RMS Views on Linux, Java, DRM and Opensource 546
An anonymous reader writes "All About Linux is running a transcript of a recent talk given by Richard Stallman at the Australian National University. Stallman discussed various issues facing GNU like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Digital Rights Management, about why one should not install sun's java on your computer, his views on Opensource as well as why he thinks people should address Linux distribution as GNU/Linux."
Again? (Score:5, Funny)
Mox
Re:Again? (Score:5, Funny)
Not true, he has four speeches, they are: (Score:5, Informative)
There is also a page on GNU.org for audio recordings of (mostly) Richard's talks [gnu.org].
Re:Again? (Score:5, Informative)
I think that the most passionate advocates for change throughout history use this kind of repitition quite a bit. Of course, check through your RMS history, and you'll find that it works time and time again. Check out RMS v. Trolltech (about QT licensing), or RMS v. X/Open ("The Open Group" now). And when he wins, he drops it. Also, you can expect him to consistantly push those ideals that he thinks are worthy. Hell, I'd be dissapointed if he didn't.
Plus, he adapts over time, constantly targeting key issues; DMCA, which really shouldn't have diminished in relevance as much as it has in the last 6 years, and now DRM which I believe to be key obstacle to a free future. It's unfortunate that the first point in the article is the GNU name issue, which I believe to be the least important of those the article mentions. I guess it's hard when a speech is transcribed to an article. In a speech the first point is usually the most trivial (you just use it to get the crowd warmed up), whereas in an article, half the people (and about 90% of the
Re:Again? (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, that Iliad was a laugh riot...
Re:Again? (Score:4, Funny)
We should put RMS, ESR and TdR in a ring and make them fight each other. I'd pay good money for that. Oh, and the judge would be Linus.
Re:Again? (Score:3, Insightful)
In 1990, GNU was already organized and had a fair amount of software in development and in use, including emacs and gcc. In 1990, Linus was a student learning on Minix and had not written a single line of kernel code.
I find RMS to be more preachy than he needs to be, but like you, I agree that is he is still
Re:Again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Every vendor who labels their products as "Linux" when there is as much GNU software in the distribution as Linux kernel, or more. I think that is his point. I don't think it is about being "famous" but rather that Linux should do more than be better than Microsoft, it should promote the idea of software Freedom, and that is the entire reason GNU exists. Again, I don't get political about it, but he does have a valid point.
Just as you have "Microsoft Windows" (as opposed to XWindows) you have GNU/Linux. I might not say "GNU/Linux" when I converse, but if i am advertising a product for sale, it seems logical to add the GNU, since at the very least, all the software in that "box" was compiled on the GNU CC compiler and is chock full of other GNU software.
What Linus does is extremely valuable, no doubt, and I am even glad he is neutral about the politics himself. But without the GNU components (and other components not related to the Linux kernel), all you would have is a kernel that boots and sits there and does nothing else. So yea, I think RMS has a point. I've also said RMS looks like Jerry Garcia after an all-nighter and is a bit preachy for my tastes, but he is still right on this point.
GNU/Linux (Score:5, Funny)
Re:GNU/Linux (Score:2)
Freedom to name.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Stop this before it gets silly: "Announcing the GNU/Linux/Bell/GSM/Nokia 3477 phone that connects to the the DARPA/Al Gore/Internet for CERN/web browsing. The unit features a 400MHz Turing/von Neumann/Babbage/CPU and has a Faraday/battery providing 5 days of typical usage...."
Re:Freedom to name.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I use KDE (feel free to substitute KDE for some other GUI in your case). And to me, as an user, KDE plays a lot bigger role than GNU-tools do. I use KDE-apps directly, they are the tools I use to carry out my tasks. So would't it be fair to call the system KDE/Linux then? And since I use GUI, I need X, so it's KDE/X/Linux. And let's give GNU part of the credit as well, so it's KDE
Re:GNU/Linux (Score:4, Informative)
(with you, you can 'get' the monty burns/simpsons joke. he's old enough to 'remember' when the phone was first invented).
