Slashdot Mirror
Wired on RMS
mr.fish writes "wired news has an interview/story with
Richard Stallman about how he thinks Linus shouldnt be
getting all the glory he does." There's actually several
interesting bits in there- Good article.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
the answer to all of his questions are at the end of the article. :)
everybody knows it but is too lazy
1) First of all, despite Linus's wild popularity, RMS has probably contributed more to Linux than he has. For instance, how far would Linux get without emacs, gcc, and all the GNU utils?
2) Say what you want about fanaticism, my will stipulates that all my computer equipment goes to FSF.
Of course, the action of Linus to write the kernel, release it for free and maintain it for 7 years in his free time has no precedent in the software history.
However, you don't seem to realize what software RMS wrote:
* gcc
* gdb
* emacs
* command reimplementations (cp, sh..)
* surely a lot of other things (shells, etc.)
..
By himself or with other GNU people (Roland Pesch..); all of that supporting an idea of
freedom, and now he sees it used in a system
friendlier and friendlier to proprietary software
(binary-only modules etc.)
Of course not all software has to be free, but if we were to compare relative code sizes of the linux kernel and all the GNU tools without which Linux couldn't have existed and couldn't work now, the system would be called GNU rather than Linux.
At least give him respect as a genius hacker just like Linus is.
Are you trying to see if you can plant a story /. bring in from banner ads? ;)
that will surpass the GNOME idiocy from a couple
of days ago!?! But then again....how much does
GNU is not Unix. Where they differ, I sometimes like the GNU approach (e.g., better handling of extreme cases), but I also hate certain aspects of the GNU tools. The most hateworthy is that lack of good Unix-like documentation. Unix tools have man pages--GNU tools often either don't, or have out-of-date man pages. Yes, I know about info. Info is fine for what it does, but it does not substitute for man pages.
The Linux attitude is quite different from the GNU attitude. Sticking "GNU" in the name of the system will cause many to infer that Linux is a GNU system in attitude, rather than merely in package contents.
What makes you think emacs is essential to Linux?
Well, we have RMS to thank for this bit of FUD to hurt the Free Software Movement. Thanks Stalin!
RMS, you lazy, non-bathing, non-free-rights-giving, kidless, wifeless, virginal, sack of sh'i't...get a life.
Linus has one, and it's quite nice.
If you need an ego-fix, go work for Microsoft, oh, and take that piece of sh'i't (GNU HURD) with you.
... but somehow rms seems to be on the brink of becoming an angry old man. If it is the idea that counts, why than that rant about a name ? Am I supposed to say I have got a GNU/Linux/Donald E. Knuth system ?
There are quite some pople out there who deserve a lot of respect but I do not feel like having to acknowledge that again and again and again.
We know quite well where it started and if practical issues are an anathema to him, I can respect that. If he cannot respect though it is an issue to me, than he is the one who divides. This must not be.
Jesus christ, not EVERYONE has to sit around the house breast feeding and watching football with the fambly....
RMS needs to realize that there are only two possibilities in most of these types of situations:
1) He can be charismatic enough to persuade everyone to call it what he wants.
2) He can use his iron-fisted power to force everyone to call it what he wants.
Guess which option he actually has open to him?
I'm calling it Linux, but if he wants to stick the names of those who wrote the other "67%" of the code (recall in the article that he estimates the kernel to be 3% and FSF's stuff to be 30%) in front of "GNU," then he is welcome to do so.
Sorry to disappoint the gnubies out there, but what you demand means nothing to me.
Thanks to Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, and the other kernel hackers for Linux.
I agree.
Linus has made a great contribution, but RMS
started the ball rolling. You have to understand
where RMS is coming from too. He is a techie that
is motivated by something bigger than just
"scratching an itch." I admire RMS for his
convictions AND what he has brought to computing.
People might think that it is ego which makes
RMS insist on GNU/Linux, but I think that he
doesn't want to see GNU disassociated because
he doesn't want to see the fruits of Free Software
depolitisized. It would be his vision co-opted by
the very people who he is trying to defeat. Some
people have a problem with RMS's politics, but
he has devoted himself to doing something that
he thinks will benefit everyone. How can you knock
a guy for trying to make the world a better place?
The GNU project didn't take such a long time
to come up with The Hurd because they lacked
technical skills; even if you don't know why
it took so long, you just need to have a look
at how the gcc internal works to be convinced
that RMS is a genius. He didn't manage to
write a lot of the Hurd, because that's when
his body reminded him of its existence and
he got severe trouble with his hands; probably after too much time spent typing code. This fact doesn't seem to be too wellknown. Fortunately, Linus stepped in and filled the last hole in the GNU project with his kernel that became the huge snowball that we know today.
Just thought I would mention this fact, before people start calling RMS names again.
...or is RMS getting nuttier as time goes on. This guy, in spite of his many contributions to free software, does the entire movement a disservice every time he opens his egomaniacal mouth. He should ditch the self serving whining, and the St. Ignutious costume, and most of all that bloody song, and stop being such a spoilt brat about Linux versus Hurd.
Yes, we can say that. Although, because most people have at least an ounce of decorum, we choose not to say that. Please don't assume that "having kids" == "oppressive Christians". The zealots that are on TV every sunday, asking for your money to make the preacher's BMW payment, represents about 2% of "Christians".
Stallman would recieve credit if he weren't so arrogant, fanatic, and self-righteous. In his interview he insulted everyone who finds raising kids important because 'he has better things to do'. He could have easily reworded his statement to, 'I don't want to have kids', which would have been a pacifiable statement to everyone, instead of his inflamatory remark. In addition he plays off everyone who got GNU the recognitin it has no. He seems to dislike pragmatists.
What he doesn't recognize though is, that if linux weren't around, many of us would have never heard of GNU. After I installed linux ~ 2 years ago, I quickly therafter found out about GNU, Stallman, and their ideology. He is getting the recgonition, just not as much as Linus. If linux does take off, he will recieve even more recognition.
While I abhor his personality, I do admire his work, idealogy, and determination.
You obviously know nothing about RMS. He had a sweetheart a long time ago named Alix who asked him to marry her, and he declined because she wanted kids. Maybe he's jealous of Linus, who cares. The point is Linux WOULD NOT EXIST without GNU, and he deserves recognition, considering the fact he's written 10x more code for our Linux systems than Linus has.
What is a self-proclaimed champion of FREEDOM doing trying to force the rest of the world to see things EXACTLY his way?
RMS has a life. If you think your "real world" is real, keep dreaming.
He does not seem so concerned with "getting the job done" as
with living consistent with his ideals, though he seems also to
be pretty good with the practical tasks of writing useful tools.
Could you do better as a coder or designer?
Come on, Linux was originally written by a home user because
he couldn't afford an expensive proprietary unix for his PC, even
if one was available then. Linux was never intended to be a
commerical enterprise. However, it has become attractive to
commercail enterprises over the years. That's fine with Linux and
with RMS - but first things first. Linus doesn't even make money
from Linux, but working in the commercial world.
Freedom will always be more important than anything else.
RMS seems to be at least trying to put his ideals into practice
personally and professionally. Your definition of freedom may be
different from his, but what is REAL is not measured in terms of
results and never can be. Yes, it is something spiritual, and
it's good to see that a technically talented person like RMS can
see that and strive for that. RMS is human like anyone else, but
as least is a seeker of the REAL in his own life. Can many others
even claim to be sincere seekers? No, most sell out too cheaply too
early in life, and rarely get a second chance to experience a kind of
innocence that might just lead to something great.
When the driving force behind Linux becomes commercial success
rather than freedom (which includes the simple joy or pleasure
or using Linux applications at home or in a business with the
knowledge that Linux really is your own system) then Linux will
die. Right now freedom and "spiritual" stuff if a big motivator among
people who use Linux - even among those who tend to be
results oriented in their professions. Linux is not just a kernel or
operating system with GNU and other utilities - it is an intellectual,
social and spiritual movement for MOST of its current users.
Gee, do you think Linus would be saying the same crap if the roles were reversed? I don't think so.
I think anyone who has met RMS knows he's an egomaniac, and he likes being a martyr for his definition of 'free software'. I don't know why people worship him like he's some kind of holy man. And incidentally, it's not Linus' fault that people call packages with the Linux kernel and GNU software by the Linux name. RMS leaves the mistaken impression that Linus ripped him off. Sorry but Linus was only working on the KERNEL. Wtf?
Thats not the point, its the way he made his comment. He could have said I'm not interrested in having kids. Instead he said 'I have better things to do than have kids', which insults everyone who feels having a family is important. I wonder if he knows what he is doing, or its all subconsious. He seems to make subtle comments like these, which insult a whole group of people all the time. Insulting people is not the way to win them over. Thank god he isn't more famous, or else we would be nowehre near where we are today.
The BSD contribution and legacy is significant enought to merit part of the name if Stallman's is.
We all know that all of us free software hackers work partly for the ego boost and peer recognition. Isn't having millions of people run your software and think of you as a good programmer, what drives most of us to release GPL software, besides feeling part of a nice open communauty ?
There is nothing worse for an hacker than being denied recognition; removing the name of a contributor from sourcecode is considered criminal in hackers ethics. Noone would do it.
However, RMS is effectively being written out of history, despite his contributions - the gcc compiler that Linux was written with from scratch, and the GNU Public license that protects our rights and our code against proprietarization.
Sure, RMS is a peculiar public figure, verbally very violent and with a really manicheist vision of the world (all white or all black), and his way of saying things is not always the best, but he's right in what he's trying to say.
When's he not on a podium, he is an extremely nice person I must say; at least, he replies everyone's emails on a very kind and helping tone. This can't be said for all free software leaders.
Yeah, X is great, but it still sucks. It crashes all the time.
What do you know about his personal life you moron !? leave the man's personal life alone, this is not your problem !
Khalid
Man, I'm getting very sick and tired of his definition of 'free software'. His notion is coercive and fascist. Frankly, the best license I've seen is the Crack.com license with Golgotha (basically--'Do whatever the hell you want!').
I don't care if he's on mission, he's wasting his life to convince everyone that his definition of 'free software' is correct. Does anyone actually buy his routine that it's not his wounded ego?
I find his comment hard to believe--sounds like legalspeak. I think we know what the truth is:
Q: Does he not wish he were getting more
recognition?
A: "I hope not. But how can I know for sure?
I've got an ego like everyone else. I'm
sure my ego wants me to be more
famous. I don't know."
Hey, I use GNU grep on Win95. Does that make it GNU/Windows? Do you think you could convice MS of that? Oh, and last I heard, the Hurd had to be cross-compiled on a Linux system (or GNU/Linux); does that make it GNU/Linux/Hurd? Listen up Stallman and Stallmanites: write a kernel, name the OS. Write utilities, don't name the OS. OK? Thanks for playing! Have a nice day!
--shane
Surely, you can name a compiler, released under the GPL, that can produce code for ~30 cpus ? Linux wouldn't be running on 68K, powerpc, arm, mips, sparc.. if it wasn't for gcc.
If you are to throw away all GNU tools, don't forget libc as well. Would you write your programs using direct, unportable Linux system calls ?
So basically you're insulted that anyone could think breeding isn't the most important thing they can ever do. Heavens forfend!
News flash - we already have over 6E9 people, most of which will never do anything that really affects our civilization (that goes for me too, but I'm not even 30 yet). You think having a family is important, fine, but if you expect *everyone* to agree with you, get bent.
Its a good point you raise.
/., you see a growing trend - the increasing desire for philosophical uniformity, and the muting of tolerance.
Looking at some of the advocates of Open Source, and in fact, a large number of the posts in on
This is endemic to social movements that pride themselves on an intellectual foundation.
Just remember that Western writers proclaimed the Soviet Union "paradise" well into the 1920's. Artists by the truckload moved there to exist in the workers paradise. Then strangely enough, alternative voices were forcefully muted to uphold the rigorous philosophies of the new regime. In short - fascism.
He isn't actually being written out of history like ex-Russian leaders were, he just isn't getting as much press recognition as Linus. I guess in his eccentric world, he considers tihs the same thing. Everyone who has been using Linux for a while knows about GNU and who Stallman is. His name is still splattered all over software and his story and arrogance are blastered all over the web. He's just mad because he isn't getting as much coverage over the press. Definite case of an oversized ego. LEGGO MY EGGO.
Public Relations 101
That guy is brilliant, worthy of recognition. His ideas on free software are reshaping the computer software industry. But the guy has no friggin' clue on how to present his cause or himself to the media. He doesn't need to compete with Linus/Linux for the glory. RMS/FSF and GNU can stand on their own. The media are hungry for people to talk to. He just needs to come across as someone they would *want* to talk to.
Of course if he wishes to take on the role of martyr, he's free to do that as well. But casting himself in a struggle *against* Linux is not the way to win friends and influence people. Linus/Linux is not the enemy here.
I met RMS on one of his speaking tours.
When I saw him and heard him speak, I both gained respect for him, and lost respect for him. It was a life altering moment. I relaized that I never wanted to be like him. I find him to be genius level, but also genius crazy, with poor personal habits. My grip on reality may not be firm, but his is tenuous at best.
I can truely say that RMS has been a guiding influence in my life--of how not to be. But also, his contributions have guided my life. For me, its a kind of wierd hero worship combined with a tinge of pity and dispisement.
No, he is not getting nuttier all the time. If you'll notice, this article is nothing but a rehash of some of the RMS articles published 10 years ago.
"How can you knock a guy for trying to make the world a better place?"
Because he feels he has to constantly remind everyone of it?
... without Linus, the whole free software movement would probably still be an academic curiousity. What Linus has done is built on the work started by RMS.
It's the philisophical equivilent of the GPL:
RMS started the movement with the creation of the free software movement. Linus took that idea and expanded on it, changed it, improved it and made it more accessible to people.
Having read the article, I get the impression that Linus has achieved what RMS wanted (with HURD?) and RMS is a bit jealous.
So how did Linus achieve this? I've heard it said that the FSF is very "cathedral" compared to the Linux "bazaar". That might be one aspect. The other (IMNSHO) is that Linus is a better leader. People like Linus, he's easy going, fair minded, and approachable (especially to the press). In comparison, RMS is too extreme, too radical and he annoys a lot of people who are pro-free software, let alone the rest of the IT world.
Yes, it would be GNU/Solaris. Where's the confusion here please?
Is it just me or do the numbers add up to 110? 3% linux, 30% GNU, 67% other sources???
Now what is the question?
--
Killjoy
The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind.....
He is right in claiming that it is to sad that Linus doesn't promote the philosophy of free software, even sometimes claiming it is unimportant. Even Linus can't deny that the GPL should have much credit for bringing Linux to where it is today. If Linus had released Linux under a kernel that only allowed people to relase patches to his kernel, and that all contributions became his personal property, I doubt that Linux had come even close to where it is today. Probably we would be using FreeBSD or something.
Woah phear it's almost as if Linus and RMS are two different people! With different personalities!! WOAH THAT MIGHT EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM!!
Some people like RMS because of his political views, but I would wager that's a minority. Most like him because of what he's done. Judging solely from the posts here, it seems people have a very small appreciation for what he's done. Yes the kernel is an awesome feat, but not quite as awesome as the rewriting of all the UNIX tools, plus about 5 compilers which compile on about 30 platforms.
Also, Linus does not 'just' work on the kernel, he's hounded by the media a lot. Since Linus gets all the attention, RMS wants him to be more accurate. OK so he's being unfair. Still, we wrote a kick-ass compiler B)
I agreee with you Zach. At the end of the day, when it comes down to it, it's all about getting work done. I like Linux, I like free software, but they're a means to an end, they are NOT the end in itself. But I'm not surprised RMS believes the way he does--after all "he hasn't had a full-time
job in 15 years."
that Linus was sitting around thinking "Gee, here's this nice GNU Project and all these tools, I think I'll make them a kernel." When he wrote it, he wanted a personal OS. He didn't write it for GNU. You're making it sound like he called up stallman and offered to step in to complete the project. He didn't. He just used the GNU tools. If the hadn't been there, he would have used some other tools. Linus is reponsible for Linux, for getting it started, and having the vision to let it go where it would. Even if he doesn't contribute much anymore. It would have happened with or without GNU.
Hahah actually I like that name better than Linux anyway...I don't know what possessed him to change it.
Anyway, yes Freax would still be the name of the kernel, and RMS wants people to call the system by the name of the system, not just the kernel.
GNU - GNU is Not Unix.
A corollary to this is Gnu is Not Linux. I don't know why he has such a problem with GNU being associated with UNIX, and no problem with GNU being assocaited with Linux.
RMS seems to be suffering from a case of major sour grapes. Although there is no question that he has been an important contributor, GNU itself was never attached to Linux. In fact, GNU is working (very very slowly) on their own OS kernel - Hurd.
GNU was an integral part of Linux development ( employing tools like GCC), and still remains an integral part of the Linux enivronment (from bash to GNOME). However, without a "free" OS platform, FSF would be a very little known and little suported organization (or political party for that matter). RMS should not complain. One cannot ask for better publicity than Linux.
The plethora of developers who take part in GNU projects deserve the credit more so than either Linus or RMS. However, that's not reasonable. Our celebrity culture prevents us from giving credit where credit is due. It's our nature to make super-human heroes for all to look up to. This is perhaps the primary role RMS and Linus play now days in the free software movement: larger than life characters which embody a vision ( a free UNIX-like OS) and an ideal ( free software for everyone).
Ya I agree. I wish people would realise that not being a sheep is not necessarily a bad thing (and I would argue a very good thing). Instead non-sheep are 'losers' or 'needing of a life' and definitely not worth listening to (?).
How about this: write a kernel, period. Have it do something. Gee, why won't it do anything?
...", like that is a small part of the system? It is an essential part of the system. Just as the kernel is.
DUH.
"Write utilities
So both should get equal credit. That is the point he is trying to make. It's not all Linus or all RMS.
Get it?
Stallman, writes himself out of history, by
being a selfish nut.
"While Stallman concedes that Torvald's
contribution was essential, he estimates that the kernel represents only about 3 percent of the
entire system. In contrast, the GNU project
contributed about 30 percent of the code, while
the remaining 67 percent was taken from other
sources, he says."
67 percent - Other.
Linux = Other/Linux.
RMS, quit boohoo'n and write some code.
I thought one of the main things he said was that the competition is not between different types of free software, but between commercial and free software. If that's the case, then what the hell is he ranting about? Also, if all he cared about was his 'mission', then what the hell does he care about credit? He must be in major denial.
Ya boo to X. I like the network protocol idea, but I don't like the GUI. Booo to X.
But again, GPL is not GNU software. If they had not developed the tools, someone else would have. My point is that linux can run without GNU software, which is why I don't think it is GNU/Linux.
Since when is love equivalent to sex? Is there some sort of physical law that two people who love each other need to have kids?
No, I don't get it. I look at it this way.
Take a linux distribution, and replace all the GNU software ( keep in mind GNU software is not the same as GPL'd software). What do you have? Linux
Take a linux distribution and replace the kernel. What do you have? In my mind, it's not linux.
Let's say hurd were a usable product, what would the difference be between hurd and linux? Well, they would use the same tools, but the kernel would be different. They would be different operating systems.
Emacs, essential? Hah, hah.
If gcc, wasn't there, another compiler would be.
Most every little tool is trival by itself, and could be rewritten by a more humble source than GNU.
Oh he would have used some other tools, eh? I'd be interested to hear which tools he would have used that would run on an as-of-yet non-existant system and were affordable by a university student.
... A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.
try again.
btw, 67 > 30, so its Other/Linux.
That's why they were (and still are) making their own kernel. OK, so they'd be delayed ten or fifteen years or something like that, big deal.
No, it equals 100% :)
67+3=70
70+30=100
Sorry to disappoint the gnubies out there, but what you demand means nothing to me.
I hope you give your parents more credit for being born! You might possibly be one of the sheep that is not aware of the extent GNU software makes things work on your computer --unless you run some proprietary system.
Every time RMS spouts out this shit,
I become more certain that I will NEVER purchase/download/support anything call GNU/Linux.
Sorry Debian, nothing against your LINUX distribution, but with RMS as your PR guy, what do you excpect.
Man if anyone ever got 'passed over' in terms of recognition, it's Doug, not RMS. And frankly, it's the seeds of Doug's ideas that has given us computing as we know it--the mouse, networking, groupware, hypertext, browsers, etc. And most of this was 30+ years ago. Maybe we should be thanking Doug rather than RMS.
The thing is Doug has always done his efforts for the 'betterment of humankind'. He's always wanted people to work together better. IMHO, RMS is more concerned with shoving his 'free software' defn. down people's throats. It's almost the difference between a legalistic Pharisee and a truly philanthropic Albert Schweitzer who actually gets stuff done. I'm not knocking what RMS has achieved, but there's no need need to take up his perceived offenses. I for one applaud Doug.
That would certainly shut him up. I find the GPL rather restrictive myself.
In the future, can we not post any RMS advocacy/anti-advocacy on slashdot.
The only purpose that it serves is to make us all look just as childish as RMS.
It's just you.
I think that Stallman is being just a bit contradictory in his beliefs. Has he forgotten that Linux is not the only OS that uses 'his' GNU creation? I'm not certain how many other UN*X use GNU utilities, but we don't call them all GNU/whatever do we?
And another thing; Linux may only make up 3% of the entire system, however, it is definitely the most crucial.
But Stallman thinks the exact opposite, you see. I personally don't question the man's genius. I love Emacs, and anyone who can write a compiler (particularly one as good as gcc) is a hacker's hacker as far as I'm concerned.
But there's no way I can ever tolerate his distorted vision for the future of software. To the extent that he denies a software author the right to do with his code as he pleases, the man is a maniac.
I love free software; I love the quality of it. I deeply appreciate the time that the authors of it have invested. But the bottom line is that free code is a GIFT. It is not an obligation. It is not more ethical than proprietary software (note that this is absolutely different from the business practices of companies and individuals, which can be positively immoral). That is not where its superiority lies. The superiority is in the code.
For that matter, it's worth pointing out that the GPL actually restricts my freedom! I cannot do just anything with GPL-ed code. So Stallman's blathering about "free" software is a little disingenuous. What he really means is that he (or the FSF) should dictate how we use software. Of course, a software author has the right to release his code (if he does so at all) under whatever terms he wishes. But let's be completely honest: GPL-ed software is not literally and wholly free. It is "mostly" free (yes, I can distinguish between free beer and free speech). I can't do just anything I wish with it.
Stallman needs to get a grip. If he would change his focus from one of religious zealotry to one wherein he encourages developers to give gifts, he would be a lot more tolerable. As it is, he can be a royal pain.
Nevertheless, he is a genius.
Um, the look and feel of X is most dependant on the window manager.
Use a window manager you like, windowmaker, fvwm2, icewm, etc..
And goto themes.org to get what you need to make
it look like you want
What more needs to be said?
it is hard for me to be sympathetic with a person, whatever genius he is, who do not like children.
Am I supposed to marvel at your children? Granted, I was a spoiled brat myself no long ago, but why should I bow down and like your children. I have seen too many parents just so proud of spoiled brats who watch way too much TV and have a frightening outlook of life.
So he may not have the time to properly raise children, at least he admits it. I know to many people who don't and are grossly irresponsible. Raise your children right and no one will pretend, but actually like them.
I'll neglect the idiot comment since I belive discussions of this nature don't have to degreade into juvenile name calling.
