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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."
JA: In talking about GNU Linux...
Richard Stallman: I prefer to pronounce it GNU-slash-Linux, or GNU-plus-Linux. The reason is that when you say GNU-Linux it is very much prone to suggest a misleading interpretation. After all, we have GNU Emacs which is the version of Emacs which was developed for GNU. If you say "GNU Linux", people will think it means a version of Linux that was developed for GNU. Which is not the fact.
JA: You're trying to point out instead that it's a combination of the two.
Richard Stallman: Exactly. It's GNU plus Linux together.
JA: Which makes up the GNU+Linux operating system that everyone uses.
Richard Stallman: Exactly.
You might consider your "freedom" to look at my source code a fundamental one. That's fine. Nudists consider their freedom to walk around naked a fundamental one as well. I'm sure other fringe groups have other fundamental freedoms they'd like to hoist on me to Show Me The Truth.
However, your freedom to call me an evil construct lacking a soul begins and ends with my right to write software and sell it for the highest price the market will bear. That is my freedom.
The very idea that you can stand there and equate your concept of freedom as applied to computer software to things like freedom of speech, freedom of association or the freedom to make a religious choice (ideas that people have fought and died for over the centuries) is insulting at best and retarded at worst. I recognize your right to write software and give it away the same way I recognize your right to pass gas or bake cookies. But please don't insult my intelligence by implying I'm going to burn in hell (and yes, that's how you sound) because I happen to sell software for $19.99 a pop.
You and everyone else (Stallman included) in the "join us or die" crowd sound so damn petulant and ridiculous preaching the evils of Microsoft (as if they were the only company in the planet that produces commercial software), quoting Ghandi and asking everyone "how evil do you feel today?" as if being able to type "make & make install" into a terminal somehow granted you a masters in philosophy, theology and politics. No shit, sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
I don't see why this guy is such an icon for so many geeks. He seems unsympathetic and makes outrageous black & white statements. I think he gives Linux a bad name.
You're an idiot.
I miss the 90s. I really do miss the times when GNU+Linux wasn't "hip" and "cool" and was restricted to that niche of serious computer scientists, hackers and tinkerers who never saw the light of day. Whenever I mention Linux now I get verbally assaulted with inane banter by lusers who, 10 years ago, would be clamoring over the "coming innovation" of Windows '95. Often times, an idiot tries impressing me by telling me how awfully hard it was for him to install Fedora Core, but that he succeded and still hasn't wiped it from his disk to go back to masturbating over Windows XP. Likely expecting some newfound sense of respect for him from me, he does listen to me recalling six years ago, when I had forced my own Slackware-derived distro to boot up on an IBM PS/2 m55 (2.9 MB of RAM, 60mb ESDI harddrive on MCA, Microchannel architecture, 386+387 16mhz). Then he looks down on the ground, and promptly leaves, never again making eye contact with me and ridding me of his stupidity...