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Introducing RMS-Lint

Shlomi Fish writes "There's a new tool called RMS-Lint that aims to check and correct documents for their compliance with correspondence rules from Richard Stallman. If you plan on sending RMS an E-mail, you may actually need it."

37 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. sigh by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    GNU/is GNU/this GNU/another GNU/April GNU/Fool's GNU/joke?

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:sigh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I GNU this would come out... But I wouldn't put something GNU like this past him.

    2. Re:sigh by falzer · · Score: 5, Funny

      You have to ask? You must be GNU here.

    3. Re:sigh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Uh, he IS a pedant. Unapologetically so.

  2. Where is the lint from? by ajiva · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now is this navel lint or dryer lint? Because you know it does make a difference!

    1. Re:Where is the lint from? by Pharmboy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Now is this navel lint or dryer lint? Because you know it does make a difference!

      You know, we really didn't need the visual of RMS's navel lint. God, I gotta go take a shower now.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    2. Re:Where is the lint from? by Branc0 · · Score: 2, Funny

      navel or dryer, what matters is that it is GNU!

      --

      rm -rf /home/leia

    3. Re:Where is the lint from? by chef_raekwon · · Score: 3, Funny

      I gotta go take a shower now

      this wont be enough. i will be buying a wire brush from the hardware store, and varasol to clean the infection.

      --
      We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
    4. Re:Where is the lint from? by swv3752 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Boy, you are sick if you need a cold shower after thinking about that.

      --
      Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
    5. Re:Where is the lint from? by kfg · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, when dealing with RMS one must keep one's terms technically straight. After all, that's why we're here in this thread. So if it isn't (lin)en (t)ow it isn't really lint at all. Just one of those modern fiberous residues that call themselves lint.

      If you're wearing hemp it's actually "hemt."

      Ramie would be "ramt," rather close to "rant", so perhaps a favorite of the man himself.

      Nettle (yes, nettle) would be "nett," or perhaps ".Nett(tm)" if it's from your MS employee polo shirt residue. Perhaps that's why they can be so toxically stinging at times.

      Is it from your blue jeans? Perhaps it's "dent."

      Of course your jeans are actually cotton (although jean was actually wool fustian, go figure) which comes from the Arabic qutn, which would come out to. . . no, I don't think I'll go there.

      KFG

    6. Re:Where is the lint from? by Varka · · Score: 4, Funny

      Must... poke... out... mental... eye...

    7. Re:Where is the lint from? by brysnot · · Score: 2, Funny

      God, I gotta go take a shower now.

      First time for everything.

  3. Enough enough! by davek99999 · · Score: 5, Funny
  4. Hmmmm by IdleTime · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Let me see RMS-Lint and 04/01..... Ok... ummm... yes... I see what they are trying to accomplish here...

    --
    If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
  5. the tool hangs by gtrubetskoy · · Score: 5, Funny

    I tried it, but it seems to hang in an infinite loop when processing the word GNU.

  6. You forgot the GNU! by Pranjal · · Score: 5, Funny

    It should have been GNU/RMS Lint. So we know it's a fake. Nice try sucker!

  7. Think that's bad? by ajs · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just wait for SCO-IPLint... *shudder*

    1. Re:Think that's bad? by ajs · · Score: 3, Insightful

      SCO is the very best mirror in which to look if you wish to know what the open source community will look like at its worst. The flaming, hatred and threats are all characteristics that we're not too proud of, but SCO makes us face our demons and admit that we too are no angels.

      The number of ways in which the SCO situation is actually good for the open source community are kind of scary.

  8. Full List of April Fools Web Sites by Urgo · · Score: 5, Informative

    For a full updated list of sites pulling april fools jokes see here

    Some of the latest enteries:
    livejournal.com - on userinfo pages, "Friend"/"Friend Of" -> "Stalking"/"Stalked By"
    www.gpf-comics.com - Comic mirrored.
    smh.com.au - Yum-cha trolleys with "L" plates
    www.clutchfans.com - Patrick Ewing returning to NBA
    www.freeciv.org - Freeciv ANSI client
    www.rav4world.com - Closed? Should have announced that TOMORROW!
    www.retrocrush.com - Nude pics of Jaclyn Smith
    westcoaster.net - Roller coaster site turned into teen girl site
    www.meowpawjects.com - Sock people forced webmaster to take website down.
    miceage.com - Disney merges with Walmart
    www.badgerbadgerbadger.com - Badgers replaces with zombies
    skepdic.com - Skeptic's Dictionary closing
    fool.com - Buffett buys Krispy Cream
    launch.com - Britney Spears & Jason Alexander To Renew Wedding Vows
    MetaFilter.com - Turned in to a Wiki for the day
    www.ddrkc.com - owner sold site to a user that is unpopular
    brownpau.com - March for Web Standards
    www.beyondunreal.com - ut2k4 production suspended
    globetechnology.com - Microsoft Solitaire
    www.modernwiccan.com - Randomized Color Scheme
    bbs.fuckedcompany.com - Site shutting down
    www.diary-x.com - looks like diaryland!
    theprp.com - Music site to "Previously Ridden Ponies"
    mpx200.org - Pocket PC with 2Gb system memory/Smart Drunk Pocket PC application
    www.macosxhints.com - triple G5 Powermacs
    www.slyfx.com - AOL buys slyfx
    palminfocenter.com - Palms for toddlers.
    www.carniola.org - fake news story
    eikenes.alvestrand.no - Considering porn spam to be in a separate dialect to everything else
    defunctgames.com - Pimps At Sea fox xbox

