Uh, actually by the time RMS got started (1983) computers were well into the consumer point of view thanks to companies like MITS, Apple, IBM, and Microsoft. Apple was a year away from releasing its magnum opus, the Macintosh (Not their first GUI-based machine.), and IBM as already deep into selling its best seller, the IBM PC, which was knee-deep in MS-DOS. Another two years woulsd see the Mac become a huge hit and Windows' first release. RMS, at the time, was still diddling around with pre-Alpha/Alpha versions of the GNU toolchain.

RMS didn't foresee anything.

You're assuming Stallmanists actually think. If they did they'd see through about 90% of the propaganda Stallman cranks out these days.

I support free software, but only so far as its actually practical. Like, I won't use GNash since it is not as good as Flash, and I want actual 3D acceleration, etc. I won't declare software evil purely because its proprietary but based off of the actual character of the software makers. RMS would rather we just blindly hate on all proprietary software. If I did that I'd use crippled disributions like gNewSense.

The problem I see with Stallman is he overly politicizes software. I think it should be more treated like a PERSONAL PREFERENCE then a POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. I like open source because I *have* noticed a significant quality and, yes, fun aspect of FOSS. Maybe it's because I'm a tech-savvy programmer. But I have noticed a couple cases where the open source alternative doesn't really work all that well or doesn't offer what I really want. Then I go proprietary.

I use the "nvidia" driver, Flash 10... not nv (Which only supports 2D on nVidia cards... barely. Since I like eye candy this driver is not used at all by me if I can help it.) or Nouveau (I admit I know little about this driver or what its features are. I *do* know it's not up to the proprietary driver's level.). Too bad KWin in KDE 4.3 doesn't have alpha blurring anymore.

I know people will say GIMP/OpenOffice are not as good as Photoshop/Office. Personally, I think GIMP is quite good. Maybe not as good as PS, but the difference between GIMP and PS is hundreds of dollars and professional features I don't give a shit about. I personally think that, with a little refining, Go-OpenOffice (The Novell Fork of OO.) can easily beat or at least match MS Office. It certainly fills my limited needs, at least.

My "software philosophy" is "forget politics or what is moral in theory, use what works well for you," I honestly don't see any real MORAL issue as an end-user whether or not I use proprietary software or not.

In fact, I would not be honest if I said I don't believe there isn't evil open source software, either. I personally don't trust Mono, for example, because of the companies backing it.

I agree with you for the most part. It had a time of relevancy, but now it's annoying to hear the Next Evil Thing denounced by His Royal Leader of Free Software Richard Stallman, who probably hasn't written a line of code in decades.

Oh look, the "Linux is not usable" troll. Go back to 1998, when that argument actually had some real standing.

Really? Maintaining a dual boot system is agony? I've know plenty of "normal" users who do it no problem.

Good God, man! Now I can't stop imagining it... and I've lost my will to live!

I almost bought your argument until you linked to the Rush Limbaugh site. You DO realize he's like the Rob Enderle of Republicans, right?

There's no GNU code in the operating system layer. ITS ALL USERSPACE. You didn't name a single fucking thing that runs in kernel mode. It's all Linux drivers and modules and the kernel itself. The operating system layer is ONLY that which runs in kernel mode that manages or helps manage processes, hardware, and resources. NO GNU SOFTWARE USED IN A LINUX DISTRIBUTION FITS THIS CRITERIA! The operating system inherits the name of the kernel, not the userspace tools that sit in the operating environment layer on top of it. It's Linux, not GNU.

And the name of the distribution itself is whatever the hell the person or group who actually assembled the distribution wants it to be called. It's Ubuntu, not GNU.

GNU is just userspace tools in Linux. And you can say it runs the ENTIRE userspace all you want it's still "Linux" or "Ubuntu" just as it is "NT" or "Windows Vista."

And you're going off the obsolete definition of operating system RMS loves to go by when he calls it GNU/Linux.

Having the most lines of code does not an operating system make. Because I could name things that take even more lines of code in a Linux distro than GNU (Xorg, for example.). This was one of RMS' most broken metrics of how "critical" something is to Linux.

They're not what defines the operating system. They're not drivers, they're not modules, and they're not the kernel. Ubuntu's not an OS, it's a system distribution, and it's not "derived" from GNU since there was never a GNU distribution. They're important, yes, but not important enough to call a Linux distribution a GNU distribution. It's Stallman taking credit where credit isn't due.

GNU is just a toolchain. An IMPORTANT toolchain, but a tollchain nonetheless. You don't name your OS or your system distribution after the toolchain, no matter how badly RMS tries to rationalize it.

The operating system layer itself is Linux. Period. Unless there's actual GNU modules or drivers alongside the Linux kernel in kernel-space I don't know about.

And the name of the system distribution is whatever the fuck the maker wants to call it: Ubuntu, RHEL, SuSE, since it's THEIR creation by way of assembling the parts themselves into a distribution.

Stallman wants us to think that by having the GNU toolchain the entire system magically becomes GNU.

It's Linux. It is not GNU/Linux.

A little hint: Don't use M$ in our posts or no one will take you seriously, even if you make a good point.

Clearly you never read the Cathedral and the Bazaar.

"Mono is the death of Linux."

Mono WOULD be the death of Linux if serious amounts of serious developers actually uses it. So far the biggest app I've seen Mono implemented on in Linux is Banshee. Hardly a boon to the intended purpose of Mono to kill Linux through wrecking its reputation or bring it down with patent traps.

I trust that, in general, the Linux development community isnt trusting Mono, or at least simply sees no point in using it.

I read a few years ago de Icaza tried and failed to convince the rest of the GNOME club to hook GNOME up to Mono.

"There is the little matter of potential patent time bombs. I won't use Mono for that reason alone. I have absolutely no faith in Microsoft's largesse, or in the moles like Icaza who seem hell bent on selling everyone up the river."

Amen. I always like to say when someone defends Mono for being an ECMA standard: "Standardization does not mean indemnification." The worst a standards organization could do to Microsoft for patent trolling .NET through Mono would be to abolish the standard, something I imagine wouldn't even remotely bother Microsoft at that point.

As for de Icaza, it should have been blatantly obvious that he was a traitor when he:

- Applied for a job at Microsoft. I don't know how he responded to being rejected, assuming he actually was rejected.

- Actually wanted to bring .NET to Linux despite the fact that very few developers saw real value in it. Notice how few big projects outside of his umbrella actually use Mono or even want to use Mono. Note also that the only Mono-using apps I've seen on Linux are aimed directly at GNOME, de Icaza's little "love child."

- I think a real red flag should have been raised when he started calling OOXML "superb" and blindly thinking it was being "FUD'd." I doubt he ever actually read the standard.

To me, CodePlex is just abother ploy on MS's part to try to control code. That's also why I think they were so unusually interested in proliferating Mono with de Icaza.

Yes, finally we get to see what a traitor de Icaza actually is. And I never trusted Mono from the start.

I don't see CodePlex getting much attention except from developers who happen to be Micropologists. That or incredibly gullible.