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Comment: Re:Well thats the FSF for you (Score 1) 315

by shaka (#31243242) Attached to: Free Software Foundation Urges Google To Free VP8

It is you, Viol8, that is on the wrong train.

The embryo to the Internet was created before you could actually copyright software. It was created in open collaboration, funded by the US government.

The Internet as we know it today would not exist if there was no GCC, BIND, BSD, Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, Python.

The Internet and free software are two world-changing concepts that are evolving in a symbiotic manner; one is not possible without the other.

Comment: Re:Well thats the FSF for you (Score 1) 315

by shaka (#31243214) Attached to: Free Software Foundation Urges Google To Free VP8

Exactly! The principles of free software is transforming the world: Open collaboration. Wikipedia, Creative Commons.

In hindsight, it will likely be hard for people to understand how Stallman could be viewed as such a radical.

And it will be very hard to understand how some people became among the richest in the world by selling software.

Comment: Re:Not a good letter. (Score 1) 315

by shaka (#31243122) Attached to: Free Software Foundation Urges Google To Free VP8

AC compared RMS to a beggar, asking for money for himself.

Urging Google to "give away" VP8 is more akin to someone asking for money for somebody else. To amend AC's flawed analogy: a Red Cross collector.

Then again, the FSF never asked for money, but contributing value, so I think it would be wise to end the money analogies altogether.

Comment: Re:Not a good letter. (Score 4, Insightful) 315

by shaka (#31229144) Attached to: Free Software Foundation Urges Google To Free VP8

Sometimes I find [RMS and the FSF] as annoying as the beggars that shake the cup of coins under your nose to make you give them something. No fucking way.

Really? Stallman asked you for money? Funny, because I never heard about him asking for anything in return for GCC and GDB. Intel, on the other hand...

Intel® Compiler Suite Professional Edition for Linux: $1,349

Whoa!

As FlyingBishop said here before me, quid pro quo. A lot of people owe RMS and the FSF a lot.

Comment: Re:Well thats the FSF for you (Score 5, Insightful) 315

by shaka (#31229010) Attached to: Free Software Foundation Urges Google To Free VP8

Please study your history and particularly the state of computing in the early eighties, when Stallman founded the FSF. He looked at the future of computing and he saw a bunch of big companies with a proprietary Unix version each, and new players like Apple and Microsoft. Had the Internet been built on that foundation, not to mention robotics, AI and rapid prototyping, today would be a very different world.

It's easy for you to point your finger and talk about "the real world", now that GCC, Linux and the free BSDs exist. Now imagine a company like Google, except they have to pay licenses for the OS, compilers and interpreters, databases, video and audio conversion. Imagine yourself using computers and not having any control of what goes on, with corporations controlling everything from the BIOS up.

Richard Stallman changed the world. "Reactionary", indeed. Do tell, dear Viol8, what you ever accomplished out there in the "real world"?

Comment: Re:Disclosure At the Table (Score 1) 217

by shaka (#30978836) Attached to: Mum's the Word On Google Attack At Davos

I think it's pretty obvious that western democracies are less free and open than they were around the turn of the millennium.

If we are supposed to set some kind of example for the world, we're doing a lousy job.

The prime example perhaps being USA:s increased and very public spreading of torture.

I'm not sure about the GPs analysis that it's all in the name (or spirit) of making more money.

If we won't stand together, we don't stand a chance.

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