When Stallman is Attacked

writes "Linux Tech Daily has an editorial slamming a recent Forbes.com attack piece on Richard Stallman and GPLv3. Loved or hated, do you agree with the author that the piece is FUD and completely unprofessional? Love him or hate him, is this unfair treatment of rms? Does he leave himself open to these kinds of attacks with his behavior?" The problem with the editorial of course is that many of the points made in the original Forbes piece are completely valid and true. So basically you get to choose between the linux zealot, and a writer who is obviously fairly hostile towards Stallman's ideas.

Comments

Isn't RMS irrelevant already?

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

I don't mean this as flamebait but isn't RMS irrelevant already? Back when it needed a knowledgable geek champion who understood the situation at the time, RMS was great.

Since that time it appears that the real world operates on a different set of rules than RMS's "Free no matter what" and reality be damned.

Forgive me for not being so knowledgable but it does seem like RMS's ego is now driving the train.

None of this diminishes RMS' contribution but some may think his time as a cult of personality is over.

Yeah,..mod me down now.

It's not really about you

[mschuyler]

I've just read every post on this topic. The serious ones are either for or against Forbes and Stallman all four ways that can happen, with not much support for Forbes. Fine, okay so far.

But this reminds me of a fundamentalist Christian having a conversation with a committed Atheist. Forbes and slashdot are two different worlds inhabited by people with completely different views on reality. It's not surprising Slashdot readers disagree with Forbes; it would be surprising if they did not. But by and large Forbes readers agree with Forbes. And by and large, Forbes readers run the companies slashdot readers work for.

Now this is just one editorial, but it reflects a point of view that will become, I would guess, more prevalent as companies begin to take a hard look at just what they've gotten themselves into. The one thing the editorial does well is lay out the case in a way that is understandable: Socialist engineering by a radical. Uh oh! That's all I need to know. Any company executive looking into this issue is likely to come away with the idea that Stallman and GPL are bad news and that the company cannot afford to get close to either. Without even getting into the idea of social engineering by software, the controversy alone makes the uncertainity of the GPL path more than just a niggling worry. It becomes a feduciary responsibility to avoid it. To knowingly jump into version three is grounds for heads to roll.

Many "people's revolutions" such as the French or the Russian, for example, wind up fragmenting as some people want to be more equal than others. Neither Trotsky or Robespierre survived the zealotry they helped create. It will be interesting to see if the "Open Source Revolution" can survive this, or whether it will shoot itself in the foot while people such as, oh, Microsoft, for example, stand on the sidelines with their arms folded, and big grins on their faces.

It seems to me that it is time for the Open Source "Community" to prove they can do it.