Stallman doesn't want GNU in the name because it uses GNU tools, he wants it in there to help make more awareness of GNU and it's goals. That's all fine and dandy, I respect his ideas. But, his argument seems to be that it should be called GNU/Linux because it uses GNU tools and software. Why? Linux doesn't have to use GNU tools, and there are many other things in Linux that aren't GNU software. The name can't credit everyone. The GNU stuff is software that runs on the kernel. Granted, the kernel is nothing without them, but the kernel is still the heart of the system.
All that is required for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing (probably misquoted, and I don't remember who said it). A large part of what Stallman wants to do involves getting the message of free software. There are just so many people out there who don't understand it. Even the people who've heard of "Open Source" often don't understand the basic concept. So, Stallman constantly repeats himself. He has to, there are so many people who aren't listening. You do have a point though that he would be better off getting the message to people who haven't already heard it. I think that's one of the reasons he gets annoyed about the popularity of Linux. It's spreading, but the free software message isn't always spreading with it.
Polite request? BS. He interrupts people to correct them to call it Linux, something it is not usually called or sold as.
RMS needs to grow up, and realize that it is impossible to demand respect.
Instead of crying about getting no repect for an old wheel RMS reinvented, he should (re)invent something new.
RMS should realize that his actions indicate that he is far more concerned about personal recognition than free software.
If RMS wants such personal recognition, he should change the GPL accordingly. Adding a clause similar the ones that he scorns in many BSD style licenses.
Can we write him out of history already?
On virtually every other Unix-like system. Why do you ask?
> From the article, it looks like Stallman
> wants no responsibility, not even for his own
> statements, yet wants the accolade for a
> project which is used with Linux, not what
> makes Linux.
Just ask yourself which parts of Linux are GNU?
Quite a bit, really. And Stallman didn't write
them all, but played architect comparable to
what Linus has done with the kernel.
Did Linus avoid responsibility by writing this
kernel instead of pursuing a full-time real job?
Imagine where Linux would be without the GNU
*concept*? A year behind? More? How far can
you get without a compiler? Without tools? Without people *used* to the concept that they
could write stuff for free and other people
wouldn't rip them off?
Stallman isn't a God. Linus isn't a God. Gates isn't a God. I do, however, see them as the left, middle, and right of a spectrum describing The Way Software Should Be.
Yes, Stallman is abrasive, if that's defined in usual terms as "saying things that people with money disagree with".
Whatever.
Where "Force" means openly stating his opinions in the hope of convincing others, no i don't see the contradiction - maybe you could elaborate?
First, I have to comment about your post Azul--I appreciate it. It's thoughtful and non-inflammatory, a rarity on /. these days.
I don't think anyone really questions his talents. I think the problem is the way he frames his statements in the article. He frames it in terms of a struggle between GNU and Linux. I think that it is very divisive and inflammatory. He comes off with an attitude and an axe to grind in the article IMO. To me, it doesn't come off as a polite request.
The reason that RMS's hiring of students didn't work out is because the burn out rate of students with him was fast. He used them up too quick.
I don't really think the majority of people feel like they belong to some 'movement'. If there is any such 'movement', I would say it was started by the Bell Labs ppl with the whole notion of UNIX and software tools. I like to use the GNU software, but it doesn't mean that I also subscribe to the philosophy. He wrote some cool software and utils, but so have other people. I don't like the way he drapes politics all over software. I think software politics is the least of our problems.
His problem, however, is that he isn't good with people.
If Linux had been an asshole, RMS' tactics would have worked: Then talking about the ideological side would have won converts. But Linus isn't an asshole. He's humble, down-to-earth, and to most people seem more moderate and "ordinary" than Stallmann.
And people like their "heros" humble.
Radicals like RMS never head a movement into the mainstream - by the very definition, extreme views aren't held by the majority. Radicals may pave the way for more moderate people to get recognized as a legitimate force, people that would seem to radical before.
I guess that's why history is littered with tragic stories about radicals, whether radical scientists, artists, or politicians, that have ended up bitter, with feelings of being betrayed, or in the case of radical politicans: People that change for freedomfighters to tyrants overnight, when they realize they don't get the recognition they wanted so badly.
Most people, even "idealists" are controlled entirely by their ego. They may get a thrill of helping people, and so their ego may get a boost of their fight for freedom, for science, or just for bettering the world in general. But behind those idealist goals lie a need to be loved, to be recognized, to feel like winners.
Maybe it would do Stallmann good to ease off, to find other ways to get recognition and love. He says he have "more important things to do than get kids". Maybe he doesn't. Maybe finding someone to love, and get kids with, someone to get recognition from, would help him find an inner balance that could help him take his cause furhter, by not alienating that many people.
Sometimes the best way to win is to not try too hard. That's what Linus does: He doesn't try too hard.
YOu know, what Stallman has contributed to Linux is invaluable. But the way he is constantly trying to draw the focus to himself and push his philosophical views down peoples' throats is precisely why he doesn't get the attention...
Who wants someone like that being the face on the project? Those who know appreciate his contribution, and those that know know that its best it stops there.
I can machine parts until the end of time and if someone doesn't build an engine and put the damn car together I'm never going to get anywhere.
If he's not getting the attention he thinks he should get, trying to take someone elses is just childish.
Why is having a full time job important anyway? At what point exactly did you turn into your parents?
> Instead he said 'I have better things to do than > have kids', which insults everyone who feels > having a family is important.
How are they different?
"X does not interest me. Y interests me. I have better things to do than X."
This implies X is bad in *general*?! Hello? It's a personal choice, ok?
Yes, having kids is a stupid thing that most stupid people think they have to do, but that's not what he *said*.
No you don't follow me properly. I don't like windows. Give me a window manager which doesn't use windows and I might be happy. Probably won't happen since X itself uses windows :).
Actually he's back at it again, from what I understand. He just had a "hand problem" (he didn't get any more specific than that), and (I can't remember exactly, but I think) a doctor told him to get a keyboard with a softer touch and it would actually help out his hand. So I think he's back typing now.
Ofcourse it doesn't spread.
Linux is very good for certain things, but the Free Software and Open Source software ideologies are creations of a bunch of lunatics, that just manage to tell it in a way that attracts a lot of people. (Giving them free beer, but with a good excuse to tell people it is not about the free beer.)
Bill Gates may be intelligent, but he's not a genius. He certainly has a talent for dirty tricks and publicity though. Personally, I think he's just as crazy as some people say RMS is.
... the name Solaris doesn't even mean the OS. It describes
;-)
the GUI/OS combination OpenWindows with SunOS. If the
kernel has a name, it's probably SunOS. And that's was
uname says, too.
Marketing sometimes works
Martin
>>Ever heard of Jim Gettys? Use X?
So that's who I have to blame for the most
horrific "feature" of Unix systems.
You heard it here first! :) :p
Actually did you read the article posted on Oracle's website that was an interview with Linus about two weeks ago? After just reading the Deinnis Richie link found on here it was surprising. There are bright people and there are genius levels. Linus though bright is nowhere near the top like the big boys. He is famous more for marketing than anything.
RMS? He is so crazy that he doesn't fit on the same scale. He's Z axis is way off.
Peace!
He better start coming up with new ideas - including a new fashion sense!
:)
I think we should be grateful that it is Linus
who carries the flag rather than RMS.
Language isn't math. Different forms of language, even though they can mean the same thing have different connotations. Connotation in language is just as important and denotation.
Or do I understand that you have no objection to using GNU utilities, you just don't want to be reminded where they came from?
You missed the point. It's not the denotation of his statemet, but the conotation of his statement that is inflamatory. What he said has a negative connotation and comes accross as an insult to many. A simple rephrasing would give a neutral connotation and no one would get offended. We are trying to win people over right? Insulting them isn't the way.
Free software has been around since the biggining in one form or another. RMS isn't even the largest contributer, just the most famous.
Frankly I don't see what he is bitching about, he gets recognission. As much as he warents I think....were would GNU be without BSD??
And about him saying that Linus doesn't believe in free software...were the fuck does he come from??? Linus has been recently advocating GNU and GPL on the comp.os.linux.misc newsgroup!!! Or doesn't he read that.
I personlay think maybe RMS just feels we owe him the world and he wants us to believe that shit. Sure he made some absolutely escential parts for Linux to function, if he hadn't they would have been made,..and in fact most have been made several times...free even. He also did not contribute everything needed...he (in his own words) contributed less then 1/3 of the linux system.
Nope. I avoid X like the plague. If I want UNIX, I use a command line. If I want a GUI, I use my mac. If I want a bastardized combination of the two, I'll use windows. What reason is left to use X?
I think X is responsible for most, if not all, of the GUI hating in the world; if I had to use X, I'd hate GUIs too.
...from jacking off too much.
the loser
There's forcefully maintaining your position.
Then there's being kind of a dick.
The difference between the two is sometimes easily discerned, but mostly folks like us just like to argue about it.....
I hate how those fscking anti-slavery laws deny me the freedom to sell myself into slavery. I mean, how can they call it freedom if I'm not free to sell myself?
I agree with Stallman 100%. The notion that anyone can "own" an idea is the worst turn society ever took.
some great points dude.
Yeah RMS hates what he cannot piss on and leave his scent. He wants everything to be free but your mind.
Rrr. For some freedoms to exist, others have to be denied. Frankly, I like the GPLs vision of freedom. I like BSDs too. And if it weren't for corporate buttfucks, the two could live in harmony, but a$$holes always have to come in to squeeze a buck out of things.
And the worth of you as a person means nothing to me. And your IQ is 0, which worth is nothing to everyone else.
Christ, it's not like he wants it to be called Stallmanix/Linux; he just wants people not to forget the GNU portion. Linux is turning into a business sellout anyway.
Thank god the *BSDen don't suffer from the horrid cult-of-personality phenomenon.
As far as I can see, the GPL is the most important piece of legalese we have. It protects us and our code. While RMS may rub some people the wrong way, the GPL is vital to our continued existance. Use it, and safeguard our future, and stop bickering. Stallman's name is already going down in history.
Anyway - on to my actual point. The Linux kernel is evolving - how soon before the distinction between kernel modules and the kernel space tasks of a microkernel such as QNX/Neutrino becomes academic?
It seems to me, that if modules were running in a similar _protected_ memory space to Neutrino drivers, the kernel might as well be a microkernel - and more and more of the Linux kernel functionality is becoming modular. The HURD and Neutrino seem quite similar in design principle (even in other areas, such as the whole translucent filsystem thing), it's just a shame Neutrino isn't Free like the Linux kernel - but the systems seem to be converging, not diverging.
No if only we had Neutrino's cool distributed computing model, and its Photon MicroGUI functionality ( particularly the Amiga-esque support for arbitrary colour depths and resolutions) was somehow folded into X...
P.S. If any HURDers are reading this.../usr/ should be a separate directory from / . Please don't just symlink it back. Pretty Please...with sugar and a cherry... The conceptual separation this provides aids the maintenance of the system.
listen to the tao
demand respect and you do not deserve it (but then again, he does at least claim that he wants gnu recognized because of what gnu stands for).
Steve Jobs is still an egotistical ass.
r th.html
Any moron can have kids.
http://www.theonion.com/onion3508/miracle_of_bi
Linux *IS* the operating system. One might properly call a distribution GNU/Linux but let's not confuse an operating system with a distribution that includes numerous applications, tools, and utilities. Just because M$ uses the _marketing term_ "operating system" to include applications such as web browsers doesn't mean we should all adopt marketing terms as well. An operating system is the program that provides and controls access to the system's physical resources. Other tools may be necessary to run a general purpose computer, but that doesn't make them part of the operating system. A special purpose, embedded OS, for example, need not have any tools at all -- just it's required application to run on its OS.
It remains an operating system in spite of the absence of, say, Internet Explorer.
RMS should therefore direct his wrath and complaints to the distribution makers, not Linux and Linus.
My operating system is Linux, Mr. Stallman, and you can byte me if you don't like me calling it that. My compiler is gcc, btw, and I don't call it "the Linux C compiler". You're already getting your share of the credit. It is an excellent compiler but, if it is glory you wanted, you should have done something glamorous like Linux, not simply wonderful like gcc. Oh, yeah, some of the other GNU stuff is pretty cool too. But it all rides on the backs of Giants like Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. As the technical architects of this particular revolution, they deserve a lion's share of credit also, yet I don't hear them complaining about Linus' moment in the sun.
-Ray Yeargin (BTW, I write code too -- check out this web game for an example of what people write for fun with no intention of changing the world. It's designed for Unix, written in C, compiled in gcc, and running under Linux. Thank you, DR, KT, RMS, and LT for changing the world for me! I couldn't have done this without you.)
Yes Linus has written the original kernel, and no he hasn't written every line of code in the 2.* kernels. So what? This is free software, remember? There's this thing called "the Bazaar" going on...
Linus is the one who maintains the kernel, so he has the final word on what goes in and what stays out. That makes it 'his' kernel.
Besides, name one piece of software that's relatively stabe that doesn't have at least one line of code patched in from some hacker who fixed a bug.
The notion that anyone can "own" an idea is the worst turn society ever took.
Who ever brought that up? Not me. I fully agree with this, and it has nothing whatever to do with what I said.
A person doesown the words he writes, though. That is a completely different thing. They are his expression of an idea. If you can't see the difference, I pity you. It's one thing to see someone else's bookshelf and make one yourself that's just like it; it's another to steal the bookshelf.
I hate how those fscking anti-slavery laws deny me the freedom to sell myself into slavery. I mean, how can they call it freedom if I'm not free to sell myself?Setting aside for the moment the question of the legitimacy of anti-slavery laws, what does this have to do with personal property? Are you suggesting that people shouldn't have the right to do what they want with their code? Is that what you're babbling? Please enlighten me, so I know whether to waste one more cycle of CPU time responding to your nonsense.
Daniel "Nixon" Mikkelsen, nixon@nospam.fix.no
I mean, would you want someone as abrasive as Richard Stallman as your husband or dad? Perish the thought!
My father was as abrasive as RMS - but he was also so committed to his ideals and social justice as well...
When I was young, I disliked my father. He was a research scientist. Like most fathers of the same profession, he discussed math and the scientific method to no end. But he also discussed music, visual arts, economics, philosophy, religion, sociology and politics. More importantly, he linked them all. Because the values he discussed were often diametrically opposed to the values I saw in society and the media, I thought he was crazy.
The fact that he was an iconoclast and an athiest brought much derision to my family and myself when I was young. I hated my father.
Now that I'm older and (hopefully) a little wiser, all those values he stressed now make sense and I'm glad that I was raised by him rather than a father who is satisfied with the status quo.
We need MORE people like RMS now more than ever!
I want my kids to grow up in a better world where they have opportunity.
:-(
When I have them.
Some of my time goes on personal advancement - for my own self (self-advancement), in societies terms (career - I have to eat). Some of my time has gone on intimacy with others. I don't have kids now. I am 20 and it is a part of life I will want to delay.
Some of my time goes on efforts that I think will make the world better for others - and most importantly for my kids.
I want them (if/when I have them) to be born into a world of opportunity where they can enjoy the tapestry of life even more than I have.
Mindphunk (from someone's laptop so no login right now)
And YOU, listen. If you want me to call it Linux, I will give you the beating of your life. You can call red green, but keep that to yourself and stop ranting in public.
Read the Constitution, Bill of Rights and other humanist documents that are the foundation of the early United States.
RMS's philosophy is FAR more congruent with the humanist ideals of freedom than your typical stock-quote-watching, laissez-faire, let-the-market-decide mindless capitalist business idiots who are desparately trying to USURP your freedom.
In that sense, RMS is a TRUE PATRIOT.
hum.. yeah, why was the development of the FSF/GNU kernel HURD dropped? they have a fully working kernel for their OS, so I dont understand why they didnt put together the complete GNU OS with the HURD kernel and released it.
I've read both your post and the one you replied to a couple of times, but I still have no idea where those 'crazy christians' came from, and what they have to do with the discussion at hand.
I'm not a christian, and I'm not defending them either, but why is it necessary to drag them into this discussion?
That's what I did at the Singapore Linux Conference.
I said something stupid like "good speech, Mr. Stallman", ad he kinda ignored me. Could be because he looked a little sleepy.
After that, Don Becker came right in to help him with something.
just WHAT exactly do you want him to get over?
is it the fact that he personally authored most of the software which makes a linux distribution what it is today?
is it the fact that without him, linux would not exist?
is it the fact that the media is virtually clueless of GNU/FSF's existance, but automatically recognize the name 'Linux'?
so, which is it?
and how would you react in the same situation?
RMS has been handed a really raw deal by the public, and torvalds & co. are basking in the shadow of RMS's struggles.
he does admit that it's likely that part of it is his ego. more than understandable for anyone in his predicament.
he & FSF gave you all the tools without which it's very likely linux could not have come along. and you chide him for being "far out"? does he owe you or anyone to be "normal"?? and yet you still use tools written by him/FSF??
now, who's full of shit??!!
Without the Linux kernel, he would just be another leftist-wannabe Chowd (for those who don't know, a Chowd is a pretentious elitist know-it-all blowhard who resides in Metropolitain Bahstun - short for Chowderhead). Whatever happened to HURD? Nothing! Living next door to the Atari ST TOS/GEM in operating-system purgatory.
I'm not saying that his contribution wasn't worthwhile, but he would be just another leftist crank without a kernel to build his stuff on.
C'mon Stallman! Get a haircut, a job, and a life (in that order)! Quit being such a damn communist!
The Right-wing Anonymous Coward from Hell
Yay! Hammer, meet the head of the nail. :-)
... desire not from imposition.
Development isn't dropped. Debian/HURD is in the works - unfortunately, all the attention Linux has been getting has meant that fewer people want to work on the relatively unglamorous groundwork that the HURD still needs. You can install the HURD on an x86 PC now, and boot into it, and even run X, on certain vanilla-VGA displays.
IMHO, however, the mach microkernel is the shakiest part of the whole system - the version the HURD is based on needs a lot of work - I think they've chosen to use an old version so that they can rewrite as they see fit - they just haven't finished, yet.
of course he ignored you. who the h*ll are you?
see, the open source/gnu movement is incredibly hypocritical.
they preach openness. they preach software for the masses. they preach direct contact with the developers.
and then you find out the truth.
unless youre part of that elite group of developers, you == dog crap.
get used to it. at least the commercial software ppl know how to treat their supporters.
You already have Linux and FreeBSD. Why does Stallman and Co. need to force us to deal with their obvious inferiority complex?
It's one thing to see
someone else's bookshelf and make one yourself that's just like it; it's another to steal the
bookshelf.
Unless you surgicaly invade someone's cranium and remove a section of their brain, you can't steal an idea. If you use someone's bookshelf as your own, they can no longer use it. If you use someone else's ideas, they can still use them too.
Besides the C toolchain, FreeBSD uses a few other /usr/src/gnu tree
GNU programs (like patch, rcs, grep) (and perl,
which isn't GNU but is in the
for some reason).
But the huge majority of the system is !GNU.
FreeBSD only uses General Public Virus code
when there are compelling reasons to include
code that isn't free.
You make some good points...I agree with all of them. Stallman deserves a beating...and if you don't think so, then you've never heard him speak in public. He verbally and mercilessly flogged one of my classmates at one of his Der Fuhrer rallies. He doesn't like people who disagree with him. Neither did the Nazis.
FreeBSD
OpenBSD
NetBSD
None of them have their own complier or debugger, they all use GNU GCC and GNU GDB.
And if you dont heard about it, the comersial BeOS uses the GNU compiler and debugger.
"...but keep that to yourself and stop ranting in public"
At least Luis has the guts to put his name to the post. That alone gives him the right to so-called 'rant in public', you chickensh** AC. And I don't see in his post where he wants anyone to call it anything--he just said he can call it whatever he likes.
i use gcc on all my *nix machines.
linux NEEDED & NEEDs gcc (ok, egcs now).
GNU do NOT NEED linux.
Hmmm...I didn't burst into flames OR drop straight into hell. I guess RMS is JUST PLAIN WRONG about it being a sin.
It doesn't help the HURD is the classic example of cathedral development. With Linux, it is easy to hop on board and contribute. With HURD, to contribute significantly, you had to move to Boston and hang out with the relatively closed group of people in charge of the project.
...you're an idiot.
I already agreed with you once about this. You, in an astounding display of inattentiveness, completely ignored this, choosing instead to focus on something that is completely beside the point. I can only conclude that you have nothing rational to say on the subject.
So long.
Here's a tip for future arguments (since this one's over, you having defaulted): try actually reading and replying to what your opponent says. Not only will you actually have a chance of winning, you won't look so stupid.
People often talk about John Von Neuman and
Alan Turing when they talk about the invention
of the computer, but seldom do they mention the
guys who actually invented it, Eckert and Mauchly.
It's not just computers; the history of technology
is full of people who didn't get proper credit. Look at who the Americas are named after. It isn't even necessarily that someone is deliberately trying to steal the credit and fame, it just happens some how.
If you wanted people to acknowledge it, you never should have been against the BSD advertising clause. :)
Linus was kind enough to GPL the kernel, thank you, and he didn't want to call it 'Linux' in the first place, because he isn't that egotistical.
Certainly not egotistical enough to want to call it GNU/Linux, either, he wanted to call it 'Freax', which is an argument in and of itself to call it Linux.
...and if we listed all the contributing entities and concepts, we might as well inculde Babbage, Ada, Turing, K&R, V7, AT&T, BSD, SVR4, SunOS, MIT, X, and many others, not just RMS or GNU.
roughly 400 years from now it should be finished :]
Linux wouldn't be Linux without GNU. That is, it wouldn't be anything without gcc, et al.
On the other hand, the GNU movement owes much of what it is to the fact that there IS a Free OS out there that agrees with it. It's called Linux. Or GNU/Linux.
Frankly, the name is a non issue. It's like ragging on people for pronunciation. The most impartant aspect is what IDEA is carried with a name.
What we all need to do is realize that they owe their existance to each other. RMS just needs to maybe take a somewhat more moderate stance. We obviously aren't getting anywhere with Linux or GNU or ANYTHING if all we're doing is arguring the politics of it all.
GNU/FreeBSD
GNU/OpenBSD
GNU/NetBSD
GNU/Be
Yet I haven't heard RMS about these...
Stallman is no radical and his views are compatible with the values of
middle-class Americans. His free-software movement has the goal of achieving
the greatest good to the greatest portion of humanity; RMS considers an
action "morally good" whatever the amount of happiness exceeds the amount
of unhappiness, to as many people as possible, and has the best overall
consequences to society. Most Americans will agree with this principle.
Though I do not share such concept of morality, it is impossible to understand
why Americans (in general) would regard Stallman an extremist and a radical,
when they themselves believe and maintain in public, that utilitarians,
are to be esteemed and praised.
True, then the first real version of hurd is out of the door, Linux will be lightyears ahead in development. hurd sure is doomed.
A few comments:
Since this is off-topic anyway, I won't even mention the "Christians" comment.
There have been several instances along this thread which talk about diluting your brain-ability to have a family. However, you would need to combine the accomplishments of all of your decendants together to compare with someone who desides not to "breed". If I do 1/4 as much as Stalman, and my 3 children each do a 1/4 as much as Stallman, And my grand-kids do 1/4, etc., etc., Who did more for the World (Ah, but you are so narrow-minded that you only care about YOUR generation)?
Also, what if your Parents didn't think breeding was important, or more to the point, Stallman's?
Deciding not to have a family is not as High-and-Mighty as you think, it's just short-sighted.
--Keith
(Too many accounts, and I web-browse from too many places)
And 30 > 3, so maybe it's GNU/Other. :)
If someone says, "I have better things to do than program," would you take
that as an insult to programmers? I hope not.
