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RMS receives US$10K from Microsoft & Sun (Wins Award)
Daniel M. German writes "Reporting, live, from the
WWW8 Conference
in Toronto. RMS has been announced as the recipient
of the Yuri Rubinsky Memorial Award,
(which this year is mainly founded by Microsoft and Sun). Previous recipients of the Award are
Vint Cerf --inventor or TCP/IP--, Doug
Doug Englebart --inventor of the mouse, amongst
many other things-- and Ted Nelson --who coined
the term Hypertext.
"
During his speech --broadcasted from the US--
he talked mainly about patents and their threat
to Free Software.
The Award is an important recognition from the WWW Community to GNU and the Open Source movement in general.
I will write a complete report for Slashdot tomorrow.
Reporting, for Slashdot, from the Toronto Convention Centre.
now maybe he'll take a vacation and chill out. Then maybe after relaxing he can shut the hell up about calling Linux GNU/Linux.
oh yeah... first!
What exactly does Microsoft preach?
Odd little triangle this is. Three entities that
can't stand each other. Wierd.
What an idiot!
Just in case anyone believes you: Canada has had high-profile prosecutions of child molestors just as America has.
RMS gets waaay too much attention considering how much whining comes out of his mouth. I echo this poster's sentiment.
Hey, what's your problem with us red-eyed devil spawn belching cockroaches?
... as part of the windows nt resource kit. So obviously they like rms's work (if not his license).
ac
It's days like this that give me faith in the world again.
Have you ever thought that microsoft is doing it on purpose ? They get in trouble with the DOJ, and suddenly Linux gets a whole LOT of hype. Now they are challenging Linux to benchmarks - suddenly Linux is competition. Have we seen a bunch of Windows 2000 lately ? Maybe I'm just paranoid...
Chris Todd
christ@wa.net
You roach-burping gutter devil-spawn!
[A "dysfunctional family circus" inside joke.]
Yours in Christ,
Uncle Roy
(tripping his nutsack in a frenzy of dik play)
What do you do in Chicago when the opposing team gives you $10,000?
Bill Gates could give a $10000 award every day for about 13689 years before he'd run out of money.
His refusal to play the game at all is what led him to develop the GPL.
It is good for the software industry in general to have him being as hard-line as possible.
Let the people who are getting individual projects done make the compromises that they need to; but always have RMS giving his opinion on what is the "right thing" no matter what the political costs.
> We have a quaint little custome here in Chicago
> when the opposing team hits a
> homerun into the bleachers and a Cubs
> fan catches it.
> "throw... it... back!"
Had McGwire closed out the season in Chicago last year, I would have very much liked to see this custom in action.
As I recall, McGwire's 70th was sold at action for $3,000,000.
I have no qualm about taking somebody's money to fight him back.
Anyway, this prize is being granted by an independant third-party; it's not like MS is sending him a check (in wich case the grant would surely have some conditions attached).
I think after all the blunders of the antitrust litigation, Microsoft finally got one PR matter right. They don't want RMS torching a pristine shrink-wrapped copy of Office in a fancy prize ceremony.
I don't think anyone could truly say that Stallman doesn't deserve an award for all the hard work he's done over the years. However, how many other people at this moment deserve an award also?
I mean, there are hundreds of thousands of individuals that have contributed just as much to the world, it's seems kind of dimishing and even rather silly to pick one person. For instance, I give you the award for the open source community that was accepted by O'Reilly not too long ago... Sometimes these awards don't make sense or are misdirected or are too specific or even too general. Who becomes a saint, who else also deserves to be a saint but isn't recognized... Who gets a technology award, who else also deserves to get such an award but isn't recognized... Which Linux distro recieves corporate funds, what other distros also deserve such funds but don't recieve them...? None of it really makes sense if you look at it a bit objectively.
Sincerely,
Nelson Rush aka Palisade
chesterrr@att.net
Dynamite isn't really a weapon or anything. The whole point behind dynamite was that it was much, much safer to handle and use than pure nitroglycerine (sp?). If I recall correctly, Nobel's brother had been killed in an explosives accident. Nobel's goal was to make explosives safer.
There's an old film, in french I believe, that I think was titled "the wizard" or some such (it was remade in the seventies I think, and both films may not have had the same title). It was about a bunch of truck drivers trying to reach a remote oil drilling station by travelling a dangerous road. They were to be paid a very large amount of money if they could deliver their cargo, which was nitroglycerine, to the oil drilling station to put out the oil fire. I think there were three trucks, and the cargo from any one of them was sufficient to put out the fire. Only one of the trucks made it. Anyway, I know it's just a movie, but watching it can give you a very good sense of just why it is that dynamite is a very good thing.
