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Introducing RMS-Lint

Posted by michael on Thu Apr 01, 2004 11:53 AM
from the gnu/rms-lint dept.
Shlomi Fish writes "There's a new tool called RMS-Lint that aims to check and correct documents for their compliance with correspondence rules from Richard Stallman. If you plan on sending RMS an E-mail, you may actually need it."
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  • sigh (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub (11606) <slashdot@grub.net> on Thursday April 01 2004, @11:53AM (#8737856) Homepage Journal

    GNU/is GNU/this GNU/another GNU/April GNU/Fool's GNU/joke?
  • by ajiva (156759) on Thursday April 01 2004, @11:53AM (#8737857)
    Now is this navel lint or dryer lint? Because you know it does make a difference!
  • by davek99999 (749198) on Thursday April 01 2004, @11:54AM (#8737863)
    Stop making fun of RMS. [kickinthehead.org]
  • Hmmmm (Score:2, Insightful)

    Let me see RMS-Lint and 04/01..... Ok... ummm... yes... I see what they are trying to accomplish here...
  • by gtrubetskoy (734033) * on Thursday April 01 2004, @11:55AM (#8737874) Homepage
    I tried it, but it seems to hang in an infinite loop when processing the word GNU.
  • by Pranjal (624521) on Thursday April 01 2004, @11:55AM (#8737875)
    It should have been GNU/RMS Lint. So we know it's a fake. Nice try sucker!
  • by ajs (35943) <ajs&ajs,com> on Thursday April 01 2004, @11:56AM (#8737881) Homepage Journal
    Just wait for SCO-IPLint... *shudder*
      • by ajs (35943) <ajs&ajs,com> on Thursday April 01 2004, @12:02PM (#8737938) Homepage Journal
        SCO is the very best mirror in which to look if you wish to know what the open source community will look like at its worst. The flaming, hatred and threats are all characteristics that we're not too proud of, but SCO makes us face our demons and admit that we too are no angels.

        The number of ways in which the SCO situation is actually good for the open source community are kind of scary.
  • by Urgo (28400) on Thursday April 01 2004, @11:56AM (#8737883) Homepage
    For a full updated list of sites pulling april fools jokes see here [urgo.org]

    Some of the latest enteries:
    livejournal.com [livejournal.com] - on userinfo pages, "Friend"/"Friend Of" -> "Stalking"/"Stalked By"
    www.gpf-comics.com [gpf-comics.com] - Comic mirrored.
    smh.com.au [smh.com.au] - Yum-cha trolleys with "L" plates
    www.clutchfans.com [clutchfans.com] - Patrick Ewing returning to NBA
    www.freeciv.org [freeciv.org] - Freeciv ANSI client
    www.rav4world.com [rav4world.com] - Closed? Should have announced that TOMORROW!
    www.retrocrush.com [retrocrush.com] - Nude pics of Jaclyn Smith
    westcoaster.net [westcoaster.net] - Roller coaster site turned into teen girl site
    www.meowpawjects.com [meowpawjects.com] - Sock people forced webmaster to take website down.
    miceage.com [miceage.com] - Disney merges with Walmart
    www.badgerbadgerbadger.com [badgerbadgerbadger.com] - Badgers replaces with zombies
    skepdic.com [skepdic.com] - Skeptic's Dictionary closing
    fool.com [fool.com] - Buffett buys Krispy Cream
    launch.com [launch.com] - Britney Spears & Jason Alexander To Renew Wedding Vows
    MetaFilter.com [metafilter.com] - Turned in to a Wiki for the day
    www.ddrkc.com [ddrkc.com] - owner sold site to a user that is unpopular
    brownpau.com [brownpau.com] - March for Web Standards
    www.beyondunreal.com [beyondunreal.com] - ut2k4 production suspended
    globetechnology.com [globetechnology.com] - Microsoft Solitaire
    www.modernwiccan.com [modernwiccan.com] - Randomized Color Scheme
    bbs.fuckedcompany.com [fuckedcompany.com] - Site shutting down
    www.diary-x.com [diary-x.com] - looks like diaryland!
    theprp.com [theprp.com] - Music site to "Previously Ridden Ponies"
    mpx200.org [mpx200.org] - Pocket PC with 2Gb system memory/Smart Drunk Pocket PC application
    www.macosxhints.com [macosxhints.com] - triple G5 Powermacs
    www.slyfx.com [slyfx.com] - AOL buys slyfx
    palminfocenter.com [palminfocenter.com] - Palms for toddlers.
    www.carniola.org [carniola.org] - fake news story
    eikenes.alvestrand.no [alvestrand.no] - Considering porn spam to be in a separate dialect to everything else
    defunctgames.com [defunctgames.com] - Pimps At Sea fox xbox
  • by FroMan (111520) on Thursday April 01 2004, @11:58AM (#8737904) Homepage Journal
    I was hoping this would be a new product at thinkgeek!