There's a difference between explicitly stating your values (even when those
values are different than other people's) and evangelizing. He didn't flame
people who have kids.
Richard Stallman has been promising an operating system since before 1983, and he hasn't delivered one yet.
Linus has an operating system that works. Linus has managed a software project that has successfully coordinated the worldwide development of a first-class OS kernel.
RMS doesn't. RMS hasn't. When that changes, maybe he will get his "fair share" of attention.
P.S. Berkeley code was free before GNU was born.
>Better things to do than have kids? Somebody
>better rethink his plan on becoming immortal.
If you're just an animal, and all your personality and ego is stored
in your genes, then perhaps having kids is indeed a solution to mortality.
If you have a cerebral cortex, having kids isn't going to be enough.
> RMS is and always has been single which
> is likely why he sees no need to have children.
Not true... read RMS talking about the love of his life, "Alix", in the "Open Sources" article...
However, in Stallman's eyes, the programming community is more interested in talking about practical issues, like performance -- an anathema to Stallman.
Excuse me? I'm not using my Linux, oh sorry GNU/Linux, boxes just because it's fun (I wish I could). No, I use them to actually accomplish things. You know, to earn some money so that I can pay off mortage (gasp!) and other worldly things...
Practical issues like perfomance is paramount in my choice of software. If Open Source software won't perform or provide the functionality that I need then I'll have to go for a commercial alternatived that do, and that is that. I'm afraid I don't have the luxury to be able to choose software out of "religious" conviction.
Also, this "Free softare" thing is getting way complicated. I try to keep up with the events but I must say that I don't fully know the diffrences between GPL, Open Source or QTL or whatever licenses there are now. Does it have to be that complex? I guess that's what you get when you have guys sitting around doing nothing but thinking up new twists on the same subject.
I think, patronizing aside, you are agreeing with me. My point is that when I think of linux, I think of the kernel. To me, that's what linux is because that's what Linus created and named Linux. Therefore, Stallman has no right to claim this as anything related to the GNU project. Now, packaging that with the GNU tools becomes a "Linux Distribution". That's what I think of as the operating system, a distribution, not linux. If he wants GNU in the title to signify their contribution, then he should take it up with the companies that make distributions because those are the packages with the GNU tools. Better yet, why don't they come up with their own linux distro and call it GNU/Linux.
RMS is abrasive. Even for those who do agree with him, he is a person who has very few social graces. Of course, that may well apply to many of the people reading this. Myself included. :-) That doesn't make it any less true.
OTOH,his manifesto does seem to indicate (to me, anyway) that I (as a programmer) should give away all of my work and retain no rights to it. And these are the folks who he expects to help him. Hmmm....
No GNU is not a responsibility. I mean - how much responsibility does it take to run a business (even a non-profit) with no oversite and no one to argue with you. To have a crusade is not to take responsibility. I don't care how many kids he has. I don't care if he has a wife or a house. But the FSF apparently does charge an awful lot for the CD's it presses. And the printed documentation is really cheesy (consisting of, mostly, copies of the manifesto and so on). That isn't really responsible.
Many, many people have contributed to emacs and gcc. It isn't just his puppy (although he may well have written the originals by himself). OTOH, if I didn't have to work all day, I could write some pretty neat stuff too...
Matt Dillon's DICE C on the Amiga is free and open source on the aminet - had some library autoopen functionality on the Amiga, too, like SAS/C.
When he opened up the source, development was revived, and the amiga (classic) people are talking vaguely about making PPC and 060 optimizing targets for it ( currently it only goes up to 030)
The compiler was tailored somewhat to the peculiar needs of the Amiga - of course, egcs is now the standard compiler for the Amiga, but, IMHO, is less streamlined and more resource-hungry ( remember the Amiga passion for hand-refining programs down to the last bit), and the libnix support for amiga reentrant shared libraries is clunkier than DICEs, and the AmigaOS calls use shedloads of varargs functions, taglists (which I think are cool), linked lists, strange pass-by-reference messaging, funny packed alignments, etc. that egcs isn't as suited for.
- as far a I know, Dillon had it usable on some x86 *nices ( although no optimizing) before he left the Amiga community.
Thank God RMS doesn't procreate. I don't think the world could stand TWO wacked out hippie wannabies. He even makes ME want to use Windows when he starts spouting off his ideoligical bullshit. Let's face it, the reason I use Linux is because the shit is free and I'm cheap and would rather spend $2000 on a really nice PC than $800 on software and $1200 on a crappy PC. To paraphrase him, I've got better things to do with my money like by my woman shiny rocks and get a nicer car.
Umm - most mainstream American's believe that when you do work (like, say, writing a program), you deserve to be paid for it. And that the harder people work, the more money they deserve. And some odd concepts like you should be forced to pay for the things that you get to use. Mainstream America is capitalist. Mainstream academia is much more leftist. It is no coincidence that RMS is from MIT and Boston.
Has RMS even ever gotten laid? I have a feeling most chicks aren't into St. Ignucious. ;-) Maybe he's just jealous that Linus found a great woman and is being a proud father and STILL is working on Linux!
What he said wasn't insulting. People are allowed to have priorities and his just isn't kids.
:-) )
Each to their own, I say. It's Freedom of choice. ( Get it?
The key to all of this is DIVIDE and CONQUER and
apparently it is working.
I would not be surprised if this whole RMS/Linus
thing wasn't staged by M$ as an attempt to divide
the community in order to hold the public's
attention fixed on their products.
Let's face it, GNU/Linux has been getting a lot of
FREE media coverage recently... the same kind of
coverage that cost corporations 'big bucks'.
The $power$ wants to keep everyone ignorant/stupid
and the moment there is a hint of intelligence,
the $power$ creates the 'haves & the 'have nots'.
The 'have nots' ask the 'haves' to share, but that
never happens and is where the division starts.
While the fight continues, the $power$ reaps in
money, and on and on and on.
They have. It's called Debian GNU/Linux.
Great, so what's he bitching about then? Does he want all distros called GNU/Linux?
the FSF declared XFree to be part of GNU
That really doesn't have anything to do with anything though.
Fortunately this time that turns out not to be the case. The people who got stuff done that regular users need *are* getting the credit. Linus, Alan, and Co. (et al) identified a need and filled it. Richie designed an alternate reality and tried to build it. His disappointment is only that his reality didn't engulf ours.
FWIW... I will never generate a single line of code that will go into the GNU project or be assigned to the FSF because of RMS' hypocritical positions. I guess this leaves me out of the standard kernel or egcs code tree but that's the price of my principles. Oh well.. plenty of other fun stuff to do.
Linus has said something to the effect of "making Linux GPL was definitely one of the best things I ever did."
That doesn't convey to me that he finds free software unimportant.
For my irrelevant two cents, I respect RMS for what he's done, not what he tells others to do.
Yeah. The various BSD forks is testimony to your statement concering the BSD's. Yesiree Bob....
If you replaced the userland with tools and
programs that acted the same nobody would
notice. Once you use the same argument as you
are using regarding the kernel, it seems that
maybe the specific origins of the userland
are not that important, eh?
We got a lot from BSD Unix, but you don't see
McKusick and friends out pedalling their
political views do you?
This topic is as funny this time around as it
was last time. In fact, I'm going to have
to repost something Stallman had in his sig
last time he got started on this (the famous
lignux argument on gnu.misc.discuss):
--------
From: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman)
Message-ID:
Organization: A poorly-maintained Debian GNU/Linux reading system.
I am a joke.
--------
Wow, I've considered RMS a nutcase for a while now, since the first time I heard him crying about this. However, this is the first time I've heard about how he's basically living as a street person. What a total nutcase!
I wish I was a programmer, I'd start writing a non-GNU implemenation of the standard Utilities so Linux could use them and not the GNU utilities. For all that goes, couldn't we just use the BSD utilities. I am so SICK of RMS!!!
It's nice to say "another compiler would be", but you need authors. Free BSD's still
don't have a compiler they consider free (i.e. BSD/X-free style license.) Why is
that, if it's so easy to replace the compiler.
The motivation to develop an alternative is
minimal since gcc is available. If gcc wasn't
available, then it's certain that there would
be an alternative. LCC? Or the Plan 9 c compiler?
Might not be free, but certainly indicate that
it's possible to duplicate c compilers.
Yes the kernel is an awesome feat, but not quite as awesome as the rewriting of all the UNIX tools, plus about 5 compilers which compile on about 30 platforms.
Except that RMS didn't rewrite all the UNIX tools, nor is he solely responsible for GCC. I don't see RMS giving credit where credit is due. So not only is he an offensive individual, but he's a hypocrit.
Everybody has a different job. Everyone has their own part to play. That's what makes this whole world go 'round: diversification. You play your part, and I play my part, and RMS plays his part, and John Doe does his part, etc., and hopefully, between us all, what needs to be done gets done.
This is the point here. It's not that having children is good or bad, or easy or damned hard. It needs to be done, and I'm damn glad that people are out there doing it.
RMS has his part to play, too. It is his job to be a thorn in all of our sides, to remind us of the ideals that started all of this. And some people may not agree with those ideals, and that's all the more reason for him to be there: so that those people are forced to confront these ideas and think about them.
Maybe Free Software (free as in "free speech", not as in "free beer") will never achieve Total World Domination. But we need RMS, and Bruce Perens, and people like them, to keep us focused, keep us from giving in to laziness. To make us try to be sure, each time we either write a piece of non-free software, or install one to our system, that it is unavoidable.
We need RMS, _need_ him. He is our conscience, and he keeps us honest.
For the same reason, we should use the term GNU/Linux to remind us of how this thing started, and in my mind, how it should continue.
I saw RMS for the first time at LinuxWorld this week, and let me tell ya, yes, he was abrasive, but I still admire the heck out of the guy, because he said what many people there agreed, at least in their hearts, needed to be said.
Sorry about the AC, forgot my password.
Chris Malek
You can thank him yourself for starting the license and compiler and builds your precious linux kernel.. If the felt need to change the world is not responsibility then I dont know *what is* Do your reputation a favor, and visit gnu.org and read the site...especially gnu.org/philosophy
> What does sex have to do with free software?
Hey man, you haven't been around on the linux
scene too long, have you?. Remember what Linus
said?
Software is like sex, the free-er it is the
better it is.
No, not give your software away. Rather, you release it with the license that says "Anyone who modifies this must include this source and their own".... Now, tell me, what does you more good:
Code for Corporation X for 2 years and design tons of useful code...all OWNED by that corporation...
--Move to another job--
THink you can use that code you just spent 2 years on? Hell no.
If the code were GPL, anyone would be able to use it, including yourself. THe nature of most proprietary shops is that not even the AUTHOR has the right to his own code!
You are as incapable as he of distinguishing between an idea and its implementation/presentation. I have NO problem with the freedom of ideas. Patents are a terrible idea.
Copyrights are another matter.
I'll make this as simple as I can, so that you have a single target to flail at uselessly: ideas are distinct from their expression. "Point and click interface" is distinct from the code used to implement it. One might be patented (sadly); the other is copyrighted. Got it?
If I have an idea, anyone can copy that. Heck, they may have had it before me (and probably did).
If I write code or a book to present the idea, you *can't* copy that (unless I permit it).
This is completely different from the idea itself. Heck, someone could probably do a better job of expressing the idea than I, but that doesn't affect my right to *my* expression of it.
What makes you think that copyright covers ideas? It doesn't. It isn't intended to. Patents cover ideas. These are distinct things, Vic. Copyright covers *expression*, not ideas. That's why you don't have to credit an author for an idea, but you do if you use his words.
Expression, Vic. Not ideas. Got that? Code is an expression of a hacker's idea. That hacker owns that code. It's HIS expression. Someone else can have the same idea and write his own code to express it. No infringement of anyone's rights...unless someone steals our hacker's code.
P.S. Asserting yourself to be the winner in an argument does not make you one.
Thanks for the tip, Vic. Here's one for you: You'd be better off in this argument if you realized that "information" is not a synonym for "idea", and that information is an economic good: obtaining it is not a cost-free exercise. And for heaven's sake, read what your opponent is saying!!!
You are seriously deranged. Period.
Umm...if linux were under a bsd style license
it would be EATEN ALIVE by proprietary companies
since it allows for proprietary releases of the code.... can u say code fork?
I believe he was responding the the money part.
In his eyes, he has more important things to do
than making money, and it takes money to raise kids. Ah hell, who cares what he said, he's RMS.
Love him or hate him...but he'll never prevent you from using gcc
You didn't waste your time...I liked your post. I think you're exactly right about him not silencing others who criticize him. He simply wants people to talk about the Free in free software more. If they don't do this it is very possible (in my opinion) that the internet will become controlled by the few, the rich, the powerful, and not in the hand of the people. When he wishes that people use GPL he is wishing this not for himself, but for everyone. Yes, he is saying that he wishes that you, the author, have no more right over that code than the next person. By saying this, it is saying that you, or your employer, will not have the oppurtunity to use that code to restrict someone else from using it.
Now, if you (anyone) believe you can make a fortune, and want to do so, then simply dont use GNU GPL software. It's very simple. Buy products, and start coding away and hope to sell your own products to customers. Start a business and have a blast
He can't force you to do a thing. He is however, asking that people think about some things.
I believe RMS has valid points. Linus comes, makes a kernel using GNU software. Linus gets fame, RMS is only known in "free software land". Whos fault? No ones. Linus didn't expect his kernel to take off like it did. Richard's fault? No. He has promoted the GNU philosophy very well. I think this is an issue of early distributions naming it "Linux", but including GNU software to use it. This way you would have a complete system and not just a kernel. No one ever expected the Linux kernel to be where it is today. For simplicity people called it "Linux". Everyone back then knew very well what GNU was and who RMS was. But today Linux has grown to reach people on the outside. People who don't know RMS or GNU/FSF don't get taught who/what they are. I was this way myself. I came to Linux about 3 years ago. The first person's name I learned was Linus. It was quite awhile later when I discovered RMS. This was by accident. If I wasn't a programmer and didn't check out source code I would never have known about GPL/FSF. But RMS doesn't have to worry. Every GPL program is another way to spread his ideas of freedom. Many programs today begin with "GNU" in their name (many of which have nothing to do with FSF). I believe he is doing good because programmers are free. Normal people do not care about source code and fixing bugs so they are less apt to learn about the GNU ways -- or care. Then comes a problem. The people who run software companies are not programmers. They hear "Linux" and think of a free (beer) operating system. They never find out who RMS is or what GNU can do for them.
Linus is not responsible for spreading the GNU word. Linus is like every other hacker out there. He probably likes the GNU idea very much, but its just not his job to promote it (whether he disagrees with RMS sometimes or not). We must remember personal beliefs are a freedom too. I am thankful there is an RMS and thankful there is a Linus. I am also thankful there are the lesser-known hackers out there that make up the free software community.
tim
He's just an abrasive, absolutist zealot with poor social skills who thinks ideas are more important than people. Deigning to communicate with the soulless cartoons of so-called "other people" really gets his head in a bad way, man.
You Stallmanites might try growing up in a totalitarian cult some time; Stallman hasn't discovered a new way of thinking about thinking, nor is his m.o. particularly admirable.
He's just an abrasive, absolutist zealot with poor social skills who thinks ideas are more important than people. Deigning to communicate with the soulless cartoons of so-called "other people" really gets his head in a bad way, man.
You Stallmanites might try growing up in a totalitarian cult some time; Stallman hasn't discovered a new way of thinking about thinking, nor is his m.o. particularly admirable.
IMHO he seemed more concerned about all the people using Free Software without even knowing why it exists, how to support its creation, or what Project GNU is all about. He did admit he couldn't be sure ego wasn't also a factor, but sure didn't talk like it was the biggest.
His what? Do you know something about him we don't? Has he told you personally "besides not wanting to waste time on useless work just to support kids, I also have no friends and no lovers"? I remember him posting a story that an early version of Hurd was named after his girlfriend....
So you're sponging off hackers' hard work, simply because it's more convenient not to prevent you. That's fine, there's no rational reason you shouldn't do so. Just don't mistake yourself for someone with important goals.
The gnu official site only shows Hurd 0.2
at June 1997 as the last release.
Debian port to Hurd 0.2? That is a joke.
Com'on, made your own GNU/Hurd!
Project GNU gets very little (surprisingly little, IMHO) publicity from being used in Linux-based systems. All the emphasis is on price and anything-but-Microsoft, while the things Free Software is really about (and why most of this was created!) is all but ignored. Other than the obligatory articles on how weird people think RMS is.
As for not-Unix, at the time Unix was thoroughly proprietary. (Which buyout/merger victor has the trademark this week, anyway?)
syncomm, you watched a lot of MTV growing up, didn't you?
.. so you are now making attacks on a person's lifestyle because you don't agree with what they are saying? You have already proven yourself incapable of understanding or criticising any political political argument. Do you happen to own or choose programming for a television station?
A: Richard Stallman has accomplished more than most of us ever will.
B: "shabby bum he doesn't shave, carries everything he owns in a garbage bag.."
I was always under the impression that Linux
came into being because Linus was tired of the
restrictive licensing of Minix.
He started first, therefore...Linux.
It annoys me that Stallman wants to take
all the credit when there are *so many*
people that contribute to GNU. *sighs*
Hurd snapshots ahve been available continuously since the release of 0.2.
Debian is currently working on the next release of Hurd, 0.3 -- and it's coming along quite nicely. They're developing it in a bazaar-style fashion, which makes for great progress, fast.
The Debian folk are getting very close to having end-user ready distributions of GNU on Hurd; when this happens, expect Hurd development to snowball.
Gee, I'll hold my breath until we see GNU/Solaris shipping... ;^)
If I ever meet the man (RMS) and he corrects ;^) :^) (just kidding) ;^)
me for saying "Linux," I'll just remind him that
I'm free to call it "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux."
My reasoning is this:
1.) The project truly did originate with Linus
2.) Other OSs use GNU tools, and don't have the name GNU attached to the front (GNU/Solaris, anyone?
3.) Otherwise, I'd just punch him
I respect Richard's work (really, I do!) but he needs to stop being so anal about the "GNU/Linux" issue. I personally refuse to call it "GNU/Linux" just because it's so damn hard to say
1. Does RMS think that the average Joe out there is going to care about or fully understand the gradations of free vs. open source vs. GPL, etc. ? The public at large, most of whom do not even know how software works or what source code is, is only now being introduced to the concept of free software and the advantages of the internet based open development paradigm. Since the media is going to sound bite everything to the lowest common denominator, why even attempt to get into any level of detail with them. The vast majority of people have no idea who Babbage, Turing, or VonNeuman were. So it will be with RMS. Even Linus' new "fame" is actually quite limited in scope. The average person still has no clue about him. That being the case, why should RMS care about the media? He has already gained widespread recognition in the UNIX community, and will surely have a place in history - along with other great individuals that most people have no clue about either.
/. spell? A sophisticated grasp of language and syntax is required in programming. A priori, one would think that computer programmers would be *better* spellers. Yet, it is not so.
2. RMS is jealous. He has sacrificed greatly for his cause - no family, no job, no material possessions, etc. - yet, he has been scooped by a beer-drinkin, breeding, partying, job-having, probably soon-to-be-rich, likable guy who produced in his "spare time" (with lots of friends) what RMS and the FSF have not been able to.
3. If RMS pursues his cause so that the world will be a better place, then he must care deeply about people. Why then does he verbally abuse them? Why does he slight people who choose to have families? ( Overpopulation is not the cause of problems in *this* country! - distribution of the population may be). I find it hard to respect people who claim to care about the class Human, but not for most of the instances.
4. Linus *is* humble, but IMHO he should probably put more emphasis on the collaborative nature of Linux during interviews. Mention Alan Cox and others more. He would still be the figurehead.
5. It is obvious that what is needed is the SlashDot (or some other eprominent site) hall of fame, where photos, bios, code contributions, religion, politics, etc. of each significant contributor can be explored. The RMS shrine could be the first to be erected.
6. (Not related) Why can't so many people on
hgdh..
Tell Richard that I have no idea how to rival him, or his work, towards the betterment of humanity. In the course of my life I have often had dreams
that "I should create a nicer world". The same dream came to me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but always said the
same or nearly the same words: This is the noblest and best of causes. Since then, I imagined that this was meant only in jest, surely;
the effort of one person is not enough to make the tiniest difference. I
thought it would be easier if I satisfied myself with a bigger house,
a better job, and rejoice at passing out a life. Today, my name is on the
deed of that house, and that job-title has my name. And yet, I realize that
I have worked most of my life, acquiring things that turned out to be
of little importance. Tell Richard, that I have made no difference in
this world. I choose not to fight. With the agony of defeat I go away.
Linux, and various other projects like OpenBSD, NetBSD, Hurd.. could be released only in the state it is today, and for tomorrow, using a toolchain such as GNU. A lot of the software released for Linux even depend on GNU toolchain. Sir. Richard did develop parts of that toolchain. And?? About computers and the industry I think it is cool to see Richard still trying to do, and be who he want to be, hopefully, what he did, does and works on...still I'm amazed he doesn't try some other stuff than computers, e. g. Soo much time..to live: RESPECT!!! :-)
Every day millions of americans use math in one form or another. They don't have to pay a cent to anyone for that right. I guess its a country full of communists...
Free Software and capitalism can mix quite fine.
When you write a program you get payed. If other people later can use that program, it doesn't lower the amount of cash you got when you wrote the program in the first place, does it?
What's unnatural (if such a concept can be applied to economics) is that some people wrote a program and later get a lot of money because other people happened to want to use it. They do no further work and they still get money for it. They even want money from people that does the work (ie copying CDs to their friends)!
A lot of "mainstream"/shrinkwrapped programs could just as well be developed by usergroups. A usergroup (ie the paper industry organisation) pays a company a lot of money to develop a program they need (an word processor for example). This way would probably be cheaper for the companies as well since they wouldn't have to pay for a lot of things they have to pay for today:
- Copy protection.
- Marketing.
- Market research.
- Spending time on counting copies of the program in the organisation.
- Spending time to see if their use of the program is legal according to the license.
- Spending CPU and network resources on license manager programs.
- Getting hacked through the license manager programs!
If other industries later found the program usefull fine. They in turn might have funded other programs that would be useful for the first usergroup.all i can say is 'wow'. i haven't read something this ignorant in a long while. the fact that rms reminds you of hitler instantly makes you one of the most reprehensible creatures i've ever come across. then to prove your ignorance, after stating that a man who has devoted his life to free software reminds you of one of history's most evil men responsible for millions of deaths, you go on to say you "would most likely give him the beating of his life" if he made a simple demand of you (one that you are under NO obligation to satisfy). the blatant hypocrisy of this is shocking! i find it amazing that an individual such as yourself was ever admitted to a university. perhaps while you are there you can enroll in a history course and enlighten yourself, otherwise please do the gene-pool a favor and win a darwin award.
"without Linus, the whole free software movement would probably still be an academic curiousity" ;), everyone I know has replaced the core of their system with the free GNU tools ever since they've been available. They are simply better. I can't imagine life with ksh and cc... *shudder*
Maybe to the x86 crowd... but, as far as those of us that have always used UNIX ("real computers"
Oh man... it's a good thing you posted anonymously... I guess Slashdot isn't just for geeks after all.
As you may well be aware of the TANGUS project has been working night and day to replace all the GNU utilities found in almost all Linux distros. We need MORE programmers to join us in this most important crusade against RMS. Until we can replace EACH and EVERYONE of the GNU parts of Linux RMS will be around to haunt us and damage the good reputation which the Linux community fought so hard to attain.
