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2nd Annual Free Software Foundation Awards
The awards were given out in conjunction with theBazar, a gathering of Open Source experts, boosters, and devotees featuring a number of tutorials on assorted Open Source and GNU/Linux-related topics.
Last year's Award for the Advancement of Free Software went to PERL-meister Larry Wall. This year the three finalists were Donald Knuth, John Gilmore, and Miguel de Icaza.
And the winner was (drum roll please) Miguel de Icaza!
Miguel lent the proceedings a moment of extra drama by arriving - literally - at the second his name was announced, right after RMS said he was not there and could not, therefore, be expected to make a speech. But there he was, and the speech was both brief and charming.
A surprise award was also given to Blockstackers, which has donated a significant amount of money to the Free Software Foundation. This award was accepted by a shocked - and literally blushing - Rob Malda.
We join the Free Software Foundation in congratulating Miguel de Icaza.
See pictures of the award ceromony and participants here.
NT.
i dont display scores, and my threshhold is -1. post accordingly.
congratulations Rob
welll done
I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from - Bob Dylan
I noticed that the link for the pictures is not correct. Does anyone know of any other pictures of the event? I for one am looking forward to the nice, blue, plaid shirt!
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Yep no pictures for now... but I suspect Rob is reading this, as the off topic post in ALL-CAPS just dissapeared :)
Everyone who has given a hand to an open source project deserves a great big pat on the back!
All contributions are worthwhile, be they documentation, bug fixes, new projects/features, or purely financial. Don't forget it is a team effort.
-Nick
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Congratulations to Miguel de Icaza!
Being almost a die-hard command-prompt (bash, et. al.) user, though, I can think of many other people that also deserve such awards. I wonder if we can get ZD (almost certainly MSNBC wouldn't cover the Tux Awards!) to do a 3 hour awards show that runs at least 45 minutes over?
Next time I run X, I guess I'll take a peek at Gnome to see what the fuss is all about.
Doug ---- Co-host of Ghostly Talk
Yes, it is expected behavior. It says so on the preferences page.
No really, great.
I'm glad that the FSF is getting recognition.
BUT
As an NYC resident, I wish I'd known even 24hrs sooner, so I could actually go to the event.
This sig left unintentionally blank.
roblimo please check your links next time
I recognize that Gnome is an important step for linux (err.. unices in general) to move towards the desktop, but it certainly isn't ``core functionality'' that I need my computers to do. I mean, there are parallel technologies which allow similar things.
TeX on the other hand, has been around for a long time and is used non-stop in the lab where I work. Without it, the reports we dump out would probably take forever to make. I can't imagine using Word (or any word processor for that matter) to create documents that change as much in revision as ours do. TeX is a much more earth-shattering development than a spiffy new interface to X.
I think the FSF awards copped out and picked based on ``current and trendy'' instead of deserving of an award. Of course, if there is a monetary award involved (since there's no article, I can't tell, but I imagine there is), then I can see the politics behind it. Gnome sure needs cash more than any TeX-related project.
Congrats to the nominees and the winner.
-Chris
Not to belittle Miguel - his work on bringing free software to the masses is very commendable, and Gnome is in and of itself living proof that you can actually build relatively good software using languages from New Jersey (*rimshot*) - but he just doesn't stand up to Knuth. I mean, the guy's a shining beacon of excellence in computer science. Miguel himself probably learned a lot of programming skills from Knuth's books. If anyone deserves a big fat award, it's old Don at Palo Alto. The only perspective from which I can conceive of Miguel as being more award-worthy than Knuth is the "making free software user-friendly" idea. (That is, as user-friendly as an Un*x gets. *rimshot*)
So I hope that Knuth gets what he deserves next time. (It wouldn't hurt to give him a couple of VA shares either.)
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
I'm proud to say that I voted for Miguel and very I'm pleased to see him win. He's done so much and really deserves the award. He seems to have that "benevolent dictator" aire about him that Linus exhibits. I think he's another excellent leader/coder. Keep up the good work Miguel.
