this a better world". just kidding. sort of.
Pay 200 buck to have someone scratch an itch for me.
750,000 to have it scratched all the time and lose more control over my life that what I already legally possess.
Thank you, RMS.
Many people find you very eccentric at times, myself included. But at the end of the day, you're right. And your vision has turned into freedom, which these days is quite a treasure.
Widened anything good recently?
plus all the utilities needed to write and run C programs: editor, shell, C compiler, linker, assembler, and a few other things. B+
After this we will add a text formatter, a YACC, A
an Empire game, Exists, but non-GNU. F!
a spreadsheet, C-
and hundreds of other things. ...all built into emacs. D
We hope to supply, eventually, everything useful that normally comes with a Unix system, HURD *giggle*
and anything else useful, including on-line and hardcopy documentation. But not in a useful format like, say, man pages. D--
GNU will be able to run Unix programs, but will not be identical to Unix. For example Unix has device drivers. We'll give you an A for effort.
We will make all improvements that are convenient, based on our experience with other operating systems. In particular, we plan to have longer filenames, A-
file version numbers, F
a crashproof file system, Heh heh,m he said "crashproof." F
filename completion perhaps, C+
terminal-independent display support, HAW HAW C00TER! C-
and eventually a Lisp-based window system through which several Lisp programs and ordinary Unix programs can share a screen. F
Both C and Lisp will be available as system programming languages. Does anybody actually use Guile?
We will have network software based on MIT's chaosnet protocol, far superior to UUCP. F. No, F-, because it was a really stupid idea.
We may also have something compatible with UUCP. What, no IMP support? F
My life would not have been the same. Many
thanks Richard!
So what is *your* definition of extremist? Not
that there is something wrong with the word
specifically, for what counts is substance
of the position and not if it is "somewhere
in the middle". Compromisers! you are
more apes than the apes.
So where's that Empire game you promised?
Hurrah to Richard for pronouncing and upholding the inalienable right to logic. Give me source or give me death!
It's been twenty years since he took a bath.
From: David.Chase
The free software aspect sounds fun, but the unbounded mutation of
systems worries me. I would hope that some of my work would be useful
to other people (and other people's useful to me) -- variations in
operating systems can make this less likely. Thus I am willing to put
up with a not-perfect-for-me environment because (a) the time I spend
doing personal tailoring is essentially wasted, unless my personal
tailoring is indeed my work (or it improves my productivity in some
amazing way) and (b) anything I do can be used by anyone else running
the standard system.
The temptation to tinker with your environment is powerful indeed; I
have installed and maintain local modifications in Gosling's emacs, so
I have sinned, I guess. Some of my mlisp won't run on other people's
emacs, so it's only useful to a few people (I think I'll send the
modifications off to Unipress, for penance). I expect that RMS is
capable of writing GNU and giving it away, but what then? Is this
really progress?
drc
Thank GNU very much, RMS !
A lot of the time, people on Slashdot complain about the passion that someone like RMS exhibits. Some even go so far as to call the passion a grudge. If that is what you wish to think of people like this, then let's take a trip through a few people who did great things soley because of a "grudge":
;)
1. The Americans who fought the revolutionary war and establish the United States of America
Grudge: They didn't like being bullied by the monarchy
2. Martin Luther King and the Civil rights movement.
Grudge: Many... Rosa Parks, the integration of public schools, etc...
3. Steve Jobs and his vision of a computer without IBM and corporate suits.
Grudge: He hated IBM.
4. Thomas Edison and his many inventions
Grudge: Life
5. SUBJECT LINE TROLL
Grudge: Slashdot posters
6. Linus Torvalds and the Linux kernel
Grudge: The high cost of Unix
GNU will live on forever as classical music does. It may not be popular, but you can't argue that it is powerful, classic and has great beauty. Bravo RMS!
Un-news
and I'm not sure how many rounds it goes for.
How have you been using your turns so far?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Congrats! But I am still going to use vi!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Now I think I will write Microsoft and thank them for those security patches they keep sending me by email.
What a ton of guts. He should be very proud.
Twenty years ago I was 11. By then I already had 5 years of coding experience, mostly assembly, and a bit of Basic. Everything I knew about code came from reading books, reading other people's Basic code, and disassembling binaries. At no point was I actually aware that there were people out there fighting to make possible what I largely took for granted... the complete availabilty of source code as well as the unrestricted ability to read, modify, and distribute it.
As an adult, I nearly gave up coding altogether. I felt like a farmer without my own land. I owned no share of the programming tools that I used daily. All the API's were immutable, opaque, and hostile (VFW comes to mind).
Then I found Linux, and from there, the FSF and GNU. Beyond a doubt, without the work of Stallman and everyone fighting for Open Source, I'd be doing anything but writing code today. And aside from my family, few things are more integral to who I am than writing software. I was born to code.
So thank you Richard! It took me awhile to find everyone, but now that I'm here, I'm glad you started when you did. That said, if we had to start from scratch today, I would be part of it.
-Hope
Looking back, I'd say RMS's two greatest contributions to the world are the GNU Public License and the GCC compiler.
The GPL attracted a whole bunch of people who are willing to contribute code, but not if someone could rip the code off, change a few things, and sell it in a broken state. This is one of the reasons for the great vitality of Linux and of GNU software. Also, the GPL makes companies like IBM willing to donate patents (such as the Read-Copy-Update patent) for use in free software; thanks to the GPL they know they can still sell a patent license if anyone wants to use the patent for a proprietary purpose.
GCC, on the other hand, made it possible for people to write free software without paying thousands of dollars for a compiler. It also served as a common language across all the *NIX platforms; if you were writing a utility, you could write to GCC instead of needing to work around the quirks of the various C compilers.
Linus Torvalds got the ball rolling on the Linux kernel, but he used GCC and the GPL to do it.
Thank you, RMS.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Anyone else find it interesting that he oriented the creation of GNU around his personal beliefs? It would seem he did it mainly for himself..
Anyway, say what you will about the guy, but perhaps if he'd had any other attitude, you wouldn't be reading this now. (among many other things)
free speach
Did you mean: free speech
While I don't see how RMS's personal status is the parents business, I must agree and recommend the whole 'finding a significant other' thing.
Do not dispair my fellow geeks, our dream is possible, infact, it happened to me.
I met a female player in an MMORPG (a real female, not just a male after free stuffs), we talked alot (in chat rooms) and over time fell in love with them. Chat rooms led to phone calls, and then to a visit in person. This was no trip around the block tho, I lived in New Zealand, and she in Australia.