    --
    Belive in Technology and AMAZE yourself. -- RIP ZDTV/TechTV
    1. Re:Full List of April Fools Web Sites by RickHunter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      http://www.userfriendly.org/ - SCO joke, parodying Illiad's usual April Fool's joke.

  9. Re:I used to work with Richard Stallman by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Picking your nose and eating it is one of the best ways to stay healthy,
    according to a top Austrian doctor.

    Innsbruck-based lung specialist Prof Dr Friedrich Bischinger said people who
    pick their noses with their fingers were healthy, happier and probably better
    in tune with their bodies.

    He says society should adopt a new approach to nose-picking and encourage
    children to take it up.

    Dr Bischinger said: "With the finger you can get to places you just can't
    reach with a handkerchief, keeping your nose far cleaner.

    "And eating the dry remains of what you pull out is a great way of
    strengthening the body's immune system.

    "Medically it makes great sense and is a perfectly natural thing to do. In
    terms of the immune system the nose is a filter in which a great deal of
    bacteria are collected, and when this mixture arrives in the intestines it
    works just like a medicine.

    "Modern medicine is constantly trying to do the same thing through far more
    complicated methods, people who pick their nose and eat it get a natural boost
    to their immune system for free."

    He pointed out that children happily pick their noses, yet by the time they
    have become adults they have stopped under pressure from a society that has
    branded it disgusting and anti social.

    He said: "I would recommend a new approach where children are encouraged to
    pick their nose. It is a completely natural response and medically a good idea
    as well."

    And he pointed out that if anyone was really worried about what their
    neighbour was thinking, they could still enjoy picking their nose in private
    if they still wanted to get the benefits it offered.

  10. Damn... I was hoping... by FroMan · · Score: 3, Funny

    I was hoping this would be a new product at thinkgeek!

    GNU/RMS-Belly-Button-Lint

    --
    Norris/Palin 2012
    Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
  11. fuck off by larry+bagina · · Score: 4, Interesting
    christ slashdot sucks on april fools day.

    How about doing something original, like weirdo moderation ("insightful" becomes "no shit", interesting becomes "word up", etc). or announce that slashdot will now be requiring all posters to subscribe in order to post comments, or "Kathleen Fent, please divorce rob and marry me!" posted by Hemos.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    1. Re:fuck off by Jim+Hall · · Score: 3, Interesting

      christ slashdot sucks on april fools day. How about doing something original, like weirdo moderation ("insightful" becomes "no shit", interesting becomes "word up", etc).

      Actually, that's a very good idea. MOD PARENT UP. Slashdot is hella lame on April 1st. Ever since this morning, I've been avoiding slashdot (it's lunchtime now, so I'm slacking off.)

      Sorry guys, I read slashdot for the news. When you don't post real news, you've become something like BBSpot or Fark, and I don't read them every day.

      Just do something simple (I like the idea from the parent poster) and let that be it.

    2. Re:fuck off by M.C.+Hampster · · Score: 4, Funny

      Slashdot is hella lame on April 1st.

      I'm trying to figure out which is more lame, Slashdot on April 1st, or the phrase "hella lame".

      It's a toss up.

      --
      Forget the whales - save the babies.
  12. Only RMS? by MrIrwin · · Score: 3, Funny

    I would like to see lint options for average values as well as RMS.....not to mention Peak Music Power.

    --

    And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)

  13. Reality distortion field.... this must be said by DJDaveET · · Score: 3, Funny

    I feel this must be said -- we already have rules of correspondence. They are called grammar, spelling, and etiquette.

    I find we have reached a bit of a level of absurdity when an individual has created their own rules by which they can be corresponded with.

    I would hope that if you can assemble a correct sentence, put your thoughts in writing well, be polite, and spell things correctly, you could always expect a response from anyone via e-mail.

  14. Re:A little too much today?? by Stitch_626 · · Score: 5, Funny

    In other news...

    Netcrafts' new CEO, Stephen King, announced that BSD is dying; shortly before he died at the age of 54.