----------------
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
I'm really shocked that Kunth didn't get the award. Certainly Miguel deserves to be recognised for his efforts, but I'm inclined to take a Nobel-esque approach and say the FSF should've granted the award to him a couple of years from now after his work is solidly established as valuable. (granted, as a math student, I should probably be looking at the Fields-esque approach that no one over 40 get the award) I'd say first voice of dissent, but I'm sure another one has popped up since I started writing this.
Wow. You are definitely a master of enlightened discussion.
Grow up. This is not some weenie BBS that you trash post on for your post/call ratio, so you can download a new MP3 in the sysop's hidden forum.
Update 12/14/99 8:18 EDT: The winners were also delighted, as RMS politely requested they join him in his hotel room, for a romantic night of hot man sex.
Let please not only focus on GNOME, Miguel has contributed to many GNU projects. Anybody using RAID on Linux is using Miguel's code. Also if you have ever used Linux on a SPARC you can also thank Miguel since he was also involved with that.
Who is this guy and what did he do? Donald Knuth deserves this award more than some relatively unknown person. After all, the vast majority of all technical publications of the past 15 years have been typeset using Knuth's free TeX software. Knuth, through TeX and it's derivatives, has made a significant contribution to the advancement of science by providing a free solution for effectively communicating technical information and mathematical formulae in particular. Whatever Miguel has done can only pale by comparison.
It looks like the real URL for the pictures is: http://kurt.andover.net/bazar/fsf
or http://kurt.andover.net/bazaar/fsf, but note they won't be up for another hour or so.
Also, ZDTV will be broadcasting the awards here: http://www.zdtv.com/radio on Thursday, Dec 16 2:00pm http://www.zdtv.com/radio
We used to make fun of stupid PR like this...hmm, maybe I'll show up and throw spitballs or something...someone needs to liven this up...
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Watch out for the 6 foot blond!
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diva Pasty Drone NewsTrolls, Inc.
This comment was TOTALLY on topic. I too would like to know if it was 10 guys, 100 people or what - how many people attended is MOST CERTAINLY a valid question in this discussion - I'd still like the answer.
"I have no respect for a man who can only spell a word one way." - Mark Twain
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
But maybe it should be renamed to Miguel Commander! Hip Hip Hooray for Miguel!
I find it incredibly disgusting, but why don't the trolls just get creative and use the senseless poll options? After all, there must be a crappy of them.
Angry IT woman in big clompy boots. And talking lint!.
Ok dude, I haven't had much of a problem with this Natalie Portman stuff before (some of it was actually pretty funny) but this goes way beyond any good taste or humor (it's pretty offensive, actually)...
Ok, Migel is a nice guy. But comparing him to Knuth was not fair to booth of them.
One is making software, other made history. Ther is a big difference.
Ok, getting OFF topic now...
what happens in meta moderation when someone sees the "+1 insightful" (or whatever it was) on this one-liner, and then marks THAT "unfair?" It'd be nice to be able to see the sequence of moderation. I suppose this should move over to j a w a d 's thread.
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Suggestions for Don Knuth so that his work may be recognized in the future:
- change his own name to VA LiKnuthux Systems
- make his own clock widget for GNOME
- talk endlessly about his free software/gun collection swap meet parties
- change the name of the MIX instruction set to something more catchy like 'KIX' or perhaps 'GNIX'
- refute his 'Art of Programming' books and say: "Why bother now that Java programs for you?"
- wear a red hat
How come this wasn't webcast? These awards have more relevance to me than most awards on broadcast TV.
Because when reading all about Miguel and Eric getting free trips to NY and being able to support themselves doing whatever they want to do, not a single piece of software that I use day to day was written by either of them and I've never heard of anyone trying to integrate an actual piece of code of Miguel or Eric's into what they're doing.
Kurt
http://kurt.andover.net/comdex99/bazaar/fsf/P10100 18.JPG
:)
From that pic i would say 15 to 20 would be a good guess
I have to return some videotapes...
