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Interview With Richard Stallman
An anonymous reader writes "KernelTrap has a fascinating and lengthy interview with Richard Stallman who founded the GNU Project in 1984, and the Free Software Foundation in 1985. He also originally authored a number of well known and highly used development tools, including the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), the GNU symbolic debugger (GDB) and GNU Emacs.
The interview covers a wide range of topics, from rms's early years, to his current role in the Free Software Foundation. He discusses the current state of GNU/Hurd, the problems with non-free software, and much more."
Uli didn't start with nothing. So by definition, his work is part of GNU libc. Uli also didn't work gratis, his work was compensated by Red Hat.
GNU libc had reached a state where it was too substantial for volunteer maintainers to make more progress (though I'll readily admit those volunteers did an amazing job getting libc to that point). Red Hat paid someone to turn it into a product for them.
Uli is hardly a saint. And don't get me started on my personal run-ins with the guy.
As for egcs, same story but s/Red Hat/Cygnus Solutions/.
Short version: GNU needed some heavy lifting. Some enlightened members of corporate America stepped up to the plate.
And in doing so, proved RMS right and put Linux on the map at the same time. GNU/Linux.
b.g.
"Legislate" is the wrong term. It's best desribed as "asking." He's asking you to call it GNU/Linux. That's all. You don't have to do it, you don't have to listen. But he's asking you.
He doesn't want to take it away from you. He never says that, and he says quite the opposite.
From his site:
"Why not sue people who call the whole system "Linux"?
There are no legal grounds to sue them, but since we believe in freedom of speech, we wouldn't want to do that anyway. We ask people to call the system "GNU/Linux" because that is the right thing to do.
Shouldn't you put something in the GNU GPL to require people to call the system "GNU"?
The purpose of the GNU GPL is to protect the users' freedom from those who would make proprietary versions of free software. While it is true that those who call the system "Linux" often do things that limit the users' freedom, such as bundling non-free software with the GNU/Linux system or even developing non-free software for such use, the mere act of calling the system "Linux" does not, in itself, deny users their freedom. It seems improper to make the GPL restrict what name people can use for the system."
Could that be any clearer?
RMS has the balls to do the right thing (which is to quit the job because they make you use non-free software). Most of us don't.
RMS has a million dollar grant from the MacArthur Foundation, and permanent facilities at his disposal at MIT, one of the best-equipped universities in the world. He is unmarried and has no children.
He can afford high-handed morals. Regular folks don't have that luxury. And it is a luxury; RMS has the money to live the lifestyle he wants to lead. Real people have real responsibilities.