    He will be missed.

    --
    Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.
  15. and homestarrunner.com... by VValdo · · Score: 2, Informative

    ...is pulling a prank. (Be sure to try thoraxcorp's site too.)

    W

    --
    -------------------
    This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
  16. April Fools? by joeytsai · · Score: 3, Funny

    Actually, there is a strangely similar package in Debian.

    --
    http://www.talknerdy.org
  17. Yay by broothal · · Score: 4, Funny

    Darn - for a minute there I thought it read PMS limit . I'd sure like such a tool. Especially in...(counting)... 8 days.

  18. What Have We Learned by pete-classic · · Score: 3, Funny

    What have we learned today kids? If you are going to make some lame April Fool's Day joke on your website and submit it to Slashdot USE A FUCKING STATIC PAGE.

    -Peter

  19. I don't get it by geekoid · · Score: 2, Informative

    why do the people who dislike the April Fools /. bother to post? Jeez, do they think this is their personal site designed to cater to them?

    I mean, go away.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  20. Re:Proof of AF by sepluv · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I sent RMS an email recently about sthg and he sent a nice reply quite quickly--I'm not sure why everyone thinks RMS is that funny actually (for a geek anyway).

    Although, in his reply, he did say that I should attach webpages instead of giving him the URI's so that he doesn't have to wait for his next batch of mail to receive the webpages (by emailing the URI's) (i.e.: he dsoesn't have WWW access ort doesn't use it) which I thought was a bit sad.

    --
    Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
    [This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
  21. april's (?) fool by molnarcs · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Do you know why GNU su doesn't support the wheel group (well, I think it does now, but it didn't for a time). Because RMS opined that it creates a divide between those with power and those without. (Actually I found this jewel in this this thread, so credit isn't mine...
    manpage is from SUSE 6.1...
    Why GNU su does not support the wheel group (by Richard Stallman)
    Sometimes a few of the users try to hold total power over all the rest. For example, in 1984, a few users at the MIT AI lab decided to seize power by changing the operator password on the Twenex system and keeping it secret from everyone else. (I was able to thwart this coup and give power back to the users by patching the kernel, but I wouldn't know how to do that in Unix.)

    However, occasionally the rulers do tell someone. Under the usual su mechanism, once someone learns the root password who sympathizes with the ordinary users, he can tell the rest. The "wheel group" feature would make this impossible, and thus cement the power of the rulers.

    I'm on the side of the masses, not that of the rulers. If you are used to supporting the bosses and sysadmins in whatever they do, you might find this idea strange at first.
    Actually I respect the guy: he is a man with strong principles, and I admire him for that. Given the historical context (1984) this isn't as silly as it sounds now. Without the internet this wasn't as much a security threat as it is today. But there is no excuse for linux distributions (second half of 90's) to follow that policy (or did they just take su for what it is - e.g. no wheel support - without looking at the outdated and by now somewhat silly reasons?).

    April's fool day on ./ featuring RMS ... when I saw it, I thought I'd share this cute (I'd say funny) piece of history, but again, no disrespect intended. Although being somewhat cynical is en vogue in nerd circles (unfortunately and boringly), when I say I respect RMS for what he is and for what he represents, I mean it.

  22. Text of the Article by Shlomi+Fish · · Score: 2, Informative

    Here's the text of the article to relieve the stress from the site. Slashdot operators: please link to it from the feature.

    Introducing the RMS-Lint

    Introduction

    A new tool aims to revolutionize the way people communicate with the famous free software evangelist Richard M. Stallman, (also known by his initials - "RMS"). Its project leader Shlomi Fish has more to say of it:

    "RMS-Lint is called RMS-Lint because like most lints it warns on many things that are obviously not errors, because there's a chance that they are. RMS-Lint is an interactive speller that runs over the document word by word with a sophisticated look-ahead and look-behind and warns the user over any word or combination of words that may irritate Stallman, or otherwise will be frowned upon by him."

    RMS-Lint's Rules

    In accordance to the Free Software Foundation's list of words to avoid and other documents available on the FSF Site, the following rules are recognized by RMS-Lint:

    • Warns on every use of the term "Linux" not preceded by "GNU/". This is due to the fact that Stallman advocates using "GNU/Linux" instead of just "Linux" to refer to the entire operating system. It especially warns on "the Linux kernel" (because the kernel part is redundant as Linux is just the kernel).

      Legitimate use of the term "Linux" to refer to just the kernel are also warned about, but can be overridden.

    • Warns on every use of the term "open source" and even the word "open". Replacements are "free software", "free", "revealed", "viewable", and the bootload of synonyms from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary". Also warns on the terms "closed-source" or "closed".

