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Ask Richard Stallman Anything
Richard Stallman (RMS) founded the GNU Project in 1984, the Free Software Foundation in 1985, and remains one of the most important and outspoken advocates for software freedom. RMS now spends much of his time fighting excessive extension of copyright laws, digital rights management, and software patents. He's agreed to answer your questions about GNU/Linux, free software, and anything else you like, but please limit yourself to one question per post.
Seriously, did you eat your toe cheese on stage?
That is the sorry reality of the bazaar Raymond praised in his book: a pile of old festering hacks, endlessly copied and pasted by a clueless generation of IT "professionals" who wouldn't recognize sound IT architecture if you hit them over the head with it. It is hard to believe today, but under this embarrassing mess lies the ruins of the beautiful cathedral of Unix, deservedly famous for its simplicity of design, its economy of features, and its elegance of execution. (Sic transit gloria mundi, etc.)
Does Kamp have a point? How do you refute his example and his drawn conclusion from it? Have you issued a rebuttal yet?
My work here is dung.
What free software project is using a license that doesn't actually match with it's mission - or hinders free software in other ways? In other words, if you could *magically* switch the license of one project - which would you choose and why?
Examples: Move Mesa to GPLv3, Move Linux from GPLv2 to v3, Make andriod GPLv3, GCC - from GPLv3 to Apache.
How do you see GCC progressing in the future? Several things you argued against (converting to C++, allowing non-GPLed code access to the internals of gcc) are occurring, and gcc is getting major competition from the BSD-licensed clang and LLVM.
It has been very nearly 30 years since the founding of the GNU Foundation. In all that time, what is your biggest regret?
Do you like Japanese imports?
ask him.
rewriting history since 2109
During a Q&A Session a while back you were asked about people and movements near and dear to your heart and you said "I admire Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, even though I criticize some of the things that they did." I love World War II history and I also find myself in a love-hate situation with Churchill. Could you go into further detail about what specifics lead you to single out these two over leaders like Lincoln, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin or even historical figures who have enabled information itself like Turing, Shannon, etc?
My work here is dung.
(insert my standard question for all tech type people)
Give me your best hack. Specifically something YOU did personally not hire / grad student.
Hardware, software only (yes yes the GPL is cool but I'm looking for code or schematic or at least a description of something made out of source or solder)
I can't put words in your mouth but the ideal answer would be something like "I'm particularly proud of the O(n) memory garbage collection routine in emacs implemented around '89 and how it worked was very roughly ..." or "I really like my homemade fully automatic automotive relay based routing system for my OH scale model railroad sorting yard" or "I built my own legal limit ham radio amplifier" almost certainly a different topic of course, but something of this form of answer.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
What ever happened with the stolen bag and laptop? Did you get something back? Did you LOSE data (that is, was something not backed up)? Are you mad with the organizers / country that hosted the event?
I don't have a sig.
Richard, are you really that touchy and pedantic?