Slashdot Mirror
RMS vs. ESR
Steven Borrelli writes "AT&T as the mother of open source software? Here is a nice examination of the positions that the FSF and OSI have taken on O'Reilly's site.
Whence the Source:
Untangling the Open Source/Free Software Debate "
I saw this over a week ago, and it was on slashdot just the other day.
Oh yeah baby!!!
Lets get it on!
In this corner, Eric S. Raymond, at first glance a strong contentder, at second, a loudmouth with no real movement credentials (code countss, essays don't). In this corner, the battle-scarred and formidable Rasputin of Software, Richard S. Stallman. Well Tony, it looks to me like this fight should be stopped before it starts : ESR is a lightweight in a heavyweight bout.
But there's another problem: Stallman wasn't the first.
Years before he or Eric Raymond ever hit on the idea of
liberating source code, the UNIX operating system was being
developed at AT&T Bell Laboratories. As a
government-regulated monopoly, AT&T was barred from
competition in the computer industry. Though UNIX source
code was not then "free" in either the FSF or OSI sense, it
could be licensed at nominal cost.
This is just so jive it is ridiculous. RMS is the founder of free software and don't forget it.
...that O'Reilly would ever publish an essay so heavily biased towards ESR? I am shocked, SHOCKED I tell you.
Quiver before the power of popcli^H^H^H^H^H^Hfetchmail, peons.
I'm sure ESR made significant contributions to the package (I don't have the NEWS file anymore, I'm afraid)... but it hardly sprang from the head of ESR fully formed.
Exactly, the article is biased towards ESR's point of view (what could you expect of O'Reilly, who have been critiziced directly by RMS?).
We have all seen the recent discussion about the reason for open source / free software. While ESR's point of view seems to be more common, real hackers will follow RMS.
This is like science. As Einstein used to say, real scientists are motivated for the love they have for science. Not for commercial gains. I believe this pretty much applies to programming, real computing scientists will give their code for free.
As a side note, ESR does not deserve 1/10000 of the attention than RMS deserves. All ESR does seems to write essays about hacking. The Jargon file and such. And fetchmail. He seems to think he's Oh-The-One merely cause he wrote fetchmail, such a trivial piece of code. RMS instead, has written gcc and emacs, to name a few. Above anything, RMS invented the GPL! ESR just wants to get attention with his essays. Isn't he annoying? Going to the Linux refund thingie dressed up like Obi Wan, oh-Please.
AFC.
Do you get paid by Ziff-Davis?
GPL has its place along with the other licenses,
to promote only unrestricted licensing is silly.
Certain assets of the community must be protected
(like the OS for example). Gateways to the public
infrastructure are better be left open( with LGPL
BSD etc. ). You can make money from the apps and
your knowledge and ability to customize the
GPL parts (with the result returned to the GPL
pool).
If ESR insists that GPL is useless I will immediately
question his motives.
RMS on the other hand never insisted that everyone
GPLs everything. He might be wrong sometimes but who isn't.
Personally I believe, Linus takes the middle way - GPL the core,
leave the doors open. That is a good example for everyone.
A grave injustice is being done in the software community in that one of the leading lights of open source (if not FSF-style free) software has, as far as I can tell, never gotten any credit for his contributions to the industry.
Back in the late 70s Bert Kersey was a San Diego graphic artist who bought an Apple II to see if it would aid him in his work. He soon found he was having more fun creating programs than he was trying to use the computer for art. He wrote a few programs and decided to sell them through a company he created, Beagle Bros Software. See if this quote from a Beagle Bros catalog (filtered through the haze of memory) sounds familiar:
"We write and distribute our programs in Basic for two simple reasons. First, we don't have to spend the time, energy, and money necessary to write them in assembly language and/or copy protect them. Second, by putting them out in plain view, you can see how we did some of the things we do and use our ideas in your own programs if you like."
Come to think of it, in those early days of personal computing 95% of the programs were open source, even though you were either expected to buy a copy of the program just like you would a book or type it in from a magazine. Still, in my mind Kersey was the first guy to popularize the idea of "Here's our code, take a look at it and see if you can use any of the ideas."