    • Warns on every use of the term "free" for fear it may be used to imply costlessness. As for legitimate uses of the term ("free as in free speech"), it should be noted that being a lint, RMS-Lint attempts to cover every possible error, not just the ones that actually are such. Replacements are "liberal", "libre", "costless", "gratis", and you also have an option to ignore it.

    • Warns on every use of the term "pirate" or "piracy". It is our belief that when talking to Dr. Stallman, people won't usually wish to talk about the sea-faring robbers, but instead on illegitimate copying of one form of media or another. Thus, RMS-Lint warns on every such use and suggests the alternatives of "illegal copier/copying", or "bucanneer".

    • Warns on every use of "Intellectual Proprety" or "IP" (a common short form of it). The developers of RMS-Lint realize that IP can also mean the "Internet Protocol" (as in "IP address", "my IP is '192.168.1.1'"), but we believe that when corresponding to RMS, such use will be relatively uncommon, and does not justify risking mentioning "intellectual property" to him.

    • And much, much more...

    Opinions on RMS-Lint

    Eric S. Raymond, a long time friend of Stallman, and the chief leader of the open source movement, expressed a great deal of content from the availability of this tool. "I've been waiting for such a thing all my life. Communicating with Richard has become more and more difficult, and RMS-Lint can easily make it much better."

    Raymond's long time collaborator Bruce Perens also expressed happiness that RMS-Lint has become available. "Modern-day open source enthusiasts find it more and more difficult to communicate with Richard Stallman due to his terminological whims. RMS-Lint is just the tool that can help them validate their E-mails for RMS' correctness."

    Meanwhile, Richard Stallman himself expressed dismay from this project: "RMS-Lint is an unsatisfying symptomatic cure for a big problem.

    --
    We have two eyes and ten fingers so we will type five times as much as we read. http://www.shlomifish.org/
  23. For those who don't know about RMS... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    RMS was born in Modesto, California and attended Berkeley University. This shouldn't surprise anyone, since Berkeley is the Liberal Hive of America and RMS is an admitted communist. RMS began his bizarre lifestyle while attending Berkeley, where he occupied the attic of a clock tower. This eccentricity continues today and RMS will not travel without a grandfather clock and a spitoon.

    RMS' penchant for thievery was evident from the very beginning. His attic "apartment" was filled with equipment stolen from the Berkeley computer labs. This was quite an achievement in the early '70s, when any computer equipment was the size of a refrigerator.

    RMS and his hacker friends cut class regularly, opting to spend their time and parent's money constructing illegal electronics devices designed to covertly access phone lines. The group of pirates would hack into the phone company, and charge enormous phone bills to unsuspecting Republican professors.

    It was during this period that Stallman met Steve Jobs. RMS' technical savvy was far exceeded by that of Jobs and, never one to like being second-best, this caused him to pursue software hacking. RMS' hacking ability was innate and he and Jobs formed an alliance which would later result in the birth of Apple Computer.

    Jobs' technical accumen was matched only by his ability to sell. He designed the internal electronics and outer package design of the first Apple, which was financed by Nolan Bushnell. He set RMS on to the task of developing the computer's "operating system" - a sequence of low-level MS-DOS commands which tell the computer how to decode program codes.

    Though a gifted "coder", Stallman was quite lazy and didn't fare so well with the new operating system. His sloppy design and bloated codes were barely useable on the first microcomputer. Jobs dumped Stallman and hired John Wozniack to rewrite the internal operating system codes for the Apple I.

    This situation didn't sit too well with RMS. Though he effectively dropped out of college, through non-attendance, he remained in the clock tower, unbeknownst to the faculty and administration of Berekely. His bizarre reclusiveness and tendency to "hack" only in the night kept him invisible to everyone, though rumors did circulate around campus about the "haunted clock-tower" and the deformed ghost that would occasionally appear, transluscent white, on top of the tower playing a magical flute.

    Stallman grew sullen and withdrew into his own world in the clock tower. He watched as the joint Apple/Microsoft empire grew to become the computer industry and he vowed to topple it by undermining the livelyhood of his arch-rival Steve Jobs (and, by extension, Bill Gates) with his illegal offerings.

    Stallman conspired with Linux Torvaledse, another Berkeley student, to create a hacker operating system which could be used to leverage the internet and wreak havoc on corporations everywhere. RMS even went so far as to use Microsoft's innovative GUI (Graphical User Implementation) which he had stolen from Microsoft's mainframe computer and given the hacker alias "X-Windows". Unfortunately, RMS was not able to acquire the latest Microsoft GUI codes and was thus forced to settle for an inferior version.

    RMS' continued interest in communism provided him some insight as to how to spread his hacker tool across the internet. By stressing the free nature of the software, he would appeal to the welfare nature of the public.

    This marketing scheme worked spectacularly. RMS' hacker tool is now installed on countless computers, hidden away in the dark bedrooms of LSD-using hacker teens.

    B