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Stallman Feeds Gates His Own Words
soloport writes "C|Net has published an article, written by RMS, in which Stallman points out that Gates is merely calling the kettle communist. Toward the end of the article, Stallman strengthens his point by feeding Bill his own words. Back in 1991, Bill said, in an internal memo: 'If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today...A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose.' Now, if only Bill were as clear-minded on the subjects of Innovation and Interoperability."
I think Bill could learn a lot from Stallman and by examining his own past and the way MS and Apple took the computer industry off of IBM in the early days.
How would Bill learn from Stallman if he's examining his own past?
Bill could learn a lot from Stallman. For example, how to live off of academic endowments then criticize people who create proprietary software.
... do you think intellectual-property laws need to be reformed?
No, I'd say that of the world's economies, there's more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist. +-+-+-+-+-+-+- what a creep. as if the almighty dollar were the only conceivable incentive for creative endeavor.
I'm not criticizing academics. I am criticizing an academic who criticizes the fundamental economic principals that puts food in the mouths of software developers. On top of that, comparing Stallman to Pauling or any other scientist is a farce because all Stallman did was take socialist principals and apply them to the software industry. He criticizes the capitalist forces that provide developers with jobs while at the same time sitting comfortably in his academic bubble collecting a paycheck for picking his ass and debating about how Linux should really be named "GNU/Linux".
Integrity, self-respect, moral clarity, admiration of peers ... I'd say RMS is infinitely wealthier then Bill will ever dream of being. It all depends what your "currency" is..
really? Bill Gates donates billions of dollars a year to many charatable causes. What does RMS donate?
if RMS really had moral clarity, he (and the FSF foundation) wouldn't go after people for violating the GPL.
if RMS had integrity and self-respect, he wouldn't have tried to change linux to GNU/linux.
free software is fine, but the majority of people in this world don't enjoy getting rehetoric forced down their throats.
not that he would comprehend anything, ever. I sense you are belonging to the same school of thought Bill does: The Society of Insanely Greedy Psychopaths.
I can bet you have used at least one computer today that has a Microsoft operating system installed. I would say that Bill Gates is clearly more intelligent than RMS. Otherwise, we would all be using GNU software.
None of those people have anything to offer, espcially Ghandi. He was a towelhead loser..
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RMS is a idealist, flawed by nature. "but he means well"
Morals are relative.
Self-respect? Depends on your morals ( see above ).
Integrity? Might have a point there, but when you can buy small countries out of pocket change the only person you have to be concerned about is yourself. So it tends to be relative as well at some point.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Having moral clarity is not the same as being a pushover pacifist. Indeed, it means standing up to those who would do wrong. RMS is doing that.
violating the GPL is not wrong. When source code is released publicly, it cannot be un-released. Everyone still can get to that original source. if RMS was really spreading freedom, he wouldn't require (IE force) people using the source to also release their changes.
A linux _distribution_ is (or was, at some point) 95% GNU software and 5% kernel. If you were the man behind that 95%, wouldn't you want to be credited for the part you did? RMS never wanted to rename the kernel, he wanted to rename distributions. And you know what, he has a pretty damn good point there.
you are very naive to think that RMS actually wrote 95% of that software. 95% may have been released under his license..but lets give credit where credit is due. If I release a program under the GPL today..would you say that RMS is behind it?
As to RMS, a lifetime of effort, bearing fruit such as the GPL and Linux, to mention just the obvious ones. More importantly, he "donated" to humanity an entire movement which seeks to protect us from ... people like Bill who will not rest until they somehow enslaved us all.
you sound like a fucking nut.
enslave us all? then who would buy products from microsoft?
RMS doesn't deserve any credit for linux. IT would be like crediting original creator of the radio for every sound heard from the speakers.
How does his license offer any protection? I could easily release software under the public domain license.
Bill "donates" a negligeable fraction of his ill-gotten fortune to "charitable" causes which somehow inevietably result in government procurment deals for his products and tax breaks. Bill's charity is the Dickensonian kind, of a fat pig in a luxury carriage tossing a few silver coins to wretched poor in rags on the street on Christmas. "Self-serving" is a term we use for that.
self-serving? I hardly call opening up a foundation for fighting cancer self-serving.
Jealous is the word we use for people like you.
You would have lost your money, but that is beside the point.
really? so there is no store you have gone to today that uses windows as its POS? you must not get out very much.
I see. So the measure of intelligence is an ability to foist one's "product" on the unsuspecting public. By that measure, the inventor of "pet rock" was a true genius, far above Bill. And I am getting an ominous feeling that I am feeding a garbage-covered troll.
the inventor of the pet rock didn't change the way we use computers. Bill Gates did. He brought desktop computers to the masses (mainly because of its ease of use).