MIT may have created hacking. AT&T may have been the father, or at least the corporate sponsor, of Computing As Some Of Us Know It Today. But if you ask me Kersey was the first guy to really take the idea of open source to the masses. Plus, his catalogs were genuinely funny.
-- Just Another Anonymous Coward
RMS on the other hand never insisted that everyone GPLs everything.
It that really true? RMS wants O'Reilly to spend time/money writing books, then give them away for free. Exactly how long would ORA stay in business if they allowed everyone to download their excellent books for free? RMS really lost me on that one.
I want RMS to be right, but I keep running into the brick wall of practicality. It takes money to live, and not all of us receive big grants to pay the bills.
Deep down, I know our "community" needs an idealogical beacon -- and RMS has worked hard to be in that position. But I can't get over the fact that he's so damn annoying. (Perhaps that's a good thing -- a lighthouse that moved with the tide wouldn't be very useful). Anonymous Kevin PS to O'Reilly: Even if RMS continues to demonize you on the free-books issue -- please avoid the anti-RMS bias I see in your article. It makes you look petty (and Linux does not need another Perens). Besides that, it's just not nice.
You know if only 30K people were using LINUX then nobody would give a shit about who did what first. Now that its taking off everyone wants a bronze bust of themselves in the halls of LINUX history.
.... all the back to Abraham baby. Its all religion.
Linux needed Linus, who needed STallman, who needed Richie who who was looking over Thompson's shoulder, who was reading the works of Wirth and Dijkstra, who were reading Backus and VonNeumman who
Its interesting how everyone is cool and helpful until it becomes successful and there is something to gain. Then greed comes up: money or fame or something.
ron rangel
We have had our software running on quite a few compilers - gcc, SGI CC, DEC cc, Visual C++ and have found that they all have their little `quirks'. Its gotta be the worst thing about developing using C++ - can't rely on using all the features that you want to.
I also miss the early days of personal computing, when every magazine you bought contained programs you could type in and run. I remember how excited I was when I got a copy of Microsoft BASIC for my Atari 800, so I could run all the program listings from "Creative Computing" (ah, the irony...) But as pointed out above, while these programs showed you the sources, they were still copyrighted - you could learn from the code but you couldn't reuse it.
Also, most of these programs were fairly trivial BASIC programs of a couple hundred lines - certainly nothing with the utility to be used as an important app the way I use emacs, gcc, and soforth. This was due to size constraints and the fact that C wasn't yet in wide usage at the time, and also the fact that people knew if they had written a "real" program, they could sell it as a proprietary closed-source product, rather than just selling the sources to a magazine.
-double_h
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/5423
So no one makes any money off of GNU software.
Yeah. Right.
I find it funny that it took Cygnus to give GCC a good kick in the ass and get it going in the right direction...
Based on ESR's writings, I've never gotten the impression that he thinks he's "oh-the-mighty"...I rather get the impression that he's a bit embarrassed at the attention he's recieved for doing admittedly so little.
What ESR represents is a more extroverted member of the Open Source community.
I'd buy their books still if they were free...
however, if they were free, i could at least spend a bit more time looking at them than going to the damn store
True, a lot of these programs were relatively trivial, but then this WAS the early days of computing. The vast majority of us were still learning. And that was another cool thing about Beagle Bros -- their programs were by and large non-trivial. I remember two in particular: One was a printing program that showed how to use what we would call "print filters" to convert pictures we could see on the screen into pictures we could print. Another was a game that shuttled letters around on a screen, imitating a train that hooked and unhooked cars (letters) to spell words. The source explained a rather odd comment on the game screen -- "Railroad tarrifs prohibit shipping goods that begin with P!" -- by documenting how the screen interacted with memory (something about sending the ASCII code for "P" to the screen in the way they used had an undesirable result, like clearing the screen).
Also, Beagle Bros code was copyrighted, but not their "hacks" (if you will). In fact, they encouraged you to peruse the code and learn from it, something most Unix/Linux hackers take for granted these days (and something most Windows programmers find difficult to impossible, alas).
-- Just Another Anonymous Coward
Problem though is that O'Reilly "Open Sourced" a few books (Linux Admin stuff IIRC), and sales were so tepid that the original authors weren't interested in maintaining them.