I fail to see why Microsoft is singled out here. Why should RMS have a different stance regarding taking money from Sun than Microsoft? Sounds like someone is letting their biases get in the way of rational thought here.
If there is any company RMS has come out against, it's Apple -- for pressing their "Look and feel" lawsuit against Microsoft. RMS supported Microsoft's position in that case.
It's also important to note that Microsoft only uses its patents defensively, AFAIK. They freely license several patents which are incorporated into open standards. I don't think they'd have any problem with software patents going away as long as they went away for everyone.
I realize it's part of the slashdot mindset to cast MS as some sort of great evil, but the facts just don't match up here.
Or he could just very, very publicly donate it to the FSF to promote more free software projects. This would be much more satisfying than throwing it back in their faces I would think.
(Of course, I'd actually imagine he'd do that anyway...)
Jer - who is away from home without his SlashDot password (grrr...)
Sure it shouldnt of been downgraded, but since when has that mattered to the moderators. Wonder how long it will take before this one is also -1...
Check out the donation page on the GNU site. Not quite halfway down, in the section on United Way donations, it reads:
"If your employer has a policy of matching United Way donations, you can take advantage of that. We especially appreciate the donations from Microsoft matching the United Way donations of their employees."
So I guess he doesn't have a problem with this.
The more free software there is, and the higher the quality of that software, the more likely other people are to do RMS's evangelization for him...
We in the Slashdot community extend to you our warmest and most heartfelt congratulations for the honor you have received. As I enter this message, I know that it is being processed by software that was run through your compiler, GCC, the crown jewel of free software. Without GCC free software would be only a coolie's pipe dream. God bless you, Richard. May you have a long and happy life. You are the first hero of the next century.
Most readers will not know who this award is named
l
after. Yuri deserves to remembered. At one point he was one of the principles founder of Canada's marginally famous "Coach house press." They were famous for giving young writers a chance.
Then he wanted to get into computer stuff. He started a company called SoftQuad to get into document processing software. He discovered the SGML standard and was one of the earliest participants in the movement towards structured markup.
Some may not know this but there is an element of the SGML community committed not to SGML because it is a useful tool but rather because rather as a social force for preserving and communicating humanity's greatest resource: its knowledge.
Yuri was one of these. He fought in particular to use SGML as a means of increasing the accessibility of documents to blind people. He was a tireless advocate for accessibility.
Yuri called his work with Charles Goldfarb and many others a "Quiet Revolution". XML is the realization of their revolutionary ideas and it is tragic that Yuri did not live to see and guide it:
Here's what Tim Berners-Lee had to say:
"I learned of Yuri Rubinski's death with great sadness. If one thing distinguished Yuri it was untiring work toward what he thought was right. One of his recent and characteristic acts was to organize, and from his company financially support, an award for Doug Engelbart at the last
WWW conference. Yuri worked hard to find what might really make a difference to Doug, to find his writings and have them quietly printed as a small book. Doug knew nothing about the award until he received it. Yuri just felt that this was the right thing to do, just as when he championed SGML, or disabled access to online information. Yuri had an irrepressible genial, almost mischievous, excitement about him which was always a great delight.
Tim Berners-Lee
http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/yuriMemColl.htm
About the foundation:
http://www.yuri.org
Cysgod wrote:
He is recieving this award as recognition for his work on GCC, GDB, Emacs and other programs that continue to be key to the internet being as successful as it is.
I agree that it's his software contributions rather than his IP views that got him this award. On the other hand, with the exception of Emacs, the programs you list were not done outside of GNU/FSF. If I recall correctly, GCC was the program that Stallman started the GNU project with. GDB came a little while after.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Haven't read anything this funny in ages!
This must win some humour award for the silliest Troll in a long time. It is so silly, that as a Canadian, I can't be offended by it!
Thank you Mr/Ms Coward, you lightened up my day!
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Posted by !ErrorBookmarkNotDefined:
You would think a large company
like Microsoft would sweeten the award
with a free copy of Microsoft Office
or something.
-----------------------------
Computers are useless. They can only give answers.
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
Microsoft didn't give money to RMS. They (and Sun) gave money to an award. The award was given to RMS.
Why not get the facts before patronizing us all?
Has RMS ever indicated that he would have a problem taking money from an institution he has some fundamental problems with?
:) AFAIK, the companies who donate money to these awards have nothing to do with them. The fact that Microsoft donated is either through philantropy (which I don't doubt, I don't think Gates is satan, just an idiot that uses money as a defense mechanism) or self-promotion (not unfeasible either).
