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Will Stallman Kill the "Linux Revolution?"
frdmfghtr writes "The October 30 issue of Forbes Magazine has an article speculating that Richard Stallman's efforts to rewrite the GPL could threaten to 'tear it apart.' The article describes how the GPLv3 is expected to be incompatible with the GPLv2, causing trouble for Linux vendors such as Novell and Red Hat. The article wraps it up: 'And a big loser, eventually, could be Stallman himself. If he relents now, he likely would be branded a sellout by his hard-core followers, who might abandon him. If he stands his ground, customers and tech firms may suffer for a few years but ultimately could find a way to work around him. Either way, Stallman risks becoming irrelevant, a strange footnote in the history of computing: a radical hacker who went on a kamikaze mission against his own program and went down in flames, albeit after causing great turmoil for the people around him.'"
The article, while biased, does get something right: Stallman IS a loose cannon, more interested in fanaticism and self-agrandizement than progress. A pox on all the developers who signed over their rights to this clown. A despot touting populism is still a despot.
If Stallman wsn't such an intellectual lightweight, he could resolve the conflicts between concerned entities.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
The BSD lets you do what you want, while the GPL license defines Stallman's personal definition of "free" and then imposes it on you, which isn't freedom at all. People want to impose their ideologies on other people and call it free.
"Sufferin' succotash."
As opposed to Slashdot, which never tries to influence its readers, ever. By the way, the iPod is lame and has less space than a nomad, people who "steal" GPL code are "thieves," and it's not theft to pirate music and not pay artists because the RIAA are bad guys who dare to protect their own copyrights using the legal system (The horror! The outrage!).
"Sufferin' succotash."
He's got to be hardcore and stick it to the man, like his hero Hugo Chavez.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
That said, I think that people with a view like Linus set a far better long term path than those like Stallman. The GNU project has made good software, but the focus it places on fighting a nonexistent enemy is silly. The desire to make good software is going to "show the way" in the OSS world, not Free Software idealism.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
I think it is accurate though.
No, it is not accurate. Stallman wants to encourage person A (Linus) to reduce the freedom of person B (a hardware manufacturer) in order to increase the freedom of person C (a hardware purchaser). He is not trying to increase the amount of freedom in the world. He is trying to shift it from the people he doesn't like to the people he does like. Congratulations to Linus for not trying to play God.
I think that one works along the lines of "They're not people since they don't worship God, so it's not murder". Not that it's an excuse.