Still, she flew over and visited me for 3 weeks, we went on a road trip, and things worked out great. After she left I was down for a while (read: I didn't go outside for a week -- actually, that's not so uncommon for me...), but I did some work (writing PHP based websites, thankyou PHP people) and saved my money, and a couple months later, I moved to Aussie, and that's where I am now, living with my gf, and our two children (the computer and PS2).
Something I said the other day that made me realise life is good (me to gf), "We're naked and laying in bed talking about Linux. I love you".
umm, didn't these guys have grudge too?
7. saddam hussein - invaded kuwait in 1991.
grudge: who knows. because he could.
8. george w. bush - invaded iraq 2003.
grudge: who knows. because he could.
etc.
So, we have an entire article and many responses just to celebrate a first post?
He should have posted it as an AC....
RMS mentions in the "Who Am I?" section that he's already written one crashproof filesystem and two windowing systems for Lisp machines.
Anyone have any documentation on this? I'd like to see a crashproof filesystem from 20 years ago, and I've always been fascinated by Lisp machines...
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
Let's give props to all the altruists out there.
Stallman, Torvalds, all those guys from the CSRG, and everyone else who's ever made an effort to see their work and sources distributed 'free.'
The licenses are well and good; they ensure other people stick to the intentions of the authors. But what we need to honor is the initiative these guys took, and the sacrifices they made, to ensure their code would be out there for all. Those sacrifices might be 'small' -- arguments and lawsuits, not shed blood -- but they were still made in the spirit of altruism, so we ourselves wouldn't have to.
Today is GNU's special day. Stallman's breakthrough was in codifying a system -- indeed, an economy -- that ensures only altruists can benefit. That's some brilliant logic; he puzzled it out and wrote it up so that we wouldn't have to. The GPL is 'code' of its own sort, and GNU was the project that produced it, coordinating attention and 'patches' from many lawyerly eyes even before its first 'run' in the courts.
Let's say thanks for all that work -- be it coding or convincing -- that we didn't have to do ourselves.
Thanks.
Let's agree to stand behind anyone and everyone who gets up and does something for the benefit of humanity.
Props.
Not just to get free stuffs, eh? =P
Banaaaana!
I think you pretty much had it when you said the GNU project was about freedom, given their definition of that term. (Freedom is a very tricky thing to define, and subject to much disagreement. Many people dispute whether GPL or BSD-style licensing are better examples of freedom-in-licensing.) But then you went and said it's about CHOICE, and you've muddied the waters. To suggest that the GNU stance is pro-choice is, at the very best, a naive oversimplification. The GPL is notable for the rights that it reinstates to the licensee, but it is just as notable for the restrictions that it puts on those rights with regards to the creation of derived works.
The GNU project is all about restricting the available choices to the ones they consider morally or socially acceptable. They have taken careful steps to limit legally available courses of action in order to maximise freedom for the majority.
Whether this actually results in maximised freedom is just as debatable as the definition of "freedom" itself.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
... the GPL isn't about "Freedom" at all.
It's just a way of covering his true agenda, that of destroying commercial software.
With the boom in software in the early 80's, many left his "Ivory Tower" at MIT to get better-paid work in the real world. This pissed off RMS so much he started a crusade to destroy the commercial software world.
Don't believe me? It's all out there in black and white, written by his own hand.
Remember, the GPL *IS* Communism. Really. I regularly hear this denied, yet it is a fact. If you support the GPL, then you support Communism.
I've always found it somewhat ironic that so many support the GPL in the name of "Freedom" (hint: it doesn't give you any, Guys) when the reality is it really hurts the small computing shops.
Big business can afford to rewrite code easily. Small shops often can't afford the kind of delay it incurs.
So, kudos to Stallman for both being an asshat for wanting to kill businesses and doing it in a way that actually shifts the balance of power even more towards the MegaCorps.
He is, in fact, responsible for direct damage to the economies of many nations around the world.
All because of spite.
Screw GNU. Screw Stallman. You've done those of us who work for a living a major dis-service.
RMS Interview in Wired
Here is a link to RMS when he appeared on The ScreenSavers
What vision! Like the thousands of other posters, I've got to say thanks.
To begin with, GNU will be a kernel plus all the utilities needed to
write and run C programs: editor, shell, C compiler, linker,
assembler, and a few other things. After this we will add a text
formatter, a YACC, an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and hundreds of
other things. We hope to supply, eventually, everything useful that
normally comes with a Unix system, and anything else useful, including
on-line and hardcopy documentation.
And there it is! The reason for all of our Opensource Insanity over the last 20 years! RMS wanted to play the game Empire!!
No seriously...
I can't say I always agree 100% with Mr. Stallman's software politics. But i will admit I understand that it took his software politics and lifelong efforts and ability to motivate people and share a dream, for me to be surrounded with old, crappy machines that can do some amazing tricks.
I admire RMS, and owe him great amounts of gratitude for the huge part he's played. Sure, we geeks know how he is, but he's unfortunately an unsung hero for the whole computing industry.
do() || do_not();
That sooooo made my night, thanks for the laugh.
On the fourth floor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Computer Science Artificial Intelligence Laboratory are the Project GNU habitues. The dynamic of the environment changed over the years from the friendly habitues interested in one anothers' efforts to too territorial types denegrating one another unkindly, yelling and even one guy making physical threats kicking furniture. Do you recall some of the habitues?...
Joel N. Weber II
Joe A.
Brother Thomas formerly Michael I. Bushnell mib
Charles Hannum mycroft
Tami Friedman
Noah Friedman
Rachel Friedman
Dan Badger
spock
the guy on wheels
Tom Turner
Mark H. Weaver
Len Tower
Jay Sulzberger
Karl Heuer
Miles Bader
Roland McGrath
Bob Chassell
Loic Dachary
a great pianist Jim Blandy
Craig Burley
Nick Papadakis
Melissa Weisshaus
Unless of course, one of your principles is, "Compromising your principles is okay if there's a short-term gain to be had."
Many, probably most, of us, are compromisers, and won't stick to our guns if it means we'll get a big raise or stay out of jail. The best way for evil to do win is for good to do nothing and that sort of thing.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
I sure hope not. We all know how much safer the typical C and C++ programs are.
Why has it been 20 years, and HURD isn't ready for production use yet?