So come visit our website today, join up and who knows tomorrow free software might actually be 100% free!
William S B - Cofounder of This Ain't No GNU Shite
The GPL does not deny you any right to do what you wish with your own code.
The GPL is designed to limit what you can do with *OTHER* peoples code. If you wish to use the code under GPL, then you have to abide by those rules.
I write GPL code. It's *NOT* a gift. It's not charity work. It is about sharing. You may share my code if I may see what you do with it. You pay to use GPL code, but you do not pay with money, you pay by helping with the available GPL codebase. For you, it's a tradeoff. Which is best for you? Use the GPL code and contribute or rewrite it all in a proprietary fashion and do what you want with *your* code?
The GPL, ultimately, isnt about your freedom to do what you wish, even in an abusive manner. It's about the freedom of the code. Code under the GPL will always remain free, despite some people wanting to make the code less than free.
You're thinking about it in the wrong way. Think about the code as an object with certain properties. It has the property 'free'. You may change, improve or duplicate the object so it better fits your needs, but do not have the freedom to change that property. But that doesnt change the fact that the property remains. It is free.
That's bullshit. Our resource problems are political, not absolute. Earth could sustain 20x as many people if we were learn to distribute basic necessities more efficiently and less maliciously. Warm, well-fed people are so much better long-term.
...course...in RMS's case...*shrug*
hmmm.... I didn't know Rush Limbaugh read Slashdot!
How's it goin' fat ass?
You write:
- QUOTE -
I love free software; I love the quality of it. I deeply appreciate the time that the authors of it have invested. But the bottom line is that free code is a GIFT. It is not an obligation.
- ENDQUOTE -
That's where you're wrong. It's been pointed a lot that "free software" is not like "free beer" but like "freedom of speech". You have been granted the right to use free software, but if you distribute it, you have the responsability and obligation to distribute it freely.
- QUOTE -
For that matter, it's worth pointing out that the GPL actually restricts my freedom! I cannot do
just anything with GPL-ed code. So Stallman's blathering about "free" software is a little disingenuous. What he really means is that he (or the FSF) should dictate how we use software.
- END QUOTE -
And that is where you're completely missing the point and showing that if anyone's a fanatic, it's you.
Saying that the GPL has restrictions is like saying that freedom of speech has restrictions because you're not allowed to shout FIRE in a theatre or because you're not allowed to take away the freedom of speech from other people.
We're talking about moral and political freedom, not about your cheap consumerist freedom here.
The GPL is a great philosophical work. GPL is about software that's free and cannot be unfreed by people not "people free to do whatever they fucking like, fuck other people".
The GPL is as free as anything can get.
All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy. All work and no play makes Rick a dull boy.
hehehehe,
Just kidding Richard. I, for one, DON'T think you're a nutcase... I just couldn't resist.
just so long as they don't symlink /usr to / ...
Amazing. Potentially the best operating system we can
have at the moment, and RMS is comparing penis length
with Linus. Thats what it comes down to, really. Doesn't matter that
people use and love your software every day. That's not
good enough -- we gotta have the NAME splashed all over,
to feed that fucking planet-eating ego. This is the sort
of childish bullshit that is going to keep Linux from
being taken 100% seriously. Work TOGETHER, and take
comfort in the fact that you're molding a better future
for everyone.
You could get more details by perusing DejaNews. But anyway, there's a woman whose name I've forgotten... she's a USENET groupie and has boffed a few USENET celebrities, including RMS. She tends to break up with her paramours VERY publicly, over USENET - which is how we found out.
Which makes his dedication even more impressive. I could easily imagine a virgin not knowing what he was missing and dedicating his life to some cause, but RMS has been there and STILL slaves away on Free Software. Way to go!
Don't ask me how to pronouce it.
You know, I'm really REALLY getting sick of RMS, and
ass kissers like you. RMS and the FSF are quickly
losing my respect (and apparently, I'm not alone). Life sucks.
We all get the bad end of the stick sometimes. You
don't go NUTS in a public forum when someone says something
that doesn't agree with you. RMS has ZERO social
skills. He's the WORST example of old school hackers.
I'm seriously suprised he didn't drool all over the place
during the interview -- thats the next step down in
development. Genius award or not.
Mmm, kissy, kissy.
Security and reliability - if / is on a separate partition to /usr, then you have a marginally greater chance of fixing things if things go wrong, and it makes serving binaries across a network more manageable. Basically, the HURD argument for symlinking /usr to / sums up as - "aha! this way, they'll *have* to use our groovy transluscent filesystem that we think is cool to store the core stuff on one physical device and the other stuff on another" - to get what is basically the same functionality. Then again, the transluscent thing is a good idea... I just wouldn't want to /have/ to use it - there's also no reason why it would be an exclusive HURD feature, it could be folded into Linux, and QNX already has similar functionality.
Ooooh, didn't see THAT cumming, eh? (Yes, that was a joke. ;))
Haha no I'm not a hacker, I just don't like the window GUI idea. Full-screen GUIs are the way to go for most things if you ask me.
Lhig-nucks. Kind of like "lug-nuts". That'd :D
piss EVERYONE off.
Yeah! Once I asked RMS to suck me off, and he said "Sure,
share the software", then screamed loudly for no apparent
reason, and I dropped my drawers, then he went at it
like the bad mutha he is. We call him the 'White
Shaft' down here. Free Software never felt so good!
THATS why we should call it GNU/Linux.
Uh because it's superior? RMS says something like they want to finish it because they've already put so much work into it. RMS has said many times he's not concerned about technological advancements. But I would like to see HURD finished just because it would be so much better than Linux.
Great. That should last us another 5 years. :}
Sorry, but you don't have the foggiest idea what you are talking about. What do you do with your code? You are GIVING it to the world to use under certain terms, without requiring payment. If you don't think that's a gift then you need to go back to English 101 and learn some vocabulary.
And this is precisely the problem with RMS: he is demanding payment (in the form of attention and glory) for something he is giving away. The fact that Emacs, gcc, and other stuff is well-done has nothing to do with it. If he wants thanks all he has to do is make the GPL "thank-you ware" (wherein the user is required to drop RMS a line expressing gratitude).
The GPL is designed to limit what you can do with *OTHER* peoples code.
Exactly. It RESTRICTS freedom. What is it RMS says all the time? "Software wants to be free." Yet he is restricting freedom. Part of freedom is being able to do proprietary things if you wish, right? Yet RMS seeks to restrict this. Again -- it's his code, or your code, and you can do what you want with it. But it's a disingenuous lie to say that the GPL "frees" code. If you want a free license, try the Berkeley license. You can do whatever you want with their stuff, for the "price" of retaining a copyright notice (in source code you don't have to release). But spare me the quaint but stupid notion that the GPL makes software "free." It's only partially free.
Code under the GPL will always remain free
Code under the GPL will always remain partially free. You're smoking something if you think that GPL code is free in comparison to BSD-licensed code. Either that, or you're a religious zealot.
Gee, didn't see the penis comparison joke coming. ;)
Anyhow, I sincerely doubt Linus was 'egotistical'
concerning the naming of Linux. While I'm not Lin-history
major, I've read at least in previous posts, that
it was originally "Frenix or Linux", and Linux won
out. (This is something I've REALLY got to look into.)
Were Linus truely egotistical, I doubt he'd have put
the kernel under the GPL, and allowed so many OUTSIDERS
to tinker with the code. On the other hand, you've got RMS
beating down everyones door with his GNU/Linux exasperations.
How is my "moral and political freedom" in any way impacted by GPL-ed code? Give me a break. Bafflegab like this shows why "St. IGNUcious" (or whatever he calls himself; nice religious imagery, that) is a fanatic with nary a grip on how economics and freedom actually work.
It's really very simple: either RMS is a religious whack (who is also a great hacker), or he doesn't really believe his own press releases (in which case he's a fraud). I'm inclined to believe he's a sincere whack.
Lastly, I simply cannot resist: please describe for me how on earth you arrive at the utterly ludicrous conclusion that GPL-ed software does not represent a gift.
By making "free software" (so-called) an ethical issue, RMS demonstrates that he is a religious nut. Deal with it.
He wrote the fucking KERNEL. What makes you think
he, or someone else he worked with, couldn't have
written the tools needed to get the job done? Taken
longer? Perhaps. But impossible without GNU?
Don't count on it.
The problem is that Linus T. has no charisma whatsoever. He's an utterly mediocre person. Maybe that's why the AVERAGE man on the street can relate to him?
Sort of like Bill Gates, actually...
You say "By making "free software" (so-called) an ethical issue, RMS demonstrates that he is a religious nut. Deal with it."
So making something an ethical issue constitutes being a religious nut in your view.
I think you just proved my point that you're the fanatic, annd a nihilist libertarian at that.
If your plumbing just went south and you cannot get one to repair it because it's not plumbers time to work right now you'll know.
It's nice some people do not have to work 9-5 (a rare case in some jobs anyway) but to be able to do so others have to.
You know where your nose is ? Good, there's a beyond, believe me.
you dumb xenophobic american sixpack idiot
You offend me. I know I'm never going to have a family other than my parents and siblings. And I know that Richard M. Stallman has done some wonderful things. I just wish we could get back to improving the world, without overtly imposing our viewpoints upon eachother. Except that's somewhat contradictory, as to what we see as "improving the world". So just leave us alone; you do what you feel is right, we will do as we. It would be nice to show some appreciation, but it would be nicest if you weren't have to be forced to do so.
Since RMS want a correct name for Linux, he should at least
get a new name that is easier for everyone to remember.
How about calling it 'GNU/Linux Operating System' (GLOS)?
still, without FSF and GNU, Linux would be just a kernel with no use.
If you examine the rise of the trade unions in the United States, I think you'll find more than a few similarities to the current debate that is dividing the Linux community.
The union movement was founded by the Socialists, a doctrinaire group of individuals who believed that it was necessary to change the world in order to ensure that the lowly workers got their fair share of the pie. It didn't take long, however, for a subcommunity to emerge that wished simply to apply the Socialists' principles to their specific situations as a means to address local problems. These folks eventually came to be known as the Wobblies, a name derived from their tendency to vascillate between the principles of socialism and captialism. Needless to say, modern trade unions exhibit many aspects of textbook socialism, but we still live in a (more or less) democratic society. In other words, the Wobblies won.
FWIW, I have a great deal of respect for Linus, AC, and ESR, who continue to stump for the cause of free software, but who are intelligent enough to recognize the value of compromise with the suits. In contrast, I feel that despite their immense personal contributions, the pedagoic philosophies of folks like RMS and Bruce Perens will only continue to factionalize the contributed software movement along ideological boundaries.
I think it's time for the Linux community to decide what it's real goal is: does it really aspire to world domination, or will it be content to relegate Linux to being the One True OS of the technical elite?
So someday nobody knows who RMS was, but was that
what GPL was intended to be?
Not to get into the stupid flamewars or offend people with slower computers, but... I installed KDE 1.1 yesterday, with the MacOS theme. It is remarkably consistent for an X11-based GUI, with lots of conformant programs. It's not quite as good a GUI as the Macintosh, yet (e.g. hotkeys aren't standardized, I don't think there's smart mouse attractors in the menubar, etc.) I imagine GNOME has similar functionality now that it's at 1.0.
Why is it that you believe this?
Could you be any more melodramatic??
Is there a guilt clause in the GPL?
Crybaby.
You're a messed up, sad little shit... Perverts
like you will cause the downfall of modern
"civilization". (And no, I'm not a Christian. Jesus was a faggot anyways.)
Ok, look out for a completely new, free (BSD/X-style) optimizing C/C++ compiler in a couple of years. I will do it, and I will not let anyone know it was me.
I wonder what Darwin would think...the supposed smart people deciding it would be better not to breed while the stupidest people pump out baby after baby. For Christ's sake, kid, if you're so smart have some kids and save us from the future.
You don't think this is just the slightest bit odd?
RMS: "You evil being. Your software isn't free (by my self-serving definition of the word)."
You don't find that just the slightest bit...odd?
Not counting RMS, yourself, and the rest of the FSF cult, how many people do you know who think that the "freedom" of software is or even should be an ethical issue?
Heck, I could declare for myself that eating fruitcake is intrinsically immoral. You don't think that would make me just a little -- nutty?
I'll answer the question for you. Yes, it would make me more than just slightly odd. And RMS is a whack in the same way.
And he's a religious whack because you can't separate ethics from religion/philosophy/worldview/whatever you want to call it.
Yes, I guess you're right: *I* am the nutcase because I see clearly that it is idiocy to identify the "freedom" of software as a moral issue.
If this is really the best you have to offer, I pity you.
> Remember that when you type "make", "gcc",
:)
> "bash", "gas", "gdb", "emacs", "cp", "mv", "ls",
> "less".... Do I really need to say anything
> more?
Gimme a break, RMS nor FSF wrote the FIRST
make, gas, cp, mv, ls, less(aka more)!!!!.
You think that those poor bastards on AIX and
Solaris and HPUX have to run their system without
cp, mv make, ls
BASH == Bourne Again Shell - nothing fucking new
about this - a combination of Ksh, sh and csh!.
GDB == Nothing fucking new about debuggers!.
Remember dbx or BSD 3x?. Infact sdb on Sun was
really nice!.
Emacs == perhaps the most bloated piece of shiite.
Remember how RMS put his foot down on the fact
that Back space shouldn't be used to erase
characters and only Del should be?. Remember that
99% of the world back in 1986 was using editors
that did deletes using Back space. We've seen
RMS's "genious" we should be fearful in th
future.
Gas == nothing new here....move along!. Heck
what about NASM or as?
So what has RMS contributed that we haven't seen
before or cannot reprogram without GPL?. The big
kudos go to UCSD, Berkeley, AT&T and UC SantaCruz.
These guys did majority of the work defining
the syntax and sematics of all the tools. FSF
leeched their ideas and slapped GPL on their code.
If you were in Univeristy back in 198x (which
I suspect most of you weren't) you had all the
source code to BSD 3x and SYSV from AT&T. You
could modify anything you wanted!.
All RMS is doing is replacing the Copyright
University of Berkeley (The FreeBSD clause) with
CopyLeft Free Software Foundation!. Talk about
double standards!.
I'm right now trying to build a Linux distrubution
based on BSD system utilities and using the BSDcc
compiler - I just want to prove that FSF software
isn't vital to Linux. I will promise you that
there WILL be a Linux distribution free of any
FSF software....what are you gonna do then?.
There's no clause in GPL saying you cannot have a
kernel without GPL utilities!.
Citing three examples of brilliant people who didn't have kids and made breakthroughs in their lives doesn't prove anything!!! List all the great minds of the last few hundred years back to Newton, figure out how many had kids, and get back to us.
That Richard doesn't see Linux as the greatest achivement of the GNU movement. Linux is GNU software too.
I think that Richard is just mad because he was writing the perfect new kernel to use all the GNU utilities and some nobody from a non-American country beat him to the punch. Now no one is running the HURD and he blames Linus.
Yes, free software is important, but you scare people Richard. Look at yourself. You refuse to even work for a company. MicroSloth could you use as the posterchild for the free software movement and scare the hell out of corperations.
Most of us are quite content to work within corporations. They meet the need of stability in our hieracy of needs. This then allows us the time and equipment to make improvements to the code.
Please lighten up Richard. We appreciate the work that you have done. But we will not allow you to belittle the achievement that Linus has made. He is the one that achieved sythesis of all of your work, not you.
It is time to move over and share the throne.
That is a very good point! Glad I found it in this sea of noise.
Ron Rangel
...now back to flaming...
No. Anonymity is irrelevent in an argument. It is what is said that matters, not who says it.
I'm not the original poster, so don't get snippy about ignoring the rest of your Real Big Words. I do not care.
P.S. The "dude" thing is a little too cute.
What an ill-informed and irrelevant analogy. Do you really think that Wobblies (anarcho-syndicalists that believe that the only way to achieve socialism is through one big union, one big general strike) are :
i.less ideologically driven than "socialists"
ii. make more compromises with Capitalism
iii. "won" in the U.S.
If you do, then I humbly suggest that you are in need of doing a LOT more reading. However, as you are obviously content with not doing enough work to inform yourself I suggest that you might try an empirical approach and examine how many wobbly influenced organizations there are and how many trade-union influenced organizations there are. Big hint: the Teamsters, the AFL-CIO both contradict your assertion.
In case you are reacting to this posting by perceiving it as a criticism of wobblies, it isn't. I have more sympathy for their policies than I do for most other organizations.
Your post relies on the false opposition of Wobblies and "socialists". Wobblies ARE socialists, they just have a different idea of how to go about achieving their goal than do the Trade-Unionists, or revolutionary communists or class-war anarchists or democratic socialists.
Finally, what's all this about "world-domination"? Why do you care about what other people run on their machines as long as they have the CHOICE? It sounds demented. It also sounds as though you assume that "people" are too stupid to run Linux without some sort of change in the way things are now. It is relatively easy to run and use Linux. Yes you have to learn some stuff, but most people are able to read books and push buttons. Linus and RMS did all the hard stuff for us.
Posted by "Crush" who was too lazy to log in.
RMS is just a jerk. He likes to be brutal about everything. Berating people for announcing the birth of a child is not what leaders of a movement should be doing. Carmack was trashing computers. If RMS wants to talk trash about computers, fine. But when he starts to yap about families and other "real life" things he needs to realize that he's way out of his element. It's dumb shit like that that always makes him look bad, and if he had a clue he would stop doing it.
Hey, Ernie! Give me a call when you get out of the institution! I've got some good fucking pills here!
Uh, dude, you're like getting paranoid and stuff? Like maybe you should lay off the weed awhile, dude.
It IS true that Linus is getting "100%" credit for Linux, which he is responsible for what like 10% (of the kernel) which is 3% of Linux.
/. are shortlived (ah! I get it!).
Linus *IS* generally a humble person... so humble in fact that he meekly avoids all debate. He doesn't really take credit for "Linux", by his inaction he does allow the media to continue attributing him for what we call Linux. "GNU/Linux" does NOT roll off the tongue... but certainly this can be corrected in print.
Slashdot could certainly afford to type "GNU/Linux" in place of "Linux", but they choose not to because NOBODY supports RMS, right?? He's irritating to deal with, so make sure he has no seat on Linux.com, and make sure supportive posts on
Ironically, Bill Gates is arguably as irritable as RMS... but he gets credit for things he DIDN'T do.
You can label RMS a commie fanatic (whatever THAT means), but he's putting his money where his mouth is and writing code which even his detractors cannot live without. If he were fanatically capitalist like BG NO ONE would even care about his personality.
Everyone who makes sacrifices for the good of others deserves to have history recorded, not this bullshit John Wayne-type history rewriting Linus doesn't seem to mind TOO much...
If the general puplic can't appreciate RMS's
contributions for their own merit and simply
judge him on his appearence, you and the general
public can go *screw*!
The general public is content to watch
everything else slide down the tubes while
passively drooling at the TV.
VIVA RMS!, screw you.
"Anyone who thinks 'some goal' is more important
than intamacy, has growing up to do."
What a shallow and mediocre perspective
you have. I pity you.
Never met him so I dont know what he's really like... Quite frankly I believe RMS is a nut bag, one of those rare people that sits on the border between genius and "insanity" or in his case self delusional egomania.
To me it seems like RMS is whining, "oh look at me, look at me, I'm special, what I did was just as important and critical". The truth is the ultimate hack was the OS. In a "society" where the adulation goes to the person with the greatest hack.. in this case Linus gets it becuase the OS is quite simply that...the supreme hack!
Now dont get me wrong, RMS has done lots of great stuff and his legacy will be the GPL, not gcc, or emacs or all the other little programs that go one top but the GPL itself. He should be proud to see that people use it, that should be enough, but its not because he wants all the public recognition that Linus is getting. RMS wont get it, because RMS is quite simply to "fringe". It is not realistic to believe that all software should be "free" both in cost or freedom sense and Linus understands this. RMS is steadfast in his opinion that his way should be the only way and well it doesn't mesh with other peoples beliefs and as shown rubs some people the wrong way.
The idea of the GPL is great though, and encouraging people to work together for the greater good of everyone is something that many people believe in and value. But you cant force everyone too believe it.
RMS want the attention and maybe he deserves a little but he's not going to get it because he is not good at PR and would make a horrible poster child for the OSS movement.
Maybe had RMS's hands not gone bad on him he would have written the kernel and got the attention but I doubt it. Linus in a weird way endears himself to people. He's got that vibe that he's an easy going guy who's just having fun and is glad that people like what he's done and that good things can be done with it... but he doesnt come across like a holier than thou preacher. Linus is good PR, he's a perfect poster child.
The name should be Linux/X not GNU/Linux after all its not called MS Win9X/Office is it?
Richard Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project around 1983. He wrote gcc, emacs, gdb, etc. The GNU Project created hundreds of programs : bash, the GNU File Utilities, mc, gnome, gimp, etc. I'm using this software. It's great.
GNU also created the General Public License. The GPL is a very important license to enable the bazaar-style of software development to actually work. FSF, most importantly RMS, constantly advocated Free Software, defended programmers around the world to get the rights they deserve.
There seem to be problems with the definition of Operating System. In my opinion, OS is a synonym for kernel. The OS I'm using is Linux. However, my system, the distribution I'm using, is GNU/Linux. I don't really care about names. But I do think we must give credits to the people who deserve them. RMS/Linux wouldn't be a good name. RMS might be the founder of GNU, but he ISN'T GNU. However, "Linux" as a name for the entire system, including the core programs like bash, cp, ls, gcc, etc. isn't good either. It might be easier to pronounce, but that's it.
So I prefer the name GNU/Linux. Anyway, this is something that can be discussed. But when I see these comments, in which people are comparing RMS with Hitler, Stalin, a crying baby, a piece of shit that doesn't have a life, I get sad. Sad, because this is not what I expected from this community. RMS might be a weirdow, but what he has done for the hacking community is incredibly important and the way you folks are talking about him is... I can't find the words for it...
Check out www.gnu.org/philosophy. Read about the history of GNU. Read the jargon file. Just INFORM yourself so you know what you're talking about.
One last thought... I would really suck if this philosophical issue would stop people from using GNU/Linux... You don't have to agree to work together... Personnally I like the things RMS says, and I share his ideas. But that doesn't mean that I won't use or like programs/texts made by people that think otherwise ! Although I don't fully agree with the Open Source people that want to have as much GNU/Linux users as possible, I think they're important too for our community. They are the link between us and the Real World (tm). It's because of them that Quake III Arena will be released for X. But it's because of RMS/FSF that this community his a got a soul. We need electrons to produce electricity, but we also need morons to produce morality.
GNU/Linux. (>) Copyleft 1983-1999 The Free Software Foundation - All Rights Reversed.
[wb, wilde_beast@usa.net]
I like GNU tools, and do respect the authors.
But there are many more programmers working
throughout the wolrd than just those as FSF.
The name "GNU/Linux" is attempt by RMS to demand more respect than anyone else.
RMS acts like a 10 year old on this issue.
A person/origanization that gives in to/accepts this "GNU/Linux" name is merely showing me that they accept the foolish politics of RMS.
The name of a Linux distribution does not really matter to me. But in this case, the "GNU/Linux" name = politics, and I do not agree with the politics.
Did I not mention that what you "hope" means nothing to me? And I run a Linux server. That's why I read Slashdot. It's not like I'd come here to be closer to idiots like you.