Re:GNU/Linux (Score:5, Funny)
Only littel dick goat fuckers such as yourself post anonymously.
Not at all. We sheep shaggers post anonymously too.
Re:GNU/Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
So, do we have GNU/Solaris? GNU/AIX? GNU/HP-UX? No? Then why GNU/Linux?
Re:GNU/Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure without Linux we would be using GCC on sun boxes, but this would be known by what percentage of even the IT community? If sun didn't charge $500 for a compiler I would have used thiers instead. Probably to compile expect on TCL or some other GPL distributed application, but ignore that, it hurts my position on this rant.
What other operating systems are named after the tools that built them or the apps that run on them, even if most of thier functionality comes from them?
This is the stubborn pedantry of a tenured accademic.
Maybe since so many GNU developers were brought into the fold by a stable operating system we should have to call our compilers "Linux driven GCC compiller" or we could type "grep-reverse-engineered-from-att-code" to do global regex searches.
Typed on my Mozilla/Windows system because thats what we use at work.
Re:GNU/Linux (Score:3, Funny)
Recommend to others how to think.
Re:GNU/Linux (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the GNU project intended to produce a complete UNIX-like OS. The kernel, however, was developed quite slowly. I suspect the main reason for this is that they chose a very ambitious design, which significantly reduced the number of people who were competent to work on it.
BSD came after GNU, iirc
The first BSD release was in 1977. The GNU project was founded in 1984. Of course, the first BSD releases were patch-sets for the official UNIX code, so they don't count as complete systems. It wasn't until 1983 (only a year before the GNU project began) that there was a release of BSD UNIX that was a full OS. Almost a decade later, GNU/Linux was released in a more-or-less useable form.
Is it just me ? (Score:3, Insightful)
But RMS seems to not be "with it" when it comes to actually closing the deal on the revolution. Computers taht really are by the people, for the people. Cryptic jibberish is OK, as long as it is Free cryptic jibberish.
Or maybe I'm just missing something. Its OK, it happens a lot.
Re:Is it just me ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stallman probably deserves more credit than he gets among most Linux users for basically founding the Free Software movement, but his relevance to what the movement has become since then is fading.
Re:Is it just me ? (Score:5, Insightful)
People said he was crazy back when he really did change the world, and it's no different now, except that now the people calling him crazy are so called "open source" advocates and individual developers that consider him to be more of a nuisance. They also call him a lunatic because he's constantly advocating the same things, but that, to me, is the sign of a dedicated man. I wonder if people got tired of MLKjr talking about racial equalization, or Gandhi talking about passive resistance? Clearly, the naming convention of GNU distributions is not a human rights issue, but RMS knows how battles are won, and repitition is key
You give him credit, but I think he deserves even more than you're giving him. He's relevant today, and he ought to be respected because (not inspite of) his unwavering devotion to his ideals.
BTW, I don't agree with Stallman on all his entire philosophy, but he is consistant, and that too should be respected.
Re:Is it just me ? (Score:4, Interesting)
I consider it well. It tells me a lot about the motives of RMS and the FSF. When Qt was "free to use", it wasn't good enough. When the KDE Free Qt Foundation guaranteed that Qt would always be free to use, it wasn't good enough. When Qt was released under an approved Open Source license, it wasn't good enough. Even when it was finally released under the GPL, RMS STILL DEMANDED AN APOLOGY!
Re:Is it just me ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Any new idea is asked two questions. The first is asked when its weak: WHAT KIND OF AN IDEA ARE YOU? Are you the kind that compromises, does deals, accommodates itself to society, aims to find a niche, to survive; or are you the cussed, bloody-minded, ramrod-backed type of damnfool notion that would rather break than sway with the breeze? The kind that will almost certainly, ninety-nine t
We owe him, but he is crazy (Score:5, Interesting)
But sorry, RMS, you are crazy and I hope your dearest wishes do not come true. RMS believes the only acceptable licenses are the ones he wrote; if he had the power, he would make it illegal to ship software under a proprietary licence. (How do I know this? Eric Raymond publicly challenged RMS about it and RMS did not respond, and I believe it was because ESR was right and RMS didn't want to say it out loud. Google for the words "Freedom Zero" to get the context of all this.)