    GNU/RMS-Belly-Button-Lint

  • fuck off (Score:4, Interesting)

    by larry bagina (561269) on Thursday April 01 2004, @11:58AM (#8737905) Journal
    christ slashdot sucks on april fools day.

    How about doing something original, like weirdo moderation ("insightful" becomes "no shit", interesting becomes "word up", etc). or announce that slashdot will now be requiring all posters to subscribe in order to post comments, or "Kathleen Fent, please divorce rob and marry me!" posted by Hemos.

    • Agreed. 1 or 2 April Fool stories is enough, but I imagine the editors enjoy beating a dead horse all day long.
    • one year they did ban anonymous posting for april fool's. that was fun.

      you're right, though, oddly enough slashdot isn't nearly weird enough on april fool's. the stories can't be the whole picture.

    • To be fair, it's mostly just michael. The guy's as diligent as a Worldcomm accountant, and about as funny as a tumour on your whanger. If he gets paid more than beer money for his "contributions" here, then I think we've found our next sacrifice to the Indian outsourcing machine.
    • Re:fuck off (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Jim Hall (2985) on Thursday April 01 2004, @01:02PM (#8738770) Homepage

      christ slashdot sucks on april fools day. How about doing something original, like weirdo moderation ("insightful" becomes "no shit", interesting becomes "word up", etc).

      Actually, that's a very good idea. MOD PARENT UP. Slashdot is hella lame on April 1st. Ever since this morning, I've been avoiding slashdot (it's lunchtime now, so I'm slacking off.)

      Sorry guys, I read slashdot for the news. When you don't post real news, you've become something like BBSpot or Fark, and I don't read them every day.

      Just do something simple (I like the idea from the parent poster) and let that be it.

      • +1 Insightful on that mod rating. It's easy to forget that a lot of posters on this site are the science club nerds that you took great pleasure in pounding on in school.
  • Only RMS? (Score:4, Funny)

    by MrIrwin (761231) on Thursday April 01 2004, @12:02PM (#8737941) Journal
    I would like to see lint options for average values as well as RMS.....not to mention Peak Music Power.
  • I feel this must be said -- we already have rules of correspondence. They are called grammar, spelling, and etiquette.

    I find we have reached a bit of a level of absurdity when an individual has created their own rules by which they can be corresponded with.

    I would hope that if you can assemble a correct sentence, put your thoughts in writing well, be polite, and spell things correctly, you could always expect a response from anyone via e-mail.

  • Only funs allowed.

    Serious discussion strictly forbidden!
  • "If you plan on sending RMS an E-mail, you may actually need it."
    Nobody wants to send RMS and email. Well mabey to flame.
    • Re:Proof of AF (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sepluv (641107) <blakesley@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Thursday April 01 2004, @01:00PM (#8738741) Homepage
      I sent RMS an email recently about sthg and he sent a nice reply quite quickly--I'm not sure why everyone thinks RMS is that funny actually (for a geek anyway).

      Although, in his reply, he did say that I should attach webpages instead of giving him the URI's so that he doesn't have to wait for his next batch of mail to receive the webpages (by emailing the URI's) (i.e.: he dsoesn't have WWW access ort doesn't use it) which I thought was a bit sad.
  • by joeytsai (49613) on Thursday April 01 2004, @12:19PM (#8738122)
    Actually, there is a strangely similar package [debian.org] in Debian.
  • next unless /check enclosed/i or /goats\.ex/i ;
  • Yay (Score:5, Funny)

    by broothal (186066) <christian@fabel.dk> on Thursday April 01 2004, @12:23PM (#8738168) Homepage Journal
    Darn - for a minute there I thought it read PMS limit . I'd sure like such a tool. Especially in...(counting)... 8 days.
  • by pete-classic (75983) <hutnick@gmail.com> on Thursday April 01 2004, @12:26PM (#8738194) Homepage Journal
    What have we learned today kids? If you are going to make some lame April Fool's Day joke on your website and submit it to Slashdot USE A FUCKING STATIC PAGE.

    -Peter
  • I don't get it (Score:3, Informative)

    by geekoid (135745) <.dadinportland. .at. .yahoo.com.> on Thursday April 01 2004, @12:46PM (#8738513) Homepage Journal
    why do the people who dislike the April Fools /. bother to post? Jeez, do they think this is their personal site designed to cater to them?

    I mean, go away.
  • april's (?) fool (Score:3, Interesting)

    by molnarcs (675885) <molnarcs@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Thursday April 01 2004, @02:09PM (#8739709) Homepage Journal
    Do you know why GNU su doesn't support the wheel group (well, I think it does now, but it didn't for a time). Because RMS opined that it creates a divide between those with power and those without. (Actually I found this jewel in this this thread, so credit isn't mine... [freebsdforums.org]
    manpage is from SUSE 6.1...
    Why GNU su does not support the wheel group (by Richard Stallman)
    Sometimes a few of the users try to hold total power over all the rest. For example, in 1984, a few users at the MIT AI lab decided to seize power by changing the operator password on the Twenex system and keeping it secret from everyone else. (I was able to thwart this coup and give power back to the users by patching the kernel, but I wouldn't know how to do that in Unix.)

    However, occasionally the rulers do tell someone. Under the usual su mechanism, once someone learns the root password who sympathizes with the ordinary users, he can tell the rest. The "wheel group" feature would make this impossible, and thus cement the power of the rulers.

    I'm on the side of the masses, not that of the rulers. If you are used to supporting the bosses and sysadmins in whatever they do, you might find this idea strange at first.
    Actually I respect the guy: he is a man with strong principles, and I admire him for that. Given the historical context (1984) this isn't as silly as it sounds now. Without the internet this wasn't as much a security threat as it is today. But there is no excuse for linux distributions (second half of 90's) to follow that policy (or did they just take su for what it is - e.g. no wheel support - without looking at the outdated and by now somewhat silly reasons?).

    April's fool day on ./ featuring RMS ... when I saw it, I thought I'd share this cute (I'd say funny) piece of history, but again, no disrespect intended. Although being somewhat cynical is en vogue in nerd circles (unfortunately and boringly), when I say I respect RMS for what he is and for what he represents, I mean it.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2004, @08:22PM (#8743116)

    RMS was born in Modesto, California and attended Berkeley University [berkeley.edu]. This shouldn't surprise anyone, since Berkeley is the Liberal Hive [russia.ru] of America and RMS is an admitted [stallman.org] communist [www.jkl.fi]. RMS began his bizarre lifestyle while attending Berkeley, where he occupied the attic of a clock tower. This eccentricity continues today and RMS will not travel without a grandfather clock and a spitoon [warmann.org].

    RMS' penchant for thievery was evident from the very beginning. His attic "apartment" was filled with equipment stolen from the Berkeley computer labs. This was quite an achievement in the early '70s, when any computer equipment was the size of a refrigerator.

    RMS and his hacker friends cut class regularly, opting to spend their time and parent's money constructing illegal electronics devices designed to covertly access phone lines. The group of pirates would hack into the phone company, and charge enormous phone bills to unsuspecting Republican professors.