I'm aware of how much "GNU software makes things work" on my system. Notice how I'm still not bowing to anyone else's wishes regarding which naming conventions I use. Don't like it? Tough shit.
"...which worth is nothing to everyone else."
Now that I've been chastised by the master of grammar, I'm quite apologetic.
Somehow, in stating that I don't respect your wishes, I must have neglected to mention that your opinion of me will meet with a similar response.
OK, maybe I'm just misinterpretting things, but it seems that RMS is complaining about the loss of a right that he gave away a long time ago. By putting all the GNU stuff under GPL he gave away rights such as determining the name of later products that uses his code. He can't decide not to let Linux use GNU stuff, because he gave up those rights (if he ever had them to begin with).
While he can whine as much as he wants to, he should look at this as a lesson. Control of naming is something he gives away in his pursuit for freedom.
What a lame idea...
I'll stick to calling it Linux, because that is what it is.
Time to start porting those BSD distros' tools
to Linux, perhaps? I was toying with doing that
for their libc, after the glibc-2.1 saga...
S.
Linux has no code in common with Minix, AFAIK. It was originally developed in Minix, but the compiler was gcc from the beginning, and I suspect the assembler may have been gas, as well. So the GNU project certainly helped Linux get started.
Since the Open Group would sue the pants off anyone who marketed Linux as Linux Unix or something similar, I can see why it is not done.
Doesn't *BSD use a BSD userland? Sure, they use gcc, but the rest of the tools are non-GNU, I think. I haven't used *BSD, though, so I might be wrong.
I say RMS rocks.
Without his fierce, uncompromising idealism, the entire free software
movement would be much diluted, and would possibly not exist at all.
I respect this sort of a lion; agree or disagree, there is nothing
wishy-washy about him.
And as far as the half-assed comments about RMS needing to get a
life; he's GOT one. One with a very intense focus, that placid sheep
will never understand.
So if it's not GNU, that makes it proprietary?
Geeeez... I have to speak up here. Did you ever read Steven Levy's great book 'Hackers'?
Read about RMS participating with entire groups of people in the MIT computer lab, sharing an unusual intimacy much like people on a shared mission?
Read about how the LISP machine wars broke up the computer lab, and the precursor to free software (because nobody had considered there was another way to _be_) got _destroyed_ by the purchase of all the hackers at MIT, who were put under nondisclosure agreements and made to not share code and ideas?
Read about how the MIT computer lab, once a place of idea sharing and enthusiasm, was rendered _empty_ and dead?
Read about how RMS was driven to _tears_ even years later by the anguish of this loss?
Read about how he, singlehandedly, with nothing left for him but vengeance, reverse engineered the work of an entire _team_ of brilliant hackers? And implemented everything in original, novel ways to avoid any risk of IP violation- all by himself matching the work of a _group_ of _brilliant_ programmers formerly of MIT themselves?
And finally, as the LISP star passed, sought to find a productive way to contribute to society- but never ever risk the destruction of the community he loved- which he was forced to watch happen once already, due solely to proprietary software forcing hackers to not talk about their work and ideas?
I'm sorry, but I'm incredibly offended by this portrayal of RMS as a unfeeling robot. You seem to have no _idea_ who you're talking about, or any notion of what he went through to make him such a zealot. He shared his life in the most deep, committed, almost loverlike way with a group of other hackers- and this was torn from him by the LISP machine fiasco, and he would go around at the time saying his _wife_ had died and showing every evidence of it- only this 'wife' was the community of hackers he remembered!
He already has found himself as lonely as can be imagined- over the LISP machine issue, over proprietary software killing the communication and community he loved. How dare you condemn him for a heartlessness that does not apply to him?
I'm sorry, this post really bothered me. Please consider the background of the person and his value system and what he has loved passionately in the past before making snap judgements about his personality.
Several things:
1) You are correct in saying that Linus wrote the original Linux kernel, but he did not write the current (2.x.x) kernels. He has a significant percentage of the kernel code, but he himself estimates that much less than half the kernel code is his. Alan Cox probably has nearly as much code as Linus, if not more, yet he gets much less recognition than Linus does.
2) the GNU/Linux OS is not the same thing as the Linux kernel. That would be like saying that the name of Windows is "Win32" or that the name of OS/X is "Mach"
3) The Linux kernel was heavily influenced by Minix. However, most of the rest of the OS had already been written by the GNU project. The kernel was just the last needed piece of the OS (Since the "real" GNU kernel, HURD, is taking much much longer than envisoned).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
you fail to mention that egcs is not some sort of new compiler built from scratch. It, too, owes much to the FSF for developing the gcc compiler it is based on.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
A minor point: Steve Wozniak is the real architect of Apple's success. Jobs succeeded in largely killing the company by insisting on abandoning the ][ series and going through with fiascos such as the Apple /// and Apple Lisa.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Yes, he was instrumental in the original marketing of the Apple ][, but after that he pretty much succeeded in throwing away Apple's dominance. The Macintosh was more successful than the /// or the Lisa, but not nearly as successful as the ][. He should've stuck with the ][ line, as the Apple ][gs, which was barely supported or advertised at all, was a quite powerful machine for its time, and had the advantage of being backwards-compatible with all that ][ software everybody had. Intel knows the value of backwards compatibility, but apparently Jobs did not.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Posted by Charles Bronson:
What a putz. I don't believe any of that crap he spews about not wanting kids. That seems like an easy way of explaining why he's like 40 and has probably never had a date in his life. I mean, would you want someone as abrasive as Richard Stallman as your husband or dad? Perish the thought! Then again, maybe it's best that RMS doesn't procreate. Maybe he's jealous of Linus' wife and kids.
Posted by !ErrorBookmarkNotDefined:
I vote for Mega-RMS. He fights with recursion,
making him a team. The group always wins over
individuals. RMS Kung-Fu is Better.
-----------------------------
Computers are useless. They can only give answers.
Posted by patg:
It's not like Linus is the one asking for the fame. Who's to say what people should or shouldn't think?
Why can't we just be happy that Linux is where it is and let it be at that? Every week there's some article of this sort. It's really tiring.
I don't care about the politics. I just want everything to work well, and do my daily tasks without being annoyed.
The rest is seems to be ego-inspired political nit-picky trivialities.
Posted by D3V17X:
What the coward want's to say is that he is a (wanabe) H4XQ3R and X is for sissies.
Richard should know that _anything_ he says about Linus which is
not completely and totally complimentary will be rebroadcast as
whining. Here's a clue Rick; don't waste what credibility you
have by lamenting Linus's good fortune. Share in it and build
upon it.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
1) maybe Alan Cox doesnt care?
2) !
3) I 2nd this. and wait for the utils coded in perl.
did he ever mention the kernel he developed emacs on?
The Founding Fathers of the U.S. were all well-heeled gentlemen . Many of them owned slaves; many of them were rapists, their acts conveniently sheltered under the purview of "property rights". Many of them took particular glee in fucking over the original inhabitants of the land. Yet somehow these men still get well-deserved credit (even from me) for nation-building.
If we're going to judge RMS by his appearance and belief system and by whether or not he "plays well with others", we're in pretty sad shape. Linus birthed the kernel, but the kernel itself isn't the soul of Linux, X/Linux, GNU/Linux, or RedHat Linux. Whose idea was it to invent the GPL, under which Linux has made all this progress. Who wrote gcc and emacs? Credit where credit is due. Call Linux what you want - call it Bob, for all I care - but this gratuitous bullshit RMS-bashing has got to stop. It's bad for our karma :)
--
--
=8^
Ask any sole proprietor about the responsibility; ask any full-time painter, sculptor, writer, musician...
To have a crusade is not to take responsibility. I don't care how many kids he has. I don't care if he has a wife or a house. But the FSF apparently does charge an awful lot for the CD's it presses. And the printed documentation is really cheesy (consisting of, mostly, copies of the manifesto and so on). That isn't really responsible.
The prices are ridiculous, but that's economics: why are many college textbooks relatively expensive? They don't have the luxury of a mass audience to recover the costs.
Many, many people have contributed to emacs and gcc. It isn't just his puppy (although he may well have written the originals by himself).
But isn't that the point of the (his) GPL and (his notion of) "sharing the software"?
OTOH, if I didn't have to work all day, I could write some pretty neat stuff too...
I don't know RMS' itinerary, but I suspect he's worked hard in the past, continues to do so, and will in the future. I ask you what I asked the previous troll: Who the fuck are you? Since when is coding and crusading not work, or a responsibility? And top of all that, he's put his ass on the line every day, risking (and receiving) public ridicule for the severity (and content) of his stances, and for the unconventionality of them. It's really quite easy to shrink from such a grand undertaking - 99.9% of us have chosen such shrinkage. RMS has not, it seems, backed down at all from his original vision. The man has willfully chosen a very bumpy and quixotic Road Less Traveled; he deserves respect for that, not ridicule. Some of the people (like RMS) who receive MacArthur Fellowships are people who've pretty much had to sweat blood to receive recognition for their work, because often that work doesn't conform to the Mo' Money ethos that unfortunately grips the society.
I'm not asking you to agree with him - I myself am typing this on a non-Free browser, with - on my desktop - a non-Free RealPlayer and apps using a non-Free Qt (...but at least I wrote 'em on emacs and compiled with gcc); I would rather just give money to the FSF than couch it in the jacked-up prices for its hard-copy materials. I would just like an end to these very silly potshots, especially the ones from misguided ACs.
--
--
=8^
RMS in some ways needs to get a life. Just saying its a Freedom/Liberties issue is not going to win the day. For those of us in the *REAL WORLD* we have things we have to get done. Applications that need to be written etc. And while I would rather use free software to do it, I will use whatever I need to to get the job done.
A lot of you guys just don't get it. This isn't a Idealism vs. Realism issue, this is a simple, unadulterated human nature issue.
Some people are in it for the money. Some, are in it for the fame. Some are in it for the morality. Some are in it for the experiece. I'm sure that if I thought about it I could find a BILLION other reasons that seperate people are involved in using, writing, and advocating free software.
I think people should really stop looking at RMS as a person. RMS is not a person in a lot of ways. He's honest, he's still interested in contributing to a goal where he's been spit on, laughed at, ignored, and detested, among other thigns.
No self respecting human being would ever do that. They just don't have the balls, tolerance, or patience to do such a thing. And the funny thing is, is that 90% of you don't even notice it.
RMS should be to Free Software what John Carmack is to 3d gaming. Simple. But that's not how it happens. John Carmack is loaded, RMS is not interested in money. John Carmack goes to macworld, acts like an asshole and cuts down the mac vigorously in front of them, and he gets applauded, whereas if RMS went to COMDEX and did the same thing, you wouldn't be hearing good things about it.
Just being free will not convince people to use things. Being better AND free will. But you have to have a better product first.
Remember that when you type "make", "gcc", "bash", "gas", "gdb", "emacs", "cp", "mv", "ls", "less".... Do I really need to say anything more?
-Erik-
If this is the core of the argument then the honor and the glory goes to ANSI and two people named
Brian Kernighan and Dennis Richie who produced (and allowed the distribution?) of a sharable
protocol for the generation of good operating system code.
The creation of that standard means that if GCC had not existed there would have been another C
compiler, and that there is no need to have a single compiler cover all platforms.
There have been thousands of contributors to the community codebase that linux feeds from and
contributes to. Any suggestion that RMS was the sole origin of the pool is simply ridiculous.
In fact lets have a moment for the silent members of GNU and FSF who may have contributed a byte or
two.
Didn't Stallman do almost all of his GNU project work on non-free operating systems? Seems to me, that to achieve his goal, instead of starting with toggling in a bootstrap loader, he took the shortcut of using non-free OSes to build his compiler, and of course copied ideas people came up with in proprietary software. Moreover, I'm sure many of the contributors to open source software had the opportunity and resources to assist open source from working on proprietary stuff. Now, having gotten to where he/GNU is by using those shortcuts, he condemns all of us who would achieve our goals working with non-free software.
So to achieve his goals, it was ok to take shortcuts; yet it's not OK for the rest of us to do so. Sorry, I don't buy it.
Open source/free software is a great idea in and of itself. You don't need to condemn proprietary software to believe this.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Most Important? Thats a value judgement my friend, not a fact. If we took your advice, and just started cranking out kids without any thought for the fact that an infinite number of people can not live on a finite planet, we will surely all perish. Such a myopic view of the world you have. Our natural resources are not infinite and a such, no matter how much you want it to be true, the planet Earth can not support an ever increasing population.
--
Python
Python
No. You just can't do basic math. 67+3=70. 70+30=100. See?
This kind of thing is why Wired Magazine is nothing but a pile of shit. I've never really understood what people see in this rag. 90% of the material seems to have lifted straight from the pages of STAR or Weekly World News. Doubt it? Glance though them and honestly say you can tell the difference bettween Wired and the other mentioned. You can't.
The problem is that RMS *REALLY* needs to tell his supporters *TO SHUT THE HELL UP* once and for all. They are the ones who are *REALLY* making him look bad. The Wired article is a perfect example of this. I really have to wonder if the "not having kids" statement is what RMS meant to say, or was it something the person writting the article thought RMS was saying.
I think that there is just lots of plain ole jealousy here, and that is about it. RMS is mad that Linus managed to do what he has never been able to: get a working kernel. Even though started before Linux, HURD still amounts to nothing. I think the reason that Linus suceeded where he failed is because heading a huge project to design a kernel requires you work with PEOPLE. I remember the one time I met RMS, he didn't even look up from his computer with a group of people standing there in front of him, wanting to ask a question about the books he was selling. Linus, on the other hand, can actually communicate with people, and thus he was able to coordinate the momumental task of creating the Kernel which required the help of lots of people that listen to you, and you listen to them. RMS should stop whining and start to take a look at his own shortcommings and wonder WHY he failed at creating the kernel. He gets plenty of attention, and I think that everyone understands his contribution and is grateful for it. I think what everyone is not grateful for is the bad name he gives the Free Software movement everytime he shoots his mouth off about how he should get the credit, yadda yadda.
Richard, if you ever read this, PLEASE stop making yourself and us look like a fool by doing this constantly. Don't ruin the monumental and greatly appreciated accomplishments you have done by going down in history as the mad man who goes nuts cause he doesn't get enough press.
If Luke gets all the credit for slaying the evil Darth Gates using the tools you gave him, you should be happy that it was accomplished. The movement is MORE IMPORTANT than you, more important than Linus. You should keep that in mind and realise that it is OK if it is not you personally that wields the sword that brings him down.
RMS in some ways needs to get a life. Just saying its a Freedom/Liberties issue is not going to win the day. For those of us in the *REAL WORLD* we have things we have to get done. Applications that need to be written etc. And while I would rather use free software to do it, I will use whatever I need to to get the job done.
Just being free will not convince people to use things. Being better AND free will. But you have to have a better product first.
--Zachary Kessin
Erlang Developer and podcaster
We have RMS to thank for lots and lots of important software, for initiating the GNU project and basically inventing and propagating the concept of Free Software. Then again, we have Mr Torvalds to thank for putting together a kernel, making the whole system usable to ppl on i386 style computers. Linux, the kernel that is, may not be as clever and modern in its monolithic design as Hurd was meant to be (IMHO ofcourse), but still it has evolved into a really nice, usable and portable kernel. Without it GNU software wouldnt have become nearly as popular as it is today.
Personaly I dont care much who gets the credit for anything, not even for any software I write myself; the important thing is that the software is written and is free. And that the ideas of Free Software are propagated, just like RMS says in the article. If the GNU project continues to evolve and grow as well as it has so far, be it using Linux of Hurd, you'll have your name in the history book someday RMS, be sure.
Linux did, AFAIK, not come out of Minix at all, it was written by Torvalds from scratch all by himself. Tannenbaum (the Minix-dude) didn't like Linux at all, there is an infamous mailinglist discussion about Linux between Tannenbaum and Torvalds where Tannenbaum says Linux is obsolete in its monolithic design (somewhat true IMHO, altho microkernel archs havn't exactly turned out as well as everyone thought) and that Torvalds would have gotten a really bad grade if he were Tannenbaums student. Torvalds replyed pointing out many of the braindamages of Minix.
Linux, while written from scratch by Torvalds, was written with the GNU system in mind; the GNU software wasn't ported to Linux, Linux was written to run GNU software. And ofcourse, Linux is a piece of GNU software itself.
While the kernel is an essential part of the system, its not the only such. The write the kernel you need a compiler, a shell, good tools for filehandling, a neato editor etc etc, this was what the GNU project aimed to write first before the kernel was written. Then there was Linux, started shortly before Hurd was started (the Hurd folks didnt know of Linux when they started it AFAIK). Linux caught on more quickly and got more developers than Hurd. And here we are. What you identify as a "Linux" system, is really a GNU system, with a linux kernel. Unless you are a kernel hacker, you cant tell a Linux system from any other system with the same userspace software from any other system with a POSIX compliant kernel.
You are ofcourse correct.
Ever heard of POSIX?
If you replace Linux with any other POSIX compliant kernel, you defenetly couldnt tell the difference if you were a moronic user, you might tell if you were a failry advanced programmer (wich you most likely arn't since you're such a fscking idiot) and were using any nonstandard calls, ioctls, stuff in kmem/proc etc specific to Linux.
If you replace the GNU tools you will have potentially much different system. You could probably set up an entirely BSD/Linux distribution, this wouldn't THAT much, but basically, you can add any kind of shell and utilities on top of the kernel. A hypothetical alien civilization using telepathy comunicate could use the Linux kernel in an OS. Humans would probably not be able to understand such a system, much less use it.
Any OS distribution using a Linux kernel should have the name "Linux" in there, just to emphasize that the Linux kernel actually is in there. This is of less relevance. The name "GNU" should be in there to if it uses the GNU tools. This will tell the user what environment he will be presented with, and what software he can expect to find. This is of much more relevance.
The idiot comment was perhaps unecessary, but defenetly not uncalled for.
;)
Its hard to say this more clearly than I've done so far. I'll give it one last go at explaining how things are. Take your time, read the previous posts again and then read this thru.
Its the GNU _system_ part thats important. Most "Linux" distributions are GNU systems, that is, they use mostly all parts of the GNU projects os except for the kernel, instead they use Linux. Thats just fine. Since its a GNU system with a Linux kernel it should be called GNU/Linux. IF someone was to put together a system using the Linux kerenel but WITHOUT the GNU software (that is, without the sofware that is part of the GNU _system_, that is, software officially made part of the gnu _project_), they might call it whatever. Stallman has no claims on renaming Linux - the kernel. That is what Linux is. GNU/Linux denotes a GNU system using a Linux kernel. The interview with RMS was not realy on the naming of the system, but on who gets the fame. RMS is not so sad that Torvalds is getting most of the press, but because Torvalds is not propagating the concept of Free Software enough. (IMHO he does, just by so sucessfully spreading his kernel, but it *would* be nice if he'd mension Free Software a bit more often.)
True, the kernel is the heart of the system. But what kernel that is is of less importance. The GNU system runs on POSIX compliant kernels.
Imagine a man with a transgenic heart transplanted from a pig(not too far away); would you call him a pig? (not that I'd call him Human/Pig
Its not trivial, and Torvalds and all the other Linux developers sure put in a great effort. The kernel internals are just not verry visible to the user, be it an normal or advanced user. Linux is POSIX compliant, that is it has the same system calls, filesystem structure, and device interface as most other Unices and Unixlike systems. And thats what the user/programmer sees most of the time. If you were to replace Linux for any other POSIX compliant kernel most ppl wouldnt notice the difference. If you were to replace all the userspace tools and programs however, the difference would be substantial.
Why HURD hasnt gotten further I dont know. It was based on the MACH microkernel and should have had a head start. The sucess of Linux made it somewhat unecessary, and Linux has always drawn more developers. Im perfectly happy with the Linux kernel. However, with all this RMS, FSF, and GNU bashing lately I feel the importance of HURD growing again, just to get away from it all. The Linux community isn't what it used to be. I'd like to run a GNU only system.
This is ofcourse true.
Bur replacing the userspace software with exact eqvialents (clones) is a far more complex matter than replacing the kernel with any other POSIX compliant kernel. The system as a whole (wich is what we're discussing) is far more userspace software than kernel, period. Still the kernel deserves to be emphasized - therefore its GNU/Linux.
I hope you don't mean to imply that it is "responsible" to pollute the world with ever more suckers. If only more people would devote their lives to some mission instead of just selling away 40 years of their lives to corporations and/or popping out kids left and right.
--
If you love children and you long to have them, then having them won't be "one of the greatest self-sacrifices". You want to have kids for the same reason other people want to have pets: to satisfy your own emotional needs.
Now, if you, like me, hated kids, then having children would amount to a self-sacrifice.
--
- gcc
- gdb
- emacs
- command reimplementations (cp, sh..)
- surely a lot of other things (shells, etc.)
He wrote gcc, gdb, emacs and make. The utilities, bash and the C library were written by the FSF, but not by him personally. However, by far the most important thing he created is the GPL. A wonderful legal hack.--
It clearly is. Proprietary software licenses prohibit learning, improving, sharing and helping others. Free code does not. Learning, improving, sharing and helping are good things, therefore free code is more ethical.
For that matter, it's worth pointing out that the GPL actually restricts my freedom! I cannot do just anything with GPL-ed code.
That's right. You are not free to restrict other people's freedom. That is a basic tenet of all civilized definitions of freedom. Unless you go with Thomas Hobbes, who defined "Freedom means I can do whatever I want".
Which one do you agree with:
--
I respect RMS for the contributions he has done, but that as far as my respect go. I don't know the man, but from what I've seen and hear, I cannot but conclude that he is a social inept. He claims that Linus stamped the name Linux w/o acknowledging previous work. Bullshit. Linus made the kernel and named it Linux. People used Linux, add stuff around it, but kept using the kernel name. As far as I can f*cking see, there is no legal aggreement that binds one to name a product GNU-something just because one uses the GNU tools. Not even MS has gone that far. Imagine if we had to call my work VFP Premium Module or VC++ Word Processor or VJ++ homework 1. Whenever I hear Stallman demanding Linux to be called GNU Linux, I think of Hitler. If he were to give me one of his bashing lectures because I called Linux "Linux", I would most likely give him the beating of his life. What the f*ck, if I want to call red green, I do so and that's the end of the story.
I believe Linus has given more than enough honor to Stallman and the GNU "cause" by making the Linux kernel GPL. If I were to develop a program using the GNU tools, I would sure as hell not name it GNU-something. Hell no! For that kind of constrain on my rights of expression, I may just as well bend over to MS.
RMS is just a cry-baby. "Momma, Momma, nobody pay attention to me. Everybody look at the other kid, Linus, but nobody look at me." He doesn't need to be in the press to be acknowledged. If he does good deed not for the sake of fraternity but for glory and fame, then the hell with him. Most of us Linux users know who RMS is and appreciate the work he does. But I'm using the GNU tools because someone out there created a damn good kernel to run them. I use the GNU tools because I'm running Linux. GNU tools were used to create Linux, that I grant. However, it is Linux who make GNU tools ready to run for most of us.
One thing for certain is that Linus has never "cried baby" to be acknowledge. For that he deserves my respect. RMS, listen, behave like a grown-up human once and for all. If you really, really, really want a GNU-OS to bare your cherised GNU name, then forget about Linux and write a kernel yourself. And a finger to those who want to force me to call Linux GNU-Linux and crap like that.
Since when did "not having kids" mean someone showed a lack of responsibility?
worldmobilenet.com -- World Prepaid Wireless Internet plans
Yes - apparently it is just you...
