Slashdot Mirror
Free Software Foundation Awards Tonight
Leslie Proctor writes "The Second Free Software Foundation Awards will be held in New York at theBazaar Tuesday, December 14th at 7pm. Finalists for the award, honoring advancement of free software, are: John Gilmore, Miguel de Icaza and Donald Knuth." We ought to have a short report on the ceremony (and who won) up shortly after the event; CmdrTaco, Hemos, and I are all here in NYC, laptops in hand.
Think about it. Suppose the canapes are lacking that certain je ne sais quoi. If the recipe were freely available, the combined effort of chefs worldwide could make it tastier, less bloating and more attractively presented. When chefs can read, redistribute, and modify the recipe for an appetizer (hereafter referred to as an "app"), it evolves. People improve it, people adapt it, people add fresh-ground pepper using one of those increasingly long and phallic peppermills. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the slow pace of conventional canape development, seems astonishing. I want to know what went into the shrimp cocktail, dammit!
You need only read Martha Stewart's ground-breaking essay, The Burger Chain and the Bistro and her follow-up paper, Homesteading the Noodle Soup to convince you of the virtues of open source catering. Then just as you support the open source software developed by fat men (computing is a sedentary profession, and many of its bright lights could benefit by visiting the gym), let's also support the open source cooking of the Two Fat Ladies!
You can also do your part by not eating closed source food. Kentucky Fried Chicken (the Colonel's secret recipe, remember?) is particularly bad, but the worst is McDonald's, who refuse to divulge the recipe of the Big Mac's "secret sauce," and threaten samller developers with FUD (Fries, Uncertaintly and Doubt).
Just curious, I didn't think his books were actually open source, that you could get them for free or anything like that....
Well, Knuth is the father of TeX (well-known and usefull typesetting system) which is "free" in the best sense of the word. And as for his book, publication of algorithms (in books, academic papers etc) is not only part of forming a foundation for those who write free software - but it also prevents companies like "those we all know and dislike" from doing their patent-stunts and preventing free software authors from writing their software.
So I guess that Knuth indeed does deserve to be nominated - he's doing a lot of good for free software.
Go Knuth
-- "Life is a bitch - and she hates me..."
can be found here.
To quote from the page: "We want to give this award to a person who has made a great contribution to the progress and development of free software (free as in freedom; see our definition of free software), through activities that accord with the spirit of free software."
I guess I'd vote for Knuth. Not just for TeX....but also for his other, widely *published* work on algorithms. While not necessarily being free "software", algorithms (and knowledge about) are important for free software....
Go Knuth (not that the other nominated aren't worthy...they definitely are...)
-- "Life is a bitch - and she hates me..."
John Gilmore isn't as well-known as he should be. Of the candidates mentioned, he's most deserving of the award.
Things he's either started or made major contributions to include Cygnus, EFF, the alt groups, GNU tar, GNU gdb, Kerberos, BIND, and the Cypherpunks. He's perhaps the most important activist for overturning the US anti-cryptography laws.
Check out his biography.