;-)
The design of HURD, on paper, is arguably better than a monolithic kernel such as Linux. But getting HURD working has proven difficult. Linux, on the other hand, started out as a toy that didn't do very much... but it was a toy that worked.
Thus Linux and not HURD benefitted from Mozilla's Law, which is: Projects that work get more attention than projects that don't work. It's a positive feedback loop: the more it works, the more people will get interested in it, and the more people are likely to contribute.
If I am correct about this guess, HURD should advance more quickly now, because it does now work.
It's possible that Linux has drawn developers away from HURD, simply because it was ready for production use long before HURD: for example, HURD isn't ready for IBM's customers to use it, so IBM isn't contributing developers to HURD, and they've already decided to support Linux anyway. I think to some extent this is true, but it can't be the whole story. There are multiple versions of BSD out there, and they seem to have active developer communities.
So, what's the situation with HURD? It's supposed to be really easy to develop it (e.g. as I understand it, almost everything happens in user space, so you can single-step even low-level stuff in the debugger). Did that turn out to be true, or not? If not, is it a temporary problem, or did HURD just not work out as hoped? Also, how easy is it to join the HURD development? How easy is it to get patches accepted? What is the HURD community like?
P.S. You will know HURD has "arrived" when SCO starts selling licenses to it...
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
More than mere navel gazing.
I know you were just trying to be funny, but Freeciv is a multiplayer strategy game, released under the GNU General Public License.
It is generally comparable with Civilization II(R), published by Microprose(R).
Next time that Stallman opens his mouth and says something that shows what an asshole he is, refer back to this thread before you reply and say what an asshole he is, and see if you licked said asshole before you write anything.
This is not a troll. This is just a simple warning against hypocrisy, nothing more.
And doesn't anyone else think that Michael Sims posting a brown-nosing article on Stallman pretty much defines Critical Mass Of Suck?
If using Linux is about choice, how come people complain when I choose to use Windows?
How many of us here said we're going to do some large computer project and just give up on it after a day or two? For example, I always said, "I'm going to make the best BBS ever," then in two days I just erased it and forgot about it.
He says it so non-chalantly too, "this Thanksgiving weekend"... If I would have read this at the time and saw that a single man wanted to recreate an entire Unix compatible toolchain, I would have thought "yeah right."
Big props to RMS. While you may never win your struggle to get GNU's name always included in the same breath as Linux, trust me, any real OSS advocate truly appreciates your great contribution.
-----
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
I am Richard Stallman, inventor of the original much-imitated EMACS editor, now at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT. I have worked extensively on compilers, editors, debuggers, command interpreters, the Incompatible Timesharing System and the Lisp Machine operating system. I pioneered terminal-independent display support in ITS. In addition I have implemented one crashproof file system and two window systems for Lisp machines.
Sure, you did some good stuff, but you don't have to brag, man.
Care to expound on that? Its really hard to make a logical counter arguement to arm waving...
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
when talking about computers he'd like to have donated. Now you can run a web server from a Dreamcast, or in a shoebox (not literally).
Shut-up, can't you see that you are interrupting the prayer service to RMS.
Before I met Linux, I was used to the old way of doing things: Vendor "Here is a tool and this is what you can do with it"
After meeting RedHat 6.1, I found a new way of doing things: Hacker "Here is a tool, WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH IT?
Thank you RMS, for providing the best learning tools I have ever had!
P.S. Only up so late because I'm doing an LFS build.
There is a very positive thing about GNU and Free software in general with regards to the unique business model evolved based upon that. The highly decentralized and ditributed business model, where the company is more like a community(e.g, RedHat) in contrast to the highly centralised and often monopolistic(e.g Microsoft) ones is an amazing acheivment. The symbiotic relation between the business entities and communities is an incredible positive outcome of the free software movement. The distributed and decentralized way of business makes it inherently more transperant and accountable than the shady business practice followed otherwise. Free software based business model put forward a viable and ethical business alternative. IMHO, as free software movement becomes more and more in to mainstream, this symbiotic business model will get more acceptablity. RMS deserves a huge chunk of credit for his pioneering work towards this. Kudos to RMS !!
http://www.nasirudheen.blogspot/
yeah thanks to you RMS
Anyone digging Douglas Adams just has to wonder how this filesize came about. Divine intervention? Or just an auspicious sign :)
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
In a world run by Apple and Microsoft?
It would be modded (-1 Flamebait)
I am Richard Stallman, inventor of the original much-imitated EMACS
Note he said inventor, rather than author. Now he's one of the stalwarts fighting against software patents...
Whatever, wannabe guildmaster. Just because you couldn't compete with GCC doesn't mean the rest of the world was damaged by the GPL.
I've realized that EMACS is older than I am.
I can't beleive he beleived in what he was writing in that letter! For 20 yo stuff it sounds like a completely crazy idea! There was SOOOO much work to do... He's a hero, no doubt!
GNU Rules, GNU forever!!!
May Peace Prevail On Earth
The cirCLe project supports this.
Apparently 'root password must be left blank' movement is completely failed
thanks again mr. stallman, etc....
now there's a man amongst guise. he even answers email from us wee folk.
why 0 why do the felonious georgewellian fuddite corepirate nazis plot his demise?
That's why the Hurd was originally going to be called Alix. Unfortunately some fool who was actually working on it decided a girls name wasn't geeky enough and that a dual-recursive acronym would be far better.
I think there is still a little part of the Hurd that is called Alix, but I don't remember which bit.
Several people have mentioned "an Empire game", but I'm more interested in "file version numbers". Does anyone know about a file system that natively supports versions, like VMS did?
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
no comments, just a thank note...
You know Brett I agree with your views about the GPL and how most people don't understand the politics behind it, and the problems with it.
But much software RMS has written is useful even to businesses(mainly thinking of gcc) and for that he should be thanked.
But I don't think people are ready to listen to any negative posts about RMS in this article it will just make them mad. Another day.
Thank you Richard Stallman
And I, for one, welcome our new Red Forman overlord.
"One time I asked Jackie about her feelings. And she wouldn't shut up for THREE days!"
--Kelso
He certainly developed the original program a great deal, and after he passed it onto another developer that didn't do things as he liked (things like support for X windows, which was undesirable in emacs because hurd didn't support X windows) he forked emacs and passed it on to someone that took many months before they could make any addition to the code at all (which became lucid emacs on one side and the new gnu emacs on the other).
