Unfortunately you can't really assert that any of what you said is true. There are GPL projects that are equally, if not more, successful than equivalent projects under those licenses.
If his metric is "look what Microsoft has done," or even "look what several Fortune 100 companies have done" -- and that is, in fact, the metric he selected -- then I'm pretty confident I can.
That's utter revisionist claptrap.
Stallman's uncompromising stance is pretty evident in the GPL, which is a relatively minor player when compared against more permissive licenses (MIT, Apache, BSD, and -- relevant to the conversation at hand -- MPL). These licenses, by allowing in the "little bit of evil" that is represented by allowing their use in commercial contexts, have been significantly more successful than GPL and similar viral attempts.
You can try to hold him out as a cheerleader in this arena, but in terms of "meeting his philosophical demands," how much of the stuff that Microsoft has released is under viral licenses like GPL?
RMS lost this battle, and it's completely because he won't take compromise of any kind. If the only two options were "closed source or GPL," then the open source movement would have died decades ago. The more compromising stance of organizations of MIT, Berkeley, Apache, and Mozilla -- and the myriad software projects that followed their lead -- is what changed the landscape.
But this is an open-source browser we're talking about. If we don't want DRM, we can make a build of it without the DRM piece.
Or, even better, when it asks you if you want to turn the DRM feature on, click "no." No compiler needed.
There is a lot to like about the Richard Stallmans of the world. They are clear about the what and the why, and they stick to their guns.
And that's why Gnu Hurd is a viable desktop alternative to Windows and OS X, and is so influential in what happens in operating systems at large.
Without the snark: if you have no measurable market share, you don't have any measurable market influence. If people can watch Netflix on Chrome, IE, and Safari, but not on Firefox, what do you think happens? How much impact can Mozilla have if Firefox becomes the Gnu Hurd of the browser world?
You've triggered my "someone is wrong on the Internet" reaction again. You can play humpty-dumpty all you want, claiming words mean what you say they mean when you use them, but the term "public company" has a very specific meaning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
In any case, my point here -- the reason that it's important to keep in mind that Mozilla is *not* a public company -- is that the rampage against Mozilla wasn't an attempt to hurt some corporate profit machine to compel it to act. It was an intentionally-inflicted tragedy of the commons, designed to damage a public good because some people thought that the collateral damage of destroying a nonprofit was an acceptable trade-off for making this specific point.
This displeasure was large enough to have him removed from Mozilla.
The board and executives would have kept him on -- he was not forced out by the company. He left because certain members the public wanted to burn him at the stake, and didn't care about the collateral damage their campaign was doing to Mozilla. And he wasn't willing to hang around and let that damage continue.
I think Howard Stern was right, if you're planning on leading a public company....
Public? Really? What is Mozilla's ticker symbol?
No, Mozilla is the opposite of a public company.
He and mozilla made a business decision.
The only decision that Mozilla made here was to accept his resignation, which is really kind of pro-forma when a CEO goes to the board and announces his intention to leave.
To be clear, no one in a position of power other than Brendan decided that Brendan should step down and leave. This was Brendan's decision. The crucifixion of Brendan was done at the hands of the public, and he left to prevent further damage to the project. This has nothing to do with the operation of a private business, unless your position is that Mozilla should have continued to employ Brendan against his will.
So your position is that the board should not have accepted Brendan's resignation? Spell out how you think that would work.
At the risk of feeding what is probably a troll, I'll point out that you are confused about Mozilla's financial structure. Do some research.
A homosexual Mozilla employee's take on the topic: http://subfictional.com/2014/0...
A statement from Mitch Baker, Mozilla chairperson: https://blog.lizardwrangler.co...
A statement from Brendan himself: https://brendaneich.com/2014/0...
An official Mozilla statement on its policy regarding employee and contributor diversity: https://blog.mozilla.org/press...
You might be interested in the perspective of one gay Mozilla employee, then: http://subfictional.com/2014/0...
Sure. Apple, Microsoft, me, you -- it's all the same: it makes no difference to Rockstar.
No, but shooting you in the head won't stop the dog. Apple, Microsoft, et al. did bad things. But there's nothing you can do to them to stop the rampage.
The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut.