Of course, Tim O'Reilly smiles broader and broader, the more people proclaim "Make your money on Tech Support," but even commercial software vendors are trying to make more and more money off tech support, while eliminating much of the support documentation that ships with the product in the first place.
Slashdot: "news that mattered weeks ago"
Slashdot: "News that used to matter?"
Slashdot: "What old biased news do you want to read today"
That ESR has lost focus of the purposes behind Free Software.
emacs. he said emacs, not xemacs, which is different because of that whole x thing.
/usr/bin/emacs
/usr/X11R6/lib/libXaw3d.so.6 (0x40000000) /usr/X11R6/lib/libXmu.so.6 (0x4004f000) /usr/X11R6/lib/libXt.so.6 (0x40062000) /usr/X11R6/lib/libSM.so.6 (0x400a5000) /usr/X11R6/lib/libICE.so.6 (0x400ad000) /usr/X11R6/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x400c1000) /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x400cc000) /usr/lib/libncurses.so.4 (0x4016b000) /lib/libm.so.6 (0x401a9000) /lib/libc.so.6 (0x401c2000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x2aaaa000)
$ ldd
libXaw3d.so.6 =>
libXmu.so.6 =>
libXt.so.6 =>
libSM.so.6 =>
libICE.so.6 =>
libXext.so.6 =>
libX11.so.6 =>
libncurses.so.4 =>
libm.so.6 =>
libc.so.6 =>
$
I do declare, I see an ncurses in there!
Don't flame unless you know what you're talking about, please.
Or maybe $90. Something in that ballpark. Barely enough to cover handling charges and admin costs. I forget if they provided the tape or you sent them a blank one.
That was the educational/nonprofit/etc cost. For commercial outfits it was about $10K, - a small price in those days of the multi-million dollar mainframe.
The facts in that story are not entirely true. I
was there, know who else was there, and kept some
of the hard copy.
I'm not sharing because I am tired of this crap!
"Much as the playing field seems tilted towards Raymond..."
Bullshit. Raymond is the sort of opportunistic
goober who *puts* *himself* wherever the heck
he thinks the plying feild is tilting towards.
Hacker's Dictionary, anyone?
maybe not. there sure is a lot of bad feelings on this site.
Ron
Show me. Find an interview, or one article, where ESR does not imply that he
is a hacker. I urge you to look at his coding,
by Eric's own admission, he has never attended one course in computer sciences.
Read his code, it shows. He is a bellow average programmer who never misses the opportunity to remind everyone that he is a hacker. Those who need to brag about something, they are not. Those who actually are, do not waste their time bragging.
Or have you read the READMEs of his code?
For example fetchmail ?
IT SUCKS. Its like "That's the way i like it
and you can all bog off, and I don't care about
what you have to say because afterall OSF
does not mean that every little creep is going
to tell me what to do. And if you like my cool
program then admit that I am a cool person
elsewise go back to windoze and leave us cool
hackes (me and linus) alone.
Its time to get some attitude in this OSF thing.
I DID ALL THIS
HAHAHAHAHA
"""""""
Brave anonymous
woah.
Marx?!
Try Proudhon, or Godwin, or Kropotkin. The ideals behind the GPL are in the tradition of Anarchism, or free communism, not the authoritarian strain of socialism Marx was elaborating in about 1840.
As for communist theory generally, that predates Marx by centuries (didn't Thomas More write Utopia in around 1510?). Far too many people have this absurd idea that Marx single-handedly "invented" communism -- start reading some history!
Alex Berkman
Well, I only read parts it since I already knew where it was headed (it's on opensource.oreilly.com for goodness sake). I felt that they misrepresented GNU, FSF and Mr. Stallman.
It's about freedom. The writer missed that major point.
Some of "us" are still hackers and not business people. Some of "us" still like free software...
I've felt that ESR's tried to downplay the importance of the GNU/FSF and what RMS has done. I like GCC and emacs a little more than fetchmail. Sorry ESR.
And ESR didn't create any movement. It was (free software was) already alive and well long before he pushed himself into the scene.