RMS has contributed a great deal, and we should follow his vision, but not nessessarily his actions. Politics and control are one thing, but it better that we use the software freely (there's that word that RMS disagrees with english usage on) within the parameters of the gnu licence without using it to push some political point. The whole idea of claiming ownership of the efforts of others may go down well in areas of the political and academic world, but the gnu tools, linux and all the other bits of software under the GPL do no need a gnu in front of them - or renamed to "LiGnuX" (RMS really missed the point with that one).
We don't need heros - we need a lot of people doing the right thing. If one person does the wrong thing, no matter what reputation they've built, it shouldn't matter. RMS wrote the GPL and showed by example what could be done. Since then he's proved all too human, by telling people to only do things that will help the hurd - then after that getting billboard space for his project in the name of gnu/linux. Actions like that don't really help anyone - ultimately not even RMS.
In my opinion, RMS did a lot for us all early on, but has done nothing but get attention since some time before the emacs fork long ago. Trolltech bashing, linux bashing, trying to change the name of linux, making up word like "copyleft" which is going to make the GPL look very silly in court has not been to the advantage of the people writing or using the code.
As I see it - it's all about letting people use the code, and not letting some some corporation somewhere taking "public domain" work and stopping you from using it. RMS saw this happen where textbook examples became proprietry. The other stuff, making up words, trying to re-define the meanings of others etc. is just politics. The basis of the GPL is the same as the sharing of information that every University on the globe is based on - bringing politics into it is as irrelevant as calling a parish priest a communist because he helps poor people.
Fits on a floppy, takes a day to learn and another day to master, and you never need to become a guru.
What do you think would've happened if Linus would have released Linux under a BSD style license...
<grub> Reading
Might the GNU project be better served if their leaders would stop worrying about whether it should be called GNU/Linux and get back to the technical side of things?
From his original Usenet post: "eventually a Lisp-based window system through which several Lisp programs and ordinary Unix programs can share a screen."
LISP for a windows solution? Could we leave the technical side of things to the sane?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
The GNU project dropped the plan to write their own window system when X became popular. I actually believe they had an early prototype.
Similarly, the priority of Hurd development fot GNU decreased a lot when Linux became available. Hurd was "too far along" to drop entirely though.
Think about it, what is the simplified gist(sp) of RMS's message? "Be excellent to one another".
We now have an entire culture using the tools of his (and others) hard work and talking about the philosophy behind the tools. That's awsome!
Personaly, I hope that when the dust settles, RMS is remembered as a great visionary who helped us all "Be excellent to one another".
The FSF and RMS did good things, but their websites ... nah ... Browsing their website is like editting a file in VI.
(btw I don't like VI)
Cygwin itself is GNU, not Linux :)
Less is more !
RMS is only the person, the whole entity is GNU/RMS!
Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent.They imagine.They heal. They explore.They create.They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels? We make tools for these kinds of people. While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
From The GNU Project: (which I translated to Finnish): Alix The GNU kernel was not originally supposed to be called the HURD. Its original name was Alix--named after the woman who was my sweetheart at the time. She, a Unix system administrator, had pointed out how her name would fit a common naming pattern for Unix system versions; as a joke, she told her friends, "Someone should name a kernel after me." I said nothing, but decided to surprise her with a kernel named Alix. It did not stay that way. Michael Bushnell (now Thomas), the main developer of the kernel, preferred the name HURD, and redefined Alix to refer to a certain part of the kernel--the part that would trap system calls and handle them by sending messages to HURD servers. Ultimately, Alix and I broke up, and she changed her name; independently, the HURD design was changed so that the C library would send messages directly to servers, and this made the Alix component disappear from the design. But before these things happened, a friend of hers came across the name Alix in the HURD source code, and mentioned the name to her. So the name did its job. I am not surprised that I know the history of GNU very well ;).
No, nobody uses the GNU crapware besides linux distros. All the BSDs are operating systems, including all the standard utilities, shells, etc, not just the kernel. The only notable gnu software the BSDs use is gcc.
The gnu stuff really made no difference at all. Had it not been laying around, linux distros would have used other free utilities instead. Quit bloating RMS's head even further, he was not instrumental in linux's success, his software isn't even very good, and it shouldn't be called GNU/Linux, all the gnu software in a linux distro is replaceable.
POSIX. That was his baby too.
I was under the impression that POSIX was created by some U.S. government IT department in order to specify that "we want UNIX". See, UNIX is a trademark of UNIX System Labs (then part of AT&T, now part of The Open Group), and this agency's charter prohibited asking for a product by trademark so as not to favor one private company over another; to circumvent this restriction, it produced a requirements sheet that stated everything the UNIX system at the time had, and the result was IEEE 1003. Wikipedia says RMS came up with only the name.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Confirmation. The guy is a weirdo.
You're dead confused by your example (while I agree with you in principle): "Do you run Linux, BSD or any othe UNIX clone? chances are that you are using the ls, grep, mv, cp, cd, find, etc versions from the GNU project." The only significant piece of GNU software that the BSD's use is the GNU compiler. The BSD's have their own implementation of ls, grep and friends.
But that doesn't mean they were social rejects lacking the ability to communicate concepts to their fellow man without bristling every person they met. It doesn't mean they espoused ideologies with technology and tried to use their innovations as a way to force normative concepts and judgements down people's throats as payment for their work. They didn't loudly shout people down who didn't adhere to their preferred terminology for certain concepts and tried to engage them in discussion
RMS is neither a social reject nor is he incapable of communicating clearly. And the last time I checked, RMS wasn't shouting loudly at anyone about terminology. He's simply repeated something which he thinks is true. No-one has to read it, and surely old-timers have all read it already. But the world of Free Software haven't, and should be educated about such things.
The simple fact is that RMS is right. People are afraid to talk about freedom, or anything so controversial.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?
All I need to do to answer that is provide a few links:
Free Software Foundation
Debian GNU/Linux OS
GNOME Desktop
KDE Desktop
GnuCash Financial Manager
this list could be many orders of magnitude longer
Obviously, thousands and thousands and thousands of people can do this. We have in GNU/Linux and the BSD's OS' which are either equal to or far superior to their proprietary equivalents.
