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ESR Advocates Proprietary Software

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the well-not-all-the-time dept.

mvdwege writes "Apparently, Eric Raymond has decided that proprietary software is now a good thing, according to The Register. I must say it is rather revealing how easily he is willing to compromise on this particular freedom. Is his earlier vocal proclamation of the importance of freedom (still visible on his homepage) mere posturing? And if so, how about his vocal support of other freedoms?"

3 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. GNUpod, gtkpod etc. by Psionicist · · Score: 4, Informative
    "We have a serious problem. Whenever I try to pitch Linux to anyone under 30, the question I get is: 'Will it work with my iPod?," he said. "We are not yet as a community making the painful compromises need to achieve widespread desktop market share. Until we do, we will get locked out of more hardware."
    Of course it works with iPod. Take a look at:

    * GNUpod and gtkpod
    * iPod Shuffle Database Builder

    And then there's another one with a funky name I cannot remember.
  2. Re:ESR is not associated with Free Software moveme by CRCulver · · Score: 5, Informative

    He wrote a few utilities and a book or two, but short of maintaining the Jargon file, it's hard to see what he did on a day to day basis that allowed him to be quite so prevelant.

    ESR's essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar inspired Netscape to open-source its browser code, which resulted in the Mozilla browser and Gecko, one of the best browser engines around. Netscape's decision in turn paved the way for open-source ventures from a number of hitherto opaque corporations. That "book or two" got quite a ball rolling. That's why ESR is so respected today.

  3. Re:Mod This Parent Up !!! by Jack+Action · · Score: 4, Informative

    The FSF is not comissioning any new large scale undertakings at the moment.

    This is just blatantly wrong.

    What do you call Gnu Flash? Other projects FSF is directing include Free Bios and an open 3D Card driver. More projects are listed here. Just like gcc was needed in the 80s, these are the utilities users need now.

    At the risk of being modded for flame bait, I'll also point out that it seems most criticisms of the FSF are based on plain ignorance.