Err, I don't think RMS has any problems taking money from a reputable award institution that decides he is deservant of the award.
In fact, it would be insane to suggest that anyone would.
Oh, did you mean Microsoft?
IOW, You're reading into this too much.
-Erik-
Although Micro$oft may have had nothing to do with who received the award, RMS might care that he was taking money from them. But I'm not sure if he's that kind of guy...that's why I asked
See, that's the point missed. RMS didn't take the money from microsoft, he took it from the institution giving the award. Microsoft gave the money to the institution, nothing more.
The money that RMS recieves will either benefit himself or the FSF, more than likely both.
I doubt that either Sun's or Microsoft's money would ever willingly go to the FSF, since they do deny everything both of those companies are standing for.
If I read an article saying "RMS recieves $10k check from Microsoft", then, I would completely agree with you - he did recieve money directly from someone who denies the views that lead to the money he recieved. But this is not the case, as Microsoft nor Sun had any choice in who recieved the award, because we'd be seeing a Scott or a Bill this year instead of a Richard recieving the award.
If the KKK were contributing money to an award for excellence in the persuit of personal freedom and I were to win an award for it (being very anti-KKK), I wouldn't care. They supported the ideals of the award, not the person recieving it. There is a large difference here I think you're missing.
And if you want me to read your mind less consider thinking more about inferences you might create and justify.
-Erik-
>The good Mr Phipps works for, hehehe, IBM. I leave it up you to interpret this.:)
You mean there's a bunch of people over at IBM who's laughing themselves sick right about now?
Anyone with their thresholds set too high (like to zero) missed out on a real chuckler here.
I really got a laugh out of the different GCC's. It reminded me of the "If OS's Were Airlines" text file that used to float around. Only I'm afraid this author was really serious. Scary.
-Derek
RMS is not an 'off the wall' type of person, at least my communications with him have not given me that impression.
He is thoughtful, precise, and very stubborn in sticking to his beliefs, but I, for one, consider that a good quality: he is the standard bearer for what free software represents.
If anyone is off the wall it's those who fail to embrace any kind of consistency in their beliefs.
In Liberty, Rene
I thought Dave Clark over at MIT invented TCP/IP. What am I missing?
Joe
The irony lies more in the direction the money's flowing.
And it's not Alanis irony either.
Sometimes I feel like a leech, I use all this opensource stuff and don't really give anything back.
Well, while you may not have given back anything yet. Users are part of the Open source process as well, even the ones that don't write any code. If you were to run into a bug, would you just sit there and pout. Certainly not, you would go on the net and see if anyone else had seen it. Being an intelligent user you would give a detailed description of your system, OS config, and what you were doing. Then, a couple things might happen. The bug has been seen before, and there is a fix out or on its way. The bug hasn't been seen, but a programmer type or five see your problem and work with you on isolating, fixing and/or working around the bug. Or, improbably, no one is interested in fixing it, but you decide you need it fixed so with the advice of some of these net people you fix the problem yourself. Either way you have contributed to the open source process, though not necessarily as a programmer, but as a tester and QA person.
That's a great sound bite, but isn't there a difference between a bribe and an award? If he wins a public award and he did not compromise his strong beliefs, more power to him. "Taking money" can sometime imply under the table, bribery, etc.
I'd cash in a winning lottery ticket...
> RMS is not an 'off the wall' type of person, at least my communications with him have not given me that impression.
That's easy for you to say. He wasn't standing behind you at the Atlanta Expo shouting insults at the speaker.
Richard Stallman *is* a bit off the wall. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. He is also "thoughtful, precise, and very stubborn in sticking to his beliefs".
"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense - I deserve it." Be's Jean-Louis Gass
I'm not absolutely positive that Awards Committee was responsible for RMS receiving this award (but duh, I hope so). However, it should be pointed out that the chair of the Awards Committee is Simon Phipps. The good Mr Phipps works for, hehehe, IBM. I leave it up you to interpret this.:)
Nonetheless, congrats to RMS!
First, the obligatory congratulations: Way to go RMS! You deserve every award you get. I'm sure the money will go a long way towards helping you and the FSF out.
Now to speak up on what's obviously on everybody's minds - why would microsoft...? I would encourage you not to read too deeply into this. I'm abit suprised (shocked) that Microsoft would give any money to somebody working for "the competition". Let's try to hold off on speculation though until the "official" report comes out tomorrow. I'm anxious to read it, I'm sure you are too. But please - let's avoid the "Microsoft is evil!" and the like until we have more details. This is really an unfinished story.. treat it as such.