Service-based business models have cropped up around Free Software. Indeed, Free Software is the best software to use if you want to engage in a service-based business model, since it makes service easier, as bugs are more easy to track and fix. Furthermore, many companies donate some of their programmers to work on Free Software, to fill (or help fill) needs that they may have. Finally, many programmers contribute to Free Software on a part-time basis.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Linux is GPL'ed. There is nothing contradictory about using Linux as the kernel for your OS. The only difference is that the copyright is owned by Linus (and a whole bunch of other contributors), not the FSF.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
he created FS. OSS is a more loosely-based standard derived from FS by individuals who wanted to appeal more to the business world. In doing so, much of the talk about the ideology of the movement was dissapated.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
actually, there is a project to port HURD to the L4 microkernel (L4ka, I believe). Check it out here. The HURD idea isn't dead, it just hasn't gotten enough initial momentum yet. As kernels get more and more complicated, microkernels will become a more and more desireable option.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
If you confine yourself to stricly advocating gradual and "practical" changes, it is very easy to lose sight of the end goal. In the case of Libertarianism, the end goal is to eliminate all government and allow the world to operate on a completely unhampered free market; in Free Software, the goal is to "provide free software to do all of the jobs computer users want to do--and thus make proprietary software obsolete." (as someone who believes in both these goals, I should point out that they are not contradictory ends: see Kinsella's Against Intellectaul Property.
Extremism only becomes a problem when those who adhere to a certain end (e.g., Free Software for every need or the elimination of government) reject any progress towards that goal as a sellout of that goal because such progress is step-wise. This is most certainly not what RMS has done.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
20 years and no release ready kernel, oh yeah, he tried to co-opt Linux and put GNU in front of it...
How about a rename to GNAK, GNAK's Not A Kernel?
Refusing to use proprietary graphics drivers would necessarily cut one off from using many Free Software programs. Without using proprietary graphics drivers, the vast majority of users would be unable to use Xfree86, GNOME, OpenOffice, GnuCash, and a variety of other programs that require a graphics card.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
--| Free Music |---
Music is everybody's possession.
It's only publishers who think that people own it.
(John Lennon)
--| The Law of the Wild |---
And this is the law of the wild, As old and as true as the sky.
And the wolf who keeps it will prosper, But the wolf who breaks it will die!
Like the wind that circles the tree trunk, this law runneth forward and back.
The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.
(Rudyard Kipling)
--| Social Threefolding |---
The well-being of a community of people working together will be the greater, the less the individual claims for himself the proceeds of his work, i.e. the more of these proceeds he makes over to his fellow-workers, the more his own needs are satisfied, not out of his own work but out of the work done by others.
(The Fundamental Social Law, Rudolf Steiner, 1905)
--| Thomas Jefferson on Ideas |---
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an IDEA, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me... Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.
(Thomas Jefferson)
--| The Hate Mirror |---
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us. (Hermann Hesse)
--| The Soul's Awakening > Machines and Art |---
Manager:
So much is happening that makes it clear how our production slackens more and more and how we're failing in our obligations.
Too many are complaining that our products are growing worse in quality and so the other firms are starting to outdo us.
Our well-known punctuality is lacking, as many customers have rightly claimed.
Soon all the best friends that the firm has made will find themselves no longer satisfied.
Hilary:
The one who wishes to create the new must calmly watch the old things pass away. I will no longer carry on the work as up to now it has been organised.
It seems to me degrading when a business-- is profit-making in the narrowest range-- and throws the workers' output thoughtlessly upon the general market of the world, quite unconcerned with what becomes of it.
I've gained this view since I have realised how human work can take noble form, if human spirit puts its stamp upon it.
Thomasius, the artist, shall direct the workshops that I build for him nearby. The products made by our machines will first be formed with art by his creative spirit and so supply for daily human needs things useful that are truly beautiful.
Thus craftsmanship will be combined with art and bring good taste to ordinary life.
So I would add to what I see today, as corpselike body in our work, the soul that can alone bestow on it true meaning.
(The Souls Awakening, by Rudolf Steiner, 1922)
---| Constructing Machines as a Divine Service |---
Humanity must learn to deal with nature as the gods have done; it should learn not to construct machines in an indifferent way but to fulfill a divine service and bring sacramentalism into everything that is produced.
(Rudolf Steiner, The Karma of Vocation, Dornach, Nov1916)
best regards,
john
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"
After reading the GNU announcement Stallman made in '83 I did a quick search for other posts by him around the same time.
r /0 03346.html
I came across this:
http://www.luni.org/pipermail/luni/2001-Decembe
Actually, Lisp is an ideal platform for kick-ass windowing systems, such as CLIM. One key feature of CLIM is that the data sent to windows still remembers where it came from. As opposed to conventional window systems, where stuff either becomes pixels, or, if you are lucky, selectable as text.
RMS came from the AI lab at MIT, who were using Lisp machines as personal workstations before workstations even became common. These machines had OS's that had user-readable and user-modifiable code all the way down to and including the hardware microcode!
It's a shame that the UNIX model of "everything becomes an undifferentiated stream of byte-sized characters" took over the world. That world gives us solutions like Perl, which proliferate quick-and-dirty hacks that make all sorts of assumptions on the format of text streams to try to reconstruct the data hidden within them. When the assumptions fail (Y2K, anyone?) all sorts of things break.
Imagine if any time value anywhere in the system *understood* that it was a time. You could display it on the screen if you wanted, but you wouldn't use that text for processing, rather you would use the time value itself. Human display is separate from the machine representation. That is the idea behind CLIM.
Note: RMS doesn't fully get it, unfortunately. Consider Emacs, which has a Lisp-like extension language, but is unbelievably out-of-date. It uses default dynamic scope, which has been known since the 70s to be an ugly mistake, doesn't support packages, so names all have to have long prefixes, and doesn't fully use structured data types, so that all sorts of code depends on properly forming nested lists. But, RMS being RMS, he can't be persuaded to change his approach.
Hey, I have a constitutional right to a job writing C compilers. Just because I'm incapable of producing anything better than what's already been done and freely available doesn't mean people shouldn't be forced to pay me anyway. Stallman stole my job.
--
Brett
Emacs' origins are detailed in this 1979 paper by Bernard Greenberg, with a 1996 introduction. Its history is longer than one might think. http://www.multicians.org/mepap.html
But much software RMS has written is useful even to businesses(mainly thinking of gcc) and for that he should be thanked.
Just in case you weren't trolling him, do you realise that Brett's single most enduring grudge against RMS is because he released GCC as free software? Brett thinks of himself as something of a compiler writer and apparently feels that the world owed him a living doing whatever he wants to do. He blames RMS for destroying the market for his precious C compiler writing skills. Seriously. There's years of obessive grudge keeping built on top of that but that's what it's all about.