This article is a repeat. But I'm glad Taco brought up the Big Lie repeated in this article, namely that AT&T/Berkeley represents the true origins of free software. I first saw this stated by Eric Raymond in a Salon article sometime back. It is wrong and needs to be corrected before people start believing it.
I'm reposting my message on this from the previous thread here:
This article repeats the Big Lie (one that I've seen Raymond repeat, BTW) that somehow the free software movement pre-dates Richard Stallman. Stallman gets a lot of his legitimacy from having started the FSF back in 1983, and from his claims that he represents the original free software philosophy. I see these (false) statements about how free software is somehow pre-Stallman as nothing more than a blatant, explicit attempt by Stallman's critics to de-ligitimize his views by re-writing history so that he no longer represents the origins of free software. The people propagating this want to substitute in the Berkeley traditions as the origin of free software because those are much more friendly to the proprietary software developers these people are sucking up to.
Facts:
-- Stallman started at the MIT AI Lab in 1971, long before BSD. [ The first version of Unix was written in 1970 but was never released. ]
-- The MIT AI Lab is widely recognized as the birthplace of hackerdom and the earliest free software traditions. This dates back to the 60's and even the 50's TMRC at MIT. Stallman is a direct heir to and participant in these earliest of traditions. The AI lab traditions pre-date Unix.
-- The original "Emacs commune" license pre-dates the UCB license. (The Emacs commune license was an early form of copyleft). Actually, I can't swear that this is accurate, but I believe that it is. (Stallman wrote the original Emacs in 1975, which was before the first BSD release I believe (I think that was 79 or something)).
I think you'd have difficulty finding a place with free software traditions that both pre-dated MIT, and which continue to have an effect today. Other schools certainly made contributions to the culture, but MIT is generally considered the most prominent. The traditions of Stanford and CMU (for example) are also reasonably close to those of MIT as far as I can tell. (Though I'm no expert here).
Whatever the history, it is certain that AT&T and Berkeley were not the birthplace of free software in any way, shape, or form. And it is completely false to say that BSD pre-dates Stallman, which Eric Raymond did.
Raymond said, "important strains of it [free software] (such as the BSD Unix tradition) predated him [RMS] and remain both technically and ideologically independent of his Free Software Foundation." (emphasis added)
See:
http://www.salonm agazine.com/21st/feature/1998/09/11feature2.html.
Whether you would describe them as "right wing" or not, Eric Raymond has very extremist political views. He supports the abolition of government, among other things.
Posted by JoeyRamone:
:)
Yup. Minor glitch ?
While I agree that some software was free before Stallman created the FSF. RMS was the first person to come up with a method to LEGALLY protect free software from becoming proprietary software.
I like that. Maybe ESR can be that explicit a little more often and a little more openly. Because the impression I got from the O'Reilly article (and some recent flamewars and articles on /.) was:
ESR: "We had to kill Free Software in order to save it."
ORA: "Agreed."
Whatever your opinions about RMS, his stances and the GPL at least provide a reference point or litmus test for software freedom. If we allow him to be FUD-ded out of the picture, it creates a vacuum in which anything (bad) can happen.
--
--
=8^
GCC is a horrible compiler. It's development is slow, it lacks optimizations for the pentium chip, let alone the ppro, p2, or k6. To paraphrase Strustrep, it's c++ compiler isn't really a c++ compiler. It was only when pragmatists at cygnus started the egcs project that free software had a decent modern compiler with patches for the optimizations I mentioned before, and a competant c++ implementation.
No one was commenting on the efficiency of hte compiler itself, only that it's free.
You can write something that compiles on GCC and be pretty rest-assured that it's going to compile on anything else. That's because *IT'S FREE*. Try that with HP's cc, borland C, or MS C.
Also, it should be noted that stallman hasn't been able to program since the early 90's, before things like C++ were catching on and well before a Pentium was even on paper. Stallman was 90% of gcc.
Frankly, this shouldn't be a ESR vs. RMS battle. I honor RMS more for his achievments, but I honor ESR more for being able to talk to both sides (hackers and suits) equally.
