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RMS to Move Into Bill Gates Building Today
In anonymous reader writes "RMS will be moving his office to the new William H. Gates building at MIT's Stata Center starting today. This marks the end of MIT's use of building NE43, which housed the LCS and AI labs (now combined into CSAIL).
On a strangely unrelated note, shortly after Harvard, in a laudable attempt to retain solidarity with the Open Source community, dedicated the Maxwell Dworkin building (named after Gates' and Ballmer's mothers respectively), Gates' credit card was hacked. After all, they did have his mother's maiden name... "
How does this attempt to retain solidarity with the OSS community? The entire post is one gigantic run-on sentence, so maybe I am not reading it correctly?
How stupid can you be? In the article, it says he stole the credit card numbers to prove how insecure things were. If that wasn't enough, he emailed the info to NBCi. Why do these people think that they're the "good guys" when they do this?
Gray says he is actually the good guy. He said "I just wanted to prove how insecure these sites are. I have done the honest thing, but I have been ignored."
That's like shooting someone just to prove how unsafe firearms are.
*shakes head*
Spread the RC luvin'
I think the term about those kids that felt that they were doing the "right thing" that is most apt is "shoot the messenger." Some young kids uncover security holes that could lead into millions of fraud if not patched, and then tell the authorities, let's arrest the kids. Makes it less likely that some good samaritin will do the same in the future, leaving security holes open for those less ethical to actually steal the money!
What's next, arresting the kid that stuck his finger into the dike?
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Here's a guy who started a company from scratch,
From birth, William Gates III was a millionaire. (Trust fund from wealthy parents). The lowest net-worth he's ever experienced is greater than the highest an average American can ever expect.
What's sad is bill Gates has donated well over twenty billion dollars to charities, including his own and you all still bitch and moan and call him the great satan because he doesn't want you to see his source code. That's about 1/3 of his total net worth. In contrast, how much has our Vice President Dick Cheney donated to charity....a staggering 1%.
I'm posting AC because judging by your +4 insigtful score the mods are abusing their moderation points again and I don't feel like taking the karma hit.
How generous: give some money away AFTER you have ruthlessly and greedily made more than you could possibly actually use yourself.
I prefer Jesus' view of what constitutes generosity to yours.
There are a few RMSes there, and on a news site an acronym should never be used without using the full form first.
though it was a pretty obscure attempt at it. Maybe a [sarcasm][/sarcasm] would've helped.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Considering many of his 'donations' are Windows PC's and Microsoft software...
First, he never started from scratch. He was born very rich, then got even luckier.
Second, he donates less of a percentage of his disposable income than I do by FAR. In fact, I'd suggest that the average American donates a considerably higher percentage of their disposable income than he does. $20Mill is nothing to him - it would be like me handing out $40 over the course of a year to things (homeless, the church, Girl Scouts, whatever). $20Mill is 1/2000 of his worth. The average American is lucky to have a net worth in the 5 figures...most live paycheck to paycheck with 4 figure accounts (which means they only need to donate $10 a year to blow Bill to bits, percentage-wise), and make mortgage payments until they die.
There's also the tax benefits to the "foundation," which he sits on for further benefits (why just donate money, when you can start a foundation? and name it after yourself? and sit on the board?).
When most Americans would be fiscally devastated by a $1,000 unexpected expense, Bill could have a $100,000,000 unexpected expense and not change his lifestyle AT ALL.
The foundation, the scholarships, and everything else is all just PR for him, to make people dislike him less. And it works, obviously.
Third point: if he was truely being generous, his name wouldn't be on any buildings.
Fourth point: the "legacy" of his foundation will last only as long as his money is in it. Its done nothing all that substantial. His business finess though has made a very substantial impact on the planet, and will be remembered for a very long time.
Don't get me wrong -- there's nothing wrong with taking grant money. Just because something isn't economically sustainable, doesn't mean it's not worth doing. I just get very tired of the way the "Free Software" folk insist that they've transcended the evils of software "ownership". Which they've never actually done. Their bills are paid for by revenues from the very businesses they are too pure to work for.
So of course RMS now works in a building that was paid for by the license fees that Microsoft gouged out of hapless computer buyers. What could be more appropriate?
Um, no, I bitch because he's committed the rest of his vast resources to destroying my livelihood (as a software developer).
Incidentally, are you seriously trying to make him look good by comparing him to Dick Cheney? There's a popularity contest that's hard to lose.
sic transit gloria mundi
IF someone were to ask me to key them into a secured area that they didn't have access to I would say no. There may be reasons that the building has security you know. I don't know all of them but for those of us in the real world things like pass cards are a frequent fact of life. And if it was RMS doubly so.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
"very little respect for the human race"
Gates may not be an angel but wtf are you talking abot? Are you implying he is a sociopath, a mass-murderer, or what?
What have you done lately to demonstrate *your* "respect for the human race"?
And for the record, I have very little respect for the human race myself. Does that make me evil too? I guess not - I'm not uber-wealthy.
Be happy. Nothing else matters.
This may sound corny, but I'm of the opinion that somebody who donates 10% of their meager substainance is far more generous than somebody that gives away 90% of his luxury, leaving him with, well, luxury.
It's nice that Gates is giving away money -- even if it was obtained dishonestly/unethically/illegally. However, to applaud his gifts is a bit silly methinks. The money he gives has little value to him, in the sense that it cannot be used to greatly improve his quality of life. Therefore, his gifts have cost him little.
So, from my perspective: he gives away plenty of money, but isn't at all generous with it.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
I'm the same as you. I *didn't* start from scratch.
I had upper-middle class parents, a Mom who didn't work outside the home and who always had time for homework. I had a decent public school to go to, then an even better private one, followed by a college paid for by my folks. (Public, so I didn't need loans.)
Compare that to someone growing up in a single parent home, with that parent holding two jobs to pay the rent on a crappy apartment in a war zone. The nearby schools graduate kids who can barely read and have no college prep classes. College is funded totally by loans because they've got to work 40+ hours a week to live while going to school. After college, they've got a pile of debt to pay off-get a job now, no matter how bad. Failure doesn't mean that you go back and live with Daddy while you sort out your options, failure means going on welfare or being homeless.
You are I are blessed far beyond what you think. We've got the education, we've got the parents to bail us out if we get into serious trouble, we don't have to worry about Mom losing one of her two dead-end jobs and getting tossed out of her apartment. Gates was even more so- he *never* had to worry about money, even if MS tanked. He was a millionaire to start.
In grad school, I had a long discussion with my (black) roommate asking why there were huge numbers of blacks in med, law and engineering schools and less than 1% in my chemistry department. His answer: when you're the first kid to get this far, money matters. Money matters a *lot*- you're going to have to pay back a fortune. (And he commented that he needed to be able to give back to others as well- someone's got to help pull the other smart but forgotten kids out of the hole.) Chemistry is great for middle class white kids who can afford to not think about the bottom line.
From what you say, you've *never* had to really think about the bottom line. Neither have I. We're lucky.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"