If you were trolling him then sorry to have spoiled your joke with all the detail.
We will always need new OS models as the needs of business and the technology of networks are always changing. A monoculture of either OS design or business model will always be inherently inferior than a wide playing feild that allows multiple approaches to solving the problems that business, information technology, media, and personal comunication pose to developers. The weakness that is discussed in this (now famous) report, are not unique to a Microsoft dominated network, but to any large network that is overly reliant on a single OS architecture.
Including one that is based on Linux, BSD or any other notoriously secure operating system. The problem lies in the replication of the same flaw from host to host (or router to router, server to server, server to host, etc). If a single point of weakness can be counted on occuring on every host in a network, then the network belongs to any script kiddie who knows of that weakness.
It is also important that development of a variety of designs is available in non-security areas of OS design as well, because performance will vary based on kernel design depending upon the task(s) that the host is required for. The mostly monolithic design of the Linux kernel provides superior service for most computing tasks than does a microkernel implementation, such as the HURD, but when the host is pperforming tasks that do not require a great number of context swaps a microkernel design will usually outperform a monolithic kernel design. There are also some newer models that further remove kernel function from services and program/hardware interfaces than the current microkernel designs that may well make context swapping irrelevant.
What I'm getting at in my rambling diatribe is this: You may not need the HURD, I may not need the HURD (I won't know until I play with it a bit), but it is impossible for either you or I to know that there is no reason to continue development of the HURD, or that there is no-one for whom the HURD is a superior choice.
Read, L
That's funny! Let's see, they won't use (your choice inserted here) software because the person responsible (I know you said author, but...)is an asshole. Somehow that doesn't stand up to reality.
Actually I know very little about Brett or RMS. Just what I have read.
I find myself agreeing with Brett on many of the software licensing issues and not with RMS.
As for this grudge you say that Brett has against RMS, this is unfortunate as it moves the focus of Bretts arguments from the GPL to RMSvsBrett which is pointless.
Okay, I would think that someone who says they agree with Brett's views but thinks the FSF has done some good things and uses GCC as an example might want to be aware that thinking GCC is a good thing is about as far from agreeing with Brett's views as it's possible to get.
Here's a picture of MIT-MC, including the Decwriter console and a VT52. I think the box to the right of the VT52 is the 10/11 interface.
http://catalog.com/hopkins/images/mc-console.jpg
The only pictures I have of rms's house (which burnt down), are of Devon climbing up a tree to the roof:
http://catalog.com/hopkins/images/devon-climbing.j pg
p g
http://catalog.com/hopkins/images/devon-landing.j
And of course, here's a picture of RMS asking, "I don't know, why do you wrap a gerbil in duct tape?":
http://catalog.com/hopkins/images/jsol-rms-gerbil- liz-mg.jpg
On the left is JSOL, and the two people on the right are Liz and MG (who RMS branded an "Evil Software Hoarder" for developing Gosling's Emacs at UniPress.)
RMS is quick on his feet, and can be hillariously funny, unless you make the mistake of being offended. MG ran into RMS at a science fiction convention, and asked him "I heard there was a rumor about you house burning down." RMS snapped back "That's true, but where you work, I think you would have heard about it in advance."
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Okay, I can see avoiding qmail, because there's a good alternative (actually, I prefer it to qmail) -- postfix. What program would you use instead of djbdns?
I use (and like) pdnsd, but I'm not sure that it can be considered a full replacement.
May we never see th
It's a worthy post that deserves a complimentary post. According to Jesus Christ, the truth will set us free! Subjectively...
GNU software is voluntary. Labeling GNU and FSF as being a communism is a lie, as the history has shown us that all alleged communists use military dictatorship with force and intimidation to implement political views and governance.
Have we forgetten about a government vested in the people? Have we forgotten that the people are self-governing with unalienable rites and are consented for their voluntary and willfull grant of revokable privilege for governance or excise from a foreign artificial entinty or State? Today, most states use duress and coercion upon all in attempt to bequest unalienable right to travel, force to pay a third income tax, force to register children, force to accept their general welfare, force all to be held responsible for the decisions of a false and unlawful representative in an unlawful congress, and force to use fiat money of which provides no liability of any office or otherwise in a court of law (fiat money is infinite and against establishing commercial liability of unlawful people and unlawful artificial entities).
To the best of my present knowledge and witness, the employees at the artificial entity known as GNU don't force any to use their software. They have proved that all knowledge is free to all (and perhaps construed to be of a more public domain).
Secured Party, Without Prejudice, UCC 1-207: Creditor
I agree with Brett's view when it comes to the GPL. I came with my conclusions when reading the GPL manifesto and other RMS writings and interviews.
RMS's main goal is to rid the world of proprietary software with the belief writing proprietary is morally wrong.
The GPL is a means to meet this goal.
This is where I agree with Brett. I do not like the GPL's goals and why it was written, that doesn't mean software under the GPL license is wrong or useless.
Though i have a feeling that most people who put their software under the GPL wouldn't if they read the license and the purpose behind it.
I do think that RMS and FSF has contributed to society with various software tools. I don't feel that way about GNU.
sorry for the rambling not often I put my thoughts on paper.
RMS is a BIG FAT SLOB. A megalomaniac.
Somebody needs to deflate him. He makes me SICK.
The GNU philosophy starts by questioning the basic idea that infinitely reproducable things should be priced like manufactured goods; that is why create an artificial economy that mandates an intrusive legal system? The FSF made quite a bit of money selling software but they did so under a license which allowed others to do the same thing. Adobe does not allow others to make copies of photoshop and thus relies on law (i.e. indirectly threats of violence) to make a profit on their product.
The GNU philosophy has never argued that commercial software and free software are equivelent in the free speech sense. Rather they view them as free speech vs. dictorial control on speech.
At this point its not destroying the commercial software industry. I figure the reaction really comes when Microsoft's share drops down to about 3/4ths. For the last 10 years people have had defacto standards: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Windows.... Suddenly they won't actually work anymore and we will need real standards with real compromise (like HTML, ANSI C, etc..). We will go back to what computing was like the in 1980s where end users genuinely understood the distinction between executables and data since data conversion was an everyday end user issue.
People will remember the good parts of a single standard and might very well push to recreate it. An environment which is good for programmers is probably not good for end users (as Unix has demonstrated for 30 years).
RMS's utopia: Academic environment, programmers share all their code, money "just comes from someplace"; usually a grant or something. The source of the money is usually "old money" from the same elitists who run the Democratic Party.