Somebody asked RMS how can software writers make enough money to live. RMS said that he would be in favor of a "free software tax" to pay the salaries of people writing free software. If it was illegal to ship software under a proprietary licence then maybe you would need something like this, but I do NOT want government involved in deciding who gets to write what software for pay. The free market is better.
Only RMS could think that government paying of salaries to selected software writers is more free than people deciding what software to write and what licence to ship under.
Actually that's an important point. RMS wants to maximise freedom for the USERS even at the expense of the PROGRAMMERS. He is willing to constrain the freedom of a programmer, because he wants all software to come with source code.
The worst thing about RMS is that he doesn't care about anything else as much as his particular ideal for free software. Of all the Linux distros out there, you would think he would recommend Debian GNU/Linux, right? The only major distro that actually puts "GNU/" in their name?
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major [distrowatch.com]
But in an interview he recommended some obscure Linux called Extremadura or something like that, because he had read somewhere that they only provided GPL software.
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2003/08/msg02
If you set up a default Debian system, you will only have free software; Debian's "main" servers have nothing RMS would not approve. But Debian has for years had a server called "nonfree" where you could get things like Netscape Navigator. If you know what you are doing, you can set your Debian system to pull packages from "nonfree", and for this crime, RMS snubbed Debian in favor of the other one. And it turned out that the onther one isn't actually freeer than Debian; RMS had heard it was so, but it wasn't, really.
It's sad that RMS can't even say something nice about Debian, the closest thing the world has seen to what RMS says he wants, because they aren't PERFECT and if they aren't PERFECT they aren't good enough for RMS.
RMS, thank you for kick-starting the free software movement. Thank you for GCC, EMACS, and the other GNU utilities. But you are crazy.
Re:We owe him, but he is crazy (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't forget the GNU C Library. This is a massive project, and it plays a very key role in allowing GNU to be a Unix replacement.
How recently? If I reca
Re:Is it just me ? (Score:2)
Re:Is it just me ? (Score:3, Insightful)
But RMS seems to not be "with it" when it comes to actually closing the deal on the revolution.
Closing what deal? You seem to be spouting gibberish.
Nothing in your message makes any sense. Stallman's effort towards software freedom are needed more than ever these days -- or do you really think we are all suddenly about to enter a sunlit upland with Trusted Computing about to put a DRM Big Brother chip in every computing device (and make lots of Free software un-Free in the process), software patents and
Re:Is it just me ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is it just me ? (Score:2)
It comes with the turf. No big deal. He's a cool dude. I could not imagine life w/o GNU software. Its quality stuff.
Actually, I thought this was one of his most mellow talks ever, from what I read. I love the tidbit about flash and word files. Amen. If I never, ever see one of those again, that would be fine by me.
Back on this lunacy thing, there really does appear to be a Gaussian distribution in things like human behavior. Most of it is
Re:Is it just me ? (Score:2, Insightful)
PenGun
Do What Now ???
He was the enabler (Score:2)
You have to feel for the guy (Score:5, Interesting)
But the more he goes around criticizing other concepts (open source) and other people who make his world possible (Torvalds), if not perfect, the more he will alienate them and the farther away his dream will be. It's impossible for Stallman to realize his vision on his own. He needs Sun and Java and Torvalds and ESR and Red Hat and everyone else. At this rate however... calling Linus insufficiently political is not going to win him any more fans. And more fans is exactly what he needs.
Re:You have to feel for the guy (Score:5, Insightful)
He is however, necessary if we are to make it to the promised land.
Soko
Re:You have to feel for the guy (Score:2)
Re:You have to feel for the guy (Score:2)
What's immoral about getting paid for the software you write?