    It was during this period that Stallman met Steve Jobs. RMS' technical savvy was far exceeded by that of Jobs and, never one to like being second-best, this caused him to pursue software hacking. RMS' hacking ability was innate and he and Jobs formed an alliance which would later result in the birth of Apple Computer.

    Jobs' technical accumen was matched only by his ability to sell. He designed the internal electronics and outer package design of the first Apple, which was financed by Nolan Bushnell. He set RMS on to the task of developing the computer's "operating system" - a sequence of low-level MS-DOS commands which tell the computer how to decode program codes.

    Though a gifted "coder", Stallman was quite lazy and didn't fare so well with the new operating system. His sloppy design and bloated codes were barely useable on the first microcomputer. Jobs dumped Stallman and hired John Wozniack to rewrite the internal operating system codes for the Apple I.

    This situation didn't sit too well with RMS. Though he effectively dropped out of college, through non-attendance, he remained in the clock tower, unbeknownst to the faculty and administration of Berekely. His bizarre reclusiveness and tendency to "hack" only in the night kept him invisible to everyone, though rumors did circulate around campus about the "haunted clock-tower" and the deformed ghost that would occasionally appear, transluscent white, on top of the tower playing a magical flute [stallman.org].

    Stallman grew sullen and withdrew into his own world in the clock tower. He watched as the joint Apple/Microsoft empire grew to become the computer industry and he vowed to topple it by undermining the livelyhood of his arch-rival Steve Jobs (and, by extension, Bill Gates) with his illegal offerings.

    Stallman conspired with Linux Torvaledse, another Berkeley student, to create a hacker operating system which could be used to leverage the internet and wreak havoc on corporations everywhere. RMS even went so far as to use Microsoft's innovative GUI (Graphical User Implementation) which he had stolen from Microsoft's mainframe computer and given the hacker alias "X-Windows". Unfortunately, RMS was not able to acquire the latest Microsoft GUI codes and was thus forced to settle for an inferior version.

    RMS' continued interest in communism provided him some insight as to how to spread his hacker tool across the internet. By stressing the free nature of the software, he would appeal to the welfare nature of the public.

    This marketing scheme worked spectacularly. RMS' hacker tool is now installed on countless computers, hidden away in the dark bedrooms of LSD-using hacker teens [etext.org].

    B

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2004, @11:56AM (#8737892)
      Picking your nose and eating it is one of the best ways to stay healthy,
      according to a top Austrian doctor.

      Innsbruck-based lung specialist Prof Dr Friedrich Bischinger said people who
      pick their noses with their fingers were healthy, happier and probably better
      in tune with their bodies.

      He says society should adopt a new approach to nose-picking and encourage
      children to take it up.

      Dr Bischinger said: "With the finger you can get to places you just can't
      reach with a handkerchief, keeping your nose far cleaner.

      "And eating the dry remains of what you pull out is a great way of
      strengthening the body's immune system.

      "Medically it makes great sense and is a perfectly natural thing to do. In
      terms of the immune system the nose is a filter in which a great deal of
      bacteria are collected, and when this mixture arrives in the intestines it
      works just like a medicine.

      "Modern medicine is constantly trying to do the same thing through far more
      complicated methods, people who pick their nose and eat it get a natural boost
      to their immune system for free."

      He pointed out that children happily pick their noses, yet by the time they
      have become adults they have stopped under pressure from a society that has
      branded it disgusting and anti social.

      He said: "I would recommend a new approach where children are encouraged to
      pick their nose. It is a completely natural response and medically a good idea
      as well."

      And he pointed out that if anyone was really worried about what their
      neighbour was thinking, they could still enjoy picking their nose in private
      if they still wanted to get the benefits it offered.
    • Since it is April Fools Day, why don't we have any SCO stories?
      April Fools day on /. is when there isn't a story on SCO. That, or maybe it'd just be redundant.

      Oh well, Happy April Darl's Day anyway!