My utopia: 17 year old kid submits simple program to a magazine. Maybe he gets to keep copyright, maybe he doesn't. He's already written some other stuff, which the magazine mentions or maybe even reviews. Kid starts selling the stuff out of his basement and becomes wealthier than most adults twice his age will ever be. Many programs are released; the virtue of competition is upheld. The source of the money is satsified customers.
The Bill Gates utopia: Very similar to my utopia, except that it keeps expanding until it threatens the first utopia. The "old money" sees that meritocracy is replacing monarchy and feels threatened. The "revolutionaries" of the RMS utopia are fashioned as a weapon against the BG utopia, and the shareware/small developer utopia (which threatens to give birth to another BG). Once able to ignore Washington lobbying, cocktail parties, and other nerd-hostile social venues, BG and company are now forced to compete on the same cocktail-party circuit as the "old money" elitists. In fact, he even feels compelled to engage in philanthropy too, but horror of horrors, he just makes the "old money" feel even worse by actually doing useful philantrhopy. For example, helping AIDS and malaria victims in Africa as opposed to, oh... for example... fighting to make sure the teacher's unions and Public School monopoly keep their hold on power in America.
Plainly, the elites must do something to make sure that a true nerd like Bill Gates never gate-crashes the realms of the truly wealthy ever again. The polarization of the intellectual property compromise fits that purpose.
Both the GPL and the USPTO serve the elite's purpose. GPL acts as a barrier to entry by forcing small developers to exceed the capabilities of Free Software before they can release a product. The USPTO acts as a barrier by strewing "land mine" patents in the path of software developers.
Now, Slashdot hates the USPTO and runaway IP laws, but they've yet to catch on to the real purpose of the GPL. Both of them are anti-competitive, and tend to hurt the "garage" in which so many truly great ideas were born.
Thank-you Brett, for being one of the voices that have stood against the rising tide of power-elite oppression over the years. I'd like to shake your hand some day.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
We are witnessing a world-historic struggle over creativity and freedom. A regime of power is emerging that seeks to control the creative, the aesthetic and the intellectual. We as artists, citizens and intellectuals must stand opposed.
This political struggle involves the formation of a new counter-hegemony, based on an alternative and revolutionary structure for producing and sharing knowledge and ideas.
MORE AT LIBRE SOCIETY
Worth a read...
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
Thomas Paine said it well:
RMS could take a hint from this...
"Erm, you realize that's fake/made up, right?"
http://www.luni.org/pipermail/luni/2001-December/0 03351.html
True, if it were not for GNU, I would really hate my PC. Because my software is free, I know I own my computer. They serve me well, and I love them and the people who make them work. I can contrast this to the common eXPerience of popup adverts, runaway worms, Gator, and all that crap that makes the web unusable and isolates users.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Did he get no replies or are they not archived? I can't find any replies on Google. I'm very interested in seeing replies to the original post.
Software development as practiced is a farce, not a profession. What we've seen is exactly the sort of mess we'd see in, say, civil engineering if shoddy bridge designs (as well as the ensuing carnage) were universally concealed. This will continue so long as making software proprietary (leaving users at authors' mercy) is tolerated.
Know that I'm posting late here but after thinking about it, I mean the "why" part of why RMS does all that he does.
;) and keep the source around make programming much easier when your working with large projects. You can review your source and make changes. Thanks to Unix you can link of course so you want to keep track of those libs too.
And yeah, I'm aware of why he says what he does. But going back a little more, before he even did it why would he even think to do it.
Around 20 years ago Unix was the big iron, PCs were still expensive and not nearly as useful as what we take for granted today. Being able to code in a high level (not ASM/Machine code...and yeah ASM is even higher than machine because you can keep the source for it but lets be real; c is/was a major improvement. uhm wasn't it?
What I'm saying is that there is a boom of people who are writing all sorts of cool things in the late 70's early 80's. At that point there was that good old 70's "Public Domain" idea where code was released for "free". But how free was it? If you made money from that code, or even the binary's, did you have to pay money back to the author? When an author sued did they have any protection with that lisance. And mostly, because you wern't about to have a compiler on your 80's computer unless you were a total geek you had to release binarys.
But those cool projects for the total geeks who were running cutting edge minix on some PCs and or had access to the big iron were out there and wanted to write cool stuff. Not to mention the whole legon of hobbyists who have been buying these little PCs since they came out. So there you are, you want projects that get started to be protected and grow. You love code yourself so you decide that the 1st thing to do obviously is make a free compiler.
And the great thing, if your right, is that others will do the same. They will write code to support your project, using your free compiler of course, but keep their code open too.
Oh, but before that you have to decide how you want to lisance that compiler. Since your going to be releaseing the source and...lets face it...pretty much tell people to compile it on their own and help you fix it if there are any bugs, you want to protect this creation and in a way that keeps with the spirit of keeping the code open for the good of the code. Thus, is born the GPL.
So I know Linus is the engineer in this mix, but I don't think we should ever forget that RMS is really an engineer at heart too, he just happens to be a really really loud one.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
If you have an nvidia or ATI card, then your graphics drivers are proprietary. Unless it's only the 3D and not the 2D parts that are proprietary.
In any case, even if it's only the 3D drivers that are proprietary, there are many individuals who need to use 3D. Physicists, for example, as well as those working in special effects, and so-on and so-forth.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
No, it would be quite possible for me to believe that GCC was a good thing. However, for it to be truly beneficial it would have to be ethically licensed (that is, not licensed under the viral, deceptive, and intentionally destructive GPL) and also of better quality. GCC, alas, has driven superior compilers out of the marketplace because so many people will go for something that's available at no cost rather than paying for something better. This is one of the biggest problems with the GPL: It causes mediocre software to drive out truly good software. It destroys the incentive to publish a better product (by destroying the market) and likewise denies authors any reward for making an incremental improvement to the technology. As a result, the technology stagnates. Compiler technology hasn't improved in a decade, and you can thank the GPL and GCC. I'd willingly pay for better compilers like the ones I used 10 to 20 years ago, but they're gone. The mediocre has displaced the good.
dozo.
sorry for the rambling not often I put my thoughts on paper.
;)
I don't think you're rambling at all and I find the discussion interesting.
I agree with Brett's view when it comes to the GPL.
Maybe...
I came with my conclusions when reading the GPL manifesto and other RMS writings and interviews.