Re:You have to feel for the guy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You have to feel for the guy (Score:5, Insightful)
The net effect of the GPL is to cause software development to be economically effective only as a _service_, rather than as a product. If you want to keep getting paid, you can't rest on your laurels - you have to keep coding. And in a truly capitalism-based market, this is as it should be.
Net effect of the GPL: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You have to feel for the guy (Score:3, Insightful)
Rubbish. It drives the cost of software down to its value. Like everything should be in a free market. i.e. not using tricks like vendor lockin to artificially reduce developer efficiency, inflate prices and encourace incumbancy.
Re:You have to feel for the guy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You have to feel for the guy (Score:3, Insightful)
"We need radical activism so that the moderates aren't ignored as a fringe element." - Tooker Gomberg
Re:He Needs... (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Emphatically no. It's the other way around. The corps desperately need him. Most of them tried it the proprietary way for years and lost to Microsoft.
The best analogy I can give regarding a future with RMS serving the corps is an Animal Farm reference. The animals are running the humans off the farm right now. The animals are excited, no animals go into the house on pride. But pretty soon, the Pigs (red hat, et al) will be moving into the house. (I would argue they've already started) After that, they'll declare, "two legs good, 4 legs bad."
A corporation is imbued with extra freedoms beyond what individuals get in the U.S. in order to return a profit to its shareholders. Distorting RMS's message to serve that end is approved by shareholders.
RMS needs no corporation.
Re:You have to feel for the guy (Score:5, Insightful)
What an utter bunch of crap this is. So if one disagrees with something Linus does or says what is he supposed to do? Is he not allowed to say that he disagrees with the most holy linus? Linus is not a god, nobody is a god. It's perfectly allowable nay encouraged to speak your mind when you think somebody is doing the wrong thing. That's the way "open source" works.
RMS doesn't call people names, he isn't rude. He does not act like the slashdot hordes who insist on calling him a hippie, freak, smelly, unwashed etc. He talks about his ideas, he carefully explains where his ideals are different and contrasting to other peoples ideas. I have never heard him call anybody names though which is a lot more then you can say about his critics.
"He needs Sun and Java and Torvalds and ESR and Red Hat and everyone else. "
He does? Did you mean that you do? You need them because you want a free operating system that does the things he needs. I don't think he is thinking like you. I don't think he thinks he needs those people.
"t this rate however... calling Linus insufficiently political is not going to win him any more fans. And more fans is exactly what he needs."
GASP!. He called linus insufficiently political!. I bet Linus will never speak to him again.
Thank god Linus is not fragile as you make him out to be. I bet Linus is perfectly capable of being called "insufficiently political" without holding grudges.
Re:You have to feel for the guy (Score:3, Informative)
Right. Your opinion is that he should not speak his mind and keep his opinion to himself lest he insult the most holy linus (and redhat and sun).
"No, not really. Without things like Java and advanced graphics drivers and real applications his vision is bust, because "the GNU system" can't expand and grow and take away mar
You've got it backwards (Score:4, Informative)
True, RMS failed to produce a kernel, and the main reason he failed in my view is that instead of copying a proven design, he tried (and failed) to design something unprecedented. Linus succeeded because, unlike the GNU project, he copied a proven design (a monolithic Unix kernel). But Linus is not the only available source of kernels.
If Linus had never come along, RMS would be running GNU tools on top of a BSD kernel and telling everyone why it should be called GNU/BSD. The free BSD kernels were under a legal cloud until 1994, which is what gave Linux time to take off. Of course, Linus' impressive skills as a developer and architect allowed Linux to come from behind and dominate. But we would have gotten to where we are without him, because so many in both GNU-land and BSD-land were committed to the vision of an entirely free operating system.
Designing something completely new usually doesn't work. Other than Emacs, the rest of the GNU tools are re-implementations of designs from elsewhere, and so is the Linux kernel. That's not bad, by the way, as in both cases the copies are superior to the originals.
