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RMS Views on Linux, Java, DRM and Opensource
An anonymous reader writes "All About Linux is running a transcript of a recent talk given by Richard Stallman at the Australian National University. Stallman discussed various issues facing GNU like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Digital Rights Management, about why one should not install sun's java on your computer, his views on Opensource as well as why he thinks people should address Linux distribution as GNU/Linux."
If Sun's license was just a little more liberal then it could, for example, be packaged properly and included in Debian's non-free archive. Any Debian user would then be able to set it up with a simple apt-get install; in fact they wouldn't even need to know that the program they were using was written in Java[0] because it would be pulled in automatically when they installed Azureus or whatever.
[0] except by noticing the crappy user interface
Your argument makes no sense. GNU and Linus each contributed key components of the system. You can't run the tools without a kernel, and you can't do much with the kernel without the tools. Why exactly should Linus get to name the whole system?
Stallman has been making a living selling Free Software for over a decade. RMS holds some interesting ideas, but he doesn't believe that programmers should work for free
Stallman has been making money on speeches and talks and the fact that he is a celebrity. I would be very surprised if he wasn't a millionaire.
I find it hard to believe that anyone pays for GCC or any other GNU program stallman writes. He may have made some money before the Internet, because getting his apps required them to be mailed, but most are now included for free or just downloaded.
Stallman may not be against making money, but if you write GNU software, it is nearly impossible (it's hard enough selling proprietary software).
Here are the situations where it works:
1) you did not write the software. Reselling software created by another programmer.
2)working for a company that wants you write software for them
3)getting hired as a result of GNU project X that you created
4) you sell each copy for the price of youur labor (Most people will not pay $20,000 per copy).
In the long run, it hurts smaller software companies and leaves only large ones to compete with their free counterpart.
The Free Software Foundation also owns the copyright to your software once you use their license, so even though stallman believes "software should have no owners", he really believes that software should all be owned by the FSF. While this is may be their ideal of "freedom", it basically takes all the rights away from the original programmer.
I have read a few posts about passing a free software law that would fund open source projects. If this happened, all software would be under one monopoloy: the government.
As Stallman's ideals become less and less attractive to businesses, the free software movement will fade into the distance.