Seems like a reasonable place to start. If you're forming a view of the GPL rather than of RMS, I assume that the GPL is one of the other writings you read otherwise that would be rather a major omission. Seeing how other people use it and what the real world effects are would be a good idea too.
RMS's main goal is to rid the world of proprietary software with the belief writing proprietary is morally wrong.
The GPL is a means to meet this goal.
You see Brett would disagree with you right from the start. Brett would say (has said more times than there are stars in the sky) that RMS's main goal is to prevent programmers from getting paid. And be very clear, in Brett's view that is the actual intended goal.
This is where I agree with Brett. I do not like the GPL's goals and why it was written, that doesn't mean software under the GPL license is wrong or useless.
Okay, again from Brett's perspective it's the software being released under the GPL that's the problem. In that I think he's actually being more clear minded than you. That's not intended as an insult, you don't sound like you're frothing at the mouth as he tends to, but it's hard to follow your reasoning. The GPL existing with no software licensed under it would surely be entirely harmless, an intellectual curiosity, no? If there's something bad about it then that bad must surely come from licensing sofware under it.
Brett believes that licensing GCC under the GPL has destroyed the market for proprietary compilers, and thus deprived him of his rightful job. You seemed to be heading in the same direction by talking about the GPL being designed to rid the world of proprietary software (which it is). If it doesn't achieve that effect then what's the problem? If it does achieve that effect, and you see that as a bad thing, then surely it's writing and releasing software under the license that's actually causing the harm. Writing the GPL would be like plotting a murder, releasing GCC under the GPL would be actually going through with the crime... (for murder read 'being impolite', 'speeding', 'pickpocketing', 'burglary', 'mass murder' or 'genocide' according to taste).
Though i have a feeling that most people who put their software under the GPL wouldn't if they read the license and the purpose behind it.
Yep, the world's so much easier to understand if you approach it on the basis that everyone else is too stupid to understand what they're doing. If only those fools understood like we do, huh?
I do think that RMS and FSF has contributed to society with various software tools. I don't feel that way about GNU.
Your distinction between RMS and GNU I can understand. RMS obviously did stuff before starting GNU, and presumably other stuff since starting GNU that you might or might not value without valuing GNU. I can see that. The distinction between FSF and GNU I don't understand. The GNU project is the project that the FSF advances. Has the FSF created software that isn't part of the GNU project? I doubt it. If they're not synonymous then it's damn hard to see the differences.
Now, hopefully you can see that what you did wasn't true rambling
Ok.
When RMS wants to get rid of proprietary software he also wants software developers to not make much money. I think I remember reading that he thought it was foolish that a gas station clerk made less money than a software developer.
I think the two are closely related.
With regards to my clear minded-ness. I think that society would be better off if all the medical drug research was forceful opened up. Better off for about 5 years, after this no companies would invest money drug research if they were going to have to give it away.
Or Let's say that someone grabs a hundred people and experiments on them eventually killing all but but finds the cure to cancer. I would hope everyone who abhor what he did and string him up, but wouldn't be foolish to not use the cure?
Your statement about me thinking everyone else is stupid?
Not sure why you said that, as it is not stupidity by any stretch, more like indifference.
For example, I worked with someone on a open source project it was under the GPL, I asked him why and could we switch it? He said he doesn't even know the difference between GPL and BSD and couldn't care less. It was switched. My point is he put it under GPL because everyone else does, I think alot less people would do that if they understood more. I have talked to my friends at work about the GPL and they are shocked with what they hear.
FSF and GNU? Not sure of my point... moving on.
Why post anonymous?
My question for you: Why do you find the discussion interesting?
When RMS wants to get rid of proprietary software he also wants software developers to not make much money.
;) Did you say it was an evil scheme to destroy people's jobs or did you say some people are (horror) providing their code on the basis that anyone using the same license could incroporate that code in their project?
I don't think that's true. I don't think he sees it as a problem if software developers don't make more than people in general or specific groups but I'm sure he doesn't see reducing their income as an objective.
I think I remember reading that he thought it was foolish that a gas station clerk made less money than a software developer.
I think I remember some comment along these lines, possibly from the GNU manifesto but possibly not, I think it was waitresses not gas station clerks but I could be wrong and it may be a different quote anyway. I think what he said was more like he didn't see any merit in the idea that programmers SHOULD get paid more than waitresses i.e. if the argument is put "under the GPL programmers would make as little money as waitresses" then he doesn't see that as a problem as he doesn't value waitresses any less than programmers anyway.
Assuming I've got this right, I'd agree with him on the direct issue i.e. programmers aren't inherently deserving of more money than waitresses. The broader issue of course is whether under the GPL the financial incentives would be sufficient to lead to the production of software we as a society need. IF we assume that software production was essentially unaffacted or improved then one group being paid the same as another group and less or more than a third group isn't a problem. IF we assume that software production was reduced in a way that affected whatever objectives we see as desirable then that would be a problem.
So far I see no problem but that doesn't mean it's impossible for one to arise.
With regards to my clear minded-ness. I think that society would be better off if all the medical drug research was forceful opened up. Better off for about 5 years, after this no companies would invest money drug research if they were going to have to give it away.
I don't understand your point.
Or Let's say that someone grabs a hundred people and experiments on them eventually killing all but but finds the cure to cancer. I would hope everyone who abhor what he did and string him up, but wouldn't be foolish to not use the cure?
I agree (though I would say understandably foolish, I would advocate using the cure but I'd have some sympathy with those who felt otherwise). But I don't think it's a good analogy if you're trying to clarify your position on GCC. In the case of the GPL as I understand it you think that it destroys proprietary software and that that is a bad thing. GCC is an example of it in practice. If the GPL is operating as you say it does then GCC is out there right now destroying proprietary software and taking away jobs. You specifically praised it as being useful to business, but that just increases the problem, surely, all those businesses not pouring their money into proprietary software. Isn't that the very thing you see as damaging?
From your world-view, I would have thought, the GPL is more like the cancer than like a cure for cancer.
On the reasons people use the GPL... honestly, I think it's actually written very clearly, and very widely discussed and analysed. So anyone who cares should know how it works. I take your point about people who don't care, I guess, but it pre-supposes that a lot of people who do care have adopted it for these others to be following.
I have talked to my friends at work about the GPL and they are shocked with what they hear.
And this was despite the stunningly reasonable way you explained it
Why post anonymous?
Well, I don't like to give away my secret identity but you seem like a decent guy so, j