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French PM Unreceptive To RMS
An anonymous reader writes "Six month after the publication of very bad amendments to French DRM law proposal, Richard Stallman has been pushed back by the chief of security team of French Prime minister.
On Friday 9th of June 2006 at 3.30pm, Richard Stallman, president of Free Software Foundation, led a delegation composed by Frédéric Couchet (Free Software Foundation France) and Christophe Espern (EUCD.INFO initiative) to meet the French Prime minister in order to talk about the French DRM law proposal and to deliver the EUCD.INFO petition signed by more than 165,000 French residents. Richard Stallman and his friends were pushed back by the chief of security team. "
You would think the French and RMS would get along better what with both of them having so much in common. The odor, the excessive body hair, the truly MASSIVE egos, the inability to compromise - oh, wait, there's the problem.
It's a news story only because RMS was "pushed" back instead of tear gassed and beaten as many would expect with all the rioting going on over various government proposals. I guess irrationality is returnign to French politics now.
I would "push them back" too. .. and shear off the out of control hair. I don't want to know what he's got hidden in the beard ... leftovers?
Stallman looks like a street bum wearing clean clothes. When visiting the leader of a country he should at least get a garter belt to suck in that beer gut
Bill Gates can 1) put backdoors into the French version of windows for the benefit of the French government/security services. 2) give the French security services the keys to backdoors in other versions of windows. 3) he can also switch research funding out of France resulting in loss of jobs and tax revenue. 4) conversely, he can switch research funding into France resulting in jobs and tax revenue. 5) controls an enormous "slush" fund which can be used to allow windows to win contracts against Linux when they come up for bidding
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I know it's a common joke amongst Americans to make fun of the French, but that's likely just because most Americans have very little, if any, understanding of French history.
Simply put, the French know far more about war than America. Take World War I, for example. France sustained over 1400000 dead citizens (both military and civilian). The US, on the other hand, suffered a mere 126000 or so. France suffered over ten times as many dead, for those of you who aren't good at math. Of course, that doesn't consider the utter physical destruction much of their country faced. Even today you can still see crater holes dug by shells.
France also suffered more dead in WWII (approx. 560000). The US suffered about 418000 dead, but many of those deaths were in the Pacific theatre, and thus had nothing to do with France, let alone Europe.
Of course, those were just the conflicts of the 20th century. We could go on forever about their colonial warfare. America today is only just beginning to truly explore that realm, with their adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least the French were somewhat successful in their colonial affairs.
Most Americans don't even know of all the help that the French offered the Americans during the War of Independence. Many of the rednecks in places like Louisiana, Oklahoma, parts of Texas, and Mississippi wouldn't even be alive today were it not for their French ancestors.
Going back even further, France is no stranger to the wars and conflicts between feuding lords and principalities.
When one who understands history hears Americans rally on about "Freedom fries" and how the French as supposedly "surrender monkeys", such an individual always lets out a hearty laugh. Part of it is directed at the sheer ignorance and stupidity of the American making such statements, with the rest going towards the fact that America has never known real war, while the French have many times over. To accuse them of being weak is the sort of statement only a complete moron could make.
The article must have missed the part that hundreds of people write to the necessary folks, and get ignored because hundreds of people want to meet the PM over their little issue.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck