/. gets a lot of readers. While he may not be a native speaker of English, there are plenty of/.-ers out there who probably would have been willing to edit his writing for him. Generally I expect as clear and concise writing on/. as I do on CNN or Time./. being a "geek" zine doesn't give it an excuse for poor writing, a lot of people read it and deserve well thought out and well constructed features.
Now I think his essay was worth the read once you got past the spelling errors, but for the next one, he really should find someone to edit it for him. Besides, not only will it be easier to read but it'll improve his writing skills. Everybody wins.
RMS' efforts to enforce what he deems the proper name for Linux remind me of France's efforts to enforce "proper French." Both will ultimately fail.
Language is fluid. It can be described, but it can't be prescribed. At some point, a word or phrase meets critical mass in a culture and it becomes the accepted term for some symbol/meaning/thing.
The word "Linux" is an example. A lot of people know that Linux is really a collection of software written by a large number of people, not just Linus. I'm sure that there are people who think Linus wrote the whole enchilada, or burrito, whatever your tastes may be. "Linux" is the accepted term, and it has a lot of inertia. Maybe if RMS had intervened back in the earlier days when there was only 100 users, he may have prevailed and we would be saying "GNU/Linux". But apparently the thought didn't cross his mind then or he didn't care enough, or maybe even then the term "Linux" already had too much momentum.
I think RMS should give up on his linguistic crusade here and concentrate on more important issues, like contributing to the ever-increasing dialogue between the "suits" and the rest of us in his decidedly unique way. Instead he wastes his time on a trivial issue of language, and we all suffer from the effects (it makes for great anti-open source propaganda).
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/. gets a lot of readers. While he may not be a native speaker of English, there are plenty of /.-ers out there who probably would have been willing to edit his writing for him. Generally I expect as clear and concise writing on /. as I do on CNN or Time. /. being a "geek" zine doesn't give it an excuse for poor writing, a lot of people read it and deserve well thought out and well constructed features.
Now I think his essay was worth the read once you got past the spelling errors, but for the next one, he really should find someone to edit it for him. Besides, not only will it be easier to read but it'll improve his writing skills. Everybody wins.
RMS' efforts to enforce what he deems the proper name for Linux remind me of France's efforts to enforce "proper French." Both will ultimately fail.
Language is fluid. It can be described, but it can't be prescribed. At some point, a word or phrase meets critical mass in a culture and it becomes the accepted term for some symbol/meaning/thing.
The word "Linux" is an example. A lot of people know that Linux is really a collection of software written by a large number of people, not just Linus. I'm sure that there are people who think Linus wrote the whole enchilada, or burrito, whatever your tastes may be. "Linux" is the accepted term, and it has a lot of inertia. Maybe if RMS had intervened back in the earlier days when there was only 100 users, he may have prevailed and we would be saying "GNU/Linux". But apparently the thought didn't cross his mind then or he didn't care enough, or maybe even then the term "Linux" already had too much momentum.
I think RMS should give up on his linguistic crusade here and concentrate on more important issues, like contributing to the ever-increasing dialogue between the "suits" and the rest of us in his decidedly unique way. Instead he wastes his time on a trivial issue of language, and we all suffer from the effects (it makes for great anti-open source propaganda).