NC
Pics are now posted.
have said how TeX is a much more/imp of a contribution than gnome, I agree w/ all of that and dont need to add any more to that in itself. /. just said his contri pales in comparison to what Knuth has done. I mean even comparing the two to each other is kind of unfare to both... more so to Knuth though. ;-)
But let us not forget about all the books and stuff that Knuth has written even w/ out TeX Knuth's contribution to FSF and CS in general is far far greater than what Miguel has done. Please dont take this to mean I dont respect Miguel, I certainly do and highly enjoy the s/w that he is working on. But as someone on
Any ways I am just rambling on (had a long day) congrats to Miguel and all the folks in the g(e?)nome project
Writing a new OS only for the 386 in 1991 gets you your second F for this term. - Prof. A.S. Tanenbaum, author of Minix,
Look at that thing!!! It's much cooler than an oscar. It has a picture of a friendly bearded GNU on the front, could probably double as a blanket for a midget, and looks like it's the exact same thing as free software - homemade. :)
Very colorful. Oscars just gather dust on shelves. This thing can hang on the wall. Very nice. Wish I had one.
OK, Knuth deserves one, sure, but he's not dead yet, and there will be awards like this in the future. Knuth may be VERY deserving of one, but it's hard to say that Icaza isn't deserving as well.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
It gives recognition where recognition is due, it's fun, and it's a good excuse to draw attention to free software, which does encourage people to write free software.
And as for whether or not the code is used by you or not, there's a lot of code that you don't use. There are a lot of people who never use perl and don't code in it, but that doesn't mean that larry wall didn't deserve his last year. It's not necessarily about whether or not you use it, but about the impact the software has had.
And GNOME has had quite an impact. It went from buggy and barely realized to quite a nice system in very little time. And it's developing faster and faster as time goes on and as more people learn about GNOME. For that reason, even though I think it's had a big impact, the impact it has now probably isn't anything compared to where it's going to be in 2 more years
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Indeed, congratulations on the Blockstackers award.
:P
I didn't have time to stay for most of the FSF awards ceremony but I saw that first award presented, from the back of the auditorium. I think it's too bad that it was held so late in the day, after the rest of the conference. Then again, maybe it would have just conflicted with tutorial tracks or something like that.
I saw the panel discussion though, from the second row. That was interesting and got pretty amusing at times.
Anyway, will there be some sort of report on the whole of the Bazaar's proceedings here on slashdot after it's all done?
Looking forward to the party tomorrow evening - assuming that the possible MTA strike doesn't mess everything up.
hmaon [greg velichansky]
ps Can't log in because I lost my password and the email points to a machine that doesn't exist anymore so I can't have it mailed to me! Grr! Hey, Rob, if I find you and bug you in person, will you reset my password?
He is good friends with everyone in the FSF. The actual contribution doesn't matter. The fact that he bashes other projects and people relentlessly doesn't matter. He is Gnu, so he won.
Roblimo left out the "http://" -- to see the photos, click here.
-
<SIG>
"I am not trying to prove that I am right... I am only trying to find out whether." -Bertolt Brecht
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
Funny how the gnu project gives it's award to the Gnu desktop
One thing I'd like to see is some captions on the pictures. I can guess who some of the people are by context, and I *know* who some of the people are (RMS is rather, um, recognizable...:) but I just can't place a lot of the people in these pictures.
Perhaps I'm looking at the wrong URL, if so, sorry...
--J(K) DOS is like Unix in exactly the same way that a pinto is like an aircraft carrier.
What a shitty award, and totally undeserved. Miguel hasn't even created the best software for Linux. Tex meanwhile is a standard in publishing. All this political hype is getting boring.
Well, I know that Miguel is the guy in charge of that gnome project that I love so much. Gnome is really nice and stable (now).
Besides gnome, Miguel was instrumental in getting Mexico to adopt Linux into its schools. It is about time that Miguel gets some dues for what he has done.
You have left one out:
- rerelease everyting under the GPL
I have some doubts that the FSF will give awards to anything that is not GPLed.
I think this why Knuth didn't win. TeX is an integral part of the GNU system but isn't as important as GNOME. As far as all of Knuth's other accomplichments, well, I don't think the award is about that.
I personally feel that Knuth should have gotten the award but I can understand why Miguel got it. Just look at everything he has done with GNOME:
So it makes sense really. But still, developing TeX and making it free... a difficult thing to compete with.