67
+30
+ 3
----
100 !!!
Stunning.
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
Something for you to read.
t ml
:-).
/mill
http://catalog.com/hopkins/text/rms-vs-doctor.h
I find the seahorse reference hilarious
Why do you think he dissatisfied with his life? If he thinks having children is of little importance then that doesn't have to be founded on dissatisfaction.
/mill
I rather have a monetary poor life with someone I love than alone with all Gates' money. I am not dissatisfied because I think all that money is of little value to me, am I?
If they had not developed the tools, someone else would have.
But they did.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Actually, I believe I saw proposals to create GNU/Solaris and GNU/FreeBSD systems.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
IIRC, XFree was officially declared to be part of GNU. Could someone corroborate that (or tell me I'm a complete idiot..this being /., that'll happen anyway though.. :-) )
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
I cant tell you how disgusted I am at the CONTINUING backstabbing within the community, the seeming LACK OF TOLERANCE, and general disdain for those who arent the leaders of the day (especially those who held the title yesterday).
Regardless of personality flaws, which I would bet we all share pretty equally, RMS has done a GREAT deal for the movement... shit, who cares if he doesnt own his own equipment, that to me is pretty straight inline with his stated philosophies, and no matter how counter-culture he is, WHY THE HELL cant we accept that.
Do you people REALLY care about him not wanting children, not wanting to work, not wanting to even own his own machine? The answer is NO!, strenuously... the chief concern here seems to be to kick him while hes down.
Id say the most important part of the GPL is its efforts to maintain proper credits for work done, not to control payment of licensing terms (or lack thereof), and I think, out of everyone, RMS and GNU seems to be the only crew we're willing to publicly deny that proper credit to...
I also absolutely BELIEVE that informed people primarly do not use the term "GNU/Linux" because it IS too damn awkward...
Give the man some credit, he had these ideas when most of us, Linus included, were eating dirt in the sandbox in kindergarten.
When we loook back in a few years, I believe we will see the ultimate loss of men like RMS and Bruce Perens from the flock as one of the turning points, and I dont think itll appear as the right turn...
Linus, save me from your followers.
Binary Boy
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-- Derek Bok,
So should we also look over jim Gettys, and not provide him proper community admiration, even WHEN WE KNOW BETTER?
Come on, its not like we havent ALL known ALL along that RMS is GNU, theres no excuse in anonmity because there never was any, the real reason is bitterness and plain, outright betrayal.
Binary Boy
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-- Derek Bok,
Well, I certainly read the whole thread, I just take offense to anyone attempting to LIMIT the respect and recognition of the Gettys and Stallmans of the world rather than supporting their hopes for it... I see nothing negative about RMS, and would certainly, equally, support Gettys if he felt a need to emphasize his lack of acknoqledgement... i think these people have all done a great service to us and deserve hero-worship from ever one of us.
Binary Boy
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-- Derek Bok,
Actually I completely agree with you... Im always happy to have a good discussion on the meaning of this movement, occassionally I just get fed up with the distasteful, and downright hypocritical, personal attacks.
I apologize for my own lack of tolerance, I only wish we could resist the infighting that will probably be the chief detractor, in the long-term, of the OSS and Linux movements.
Binary Boy
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-- Derek Bok,
I think Ill agree with you, as we certainly cannot force admiration of any particular object on the psyches of those who dont already admire said object.
However, admiration aside, I think there is a valid point to be made in that, while we are primarily a grassroots, user-fed community, there exists a small group of leaders without whom none of this would be possible... I think even limiting RMS' recognition to his contribution of the GNU portions of Linux is rather short-sighted, as he has also been one of the most vocal advocates of the very system we have built for much longer than it has formally existed.
I dont think we should start calling Linux GNU/Linux (and GOD, never GNUlix), its too late for that... but as this platform grows in size, the collective consciousness here becomes less aware of its roots, and less aware of its "debt" to people like RMS, and thats a shame. Maybe something as simple as a system of honors and awards is due.
Binary Boy
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-- Derek Bok,
I'm a Unix system administrator, and the first
thing I've always done with a new Unix system
is to install all the GNU stuff - gcc, of course,
but also the other utilities.
But I've just replaced my Digital Unix server
with a GNU/Linux box, where I didn't have to
worry about this!
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
There is also a lot of 'software' created during life (such as memories and knowledge) that makes up the one that call yourself me. So genes is not enough.
But I do hope and think that by the time I'm getting old there is a way to preserve that information (like freezing in some smart way) and later run it (me) on an artificial brain in the body of my choice.
RMS sacrificed much in his life and what that means to me that there is hope that I will not have to put up with NT and other strange things at work that do not always work. Learn from his experiences and you might know how much of an impact his contributions have made. I would hate to think of a world where all of technology was locked up in NDA's.
by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 06, @04:52
Well, we have RMS to thank for this bit of FUD to hurt the Free Software Movement. Thanks Stalin!
Wrong. If you want to be working for the communist good, let Mr. Gates continue his path and you will be working for his good. After all, he innovated the internet, the computer, and many of those other things on the Microsoft Time Line. You are the one spreading FUD.
There is nothing wrong having personal freedoms. There is something wrong with having your life tightly controlled and that you must pay a high tax for everything that can be commoditized. RMS asks for nothing but freedom.
Microsoft must keep those stock prices in a certain direction. Its like buying into an obese dinosour trying to devour everything in sight. One of these days, its going to come crashing down in a spectacular display of flatulence because it cannot stay up.
And no doubt that is why he is so bitter about not being internationally acclaimed.
That may be your perception. He may be setting a precedent for getting recognition. How would you like to write a set of utilities and have some large corporation come along and mask what you wrote with a different brand? That can be useful, but can be misleading.
I cant tell you how disgusted I am at the CONTINUING backstabbing within the community, the seeming LACK OF TOLERANCE, and general disdain for those who arent the leaders of the day (especially those who held the title yesterday).
Calm down. This is healthy discussion and is good for you. There is a need for topics like this to be brought up so we may understand the importance of free software. That is why it was brought up again. No blood is being drawn here and most people do not get hurt feelings, but learn and gain from this forum. Even though a lot of strong opinionated discussion what free software really means, it is quite educational. It is a good topic, not something to hurt one another with.
Richard Stallman, on the other hand, is quite abraisive, rude, and thoughtless as to other people.
People who feel threatened by the concept of free software often spread this image about RMS. As for being rude and thoughtless, I would say that he has a straight vision. RMS will not sell out to other people. He is a quickdraw when it comes to correcting people. Believe it or not there are some people who are not offended by such ways of communication and use it to escalate the debate to new hights. Leaders do not break down to logic and accept what is pushed at them are strong. He has vision and is not afraid to share it.
My take on RMS asserting authorship is that he is trying to maintain some kind of balance on who did what. Nothing wrong with that. This is where all these debates about what free software means to people come from too. RMS is doing a good job bringing these issues into awareness.
Where did this come from? What does sex have to do with free software? Why do some people have to inject Freudian into every discussion? Is this another one of Godwin's thread relevancy calculations?
Sex has not been programmed into the kernel yet, so you can move along now. Nothing to see here.
Umm - most mainstream American's believe that when you do work (like, say, writing a program), you deserve to be paid for it. And that the harder people work, the more money they deserve. And some odd concepts like you should be forced to pay for the things that you get to use. Mainstream America is capitalist. Mainstream academia is much more leftist. It is no coincidence that RMS is from MIT and Boston.
Hey, I get paid for something else quite well. I'm a hardware type of guy and I like seeing good quality software to make things turn. Its when I see crap operating systems do unfunny things like dump a blue screen or changing data values that I start getting pissed off. Because I work for someone else, I am forced to watch large powerful and high speed manufacturing machines churn tons of scrap almost daily because of junk software.
I have learned that the software model of secrecy and NDA's is not working very well. GNU offers a freedom synonymous with the ideals this country was claimed to be based upon. If I was working with GNU software, there would be an option to refer the problem to someone who could look at the code and fix it. Freedom of peer review.
GNU software can save many landfills from filling up. Would you trust your business to some operating system made in Redmond?
People who fail to grant RMS the respect that he deserves are the people who miss the point of freed software.
RMS gave Linus and the rest of us the freedom we enjoy today to use/modify/distribute our software with the GNU GPL.
The GPL is most significant achievement in the history of software because it makes possible the cooperative development that will eventually change the world. Mark my words.
Freedom has greater value than bill gates stock.
With all this talk of who wrote what percentage of the code, be it the kernel, compiler, tools, shell, whatever, I think something important is being overlooked. Namely, that in every cultural movement, a central leader/figurehead/idealog needs to be looked to as the nucleus. People have the need to be able to point to someone and say "this is what it's all about".
Think about it. The Civil Rights movement had people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Womens' Sufferage had leaders along the lines of Susan B. Anthony. Apple computer, the leader of a more relevant movement, had Steve Jobs, who was described as, "When I didn't know what charisma was, I met Steve Jobs, and then I knew." (Of course, he's also been described as obnoxious, but anyone who's heard him speak cannot question his charisma, charm, and leadership abilities.)
Linus Torvaldis is the perfect candidate. The romantic fairy-tale of a college guy single-handedly hacking out his own stable OS because he wanted a UNIX variant catches the imagination. It also so happens that this is almost, kinda true. So much the better. He's also a great guy who has a family, a steady job, and nice, laid-back, happy attitude. He's a hacker the average man on the street can relate to.
Richard Stallman, on the other hand, is quite abraisive, rude, and thoughtless as to other people. He's "on a mission" so he says, and he obviously never lets anyone forget the mission from God he's on. He's a zealot, not an idealist. The people to be most feared are those who see no shades of gray, who confuse fanaticism with conviction. I think the "real world, gotta get stuff done" arguments which have been raised here are more than valid. Most people *use* computers, they don't design/develop them or their software. As the bard Billy Joel sang in his song Angry Young Man, "I believe I've passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage, I found that just surviving was a noble fight. I once believed in causes too, I had my pointless point-of-view, and life went on no mater who was wrong or right."
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for free software, but I think that open-source may be more realistic a model, where businesses can make a buck or two. Let's not forget we live in a capitalistic society, not a communistic one. The Soviets tried communism, and it lead the people over there on a "seventy-year road to nowhere" as they say in the former Soviet Union.
Quite true, and I was completely aware of all of that. It should be pointed out, however, that without Jobs, the Apple ][ would never have come into existance. He was the driving force behind the creation of Apple computer. He desigened the excellent look (for 1970's style) of the casing, and was the visionary who thought that PCs could be sold in shopping malls (think back to what the days were like in the computerless 1970s). It was also his management style, both driven, focused, and frustrating to those under his rule, which provided the Macintosh. Arguably, without Steve Jobs, the PC revolution would have taken much longer, and possibly not been as sensational as it was.
Yeah, X Window should get some glory!
gcc could run on top of DOS or commercial UNIX. I'm sure Bill Gates and Scott McNealy, would thanks RMS. Without an alternative OS, the "free software movement" couldn't go anywhere.
You can't measure software by size!
If size matter, X Window is bigger. It's not even GPL, so RMS can't claim any credit!
X is under MIT license, NOT GPL. RMS can't change that.
Well, jolly old RMS gets my recognition, for what it's worth.
Anyone with half a clue knows what GNU is and what Linux is. RMS shouldn't feel so bitter, because there are those out there who recognise him and are grateful.
The mass media and the Great Unwashed are traditionally good at taking a name, word, phrase or buzzword and applying it to a different meaning, and brainwashing the masses.
I fully intend to live long enough to be a cantankerous old git with a walking stick and an attitude, ranting at the young telling them how it used to be in the good old days when RMS freed software and a young chap called Linus Torvalds made an OS kernel that toppled the great evil dictatorship etc., about prejudice...
blah blah blah.
Stallman, your name is already in tablets of stone. In centuries to come you will be remebmbered as the man who had the courage to stand out from the crowd, think differently, and change the course of human civilisation.
You may think these coments are glib and ironic, but they are not.
This is what will happen.
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
I think that the main reason that the prices are so high is that many businesses don't have a policy for donating to a non-profit business (or, more likely, accounting isn't going to donate to a company that doesn't seem like a typical "charity" to the public eye). It's much easier to say to your boss "We need to spend several thousand dollars for this software that we use that works really well." It's essentially a donation.
--
Mark Fassler
fassler at frii dot com
Indeed, if Linus hadn't written Linux, it would be likely that some form of FreeBSD would be the popular free UNIX of choice and GNU tools would be far less used than they are today. People should remember that the FreeBSD movement actually started before there was Linux and "GNU" meant only the common version of Emacs to most UNIX geeks.
If the kernel was such a trivial thing to create, then why wasn't the Hurd finished in a timely fashion? There might be a lot of GNU code in Linux systems, but it is mostly in trivial things like "ls" and "cat". To use the biological example, the kernel isn't the heart (a simple pump), but the brain (the most complicated element of the system)
And I would call a man with a transgenic pig brain a pig.
Well, gcc is certainly more complicated than "ls" but look at the dozens of free compilers for Linux (or UNIX in general). Granted they tend to be for more obscure languages like Modula-2 instead of C, but that's not because C is intrinsically more complicated to write compilers for -- its just that gcc is already there.
RMS and FSF did a lot of good things for Linux, no question. But RMS seems to claim that any system running GNU tools is the GNU system, even if the system is nothing like the system Stallman described in his Manifesto (Whatever happened to that LISP-based Windowing system anyhow?)
Compiler isn't all that matters. The BSD's don't run GNU utilities, except where there is no replacement - i.e. GCC, GDB, and emacs (for the emacs addicts.) Anything GPL'ed they actively try to replace with BSD'ed stuff.
The author of G77, Craig Burley, has talked frequently about how he never would have written a free Fortran compiler under something other than the GPL. When I write proprietary stuff, I expect to get paid for it, he says.
It's nice to say "another compiler would be", but you need authors. Free BSD's still don't have a compiler they consider free (i.e. BSD/X-free style license.) Why is that, if it's so easy to replace the compiler.
Well, as an anonymous coward, letting no one know it was you won't be hard. Sure, I'd like to see it. Might even hack a new front-end (GPL'ed), if it's technically superior.
well, if they put the brain of the pig in the body of the man, what would you get?
It still looks like a man, but its not.. the heart is necessary, but it is not the brain, the brain is where you reside.
Its spelt "L-I-N-U-X", but pronunced as "Free Beer"
>Prophets have always been hated and oft-times
>martyred by the ignorant mob....
Certainly. On the other hand, the 'ignorant mobs' in the world have also thrown out ruthless dictators and tyrants.
Just because someone has, in the public's eye, made an ass of him/herself on a regular basis does not mean that he/she is a martyr. Frankly, Rich's rhetoric is driving people away from free software, not helping it.
I recognize his talents and contributions - they are important. But if they *have* to be linked to his ideals and can't stand by their own merits, then it's no wonder people pass by him in favor of more likable people (ie. Linus). People skills are important, just as much as coding skills.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
What is RMS working on these days? I hear that he takes a notebook with him everywhere, and that he can be seen frantically hacking code in every spare moment he has, but not what he's working on.
I'd like to see a linux distro with a commercial x server and KDE. It should be called New Linux-better, faster and easier to use. Who knows-I think that's what Corel may be working on
---
Commercial X servers are much better. Check out www.xig.com
---
heh maybe it's because you don't have any ideas of your own or maybe you don't appreciate the amount of work, time and money that goes into some ideas. The industrial economy is over. Welcome to the information economy where ideas-not goods- are produced and sold. Linus understands this perfectly-he understands that there is a place for open-source as well as proprietary. That's the rational approach. RMS and MS represent the irrational extremes
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the Hitler thing is a bit too much but besides that you're basically right. RMS is a fanatic and while he had his 15 minutes of fame, we must move on. Hey, if it wasn't for Bill Gates we would still be using expensive proprietary IBM PC's. That doesn't mean we should go with MS. Same for RMS
---
If Mr. Stallman wants the world to beat a path to his door, he should build a better kernel. I'm not one who likes stories of a future better mousetrap; I need to a mousetrap now. Those M$ rats are big!
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
If he doesn't have the time or financial resources to do a proper job of "that whole parent thang" then he is doing the right thing by remaining childless. Wish more people were as responsible.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
And every time someone new contributes to it their name could be added.
Or maybe as previous contributors added new stuff their name could be bumped up the list relative to the size and/or worth of their overall contribution. Shouldn't be any trouble getting everyone who should have a voice in those relative rankings to agree just whose work gets what rating, or deciding who those who should have that voice should be.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I can't believe you. You are perhaps the most un-idealistic individual I have ever had the misfortune of replying to. The fact that you have replied like 5 or 6 times to this article makes me realize what your trouble is. You're afraid:
I think he will likely find himself very lonely, some day.
Talk about projecting your own personal terrors onto others. Sacrificing one's life for a greater cause is a risky business. Raising a family is a difficult, but safe one. Overcoming human needs and desires for a greater purpose is one of the most admirable traits that one can have. If everyone said "Why change things when I can raise a family - that's just as gratifying," things can and will never change. If you have children simply so that they can have children and so on, what's the point? To make great sacrifices to advance what is right should not be mocked. The fact that you are so adamant about something that doesn't even affect your life (I mean, it's none of your business if RMS dies lonely, and it's not as if there need to be more advocation of childrearing over idealism, it happens enough) makes me think that you're trying to prove to yourself that your life isn't a waste. Well, it will be if you don't start facing facts, and stop being so egocentric. It's attitudes like yours that will keep me from ever living in a utopian society, and that gets me pissed, more than anything else.
Phew.
So you propose that we should all be mavericks and world-beaters because that's just so much cooler, right?
No, I didn't say that. Working together as a team to change the world for everyone is pretty damn cool. What isn't cool is the eventual disintegration of society and the environment because of an overpopulated world of generation after generation of complacent do-nothing family-havers. It would take so little to change the world, but we don't, simply because we tend to gravitate towards what comes naturally to us. Like childrearing.
It's quite easy to sit in the belltower picking people off with your rifle, isn't it? Certainly not as hard as finding someone who understands you and who you understand.
Woah, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Actually, I'm not saying that at all. As you've pointed out, coupling and having children is the natural thing for humans to do, right? The easiest thing. Going against that in pursuit of something bigger than all of us is what's harder.
As far as the relevance of this thread, I would say it is quite minimal.
Actually, I disagree. I would say this topic is the most important one that faces humanity right now. It's the lack of thinking about this kind of stuff that's causing problems. I wouldn't mind so much about people having kids if they just sat down and thought about the ramifications beforehand.
I was only trying to illustrate a possible alternate and less noble explanation of RMS' insistence on being recognized as a prophet.
You mean besides the fact that he's living proof that if you put idealism before nature, one person can defeat even the largest problems? If everyone did as much with their life as RMS has, there would be no problems on earth. We would be living in a perfect society. It's because of complacency and fear that we live in the world we do now.
And you talk about being selfish and egotistical? The way I see it, if you're out to make a lasting contribution to society (and believe it or not, there *are* people out there-I believe RMS is one of them-who want to make a contribution for non-egotistical reasons...), then in sacrificing children/relationships it might just be possible that that person is being far less selfish than he who merely seeks pleasures for himself within his own lifetime.
What's more admirable, striving to have the best life for yourself, or giving up that (perceived, perhaps) better life in order to ensure that tommorrow the world will be a better place?
I'd rather die knowing that I'd made a tenth of the contribution that someone like RMS has, than simply knowing I'd had a good time...
I think the thumb sucking Gnu icon is appropriate. RMS can act like a real crybaby when he wants to.
I propose a 1 step recovery program for his ego:
Step 1: Get over it.
The name Linux as opposed to GNU/Linux is not a way of pushing RMS into the background. Don't put so much into a name.
The publicity around Linus and RMS is different because marketing (intentional or unintentional) does not follow logical rules. A normal looking guy with a wife and two little kids living in California is a more comfortable image for many people to focus on rather than a long haired/bearded eccentric.
If you are running for office RMS, get a political consultant. If you are writing code, quit whining and get on with it.
Your password has expired, please login to change it.
Face it RMS is just a shabby bum he doesn't shave, carries everything he owns in a garbage bag and wants GNU before linux. Blah, blah, blah... he is just wining because he has faced up to the pitiful fact that he has accomplished very little in his life. The fsf was not his effort alone. Now he just wants to meddel in the community and stir up kde flame wars, etc. He wants to do nothing and get all the credit.
:)) So get off the political high horse and face the facts... rms will be swept under the carpet with all the other people who talk alot and do little... and then brag about it.
But of course this is slashdot.org where everyone worships gnome and rms and the comments of the opposing faction are repeatedly deleted (alot like those great commie countries with wonderful views of property rights
Just look at the gnome discussion from a few days back. Every negative post was sytematically deleted... hmmm. Did everyone have such a great response at the nice stable gnome 1.0... even the gnome mailing list was filled with posts about an early release to conincide with RH6 and LinuxWorld. :)
Seems to me that the "ideals" in the OSS community work when people can leverage them to their advantage. For instance, on of the arguments lined at kde by the gnome project was that it was something that could be controled by a comercial company. Well look at what we have now! A desktop that will become the defacto standard just because of the backing from a major linux distributor. And an early release so all the guys at RHDL can make a nice buck of finishing up just in time for the expo and 6.0. Real nice guys! Now is that the linux way? It sounds like something out of Redmond to me!
Meanwhile Miguel champs on about the techinical superiority and stablity of his product, unfortunately he can't hide behind the "it's still in development clause". But after he rides the media hype for awhile people will begin to notice the 522 or so bugs still left in this great stable product and one of the Linux critics will be more than happy to harp on them for months.
Look at kde 1.0 and gnome 1.0 they aren't even close in the completeness department. Hell you can't even change the default icons and mime types visually with gmc or change the default wm (enlightenment) launched from gnome-session (a binary not a script)... what a configurable new enviroment this is
Yeah Geoff I agree. I think that finding what better is, is a part of life.
:-(
Don't ask me to define better in a sentence. Its a lot of stuff. I'll try and shed some light on what I think in this post, but don't expect an answer.
I like free software.
I like music.
I like art.
I like the freedom to learn and better myself.
Hey Geoff. You can't elucidate better in a word, its something we all have to find.
And for most of us its different.
I guess one of the defining aspects of better is realising you can disagree with other people and learn from it.
That's something that most of the people in this forum haven't realised I think.
I like the GPL, it seems to incrementally encourage free software. I don't mind people choosing not to use it now - but I think one day they will because of the ever growing incremental benefits of doing so.
I believe Economics will kill proprietary software in time, that is why the suits are jumping on board.
I think the result will be a better world - economics based on openness. And this isn't communism, because we are still talking about competing. I guess my grandparents meant this when they talked about being a "gentleman" something most people don't do.
That is why I also find privacy important for example. Sure, I value transparency, honesty and something of my own morality (which you probably start to glean from this post) but I think you should have the choice whether to be transparent.
Why should the spooks snoop on communications just meant for friends and lovers? Especially when criminals will always use the strongest encryption, and with key escrow will just hide their encrypted communications in other files - like GIFS or MPEGs for example.
Mostly I want my kids to have the freedom to find what is right, and the chance to find a maturity and depth of thought that they value. This freedom needs a rich cultural background (art, music, film, theatre, literature, you name it) and the chance to paricipate and create themselves (and is this not what free software gives them).
And if this is what RMS is devoting his time - to a culture of sharing, and gift, but with the freedom to use or ignore it - I don't think anyone can slate him. I recently saw ESR speak in London, and I value his words, but he is telling it only one way. RMS's ideas are another, and I think I understand and respect both.