--
I see your point, but what if you used the opportunity of your acceptance speech to point out loudly and clearly what a bunch of racist pinheads the KKK are? Would that be okay? Or what if you publicly donated all of the award money to the Anti-Defamation League or the Southern Poverty Law Center? Perhaps that would be a more effective statement than quietly refusing the award.
I'm personally not very worried about RMS selling out to the Dark Side for a few thousand bucks. He's had plenty of opportunities to sell out over the years, somehow I don't feel like he's going to start now.
>Has RMS ever indicated that he would have a problem taking money from an institution he has some fundamental
;-)
>problems with?
RMS has expressed that he has problems with a number of businesses who sell proprietary software -- Sun, Oracle, even Troll Tech in Norway. All software that does not include the source code is distasteful to him.
The only difference is that he has been recorded giving the bird to Gates' name when he entered the CS building on Stanford's campus. But I'm sure fi Larry Ellison donates money to build a CS building at some university, RMS will extend to the structure the same respect.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
well, I woudl gladly accept award money from the KKK (not that I'd do anythign to deserve an award from them, but anyway, we're just speculating). and then I'd make a point of using it in a way completly contrary to what they stand for, or more likely donating it to some institution that specializes in doing that.
What do you think the banner ads are for?
./'s audience, without wanting to dictate editorial content.
Slashdot has the advantage that there are customers with good money willing to pay to advertise to
Just click on the ads if you want to pay Rob for his services. Everybody wins, this isn't a Murdoch publication!
J
Whaddayamean, martyr?
Is there something you're hiding?
He doesn't have any fundamental problems with Microsoft, just with their way to do business. I am sure RMS would work with Microsoft if they developed free software (hahaha).
Alejo.
And I guess this is in stark contrast to, say, Linus, who never misses an opportunity to promote FreeBSD, or Larry Elison -- I've heard he sends out mailers praising the quality of Informix.
Damn that Microsoft!
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Richard accepted the award, talked about evil ..."
multinational companies (that's how Bob Metcalfe
summarized his remarks) for a while, the presenter
mentioned who had made the award possible, and
Richard said something like, "I appreciate the
recognition, but it's more important that corporations
like Microsoft not receive the patents that
contribute to their power to
I disagree. Monetary awards like this are often funded by private industry. The idealogy that the company follows and the idealogy that the award represents are not necessarily connected. For exapmle: Lots of people despise Exxon for the whole Valdez thing. So if Exxon donates money to say, Amnesty International, and they in turn give a cash award to someone who is being persecuted by their govt for their efforts to protect the environment from polluting corporations, does that make the recipient a sellout? I don't think so. If the recipient recieved money directly from Exxon, then you've got a case. Otherwise it's just coincidence really.
If the awarding org was the Exxon foundation, then that makes sense also, but the fact is that corporations frequently make donations to charitable organizations, or even just industry related organizations. What the _independent_ organization does with the money ought not have anything to do with the corporations overall agenda. but that's just my $.02
-earl
It looks like there might be a good chance of this award becoming the ideological equivalent of the Nobel Prize, but for computers/internet work.
"In fact, it would be insane to suggest that anyone would."
Jean-Paul Sartre (1964 Nobel Prize for Lit) and Le Duc Tho (1973 Nobel Prize for Peace) did, for ideologically sound reasons thou.
Sartre's reason. Searching around at www.nobel.se will show a few other who didn't want to get, or were forced to refuse, the prize.
"I think, arguably, his development efforts have had as much an influence on free and open software as his public relations efforts through the FSF."
Arguably? No. Definitely. I'm one of Stallman's detractors mind you-- I think he's out of touch with reality and the GNU/Linux thing just gets on my last nerve-- but the whole software world owes him a debt that we'll never be able to measure.
-- "You live and learn. Or you don't live long." -Heinlein
Two books, printed back-to-back so that either could be considered the front. It was reprinted some years later in slightly smaller format.
Yes, and he had a system (Xanadu) based on the hypertext concept (which, AFAIK, is still a struggling project - they want to incorporate the idea of tiny royalties being paid the author for every click on a link leading to something the author wrote). This before the WWW or Hypercard.
To give an idea of the timeframe, the idea of "computer lib" was publicly accessible dumb terminals linked to minicomputers...
-- Alastair
Hey, this isn't funny anymore!
Mmm, Jews... I think you're hiding something. Are you sure that Chinese and Indians are not involved as well?
Boy, I'd give much to live in America but certainly not in a world like yours.
