2 RMS Books Hit Version 2.0

jrepin writes "The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has just released in tandem the second edition of its president and founder Richard Stallman's selected essays, Free Software, Free Society, and his semi-autobiography, Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman and the Free Software Revolution."

Comments

Re:Where are the free PDF versions?

[wondershit]

Here and here.

Re:Hm...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought his work on the GPL V3, his statements against software patents, and his concerns about non GPL Java VMs and .Net were within the last 10 years and pretty spot on. His recent concerns about cell-phone tracking seemed prescient, too.

Charitable, or stupid?

[HalAtWork]

I see merits to both sides, but I at least have to point out some flaws in your argument (which may allow you to strengthen it and we could both benefit, unless you want to keep any insight to yourself of course, that is your right).

First, you *assume* that your software would have become popular like the fork did. Your version, GPL'd or unforked BSD may have never caught on

No, he assumes works derived from his work would have become popular. His GPL'd work may have never caught on, but maybe someone else's GPL'd fork would have. The forked popular version benefitted from the unforked one, otherwise it would never have been based on it. But in the GPL scenario, both contributing parties benefit from the popularity. Follow the BSD path and only one would have. It's like if someone else patents an idea you developed before you had a chance to, and now you never get to benefit when the idea takes off.

You work may be the lesser replaceable part of the overall effort.

If it's not an important part, why are they using your work? On the other hand, if you realize your work wouldn't be a huge part of a larger application but you still don't want people to re-invent the wheel, you can still do the pragmatic thing and simply use the LGPL license.

For example linux works regardless of how many copies of ms windows are sold,

Linux and Windows are developed independently, which is a different argument than freebsd and OS X since they actually share a common base.

and people are free to use and contribute to freebsd regardless of how many people use mac os x

But if OS X works fine, why even bother with freebsd? If BSD was under the GPL license, or parts were LGPL, then freebsd would receive as many contributions as the part of OS X that freebsd is based on. As it is now, freebsd and OS X become fragmented, and some fixes in one aren't present in the other.

Charity is fine but if you want to help everyone, teach a man to fish instead of just giving him fish, he might even be able to improve fishing techniques and pass them on so that we can all fish better.