You said "opportunity for what?". That is the point, opportunity is not the opportunity without the choice, so I am not going to state here. I think they just need the opportunity to tread the path they should: a parents role is to lead by example, by giving pointers to the lessons they have learned, not by instruction.
Shakespeare was a genius, because he could illustrate the views of many convincingly. He knew they all had value of their own: that paradigms are just that. Equally, RMS and ESR both have their slant. Both matter. They keep us on their toes as someone said.
Now lets create some stuff goddammit.
BTW: I don't program C++ or anything hardcore. I design and consult for business on software or whatever they want. I do write PERL though (whoops I find PERL hardcore enough for me before anyone flames me with PERL is hardcore! - that's not what I mean), and hopefully if I'm allowed (work?) I'll put some cool stuff in public domain later this year. At least my current contract let me suggest how it will benefit them to do this.
Prophets have always been hated and oft-times martyred by the ignorant mob....
Bah, just don't start any wm and start your apps full-screen. There you are :-)
As you've pointed out, coupling and having children is the natural thing for humans to do, right? The easiest thing.
Sure, coupling is the easiest thing. I don't think that's what he meant; he said it's "certainly not as hard as finding someone who understands you and who you understand." Finding someone like that is rather more difficult than finding someone to have sex with.
Sure, having children isn't that hard, at least for the guy :-). It's raising them properly that is the challenge, and where the reward comes in. Belittling those who put decades into this, I think, is what is really angering a lot of us. If RMS doesn't want to have kids, great, that's his decision. But to trivialize the work and dedication that raising a family takes, and the importance of doing this well, is simply ignorant. The quality of society we will have in the future depends to a much greater extent on how well people raise their children, than on whether everyone thinks RMS is the greatest thing since sliced bread. RMS has done a lot, yes, and sure let's all give him credit for his contributions. But his chosen life's work is certainly not more important than that of others who choose to have a family.
What isn't cool is the eventual disintegration of society and the environment because of an overpopulated world of generation after generation of complacent do-nothing family-havers
And since when does having a family imply being a complacent do-nothing? There are lots of people out there making valuble contributions to society, through whatever their field of expertise is, and also through raising the next generation to continue the work in the future. The two are not mutually exclusive.
It would take so little to change the world, but we don't, simply because we tend to gravitate towards what comes naturally to us. Like childrearing
So if we all stop having children, in order to "change the world", what do we accomplish? We eliminate the species from the universe. Sure, it changes the world, but what the hell is the point if there's nobody left to enjoy it?
You mean besides the fact that he's living proof that if you put idealism before nature, one person can defeat even the largest problems? If everyone did as much with their life as RMS has, there would be no problems on earth. We would be living in a perfect society.
Why do you think that idealism is opposite to nature? Having a family could very well be true to one's ideals; idealism does not imply becoming a loner. If we all followed the sort of idealism RMS has humanity would cease to exist in a few decades. Then what have we gained? Nothing. We wouldn't have a perfect society. We'd have no society. No problems on earth? I doubt it, not that it would matter since there would be nobody left to solve any that did appear.
And since when has RMS defeated "the largest problems"? Has he eliminated hatred? Created world peace? Found a cure to a deadly disease? Secured an end to oppression around the globe? No. He's dedicated himself to telling everyone that software should be free. And created a lot of great software along the way. But this hardly qualifies as defeating one of the world's greatest problems. Let's try to keep things in perspective.
Diety of my choice, eh?
I'll take Thor! He's cool with that hammer and stuff...
Hmmmm... "Oh for Thor's sake!"
Not too catchy but I like it.
.
Can you say slow and buggy?
Why do you think most people replace them with gnu utilities?
.
So basically you're insulted that anyone could think breeding isn't the most important thing they can ever do.
"Breeding" is the most important thing humans do - that's not opinion, that's biology. Anyone who thinks that accomplishing some goal is more important that sharing intimacy with another person (I'm talking about love here, not sex) has got a lot of growing up to do.
RMS sacrificed much in his life
And no doubt that is why he is so bitter about not being internationally acclaimed. It sounds as though he is starting to realize the futility of material gain. In his case the material is attention, not money, as it is with most people but RMS is every bit as misguided as those mid-80's stockbroker stereotype folk.
1) First of all, despite Linus's wild popularity, RMS has probably contributed more to Linux than he has. For instance, how far would Linux get without emacs, gcc, and all the GNU utils?
And where would GNU be without the Linux kernel? is Hurd at 0.0.1 yet?
I don't have emacs installed on my computer and as far as the utils are concerned it's not the utilities I like about Unix, but the sparse, conceptually simple kernel.
No kidding about the man pages:
This man page is not kept up to date except when volun-
teers want to maintain it. If you find a discrepancy
between the man page and the software, please check the
Info file, which is the authoritative documentation.
If we find that the things in this man page that are out
of date cause significant confusion or complaints, we will
stop distributing the man page. The alternative, updating
the man page when we update the Info file, is impossible
because the rest of the work of maintaining GNU CC leaves
us no time for that. The GNU project regards man pages as
obsolete and should not let them take time away from other
things.
Gee, thanks for telling me that man pages are obsolete, RMS. Is that why I enjoy using them so much? This is every bit as stupid as Microsoft telling us that Unix is obsolete - I don't care it it fits somebody's idea of what obsolete is, I like it.
... I code in C/B/BCPL/CPL/von Neumann/Assembly/early work by Babbage
... Bill Gates is a business genius. I don't like him either.
Because you must have noticed the paraenthetical statement "note I'm talking about love here, not sex." The fact that he is too busy to have kids and that he's never been in a relationship with another human being in his life seems to illustrate a lack of neccesity on his part to share his life with anyone else. I think he will likely find himself very lonely, some day.
I'm not talking so much about RMS' reluctance to have children as his complete lack of ineterest in having any form of personal relationship with anyone. My "narrow view" of the world takes into account that humans are, by nature, social creatures and anyone who would be perfectly content with locking themselves away and spending their life doing one thing is surely a person who feels extremely alienated.
And yes, I am a computer hobbiest and have been for quite a while. However, I also realize that there is much more to life.
All of this is quite secondary to the issue at hand, however. RMS feels he (personally) should be recognized for his contribution to Linux and free UniX in general. He is not the only (or even the largest) contributer to Unix. Ritchie is the man that it all comes back to, but Linux is caled Linux, not Unix/Linux (for reasons other than the copyright issues).
How would you like to write a set of utilities and have some large corporation come along and mask what you wrote with a different brand?
Of course I would be bitter about that. However, if I wrote it and gave it away for free and called it Free Software and put it under a free license I could expect any less to happen and I would be willing to live with the anonymity, content in teh knowledge that I had createx something that people around the world enjoy using. Ever heard of Jim Gettys? Use X?
On one hand I appreciate his humour and conviction. On the other hand I can only feel pity for someone so dissatisfied with his life that he needs to belittle people who have everything he lacks.
It depends where you expect to find the most satisfaction. Some (like our mutual friend, here) might look for it through works that they hope will bring them the respect and acclaim of the world. This will undoubtly bring on a certain amount of bitterness when the thankless world doesn't give you what you feel you've earned. I would tend to look for contentment by sharing my life with one other person and possibly having children. That seems a fairly guaranteed way of feeling appreciated. I'm no Marco Polo but hey...
So you propose that we should all be mavericks and world-beaters because that's just so much cooler, right? You're most certainly a slave to capitalist consumerism. Why do you feel so pushed into changing the world? Possibly because it is so much easier than making your life better.
It's quite easy to sit in the belltower picking people off with your rifle, isn't it? Certainly not as hard as finding someone who understands you and who you understand.
As far as the relevance of this thread, I would say it is quite minimal. I was only trying to illustrate a possible alternate and less noble explanation of RMS' insistence on being recognized as a prophet.
It certainly wouldn't be getting recognized there, either. And can you name a single "other" system that runs entirely GNU utilities? Certainly none that are sold under non-GPL licenses (ie, all of them). Most admins do add gcc to new systems, but that's about it.
Interesting juxta-position. This is horribly off-topic, but does intimacy require having children?(!)
Not at all. I was also referring to the fact that RMS is and always has been single which is likely why he sees no need to have children.
And what does this really have to do with free/open-source software?
Not a thing. I just like having the last word.
Why do you think he dissatisfied with his life?
Because he is not just content to not have children - he feels the need to belittle those who do have children and express a series of arguments of why having children is so bad. Like the whole "Free Software" thing he can't understand why anyone would think differently than him.
And I mentioned as much in my post. Thank you for reiterating me so clearly. So why not Ritchie/Linux or von Neumann/Linux or Babbage/Linux? Why not AlanCox/Linux? Why not The Regents of The University of California/Linux?
You do use X, though - right?
He certainly has a talent for dirty tricks and publicity though.
That's not a certain kind of genius? It may not be nice, but his business savvy is brilliant. It's unfortunate he can get his company to produce anything approaching good software, though.
No, I didn't say that. Working together as a team to change the world for everyone is pretty damn cool. What isn't cool is the eventual disintegration of society and the environment because of an overpopulated world of generation after generation of complacent do-nothing family-havers.
I think the rest of the world is quite capable of taking care of itself - I don't care about overpopulation in 200 years. Maybe that's selfish but aren't we here to enjoy ourselves? What's the point of life if all you do is spin around working, working, working and trying to change things. So what if there are no humans to greet the year 3000? Would the Universe be any worse off?
You mean besides the fact that he's living proof that if you put idealism before nature, one person can defeat even the largest problems?
And why is that so great? Anyone can change the world if they put their mind to it, but if they expect it to make them happy they may be disappointed. Hence our belltower rifleman. He's certainly changed the world for some people, hasn't he?
If everyone did as much with their life as RMS has, there would be no problems on earth. We would be living in a perfect society.
No we wouldn't. We would all be bitter old men so determined to leave our mark that we couldn't stop to smell the roses.
It's because of complacency and fear that we live in the world we do now.
No, we live in our world because of the few people who need to change the world, often by enslaving others. To make reference to the bible in a purely allegorical sense, had it not been for an excess of ambition we would never have left the garden.
If you had done so you would certainly have found that we are arguing on the same side. RMS should get no more recognition than Jim Gettys and a thousand other selfless academics.
And you talk about being selfish and egotistical?
No, I'm talking about being foolish enough to believe that the world "owes" you something and childish enough to throw temper tantrums if it doesn't give you what you feel you've earned.
A lot of people have made lasting contributions to the world over the course of the last few thousand years, and only a very few of them have done it for the sake of self-agrandizement. RMS is one of them - why else would he be so insistent on teh GNu recognition.
I'd rather die knowing that I'd made a tenth of the contribution that someone like RMS has, than simply knowing I'd had a good time...
I once felt that way, but I grew up. I would rather die surrounded by those I know and love.
Do you know Dennis Ritchie? Jim Gettys? Knuth? Any one of a dozen other people who have contributed to the computer system you now use? Why don't they get recognized?
I want them (if/when I have them) to be born into a world of opportunity
Opportunity for what? To get a job so they can earn a living and then go off and procreate? To live like mindless automatons?
I want my children to live in a better world where they can do what they want without having to worry about being compelled to "leave their mark."
Thanks for taking everything I said out of context. Yes, I have read Hackers, you obsequious little sh*t. I wasn't trying to downplay RMS' contribution to the computing world and I am not trying to make "snap judgments" or to imply that he is in some way any more demented than a large number of other people.
My point from the beginning has been that RMS has made a major contribution to the computing world but deserves no more recognition than any one of the thousands of other who have worked here. I then went on to speculate as to why it might be that RMS feels teh world owes him kudos. My theory runs basically along teh lines that there once was a lonely person named Rick Stallman who found a niche with some other people at MIT's AI lab. These friends went off to get jobs so they could raise families and seek self-fulfillment.
Feeling abandoned, our protagonist sets out on a Quixotic journey to fell the windmill of propriety software. Others joined him, seeing that there was actually a certain amount of good in what he was doing. These people then set a somewhat different course for the movement and renamed it. Once again our hero feels abandoned and raises a stink.
It doesn't matter that RMS sacrificed a normal life for free software - he did it of his own free will and no one owes him a thing. I might once have called the OS in question GNU/Linux out of respect for him, but his public displays of ill humour have cost him any respect I may once have held for him.
>"I hope not. But how can I know for sure? I've
>got an ego like everyone else. I'm sure my ego >wants me to be more famous. I don't know."
Well, it's not like everyone else's. It's much bigger. I appreciate what he's done for the open-source/free-software community but it's only a part of Linux/Free-Software. What is important here, the credit or the code?
Is it uncompromising idealism or is it uncompromising egotism hiding behind idealism. There's a difference. And more and more, I find myself feeling that he is hurting more than helping his nominal cause.
-Steve Bergman
>Breeding" is the most important thing humans do -
>that's not opinion, that's biology.
>I'm talking about love here, not sex
Interesting juxta-position. This is horribly off-topic, but does intimacy require having children?(!) And what does this really have to do with free/open-source software?
-Steve
Tanenbaum discovered the dark side, too. Ego, ego , everywhere, but not a moment to think...
o lete.txt
http://alge.anart.no/linux/history/linux_is_obs
Linus only maintains the kernel, and the part he wrote is very small.the libc, gcc, emacs, vi, all of these were made by FSF and GNU
Natureman
Yes, he got burned with the GNU/Linux thing, but one very popular distro has made that concession. Maybe he got a raw deal. But if he continues to go ballistic every time someone doesn't credit him in the name Linux itself, he's really going to lose it. More than now, I mean. I mean become obsessed with a name and start forgetting about everything else, including free software.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Actually, he'd get a more powerful message that GNU doesn't just make Linux possible, GNU makes real work possible. cygwin32 is a lifesaver for NT admins who don't even have the bluntest of tools with their OS.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
I remember (stories) when /bin was on a disk, them newfangled dishwasher-sized things that sure was fast, and /usr/bin was on a tape, and you moved things you wanted to be fast off /usr/bin and into /bin
Sure seems an antiquated notion these days. Why keep it now?
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
I can understand RMS' point. Think about it, after so long toiling for his ideals for a completely "free" system, a finnish guy comes and steals pretty much all the momentum from it. When people think of Linux, they think of Linus, but most of them dont realize the millions of lines of code in the OS BESIDE the kernel - they associate the whole OS - utilities, compiler, and all - with Linus. Now, Linus is a very nice guy - very humble and everything, but it is true that he does not really care for the kind of ideology that Stallman holds. Look at it, Linus has said pretty much openly that he doesnt mind non-free programs on linux, and even non-free code in the kernel. This must be RMS' nightmare. It's a knee jerk reaction for him - facing the fact that all that he worked for might go down the tube. Look at it - big businesses are jumping in bed like crazy with linux. Soon, the screws will start turning for the "Linux" system to give the companies more and more "freedom" to make money. RMS' just sees his dream being threatened. He might have an ego, and he is frank enough to state it: Unlike many of you hypocritical bastards here.
I respect RMS' ideology - except for the fact that he only follows it when it comes to software. I think this sort of ideology should be followed across the board. Microsoft is just one example of thousands of companies that are ripping the average man to shreds today - and I dont know how you can simply state "free code" and stop at that.
Oh yeah - too all of you "commie-bastard" flamers, just because you can repeat a '50s "bad word" doesnt make you right.
-Laxative
Dont just free software - free the individual
Emacs was originally developed under the Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS). I'm not sure what relationship RMS has with ITS, but I'd be surprised if he didn't play a major role in its development.
When I was playing around at MIT (my father was a professor there and was able to get me access to the AI Lab systems), I met RMS several times. He was a fascinating character; interesting but a shade intense. (That is, of course, an enormous understatement).
His main legacies are EMACS and GCC. I would think, though, that if GNU had not existed, Linux would be based on utilities from BSD Unix. However, let's not take too much away from RMS and GNU; the GNU utilities/shells do offer significantly superior functionality to their proprietary software ancestors.
Did Berkeley do any kind of C compiler as part of BSD? What happened to it?
D
----
When I first started reading the article, I thought: "Hey.. he got short changed!".
But then, his life is described as a chain of avoidance of responsibilities or so the article notes. He doesn't want children because he doesn't want to work to make enough to support them. He doesn't own a computer of his own, he just uses the foundation's. He charges people high costs for his services. He lives in a rented home.
And he is advocating free software? Maybe he should live his life like his claimed ideal before he goes out and make statements against a man, Linux Torvalds, who not only took the time to work on a critical piece of software, work with others on it, share his work openly, and MAKE the time and put in the EFFORT to be responsible to the public.
Linux takes his position seriously and because of that, he will be taken seriously.
From the article, it looks like Stallman wants no responsibility, not even for his own statements, yet wants the accolade for a project which is used with Linux, not what makes Linux.
I agree with the final note in the article. That Stallman's abrasive personality does little to help him become better noticed. No one wants to spend time with or on someone who seems to condemn the world and at the same time, show utter apathy towards it and himself and his own life.
Just my two cents.
(On a side note, Stallman, if he had taken the time to work with people instead of, as the article suggests, bitch about things, he might be more respected on a personal level. Many a contributing members of society have gone unnoticed despite their hard work simply because they decide to seclude themselves and communicate with no one but an elite few.)
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
Seems like GNU had a body of tools and functions.
:)
But Linus had the heart. Linux.
Both are important. But issues of what the name should be due to how much a group contributes.. sounds sad and rather lame. It isn't like due credit isn't given in the various source files and documentations.
What's in a name? A Linux distribution by any other name would run just as well.
I like the Linux name. So what? Should we call the Redhat distributions: GNU RedHat Linux? Xfree86 Linux? GNU Xfree86 RedHat Caldera contributed People of (list states)(list cities)(list denomination)(list choice of keyboard and bath soap) Linux (list year, month, day, hour, minutes, seconds, etc..)
I don't see Linux as Linus owning the whole thing. It is more like a flag.. a banner.. an image and a symbol that the community can stand behind.
America has a flag.. doesn't mean the one who made the flag(martha something or other?) rules the US.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
Who the fuck am I?
I am an individual in this world. And I had not intended to bash RMS. (Yes, upon re-reading my post, it DID sound like and feel like bashing. I'm sorry for that.)
But if an individual like myself see's that from one article posted by an e-zine, what does the myriad of computer users who are keen to the issues see?
I respect GNU & FSF and what it represents. I see the FSF & GNU as an important factor in the development of the computer software and hardware industry in the years to come. A positive factor.
I agree with your reminders that without GNU, Linux would never have gotten as far as it has now. But isn't it equally true that GNU would not have spread as quickly or gained as much establishment in systems without Linux?
Without the Linux kernel, I doubt my GNU equiped system would do much in the way of running. Likewise, without Linux, I doubt GNU would have even gotten onto my computer in the first place. Both sides have credit due to them. But an abrasive personality goes a long way and an individual who is aware of the ideals involved may find it less agreeable to stand beside someone like that. That is where respect for an individual fails. While the good that one person does is noted, the connection may not be made.
What I posted is the image I got from the Wired article. But in response to your post, respect for an ideal and respect for a person are two different things. I can hold the utmost respect for one and little for the other. I use GNU software with my Linux systems. But I doubt I'd be calling Linux GNU/Linux anytime soon.
Just because I don't use the prefix in the name shouldn't have to mean I don't hold the ideals or understand them.
And despite the numerous posts about personality not mattering, it does. Not just for business purposes, but for interaction as well. You can be respected for your work. You can be respected for your skill. Your determination. Your fighting to the last breath and giving up the things you might hold dear. Those perspectives of respect, now that I've seen posts countering my own post, I believe are due to RMS and I am sorry for not having seen it before.
However, an abrasive personality goes a long way towards souring the views of people who see him. The slip in feelings for RMS, at least for me, lies not so much in what he says, but rather, how he says it. And that is something which can be found to be important both in organizations and out of them.
If I've drawn flames, my apologies. I was just sharing my thoughts on a Wired Post.
RMS definitely has a sense of responsibility. But his reported persona does an equally good job of convincing me otherwise.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
They may not be gods, but eyes are on them. They may not be divinity, but hope from the people are with them.
It can probably be said that what they say has an impact on the groups they represent. They should take responsibility for that. And in many senses, they do and they don't. Out of no fault of their own. A good deal lies with the people.
Myself for instance. I read an article posted by an e-zine. From this, I have a mental picture. I make a post. People who disagree, are negatively affected, make their posts. They make their voice heard and say what they feel or just say something.
If I had made no post and kept silent, there would not have been these posts. But they might have come out elsewhere...
Stallman makes comments and remarks and whether or not he is aware of his presence in the public eye, his comments do paint a picture of himself. And if continued on, the picture painted can be associated with the movement itself.
Responsibility comes from maintaining and knowing the repercussions of one's actions. He started GNU and continues with it. But his persona could become a shadow over it.
I'm not saying he should kiss ass. That would be a compromise of his ideals. But being friendly doesn't hurt and is not a sign of weakness.
As I said in another post, one can have respect for an ideal, and an organization. But one can have a lack of respect for the person behind the same. Hard work does a great job of earning respect. An abrasive personality directed at people does an equally good job of destroying that same respect.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
Yes, it is understandable and sad that someone who has done so much is remembered so little.
But while GNU has done much for Linux, Linux has likewise done a good deal for GNU. By providing a working kernel, Linux made it into something practical and usable.
No, he does not owe anyone to be normal.. except in this case, where he would like some credit due and visibility for his cause, belief, and him self, he would owe it to himself.
Your average guy who doesn't think much of his bad breath, sweat and grime and the need for baths would have a hard time finding a date or his dream girl.
While Stallman is nothing like the extreme picture, his personality might be likened to it. And accolades of the public nature can be likened to the girl of his dreams.
Yes, you will get due awards and credit for your hard work from agencies and groups who see's your work for what it is outside of who you are. But the public would like just a bit more.
More than anyone, it can be said that he owes it to himself. No one else.
To comment on your final point.. isn't every living thing on this planet?
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
emacs
Without emacs? I do not think emacs matters..
Good editor thought..
gcc? Why egcs then? Maybe because of Stallman's personality? Is not it?
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
.. all this utilities I never use.
Following Comrade Stallman logic it should be
X/Linux then.
Yes, gcc is important too. And gmake. And bash.
And so oin. - but these are not the central parts.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
... it is hard for me to be sympathetic with a person, whatever genius he is, who do not like children. Just my opinion of course...
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
RMS sounds like what Linus referred to in his keynote: a visionary who looks like road-kill. I know he was referring to Gates' book, but I think he spoke volumes about others in the industry.
Talk is cheap. One show leadership not by complaining, but by _doing_. In this way Linus deserves the adulation he gets.
RMS, I admire your work. But what have you done for me lately?
Your child will live long after you, and in doing so will improve the world as you have taught him/her to do.
Did Hitler improve the world? Wasn't he someone's child?
You are absolutely right. I would not be able to
use a fully free system without the Linux kernel.
I definitely agree that the operating system I use
should have 'Linux' in the name because of this.
But I would not have a free operating system
without the GNU project either so I think this
operating system should also have 'GNU' in the
name. I don't ignore the Linux kernel by calling
this OS 'GNU', don't ignore GNU by calling this OS
'Linux'.
First, I'll bet mine's bigger than yours by a long shot. Second, while there's certainly ego involved here, remember that Linux is named after Linux, while GNU stands for, "GNU's Not Unix."
At least RMS wasn't egotistical enough to name the movement after himself.
X is full screen, in case you haven't tried it. If you'd like each window to be full screen, well then maximize them. I'd have to say though, I think this is a pretty lame complaint.