It's HACKERS VS. SUITS folks, not OSS vs FSF. Frankly it'd be nice if the media wouldn't keep blowing this out of proportion, especially places like O'Reilly which have their obvious beefs with Stallman. I'm so glad I don't fund them anymore.
"The goals are the same, the implementation is different"
-Erik-
The reason I think Raymod makes a better spokesman for OSS, is that he is far less arogant, obnoxious and fanatic than Stallman. Stallman tends to drive people away from himself.
You're still way too intended on seeing this as a black and white issue. It's not, and the reason that there is so much argument around it is that it's a giant gray area, the goals of the FSF and OSS have a lot of overlaps.
Method vs. Implementation. Astute realism vs. idealism. That's all that it really comes down to. I tend to honor stallman's attitude - he let's me know where he stands. Raymond, while he is good at talking to the suits, he's very evasive - almost like a politician. Not to mention his group seems spends more time slamming, excluding, and essentially trying to "write out" the FSF than actually accomplishing their goal, which is to advocate the perks of open source, not have a pissing match with a guy who's been doing it for a good 20 years longer than they have.
Stallman has his moments - I've really been meaning to write to him about the "linus is getting more attention than me" article, which I thought was utter crap. But in most senses, he has a very valid, if idealistic, point. And I think we could all learn some valuable moral lessons from him. I mean, how many of these figureheads can you say you KNOW are HONEST? I can think of stallman, but no one else makes such a large effort to prove their sincerity, even if it comes to ranting and raving like a stubborn brat at times.
I learned a valuable lesson in my childhood: "honor your elders, and you will prosper". RMS is our "elder" of free software. Honor him, and actually consider what he has to say before pushing him off as unrealistic, and you will prosper, even if you don't agree with him.
-Erik-
or he just plain doesn't read the articles that have already been posted to slashdot. ;)
...
We've already had the flamewars over this article, I don't really need the deja vu!
BTW, something is really weird in that if I post a top level comment, I have a login name, but in replies I'm an AC? How does that work? Or not work, as the case may be
"Now watch what you say or they'll be calling you a radical, liberal, fanatical, criminal." - Supertramp, The Logical So
Without the Freedom the software will suck, which is one of the major reasons we want free software, so we can improve it when we want/need to.
If the software is not good no one will use it. Free software that sits on a shelf unused is not helping anyone, free software that people use to get things done is.
Its not Good Software VS Freedom its Good software AND Freedom.
--Zachary Kessin
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Yes but Real Scientists know that they have to communicate what they have done with others if they want to continue to do it. Despite what some people here think Packaging is important. As I have said before free software that no one uses does not help anyone.
--Zachary Kessin
Erlang Developer and podcaster
I think you could say that while RMS did not invent the concept of "Free Software" He formalized it. If you read some of the stuff he wrote about the AI lab in the 70's he was reacting to already free software becoming non-free when he started the FSF. So it must have been around.
The Formalizing of free software with the GPL etc is very important.
--Zachary Kessin
Erlang Developer and podcaster
I could be wrong, but I thought ESR was in favor of the GPL, just not for the same reason as RMS.
Does this remind anyone else of that period in the middle ages when there were 2 popes and they both excomunicated each other from time to time.
--Zachary Kessin
Erlang Developer and podcaster
long words. I feel sleepy.
Hear! Hear! Also, wasn't the "nominal fee" for getting an AT&T UNIX license about $100,000 (not to mention inflationary adjustments) even for a university? That is hardly "Free"!
ESR has a strange attitude about all of this. When OpenSource.Org first advertised that they wanted to hear from companies providing Linux support I wrote to him about my company. He asked why I had written. I pointed out that he had asked about companies like mine. At that point he wrote back and basically said "I meant real companies -- those with more than $10M/year in revenues".
There is little doubt that ESR's agenda is self promotion whereas RMS's has always been software and the betterment of the world.
Many people try to re-write history. We need to be vigilent.
I stand corrected!
I was quite certain that I was right so I went out and searched on the web. Eventually I found this URL where it says: The labs made the software available to academic institutions at a very small charge. For example, John Lions, a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science at the University of New South Wales, in Australia, reported that his school was able to acquire a copy of research UNIX Edition 5 for $150 ($110 Australian) in December, 1974, including tape and manuals. (See "An Interview with John Lions," in Unix Review, October, 1985, pg. 51)
More like $100
Sorry!