Congratulations to Miguel and the finalists... and thanks.
(I sincerely hope there is no political hocus-pocus going on... I don't think so but...)
Congrats to Miguel... not just for the sheer amount of work he's done , but for leading such a big project.
And Im glad to see noone went out of their way to wear a suit to receive an award *grin*.
Hey,
Does being our geekie selves mean we can't manage to put a caption on a few measly photos or put them on the web in thumbnail size that can be expanded? I mean, have we sworn off making things remotely user-friendly when it come to a simple web page or something? No one ever tells me these things.
I'll lose karma for this, but...
Most of the discussions about moderation are a "here & now" sort of deal. What I mean by that is, it needs to be discussed in the main forum to allow moderators to fix their mistakes. It's important to discuss, but sometimes more important to discuss shortcomings when something can be done.
Just my $.02.
An even more off-topic thought: It would be nice if we could down moderate our own comments without losing karma. I know this is dreadfully off-topic, if I could knock it down to a zero or -1 without posting anonymously, I'd appreciate it.
i dont display scores, and my threshhold is -1. post accordingly.
Look at this
Has anyone else noticed that RMS looks a helluva lot like Ron Jeremy there?
I bet with a little shaving, RMS could be the next great porn star!
I thought it was all about letting "me" post comments?
Whoa.. the /. crowd goes nuts again...
There were probably about 125 people in the audience by my estimation.
RMS explained why they eliminated Knuth from the 3 finalists by basically saying that he was in a whole other league and has already won just about every award out there and there wouldn't be any point in adding yet another award to the long list. He is already recognized.
-Rasmus
I feel really proud that a fellow mexican
:)
wins this award, specially since his effort
to make linux more friendly, will help our
schools, which belive me, need LOTS of help.
Education in Mexico doesnt have a big
budget, and the best public schools at the most
have a couple of old pentiums. My mom was a
teacher in one of the top 3 public schools in my city,
Mexicos seconds largest and richest, and they only
have 20 or so old pentiums.
A lot of companies are donating old equipment
to the schools and only linux and gnome will make
this equipment useful and worth using.
Not only does he deserve the award for technical
merit, but also for his social awareness; well,
at least for what he has done in Mexico
Again, congrats Miguel!
This paid my last vacation, it mi
(Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs! Don't forget the http://!)
I got moderated down massively in the past for f*c*ing that one up.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
(Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs! Don't forget the http://!)
I got moderated down massively in the past for f*c*ing that one up. Now I'll get moderated down for being a sarcastic ass. HA!
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
I don't understand this.
So some of you guys think Miguel won the award because his contribution is more recent?
Then why do they even bother to include Knuth as one of three finalists?
There are tons of free software projects out there. Why didn't they pick one of those programmers? And how Larry Wall got the award last year?
Fetchingly clad in a light blue plaid shirt? Wonderfully fuzzy, warm-looking red, white, grey and blue sweater? LOL
Roblimo, I've never seen your picture but I'm guessing you ain't close to Rebecca Romijn(?) Stamos. I'll be awaiting your report on Entertainment Tonight. hehe
But seriously congrats to all the winners!
and for blabbing my fool head off about nothing.
LOng day./...............
All Apologies
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
I have some doubts that the FSF will give awards to anything that is not GPLed.
... or is not part of the GNU project.
the one shot of the room showed about 10 people. lots of empty seats. which is a pity.
also it is a pity more did not vote for knuth. glamour wins over intelligence...
True, Knuth does not need another award. But to nominate him, shortlist him for the finals, and then not give it to him on these grounds, is ridiculous. They could have shortlisted someone else, and announced that they weren't considering people like Knuth.
I reposted some of the photos at http://gphoto.org/fsf-award99/
In the media he has spread FUD about KDE (It has no future), and at conferences all he does is go around telling people how KDE is evil. He used to hang around the KDE devel channel telling all the new people KDE is wrong and annoying developers.
AAAAAAAAH! This is hilarious!!! Thanks for the good laugh :)
AC, keep up the good work.