In your religion, did Jesus breed or did he have more important things to do?
I have used X for years and it has NEVER crashed on me.
Its sad to see so many persons personally attacking RMS. I have never felt the same curiosity and admiration for a hacker as I feel for him.
He wrote gcc, emacs and many stuff which we use everyday. Without it, Linux (the kernel) would probably not exist.
Take a look at the gcc code, take a look at emacs. You will recognize the mark of an *incredible* inteligence there.
Do you know he suffered physical problems at around 1990 that caused him great pain on his hand and couldn't code anymore? He hired students and tried to continue to code thru their hands but that didn't work. He had to stop. How did you want him to create a Kernel (or anything) without hands?
Some say he's forcing everyone to call it GNU Linux. He's not. He's just making a "a polite request" (he's fingers typed that). Have you seen the GPL clausule where it says you have to call it GNU/Something if you use his free software? He's just making a polite request.
Few programs are as Sublime (its a matter of Art) as the ones he wrote. However, that is not the reason why I think he deservers more credit than Linus and anyone else. More important than emacs, gcc and all the wonderful GNU software, he wrote the GPL and the GNU manifesto. He started the Free Software (now called Open Source by many) movement. GPL. How would our computing world be if GPL did not exist? Can't you see he started our movement?
Richard Stallman deserves more credit than any other hacker.
AFC.
Do you really think having a GUI is more important than being able to compile programs?
Umm.
What non-gcc-based, open-source compilers are there?
AFC.
Well, I have never met RMS in real life, but we have exchanged a few emails. I am developing an application that *may* be released as part of the GNU project so most (if not all) are related with it. However, from the very beginning, the responses I have received from him have been very warm. I have received a wonderful treatment from him. There is nothing I could complain about.
The first email I sent him was a question, I asked him why did he want us to call it GNU/Linux and then critiziced what he called the "obnoxious BSD advertising clause". His response was very nice, he had no idea who I was yet he took the time to write me back and explain his reasons.
He has always been very respectful.
I can't believe someone calls the Open Source/GNU movement hypocritical (is that how you spell it?).
It is true, no one (umm, well... actually... umm) will give you support for free. If you expect developers not only to give you their applications for free (free as in $0) but also give you support, you are probably dog c^H^H^H^H^Humm rather silly.
There's no hypocresy (heh... again... how do you spell it?) in the GNU movement. Well, at least I can't see it.
AFC.
There might be a lot of GNU code in Linux systems, but it is mostly in trivial things like "ls" and "cat". I wouldn't cal 'gcc', 'ld' and 'as' trivial things. Have you ever booted a Linux kernel not compiled with gcc? How far do you think Linus' project would have progressed whitout a freely distributable, portable C compiler? Q.E.D
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
Also, LynxOS and QNX use and distribute GCC and GDB. What all these people bashing RMS don't seem to realize is that it would be extremely difficult for Linux to get off the ground were it not for the previous availability of a free, portable C compiler, a linker, a debugger and a make utility.
And, no, don't give me the BS about G++ vs EGCS. That's a fork because of C++ features, not C. Nobody using C++ in the kernel, right?
Show me a distribution of Linux where the kernel was not compiled with gcc and I'll show you a non GNU Linux.
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
Going on the current population level, I'd say having kids shows a lack of responsibilty..
;)
All this talk of kids, and technology and someone actually mentioning Steve Jobs in a thread reminded me of a Wired interview Jobs gave in 1996. The interviewer was asking him about the Web and was hoping for some great vision of mankind's future (here's the excerpt):
--Start of Quote--
What's the biggest surprise this technology will deliver?
The problem is I'm older now, I'm 40 years old and this stuff doesn't change the world. It really doesn't.
That's going to break people's heart's.
I'm sorry, it's true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It's been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much - if at all.
These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people people we might not otherwise...These things can profoundly influence life. I'm not downplaying that. But it's a disservice to constantly put things in this radical new light - that it's going to change everything. Things don't have to change the world to be important.
--End of Quote--
I agree with him, and with you too. Perhaps if RMS did have children could help him find a different perspective, the way that children made Steve Jobs mature.
-- John Truong
You mention intelligence then try to fix the blame of the argument to Micro$oft? Ok..
GNU/Linux has *not* been getting all the media coverage. Linux and its successful development model has.
Reality creates "haves" and "have nots". The "have nots" that you mention rarely "ask" the "haves" to share - *this* is where the division starts. We're talking about coercion and RMS & Co. would do it forcibly if they had it in their power to do so. Indeed, doing so requires that they be working under a very wrong premise indeed. Successful "have nots" work their butts off to become "haves" themselves. Its not until then that they understand what has value and that the very act of giving it away makes it less valuable.
I'm aware that RMS is concerned that he is being left out because his FSF movement has been important to Linux development but FSF was not fundamental to the existence of Linux.
Without Andrew Tannenbaums Minux (minimal unix: rimes with Linux) I believe that Linux would never have existed. In the '80's people would often complain to Andrew Tannenbaum that they wanted a 386 version of Minux and Mr. Tannenbaum would respond, "You are welcome to make a 386 version, go ahead, you have the source code." You see, Tannenbaums Minux package was a source code licensed product designed to teach OS design. Linus was on the comp.os.minux newsgroup (or was it alt.os.minux back then?) and that is where he announced his first 32 bit kernel. You can still see traces of the Minux heritage in Linux when you rebuild the Kernel and look at filesystem options.
RMS when I spoke with him in the '80's about working on the OS Kernel (to be called Hurd) I was informed that it was in capable hands. I feel that the FSF has a bit of elitism. RMS did not initially want Linux to be the OS of choice for FSF and planned to have Hurd replace Linux as soon as it was available. Since FSF was not committed to Linux as their core (something they were never able to produce) why should the Linux community rally around the FSF. The linux community has been able to do what RMS never was able to do: Use the GPL to produce a whole OS capable of supplanting commercial products.
If anyone deserves more credit for Linux its Tannenbaum, not RMS who never seemed to really like Linux anyway.
Earlier I wrote about how Andrew Tannenbaum dosn't get mentioned as much as he used to in the Linux community. Those of us who were Minux users know how much we learned from the Minux source code. It was a great place to start. Of course this got me thinking about the many people who have contributed to where we are. The list is endless! Pike, Richie, Kernigan, RMS, Torvalds, Alan Cox, Jackson (one of my instructors), Babbage, Joy, Hopper, and many many more. Good god the list is nearly endless when you really think about it. Heck, I even ask questions on the net occasionally. Maybe they help maybe not. The real question in this discussion becomes, "What role does Ego play in the Open Source world?". Do we let leaders in the movement start a pissing match that leads to the destruction of the movement or will this be more like the Net distributions? Very evolutionary, the person who best fit the need rose to the pivital position at that time. Does this say that one person is better, worse, or indifferent? No, I think it means that someone who was the right person at the right time was there when we needed them. I only hope that the right person is in place where and when we need them in the future. And you know what? That person may just be you....
While RMS may be intolerant of practices divergent from his beliefs (which is perfectly fine), he doesn't go around trying to silence those who disagree with him.
On this website, however, some supporters of RMS and his ideology do attempt to silence the opposition.. through flames, personal attacks, etc.
Now, I'm trying hard not to generalize; there is the occasional pro-MS post that derides all users of Linux.
I'm fairly certain that Stallman recognizes the right of a software author to release *wholly original* code in a form other than GPL-covered source. It's just that he wishes that people would not, especially if they use GNU and other GPL'd tools to develop it.
This frustration (I imagine) is what leads to the whole "Lesser GPL" campaign.
What's the point of this post? To show the pro-FSF contingent on slashdot that not everyone who disagrees with Free softare ideology is irrational. If the context of the argument is kept on stronger footing than CAPS-LOCKED oneliners, then maybe the flames will decrease somewhat.
I'm probably just wasting my time.. AC one-liners won't cease, and all the intolerance won't cease..
have a nice day anyway.
Great title for a book..
:-)
If Stallman was so critical to the project from a code perspective, that his absence killed it, why didn't he find step into a managerial position, and open up development to others?
ah, the bazaar.. it's a term overused these days, but it applies, I imagine. If Stallman requested patches and improvements, to get the GNU kernel off the ground, zealots from around the world would heed the cry.
That many eyeballs are a substantial resource; the HURD developers should take advantage of it, by publicizing HURD more, and actively recruiting developers.
Be has swayed a lot of people, and BeOS is not even free. Stallman should be able to attract a horde for HURD.
Stallman is such an egomaniac. Better things to
do than have kids? Somebody better rethink his
plan on becoming immortal. It seems he wants
glory for himself rather than to have people using a free
operating system.
The point of having a family is not just to create
more people in the world. The point is to make
the ultimate investment. By having children you
are spending >20 years creating an individual who
is smarter, more aware, and better than yourself and Richard Stallman.
Your child will live long after you, and in doing so
will improve the world as you have taught him/her
to do. This is what "having kids" is about.
I think RMS sounds like an eccentric to me. I think I would agree with the previous comments that he probably would love to take the credit for Linux if he could. I mean, let's face it... The HURD is an interesting idea, but it is so far out that it cannot seem to get off the ground... The latest news on the GNU website is that they are at v0.2, and struggling just to get it to be usable. In various places, even they seem to hint that for practical purposes, they must use Linux, and not HURD... I mean, let's face it... The HURD doesn't even have a RANDOM device, for crying out loud! I agree RMS deserves some credit for all his work too, but there is a reason for Linus getting most of the credit: the kernel is probably the biggest single contribution given, even if it is only 3% of the entire system, which is probably accurate... In other words, that 3% is probably more than any other single contributed bit of code.
Actually, I think Stallman would get much more recognition if he simply adopted Linux as an official part of *THE* GNU system, and all the work Torvalds has done... In other words, I think the two should shake hands. Then we would have a situation where Linus made an acknowledged contribution to the GNU project, and Stallman would be equally acknowledged for his contributions... But NO, RMS wouldn't have it that way--heaven forbid if that should happen... Heaven forbid if his philosophical issues took second seat to technical ones.
Another thing: since his ideas are revolutionary to the proprietary software world, naturally there must be a REASON presented for why Open Source is superior, and the practical issues he dismisses so easily are probably the main reason why Open Source has penetrated the market as much as it has.
The heavy lobbying of RMS to keep X free so it could be used for the GNU system is one of the biggest reasons MIT agreed to make X free.
Wether they are or not is irrelevent. GNU/Linux would not have happened as fast or on as big a scale if the core X code weren't free.
Arguably X in general would not have won the Unix windowing system wars if it were not free.
Stallman claims that he's not seeking any glory for himself, but the quotes in the article say otherwise. Here is a man who is obviously very bitter that he hasn't gotten some large chunk of the Linux payoff.
I submit that he does not get acknowledged because his behaviour is so far out on the fringe of society that he himself could do more damage to the concept of free software simply by being who he is.
Personally, I think that we should all breath a sigh of relieve that Stallman is not too closely associated in people's minds with Linux.
There...I said it. Linux. Not GNU/Linux. I call BS on the idea that people are too lazy to say it...they call it by the name that it really is. Sheesh. Egos.
Hey, wait, this has the germ of an idea!
Maybe we should attach the name of every single person or organization who has worked on Linux to the name of the operating system. Yeah, that's it! Then instead of wasting our time arguing over who should get credit for it, we can waste our time trying to pronounce it.
Good idea, Don!
=d=
I don't think I need to explain my reasoning here. The two are about as extreme as they can get in this respect.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
If you replace all the Sun tools with their GNU equivilents, would the OS suddenly be GNU/Solaris? No. So why GNU/Linux? No.
The kernel is the OS, and all the tools in the world from some other source don't change the origin of the kernel.
Jealousy is an ugly thing.
Why don't we just start calling the President of the U.S. 'Mr. Cabinet'? After all, most of the executive branch consists of other people doing 'most' of the work. Probably a lot of them are a lot more intelligent than he is, and other's are better military leaders, etc., etc. ad nauseum...
:) That's just semantics. Most people consider the operating sytem, that which makes the computer do what THEY want it to: If my LINUX kernel crashes, my computer has stopped running. If my c compiler stops working, I can't compile programs, but my system will keep running the programs which are doing what I need to do. Now I suppose that for many hard-core hackers the most importants program that can run on their Linux/Unix/Windows/MacOS, etc. IS the compiler. That's cool. Call your OS: "(insert favorite compiler) (insert favorite kernel) (insert other favorite tools/apps/etc. or just a postfix or prefix if you prefer)"
You can insert your metaphor of choice here...
What do you call an operating system? It's the same old debate. Some say it's the kernel, others say it's all those tools that help people get stuff done with the kernel, including building new kernels
I prefer to think of the operating system as the single most indispensable program running: the kernel.
I give great thanks to Richard Stallmann and friends for providing many useful tools to run on my OS (Linux), and I'm sorry that injuries to his hands have prevented him from producing more brilliant software; BUT...
I'm sure Mr. Stallmann would himself agree that his brain should get the credit for his software not his hands...
in due (and only due) respect
Chris Kuhi
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
I think we should all start calling it Freeax again. Maybe everyone could get along then. Seriously, do you think we would have these problems if Freeax had been kept as the name?
If it was truly a philosophical issue then who cares about the name? I believe that RS should get all the credit he deserves, but it appears that he dodges the mainstream. As soon as something starts getting big, he splinters off. Otherwise he could have all the recognition he deserves.
:)
Sounds like some sour grapes in there too. Seems like they're both a part of the same team and trashing doesn't help anything.
Of course I could be way off base. Just my impression
Ben
it is very difficult to perform even one major life project with excellence. if I thought I had a chance to make as big a contribution to society and to the world of the intellect as Stallman already has, I would forgo having kids, too, to avoid diluting my creative energies. the fact the the 2 most creative intellectuals ever, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, did not have kids --Newton said on his deathbed that he never had sex even-- is evidence
(oops. here is the full post.) it is very difficult to perform even one major life project with excellence. if I thought I had a chance to make as big a contribution to society and to the world of the intellect as Stallman already has, I would forgo having kids, too, to avoid diluting my creative energies. the fact the the 2 most creative intellectuals ever, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, did not have kids --Newton said on his deathbed that he never had sex even-- is evidence that a wife and kids can reduce your chances of making a major intellectual contribution.
I listed all of the top 2 greatest minds.
tell me who you think #3 is and I'll find out if he had kids, too.
Dude, you completely missed HIS point -- which was that WRT 'intellectual property', the distinction between an 'idea' and 'implementation of idea' is not nearly as strong (and even arguably non-existint) as with material goods.
Your example about the bookshelf was the classic bit of lunacy that is spewed forth by people too lazy to think about what the words 'intellectual property' mean. Use your brain, for pete's sake -- you don't OWN ideas (in specific form or not), you are instead granted RIGHTS TO RESTRICT OTHERS' USE OF THEM!
In short -- the poster's underlying statement was that 'intellectual property' is a linguistic sleight of hand designed to trap people into thinking about information as about something of the same nature as cars and tables. When you made your answer, you fell into this trap, making yourself look like a fool who does not know the difference between the ontological status of material objects and information.
P.S. Asserting yourself to be the winner in an argument does not make you one.
--
Victor Danilchenko
(sigh) Ideas are information. The difference is merely in degrees of specificity. Unlike material goods, there is no qualitive distinction between idea and its implementation in information trade, just a qualitive one. You say information is not cost-free to obtain? Well, DUH, neither are design ideas, for example! You have a problem with someone patenting, say, the object-oriented language design, but not with someone copyrighting a specific OO language -- even though the former (idea) took a lot more effort to come up with?.. get real.
BTW, patents are NOT granted on ideas, but rather on processes -- which is why software patents are a very thorny legal issue, they have to be issued for a combination of software and computer (which thus form a processing unit where the software is the essence of the process), rather than the software itself.
The current copyright laws were written in a different era, under different technology. They made sense for books, when the reproduction mechanism was either the printing press or hand-copying (so only your competitors had the means to mass-produce the books, thus fundamentally undermining fair competition); the world has changed. There WAS a qualitive difference between an idea for a book and a book itself (although the difference was purely pragmatic); this distinction has gone away with our newfound ability to replicate information virtually for free.
You DO realize that 'code' is also ideas, just more specific than design?.. it's a continuum, dude, from conceptual design to a specific instance of code on a disk.
P.S. Here is another tip, since you liked my previous one so much. Sit down and think a bit about what information is, and its ontological status. Once you do THAT, sit down again and think about how material property laws apply to something like information.
P.P.S. Post under a name, will you? Anonymity in an argument is a refuge of cowards and fools.
--
Victor Danilchenko
No. Anonymity is irrelevent in an argument. It is what is said that matters, not who says it.
Agreed -- and I never said anything to the contrary. Anonymity indeed is irrelevant to the validity of the argument -- to say otherwise would be argumentum ad hominem. However, it DOES matter -- anonymity provides one with a convenient cover from behind which one can say any kind of crap they want, without being responsible for their words.
This is why I address the arguments by ACs -- they are no less valid for their lack of discernible authorship. However, to me, it is a matter of respect -- I prefer knowing who I am speaking to, I despise voices from the crowd, and I prefer to argue with someone I can respect.
I can understand one being unwilling to take the time to identify themselves for a quickie one-time post. However, when a push comes to shove, the implied lack of responsibility for their words makes me regard the my AC opposition without any respect (this does not apply to their arguments, though, to which respect does not apply).
Just an opinion of a man who prefers honesty and responsibility...
P.S. The "dude" thing is a little too cute.
Glad you like it, dude.
--
Victor Danilchenko
Hmmm... hasn't this been said before?
A few hundred times perhaps?
"I want these ideas to get the publicity. I think it's a damn shame that all the publicity is going to someone who doesn't advocate these ideas of freedom."
Get real.
I don't know why he has such a problem with GNU being associated with UNIX, and no problem with GNU being assocaited with Linux.
Because "UNIX is a trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories."
Remember that when RMS started the GNU Project, in the early 80s, free software had been going proprietary at an alarming rate for several years. The whole point of GNU was that it wasn't UNIX -- it didn't have AT&T's cutthroat licensing policy behind it. This obviously is not true of the Linux kernel, which is free software.
RMS should not complain. One cannot ask for better publicity than Linux.
Sure you could. You could get a marketing program that identifies the system as the GNU software system running on the Linux kernel. Believe it or not, Linux fans really do tend to forget where their software came from -- just consider the questions in Linux newsgroups about "Linux's GCC" and "the Linux Emacs editor." I'm not surprised that RMS feels slighted by the Linux community.
I switched from Linux to FreeBSD several years ago, when it became clear that the Linux community were by and large MS-DOS refugees who were more interested in software they didn't have to pay for than software they could hack on. Things seem to be changing these days, which is nice to see. But I don't blame RMS for his frustration with the changing face of the "free" software movement.
I do think his criticism of Linus is strange. Linus has always made it clear that putting Linux under the GPL was the smartest decision he ever made with the software, because it meant that no one could ever steal his work from him or from the people. Whether Linus does not personally trumpet FSF or Project GNU, it seems clear that he understands and pursues the goals of free software. RMS may be unhappy because of his employment at the CIA^H^H^H^H^H^H^HTransmeta.
My point is that linux can run without GNU software...
It could.
But it doesn't.
That's why it's appropriate to call it GNU/Linux.
The fact that it would take so much work to put together this mythical "Linux operating system that doesn't include any GNU tools" is precisely why the name "GNU/Linux" is justified.
A couple of comments:
1. RMS has a vision and idea of what he thinks is right. He is living according to his ideals which is more than I and many others can say.
2. Most geniuses were labeled as crazy lunatics in their time.
3. Judging by his actions, RMS wants to keep the idea of free software alive. Sometimes I think his mouth gets in the way, but it's always better to judge a man by his actions instead of his words. It's not so much that he wants everyone to start saying "GNU/Linux", rather he doesn't want the concept of free software (which contributed a large chunk to Linux) getting lost in the wash.
You are, of course, correct. But having children and taking care of them, if done with love and keeping them first in your mind, can be one of the greatest self-sacrifices. I kind of long to have a kid (or two -- maybe), and I feel like I would make a good father, if given the chance. I love children.
BTW, I am not a crazy christian. I have spiritual faith and believe in God, but don't find either in churches.
Folks:
Maybe RMS should have called GNU the RMS system. GNU is so thoroughly embedded within BSD, Linux, and the commercial Unicies, and free software in general (the egcs project, the sendmail code, ssh, etc) that maybe he needs to rethink what he wants.
From reading the article, RMS wants recognition. Well, unless he is looking for a coronation or something like that, shit, he has it! His tools are used widely by tens of millions of people every single day, whether or not he knows it.
IMO what he should do if he wants his ego satiated, is to stop the "GNU/Linux" stuff. It is Linux, and leave that alone. Start getting some people to work with him on spreading the message that GNU makes Linux possible, hell it makes most Unix possible. Talk about this, and talk about his contribution to starting and sheparding GNU. Point to Linux as a successful example of the use and power of the GNU approach, as well as the OSS model, and Free software in general. Stop doing the penis length comparison of "your kernel.c is only 3% of the OS," as a) nobody cares, b) sounds like massively sour grapes there dude.
Talk positively about how he laid the foundation which enabled Linux and xBSD to grow. That should inject him with some serious ego boosters, as people realize that Linus was able to bring about his work in the context of RMS's work. That is a pretty powerful story.
Just a small correction; Linux is licensed under the GNU General Public License. This does _not_ make it GNU software. Calling a program GNU software means that the developer and the GNU project agree that the software is part of the GNU system. Linux is not part of the GNU system though many people have adopted it to make a free operating system.
This is not so. I won't go into specifics, but you can look into the philosophy section on the GNU project web server. I hope you'll understand what it is RMS and the GNU Projects wants after that.
OK, so the article refers to GNU/Linux. We know which side of the story they got.
I'm tired of hearing about this. I don't call my Solaris system GNU/Solaris; I don't call my HP/UX system GNU/HP/UX (although I will have to confess to having called it other things).
GNU/Linux isn't the proper name, Linux isn't an abbreviated form, and the only thing that RMS is getting is labelled: BABY.
I agree. He might want to make himself relevant by actually DOING something instead of trying to talk his way into the limelight.
Also : RMS might have to realize that while GNU is an important part of Linux and loads of other software packages out there, times passes and as in any evolution, things get outdated and forgotten but there is always something there to be reminded of it.
-- http://z80.org - all opinions, all the time --
It seems like Stallman wants to take linux and make it his baby. Linus wrote the kernel, which is what Linux essentially is, he can do whatever he wants with it. Why should we all have to call it GNU Linux because stallman wants it that way? Maybe I'm off here, but unless Linus has been lying all this time, Linux came out of minix, not GNU. What ever happened to Hurd anyway...
Yes, those are all very important, but they are not linux in my mind. The GNU tools are used on a wide variety of platforms. They are not what makes an OS, the kernel is. What's the difference between FreeBSD and Linux? The kernel ( yes, there are others, but the kernel is the biggest). They all use the same GNU tools. Why isn't stallman pushing for GNU/FreeBSD? Yes, GNU contributed a lot to the linux movement, and propelled it forward faster than it would have gone without it. But that doesn't mean linux wouldn't be here without them. Someone, somewhere would have written a c compiler, an editor, etc.
I can take my linux box and replace all the GNU tools. So if I do that am I no longer running Linux? I don't think so. Yes, linux uses these tools, but these tools depend on linux, linux does not depend on these tools. There is other software out there than GNU...