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Transcript of Talk with Richard Stallman
An anonymous reader writes "This is the transcript of the talk with Richard Stallman, the father of GNU in the background of the 4th International GPLv3 Conference being held at Bangalore where RMS is a prominent delegate. He answers questions related to GPLv3, DRM and a couple of other queries."
The original interview (which the blog has just copy-pasted, inexplicably introducing errors) is here. There is also another interview (another newspaper, another Indian city) here. Both of them are short and say the usual things, and not much info on GPLv3 itself (naturally, as they are newspaper interviews).
Just a heads up. The article contains nothing new, interesting, or provocative (which many of RMS's interviews tend to be). It's very much a fluff piece.
Although, I was interested to see how an interview that takes place outside of the mainstream tech media unfolded. There was no discussion of a FSF/RMS vs. Linus Torvalds/Linux headbutting. Nothing at all about why there is much contention of v3. That being said, I found it admirable that he did not take the opportunity to express his opposing views in this one-sided piece. Many would take such a chance to bash the oppositions arguments.
A collection of miscellaneous links about OSS developments in India.
Indian President Advises Open Source Approach
President Of India Advocates OSS
Indian President Advises Open Source Approach
Stallman Goes to India (and meets the President)
and finally, more recently...
Indian State Logs Microsoft Out
I'm hoping to see more active participation in OSS development from India, as more of it's educated masses come online. Computer and internet usage has surged among the middle-class only in recent years, with improvement (albeit gradual) in infrastructure.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
In other words, [Stallman is saying that] software developers aught not be paid for their efforts.
You didn't consider the context. Stallman was arguing against the belief that "if people aren't paid, they won't write code". He was mentioning the fact that most FLOSS code is written by nonpaid volunteers, while only a minority are paid.
He did not say that developers shouldn't be paid for their efforts. In fact, his GPL says the opposite: you can write free software and make money from it - by selling warranties for it, or media with your software on it.
That's just not true. He didn't say programmers shouldn't be paid. He said that some programmers don't do it for money but volunteer out of altruism or because they love programming and well crafted software.
I think he is sick of hearing the proprietary software shops of the world tell him, and any tech trade rag that will listen, that it's impoosible to create software unless you spend a ton of money. The GNU project, Linus's kernel, the BSD's and numerous other examples have proven that to be completely false.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
The fact is that RMS is loaded, and he hangs out with other such people (you know the kind.... they come up with a concept, hype it to venture capitalists, run the company into the ground or simply never produce a product, but they walk away with millions)
RMS might be a pain in the arse sometimes, but is not loaded.
He also makes a point of avoiding the kind of people you describe above.
If you ever met him you would realise that he doesn't give a crap about money (which might be part of the problem).
he is completely and totally out of touch with those of us poor souls that (God forbid!) have to WORK in order to earn money and pay our bills.
I doubt anybody reading this works harder than Richard Stallman.
The difference (between RMS and most people) is that he works not to increase his wealth, but to promote his ideas.
Some people find this difficult to understand.