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
This is true for some people, I suppose.
But most of this is people picking their heroes and pitting them against each other. Mostly harmless.
It doesn't say very much. It's mostly just a rehash of common information. The historical perspective is an interesting one, despite the alleged inaccuracies. I think the best phrase, and the one that's most important to remember is this one:
"Perhaps the interval of rampant Gatesian monopolism between the blossom of BSD and the advent of Linux is just another periodic lilt of the paradigm dance."
Kuhn couldn't write his way out of a wet, brown, paper bag, but he did have some points.
Zapman
" In any other field of endeavor, there would be no contest; the fluffy bunny of utopian daydreams would meet the oncoming diesel locomotive of commerce, and it'd be all over but for the rabbit stew. The problem is, you can't ignore Stallman."
damned vulpine http://sb.drtwister.com/
Stallman Fundamentalism Vs. Raymond Utilitarianism.
Can we add Laissez-Faire Torvaldianism to the list?
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Near the end of the transcript of the "forum" at the expo, ESR says "Without Stallman, none of us would be here right now" and got a standing ovation.
I think this "split" is cooked up by others. ESR may have different ideas, but he speaks to a different crowd. I don't think he begrudges RMS credit for founding the whole thing.
Also, it may be worth noting that ESR is an ultra-rightist who seems to like quoting the NRA. RMS, while probably not a Marxist, is decidedly Populist in his views on ownership and freedom. There's bound to be some differences between the two.
(The Marxist bit is not intended to be an indictment or flamebait. That's just how I read the situation.)
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
The concept behind the GPL could be traced back to 1840 and Marx, but I think RMS still deserves credit.
I think you'll find there is no such thing as a 100% new idea.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Ken Arnold (now at Sun) was the original author of curses at Berkeley.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
GCC is a horrible compiler. It's development is slow, it lacks optimizations for the pentium chip, let alone the ppro, p2, or k6. To paraphrase Strustrep, it's c++ compiler isn't really a c++ compiler. It was only when pragmatists at cygnus started the egcs project that free software had a decent modern compiler with patches for the optimizations I mentioned before, and a competant c++ implementation.
Although I also like emacs, I prefer the xemacs implementation and the jed pseudo-emacs implementation. Xemacs is far more featureful and complete than GNU/Emacs, jed is far smaller. Stallman does deserve credit for the initial development of emacs though.
However, remember tha ESR has done more than just fetchmail. Your emacs would not compile without ncurses, which ESR is very much responsible for.
Free software was the standard in academia for most of the history of the computer. When computer scientists did research they released the source for free distribution. There was little money in the software business and distributing the software was just what was done in the academic world. It's no different than when someone in mathematics discovers a new theorum, they publish it.
Free software predated the FSF by perhaps 2 or 3 decades. It just wasn't called that. It was called research. RMS was not the founder of free software, he was just someone who refused to change from the old ways when commerce found its way into an academic pursuit. Not that this is a bad thing, but he certainly did not invent the concept.
First of all, umm..no. I'm just a starving undergraduate like many others. If they'd like to pay me, I could use the cash.
Second of all where's the fear, uncertainty or doubt in what I said. Free software has been in existence since the first software was wirtten. It was a tried and proven method in academia back when Stallman was in diapers. It has proven the test of time, and shown itself, again and again to be a strong development model. Hell, Stallman started the FSF when he was working at MIT. It's just the way everyone was done at the universities, and at many is still the way much is done. Just because I state factually that RMS didn't invent free software doens't make me a FUD-spreader.
The person didn't comment upon the fact that GCC was free, he said he liked it.
Furthermore, just because something compiles on gcc doesn't mean it will compile elsewhere. This is especially true with c++, where gcc does not comply with accepted ISO standards on the language. As for the C world, ever try compiling the linux kernel with and compiler other than gcc-2.7 (including gcc 2.8 and egcs), and then say starting X. No, well it's because you can't without modifying the source. Linux-2.0 had bug for bug compatability with gcc-2.7. Linux-2.2 corrected this flaw.
