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Richard Stallman Falls Ill At Conference
itwbennett writes "Stallman, 59, was speaking at the North Campus of the Polytechnic University of Cataluna when he started to feel ill and called for a doctor. It was originally reported in the Spanish press that Stallman was hypertensive, but it is not yet known what his eventual health status was, just that he left the building later under his own power." He is apparently okay and any significant confirmed updates will be posted here.
Oh fuck off. RMS hasn't fought for my rights. And regardless of anything good he's done, he still has to stand by his own words, HIS OWN WORDS. He doesn't get a pass on his views on pedophilia simply because you fancy this idea of liberated software. Was Stallman the only person in the word ever to advance the open source cause? No. He was not. He is owed NOTHING. NOTHING.
RMS has spent his life fighting for your rights.
No, he has spent his life picking up his toys and going to play in a corner. And he has been freeriding the open source "movement" ever since. I won't argue the impact GPL has made, or the merits it may have - but how many of that *popular* GPL-licensed software was actually done by him? Not much. And how well is that software supported in "non-free" operating systems? Well, at least *BSD ports keep their patches for a given application off the official sourcetree :P. Talking about hipocrisy...
but in all cases he pushes for greater personal freedom
No he doesn't. Not only he talks trash about things he knows nothing about (google the OpenBSD rant), he is clearly pushing his own agenda and his own view of the world as the only valid approach. He is a fanatic, plain and simple, and much of his career was built on the backs (and efforts) of others. And yes, I am surprised how much relevance is given to anything that he says.
Stallman's view is that proprietary software is bad for the user
This is his theory. In practice proprietary software beats the pants off free software in user experience. Not all proprietary software obviously. But the best of proprietary software is way out ahead of the best of free software. In design, in localisation, in accessibility, in ease of use.