I can't imagine being half as productive with Emacs if I didn't have both the Emacs Manual and the Emacs Lisp Manual available for immediate browsing. I admit that I use the man pages for things like textutils, fileutils, etc. Things I use from Emacs, I use info files for. Things I use from bash, I use man pages for.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
I got a good laugh out of the above line. Since when has programming been glamerous? :-) You should get out more. Good point how thinly attended the event was. It's a shame.
She may be NewsTrolls but she's no troll.
And she's right.
But moderation conveniently keeps her comment down where the investors in Andover won't see it.
You guys are reallly sad.
What's the difference between your control through moderation of posts and Bill Gates' control of his APIs?
You're for Open Source, but not for Open Opinion, I guess.
As a matter of fact I just took a look at her profile and read her other posts which were highly intelligent but your moderators have consistantly moderated her down so her posting karma is a -4.
Why is that?
Are you scared of her opinions?
Miguel the winner? This is a bad joke. Miguel is NOT in the same league as Knuth. It is a downright insult that he won over Knuth. But I
guess being the flavour of the month pays off right? Slashdot has done wonders for Miguel the Mouth's image, especially by helping Miguel
belittle other projects. Has Knuth done that? Nope. How has making a desktop environment 'advanced' computing in general? Gnome &
KDE are still behind what you can find on other environments. Alan Kay deserved an award for helping invent the GUI in Smalltalk but that
was over 20 years ago. Is Gnome somehow more user-friendly than any other GUI out there? Not by a bloody longshot. But hey, I guess shiny
themes are more important than integrity. On the basis of Miguel's unrelenting BASHING of other projects he did NOT deserve this
recognition. If he was anyone else people would be screaming and yelling because of comments like "KDE has no future". Has Knuth bashed
other computer scientists? Has Knuth gone on record time and time again badmouthing competing ideas? It's clear this award was a
popularity contest, nothing more. I guess being part of the Slashdot clique pays off, eh? It's great to see that the Free Software Foundation
wholeheartedly supports such an unrepentant asshole as Miguel D'Icaza. (Go ahead slashdot censors, moderate me down...you gotta preserve
your boy's club don't you?)
It's a nice day outside. Why don't you go meet a nice woman or something, enjoy a milkshake, take a relaxing bath?
Then maybe you won't take offensive hissy fits on public internet forums, and stay bitter that nobody wants to hear it. Your objections were echoed by a about a thousand other, less asshole-ish people than you.
Go to hell, troll.
Marc
Gnome is doing everything to turn Linux into a MS-like system. It is incredibly slow and huge! Have any of you ever tried to run it in anything less than a Pentium200? Give me fvwm2 anytime!
.
--
Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
****Gfx Scrollbar Special case hit!!*****
Am I the only one upset because the part of the article shown in the Slashdot front page doesn't tell who won?
I had to click to get the full story and the comments.
Put important information early in your post. Inverted pyramids!
This is a news site, not Agatha Christie.
--
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
I applaud you, not to join your bandwagon, but hey, thanks for that post! hey slushdot, this ole boy/gal hit the nail on the head, give him the award!
RMS is just a big ol' fat hippy huh? Who else would give a patchwork blanket for an award? Now I dont have anything against hippys or blankets. In fact, I find the whole thing rather amusing.
Is there some sort of story behind the blanket? Why give a blanket as an award? Just seems kinda odd to me.
Yesterday I saw a worthwhile comment marked as redundent while I was meta moderating. All well and good perhaps if there were other comments saying the same thing, right? Except it was comment #1.
So I marked it unfair.
Well, whatever happened before, I haven't feel
more asahamed than now. Shortlisting one of the
greatest scientists just because he already has
enough awards, is unfair. I'm not telling that
Gnome is good or bad. My point is that NO ONE
compares to such prominent figures as Dr. Knuth,
V. Cerf, E. F. Codd, N. Wirth and other outstanding minds.
For ignorant script-kiddies that think Dr. Knuth is just an author of TeX,
I would recommend visiting his website and having a look at the list of his work.
Miguel de Icaza is excellent at programming. People like Dr. Knuth are programming itself.
KuroiNeko
from:PAC