I would not be horribly suprised if egcs merged back into gcc in the future, assuming gcc gets some developers who actually want to develop a compiler, rather than just sitting on one.
Xemacs and GNU?Emacs will probably never merge. Xemeacs development has just progressed too far, and xemacs developers, past and present have too much of a dislike of Stallman and his brood. Witness why-cooperation-with-rms-is-impossible.au of JWZ's web page (which is of course Stallman's rediculaous "join us now and share the software" song. I don't see a lot more possitive attitude amongst more recent xeamcs developers towards Stallaman.
The reason I think Raymod makes a better spokesman for OSS, is that he is far less arogant, obnoxious and fanatic than Stallman. Stallman tends to drive people away from himself.
Oh please. Yes, there was neat stuff going on at MIT in the 60's and 70's, but there was plenty of neat things going on in lots of *other* universities as well.
Free software in no way started with MIT, Stallman or BSD, although all three certainly have contributed to it. There is no "Big Lie" -- only different perspectives. If your first exposure to UNIX was through Linux, then Stallman and the FSF seem really important. If your first exposure to UNIX was some form of BSD, then that seems really important.
BTW: Don't confuse BSD UNIX with AT&T UNIX. BSD only had a cost because it still had some AT&T code in it, and so an AT&T source license was needed.
Yes, MIT is *considered* the most prominent because they are the most self-promoting -- hardly surprising that it was the home of both ESR and RMS isn't it?
Can find the exact quote from ESR that says that BSD pre-dates Stallman? If he said free software predates Stallman, well that's true (And Stallman admits it -- he started the FSF to *preserve* free software traditions). If ESR said BSD predates the FSF, again a true statement.
I'm not a big ESR fan myself. Certainly the amount of code he's written is less than RMS' ut both ESR and RMS seem to be spending more time talking than working these days
Isn't it about time?
Hmmmm... no. I can't remember back that far. I must have been really young ;)
.
What does Bruce Perens say?
(No, I can't tell if I'm kidding or not, either)
--
The Internet is the Suppository of All Knowledge. You get it in the end.
Well:
/lib/libXm.so.3 /usr/openwin/lib/libXpm.so.4.7 /usr/dt/lib/libDtSvc.so.1 /usr/dt/lib/libtt.so.2 /lib/libXmu.so.4 /lib/libXt.so.4 /lib/libXext.so.0 /lib/libX11.so.4 /lib/libSM.so.6 /lib/libICE.so.6 /lib/libkvm.so.1 /lib/libm.so.1 /lib/libsocket.so.1 /lib/libnsl.so.1 /lib/libelf.so.1 /lib/libdl.so.1 /lib/libc.so.1 /lib/libmp.so.2
afc@orion:~/src/perl$ ldd `type -p xemacs`
libXm.so.3 =>
libXpm.so.4.7 =>
libDtSvc.so.1 =>
libtt.so.2 =>
libXmu.so.4 =>
libXt.so.4 =>
libXext.so.0 =>
libX11.so.4 =>
libSM.so.6 =>
libICE.so.6 =>
libkvm.so.1 =>
libkstat.so.1 => lib/libkstat.so.1
libm.so.1 =>
libsocket.so.1 =>
libnsl.so.1 =>
libelf.so.1 =>
libdl.so.1 =>
libc.so.1 =>
libmp.so.2 =>
I see no curses here, do you?
Also: this yada-yada about egcs is somewhat off mark. Egcs is to gcc, as XEmacs is to GNU Emacs. They share a lot of source code, and it's not unlikely that they'll merge again in the future.
It is absolutely laughable to compare Stallman's deeds with those of Raymond. Just read up your history, buddy.
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
Why can no one write simply anymore? Why must every noun be covered in adjectives? "hip-gunning cowboy capitalists" "high-minded utopians" "the fluffy bunny of utopian daydreams" ?!? After the lawyers, we kill the pundits.
"... I declare our city to be a free and independent state to be named Tri-Insula!" --Fernando Wood, Mayor of NYC 1861
He's very fond of guns, it's true, but I think
his social and political views tend toward moderate-libertarian.
-------
Bill Gates Is My Evil Twin.