Re:You have to feel for the guy (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? Care to explain why the Free Software world needs Java? The FSF is working on cloning it solely because ignorant people built up a lot of otherwise Free infrastructure on Java either not knowing it wasn't Free or not caring. Much like the early days of KDE where they just didn't care about QT being closed source, forcing RedHat to put up the money to help the FSF launch GNOME so as to avert a disaster. And now we have RedHat and the FSF working to clean up other people'
Re:You have to feel for the guy (Score:3, Insightful)
correct me if i'm wrong, but shouldn't the people that write these amazing-line-of-sight-enterprise-ready-kung-fu-cri tical apps actually *know* what the fuck they are doing? you make it sound like it's a bad thing to be skilled.
GNU/Old (Score:3, Funny)
It never gets old does it?
Re:GNU/Old (Score:5, Funny)
GNO, it doesn't.
Re:Yeah but... (Score:2, Funny)
No, it makes it Chav Central.
(I kid! I have an Argos bookshelf - don't tell anyone!)
Re:Yeah but... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Yeah but... (Score:2)
The GNU project built the GNU operating system and combined with the Linux kernel, it makes the GNU/Linux operating system. It's really not a bad idea, you know.
Why not just call it Linux? I'll give two reasons... one, as RMS states, Linus is not especially sympathetic to the free software movement - this means people hearing 'Linux' never get to hear about free software. Freedom is much easier for average people to understand than source.
Secondly, if you have
Re:Yeah but... (Score:4, Informative)
> makes the GNU/Linux operating system. It's really not a bad idea, you know.
No, GNU never built an operating system. They built a lot of really useful parts but have never assembled them into an operating system. On the day they do that final part we will at last have GNU. Not GNU/Linux, GNU. The FSF could have taken the freely redistributable Linux kernel and integrated it into a finished GNU, they chose not to. Only a year or so after Linux became popular the BSD kernel emerged from it's legal dispute. The FSF could have used it to complete GNU, they chose not to do so. The FSF could have done whatever it took to get HURD to a 1.0 version and thus completed GNU, again they chose differently.
Instead dozens of independent organizations (RedHat, Slackware, Debian, SUSE, Yggdrasil, etc, most now defunct) took all of the parts (including a non-GNU libc for the first several years) and did the hard work of integrating all the various parts (including a buttload of stuff that didn't come from the FSF, like X) and made a family of related operating systems. None of these are GNU. RedHat is not GNU. Debian was under the auspices of the FSF for a couple of years but still both parties chose NOT to call it GNU instead of Debian. But had they wished to co-brand it would have been GNU/Debian, Debian GNU or GNU/Debian Linux, but calling it Debian GNU/Linux is an incorrect usage of Mr. Torvalds trademark (even if not registered as a legal trademark at the time). Merging GNU and Linux with a / implies they are related however Linux is not under the auspices of the GNU project or the FSF.
> I'll give two reasons... one, as RMS states, Linus is not especially sympathetic to
> the free software movement - this means people hearing 'Linux' never get to hear about
> free software.
Tough noogies. Linus isn't the one who chooses the names of distributions any more than RMS can. RedHat could call their product RedHat OS, or could have paid for the trademark and certification testing and called it RedHat UNIX. Or anything else they wanted to. It was THEIR choice (subject to Linus's agreement regarding his trademark rights to the term 'linux') what to name their product. Same with Debian or SUSE. Just as a guess I'd say they all include "Linux" in their name because they feel customers will associate it in a positive way, something that wouldn't be true with GNU as only the already converted know much about it.
Re:Yeah but... (Score:2)
Will somebody please, please please... (Score:3, Funny)
Surely this is possible.
Re:Will somebody please, please please... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Will somebody please, please please... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Will somebody please, please please... (Score:2)
Re:Will somebody please, please please... (Score:2)
Can't we just call it LiGNUx?
Re:Will somebody please, please please... (Score:5, Insightful)
Intel's free compiler? (Score:3, Funny)
Intel's free compiler? Yes, not portable, but for 99.9% of Linux users so what. And if Linux doesn't build due to unsupported gcc'ism well them fire up vi and change the code, don't use emacs though, that would unethical in this context.
Re:Will somebody please, please please... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Will somebody please, please please... (Score:2)
Thats great man, I was waiting for free compiler choice.
When will it be finished?
Re:Will somebody please, please please... (Score:5, Insightful)
While you are waiting, please call the GNU/Linux system by it's real name, thre GNU system with the Linux Kernel.
Like the OS/X System, with the mach kernel, or the Windows XP System, with kernel32
Re:Will somebody please, please please... (Score:3, Insightful)
The GNU/Linux story is much more complicated. The project to create an OS was definitely GNU's. However, the marriage between GNU and Linux was the doing of the Linux developers (at least as I understa
What RMS does not get (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What RMS does not get (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, take the ODF. I haven't gotten *anywhere* promoting its use (to friends, family, other grad students, etc.) based on its technical merits -- .doc is certainly fine for people. It's when I start talking about GNUish stuff like the right to read that people start paying attention.
Now, obviously, the softare promoted by the philosophy does need to be good. I'm just saying that I think you're being a little overhasty dismissing the power that the GNU philosophy can have in encouraging adoption.
Re:What RMS does not get (Score:3, Informative)
Very true, and I think we agree. I just feel that there are a lot of people out there would be very receptive to the philosophical arguments for Free softare, and that this gets downplayed too much. For example, I believe that to someone who isn't a pretty hardcore computer user, the freedom aspect is a lot easier to explain -- and more relevant! -- than the benefits of a UNIXy architecture.
Also, as a side note, it's not like rms is *completely* unconcerned with practicalit
Re:What RMS does not get (Score:2)
the diference between rms and pepsi is how overt they are with the description of philosophy
pepsi doesn't take tv adds where a guy in a suit stands in front of a plain background and says "pepsi: it embodies youthfulness"; their hot people playing voleyball conveys the same message, just more effectively
the thing about (please pardon while I use these terms loosely) the "products" that rms is "pitching" is that they don't get 15 second add spots on friends, but, they still
Re:What RMS does not get (Score:5, Insightful)
If you try to sell the projects first without the philosophy, business will think they are two different things. They will try to seperate the philosophy(what they don't like) from the project(what they like). Then you will have removed the very thing that made the project a success in the first place. No we should sell the philosophy first, because without it in essence what is the difference between open-source and proprietary software?
Re:What RMS does not get (Score:3, Insightful)
2) at one time Linus did call the whole thing Linux. This was a long time ago, when there was essentially just one distro (his) and it was mostly kernel and command line things, low end things that he liked to hack on. Only when it grew past (though it was very very ea
more transcripts, there's a trend here... (Score:2)
Glad to see this increasing
and the working URL is... (Score:2)
Ugh. Relative/absolute link mixup, here's where to find the first two transcripts:http://www.ifso.ie/documents/#transcri pts [www.ifso.ie]
Linux vs GNU/Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and I know people are going to flame his last Q&A. I thought it was funny. Shows he doesn't need to take himself seriously all the time.
"Recent"? (Score:5, Informative)
Dupe! (Score:3, Funny)
Oh no please... (Score:2)
Old boy out for another canter (Score:3, Interesting)
By now a great number of highly talented people have contributed a lot to Linux. It's rather revealing that only one of them hogs the limelight and witters on about "the community" all the time. Your community but not necessarily mine, RMS. The fact that I use GNU/Linux gives you no right to speak on my behalf.
Re:Old boy out for another canter (Score:2)
Re:Old boy out for another canter (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Free Java (Score:2)
When I
RMS is absolutely correct. (Score:3, Interesting)
Once again, RMS demonstrates that being right isn't the only thing; hell, in this age, being right isn't (worth) any thing.
GNU/Linux flamefest (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Calling it "like Microsoft" is just an emotional attack. If he said "Linux thinks all licenses are valid" then he'd have to come up with a reason why this shouldn't happen. I've never bought his arguments.
3) "wrong to ever violate them". Stalman makes it sound like this is bad, but never gives reasons why. Can i violate GPL and he'd be happy?
In a way i wish RMS would stop talking about GNU/Linux and get back to the HURD. Instead of a decades old OS with various security patches on top of it to work in a networked world, have some ideas for a truly clean OS. Port stuff to it. WHy in this day in age do most machines have this all powerful root (or Administrator) user? Build in sub-permissioning from Day 1, don't add on later and wait for thigns to break. Why does a bug in glibc put my whole computer at risk? Why cant we re-engineer things to have message passing and isolated address spaces for libraries? Is the inefficiency of message passing vs. direct method calls going to kill a user who really just wants to be on the net safely? Use the HURD as a research project, get new ideas out into the OS world, where it's stagnating now.
Vista Flames (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because he does not sell them. If it makes you feel better, make a donation or join the FSF [fsf.org].
Can i violate GPL and he'd be happy?
No.
The point of said, "violations," is to help your neighbor. Your obligations to people around you should always outweigh your obligation to Bill Gates and other greed heads. Public libraries are founded on this principle. Sharing and co-operation are good for everyone. Information, unlike all physical goods, has always been free to
Celibacy and RMS.... (Score:2)
Inseert standard joke abut geeks not having gf's here
Jokes aside, maybe it's true. RMS's personal ad is still on his websit [stallman.org]. Still single after all these years?
GNU/Java (Score:3, Insightful)
Reading his reasoning behind the "Java trap" makes me chuckle, though. His main argument there seems to be that the Free Software implementations can't keep up with the proprietary ones, and therefore people should stop using the proprietary implementations. Surely the whole reason they're behind is that they waited until the Java gained traction before starting up on a Free version. If it hadn't had that traction, then it wouldn't have been worth doing a Free implementation in the first place.
Celibacy (Score:5, Funny)
And strangely enough if this rule changed not a single one of the saints would notice a difference.
Self centered (Score:3, Insightful)
At which point does a name come to encompass the totality of elapsed events since absolute tick zero?
I'll continue calling it "Linux" or maybe "Debian testing", because that's good enough and does nobody any special favours.
Re:Let me be the first to say (Score:4, Insightful)
You probably need to make up a new word - for example, let me be the first to say "Ghaslespruthmeep"
Re:Let me be the first to say (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, that was already said here [slashdot.org]...
Re:Yep... this is why... (Score:2)
Re:Yep... this is why... (Score:2)
Actually, it's happened before [slashdot.org]
Still, I agree with you, that saint outfit is ridiculous.
Re:Yep... this is why... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Java bashing... (Score:2)
I agree with you. Java has been one of the main reasons why Linux has had such a wide acceptance server-side in the corporate world.
The trouble with those who hold such strong views as RMS is that there seems to be no ability to compromise, or recognise that small steps towards an ideal are better than none.
Re:Java bashing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sun has very onerous provisions on their java licensing which prevents inclusion of the JDK in a lot of Linux distributions. Why is this good for java? Why is it good for you (the java programmer) that I have to jump trough fifty hoops to install a JDK or a JRE before I can even run your program? Why is it good for you that the java implementation on my linux box is two years out of date and is slow?
How would R
Re:Users vs. Developers (Score:2)
No, that's what Linux zealots assume. Thankfully the Ubuntu guys did not
Re:Laws need to change (Score:2)
Re:Laws need to change (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Laws need to change (Score:5, Funny)
# tar -xzvf communism.tar.gz ; cd communism
#
# communist-artist-music-search *
communist-artist-music-search: This program is just a stub until all those artists start making music for free.
# cd
# tar -xzvf riaa.tar.gz ; cd riaa
#
# riaa-artist-music-search "Karl Jenkins"
riaa-artist-music-search: Please specify credit card number.
# riaa-artist-music-search "Karl Jenkins" 98766542358979
riaa-artist-music-search: All available albums by artist "Karl Jenkins" have been destroyed in the DRM music server fire of 2006.
# rm -R ~/.musical_heritage ~/.musical_history
# rm -R ~/.human_knowledge