Where money comes from does in fact matter to some people. I don't know how willing I would be to accept an award from an award institution-no matter how reputable-that I knew got some of its money from the KKK. That's an extreme, I realize, but I'm trying to make a point.
Although Micro$oft may have had nothing to do with who received the award, RMS might care that he was taking money from them. But I'm not sure if he's that kind of guy...that's why I asked
Has RMS ever indicated that he would have a problem taking money from an institution he has some fundamental problems with?
I sent my $10K, but I guess my check got lost in the mail to Rob.
-Chris
Hey, if /. ever runs into som legal problems or need a new server or something, ask for donations. I'm a poor student, but still, I, like most people can spend a $ or two, and a $ or two from all of the /. readers is quite a lot.. An example of this kind of support is www.flashback.org, they have recived donations from a lot of people (the owner is beig sued..). So if /. needs money, count me in!
Richard Stallman is not recieving this award for shooting his mouth off as an industry pundit, despite many readers beliefs. He is recieving this award as recognition for his work on GCC, GDB, Emacs and other programs that continue to be key to the internet being as successful as it is.
Look at the history of the award. The inventor of TCP/IP, the inventor of the mouse, the person who tokened 'hypertext'. While Richard Stallman's continued involvment in internet culture probably helped him win this award, people should recognize that most of what he is being awarded for is his efforts to make a universal compiler available to internet hosts, allowing everyone to compile Apache (among other things) to their platform of choice.
Congratulations to Richard Stallman, one of the more influential programmers of our time and author of a number of great utilities. I think, arguably, his development efforts have had as much an influence on free and open software as his public relations efforts through the FSF.
- Cysgod
There are, uh, pot coffeeshops in Canada? Not that I care. *nervous cough.*
BTW, Anonymous Coward who started this thread: Well done. I wish I had the privs to moderate your post up. Damn funny.
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
I'm glad to hear this. It's a shame that RMS is such an off the wall type of person. I think he would get a lot more respect if he coud "play the game" a little better. But then again... maybe it that *bizzare* gene that drives people like RMS to greatness.
Sometimes I feel like a leech, I use all this opensource stuff and don't really give anything back. Sure I've plunked down money for the last couple versions of RedHat, but most of that went to the retailer.
Anyways...I see people like RMS who donate some great stuf that I use daily (emacs, gcc) and even though I don't like everything he says, I am gratefull.
BEER RUN! :-)
ps, Chicago Cubs suck, as do the fans (imo)
We have a quaint little custome here in Chicago when the opposing team hits a homerun into the bleachers and a Cubs fan catches it.
"throw... it... back!"
Should he take it? Should he throw it back in their faces?
I agree...
Those darn Canadians are always up to no good. In fact I hate Canada, it takes me way too long to drive to the pot coffeshops in Vancouver from Oregon... Im forced to break our American laws and speed in order to avoid traffic times... those sneaky bastards!
.sig wanted: Must be concise, funny, and display my cleverness.
Oh yeah,
Kudos to RMS.
.sig wanted: Must be concise, funny, and display my cleverness.
--
While everyone is tossing 10k Around why dont they toss a little to /. ? :-)
Jeremy Allen
knights@hom.net
I wonder how many folks are getting pleasure from MS inadvertantly giving this kind of recognition to GNU and Open Source. It goes against almost all of what they preach! =)
-Frysco!
And we all know how popular it's been to refuse nobel prizes (Sartre and a couple others notwithstanding)
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
First, I don't see how anyone (and it doesn't look like many have, but still) could view this as RMS "selling out" or "throwing his ideals out the window for money." It was an award. Recognition of the work he's already done. It's not as if Microsoft paid him $10K for consulting work. What the hell would he do for them, anyway? Evangelize about NT? Even more people would ignore him and dismiss him as a crackpot than do now.
To those who are tired of his "ranting" about GNU/Linux and think it's based solely on his personal jealousy of Linus' popularity while people still say "RMS? Who's that?" and those who say "If only he knew how to play the game a little better, he might be more accepted" -- by his actions he is totally selfless. He is willing to sacrifice his dignity / self-respect in order to educate people. Which is definitely putting the good of the many above the good of one.
And at least a few people out there do respect him for it. So in our eyes, he hasn't sacrificed anything but mass market appeal -- and that only because he wants to educate people, make sure they don't forget where all this great FREE, OPEN software comes from, and keep people contributing to it.
[And don't take the subject too seriously, although I'm sure plenty of people will do so.]
--- Where's my X.400 protocol decoder?
Or he could just [...] donate it to the FSF to promote more free software projects.
Knowing RMS's past actions, this seems fairly likely indeed.
--