Richard Stallman Proclaims Don't Follow Linus Torvalds 965
StonyandCher writes "Here is an interview with Richard Stallman about a range of free software topics including GPLv3 and comment on the Microsoft patent issue. Stallman has a go at Linus Torvalds even suggesting that if people want to keep their freedom they better not follow Torvalds.
From the interview 'Stallman: The fact that Torvalds says "open source" instead of "free software" shows where he is coming from. I wrote the GNU GPL to defend freedom for all users of all versions of a program. I developed version 3 to do that job better and protect against new threats. Torvalds says he rejects this goal; that's probably why he doesn't appreciate GPL version 3. I respect his right to express his views, even though I think they are foolish. However, if you don't want to lose your freedom, you had better not follow him.'"
No surprise (Score:5, Informative)
Linus belongs much more closely to the "Open Source" movement [ESR] than to "Free Software" [RMS]. Although I hesitate to classify Linus in any way. He does his own thing.
Re:Hey Stallman, how's Hurd coming along? (Score:5, Informative)
Hurd's not the most important thing (Score:5, Informative)
The free software movement already has many working kernels. Getting Hurd working is not the most important thing RMS could work on.
His job is to make sure that the free software movement will last - make sure people value it and protect it.
Here's a transcript of one of his talks [fsfeurope.org], and there's more where that came from [fsfe.org].
He already did: BitKeeper (Score:5, Informative)
This wouldn't be a change. Linus already used and advertised BitKeeper, which was completely proprietary software.
Relicensing the Linux kernel quite possible [fsfe.org], if they want to.
Re:And what's the last code Stallman wrote? (Score:4, Informative)
In his programming hey-day, he wrote GCC, GDB, half of GNU Make, and some other packages.
Know anyone else who's written a compiler which today builds 4Gb software archives?
Truly free license: WTFPL (Score:2, Informative)
http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/ [zoy.org]
Re:Okay. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Software's the same, the philosophies different (Score:3, Informative)
Your definition of "open source" conflicts with the Open Source Initiative's; their definition of "open source" is almost exactly the FSF definition of "free software". The philosophies of the OSI and FSF vary, although less than it appears; the marketing the two groups use is very different (and the OSI marketing is much more effective). The OSI was an offshoot of the free software movement, designed to sell the idea of free software under another name with different slogans.
Not to mention that the Free Software Foundation lists the BSD and Apache licenses as free software licenses, and went to some trouble to make sure that GPLv3 was compatible with the latest Apache license. The FSF would prefer you used GPLv3 or later for most projects, just as Theo and Bill Gates would prefer you used BSD, but they hardly insist on it. They take an uncompromising position against software with non-free licenses, but they're cool with BSD and Apache licenses. In fact, they suggest backing off from GPLv3 for certain purposes.
While the FSF is ideologically inflexible, it's tactically quite flexible. GPLv3 was hammered out with a good deal of public input, which effected a lot of change between drafts of the license. Their issue with BSD is not that it isn't free, but that it doesn't protect freedom as effectively as GPLv3.
Re:The comment reflects Stallman's inner thoughts. (Score:3, Informative)
The hell? Not only is that irrelevant, it's also blatantly wrong. If you try to build a GNU/Linux system without Stallman's code you'll have just as much trouble as if you tried to do it without Linus's code - and the number of lines of involved code actually written by each is probably pretty similar.
Re:No surprise (Score:3, Informative)
That's an interesting claim, but it happens to be false.
Most hardware companies sell hardware and want people to buy it. That means that they want their customers to be able to use it. Providing specifications (and editable driver code) makes the hardware maximally useful to the customer - thus selling the most units of the hardware. Usually the hardware interfaces are actually standardized, so keeping them secret is absurd.
You can see this in practice by looking at what hardware is supported by the Linux kernel today. Almost all hardware is supported by drivers embedded in the kernel itself. The only significant exceptions to that are high end 3D video cards, wireless network cards, and software modems. For 3D cards, one of the two vendors in the world just came to their senses and realized that hiding interface details just costs them sales for no good reason. For wireless cards and software modems, the excuse is legal constraints.
That leaves nVidia as the only company in the entire world that may legitimately be thinking like you are. My guess is that they aren't thinking like that - they're probably just being lazy and don't want to pay their lawyers to evaluate the exact legal situation of the various patent licenses that they have that may restrict what information they can publicly release.
Re:Definitely different goals (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Winning friends and influencing people... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:its all about hurd (Score:4, Informative)
Then save options to make it permanent. Why? Are you still using some emacs variant from 1970?