Stallman Selling Autographs 335
UltimaGuy writes "Sports stars, musicians, and other celebrities have been charging for autographs for years, but who would have thought Richard Stallman would be doing the same? Is this just for fun, or a clever, highly effective protest? Hackers, geeks and nerds gathered together at the 7th FISL - Internacional Free Software Forum, in Porto Alegre (Brazil) last week, were astounded when they got word that Richard Stallman, the founding father of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the GPL, was charging R$ 10 (about US$ 3) for an autograph and R$ 5 (less than US$ 2) to get his picture taken by free software enthusiasts at the event floor."
Actually from the FA (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite Microsoft evil.
The guy is a nutcase (Score:0, Informative)
Well I guess some goofballs can be entertaining but RMS just goes too far!
He has done this before too! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Neither fun nor protest (Score:5, Informative)
Poster sayeth:
You ought to read the GPL [gnu.org]. You can charge whatever price you want for any GPL'd software. That's one of the freedoms. You're also free to dual-license it if you're the creator - another freedom. It works for Trolltech (Qt), MySQL, etc.
GPL:
Re:Neither fun nor protest (Score:2, Informative)
Stallman says:
The term "autograph tax" is a foolish exaggeration--I am not a government, so I cannot make anyone pay taxes. I'm told that such foolishness is common among the people making this criticism: that they generally seek opportunities to criticize the Free Software Foundation, whether valid or not.
This is a man who says that ATI is 'an enemy of your freedom.'
He is the king of foolish over-exaggerations.
Yet when someone applies the word 'tax' to something he is doing, he wants to get very exact and detailed about the symantics.
I can't wait for this guy to die in his own pile of disgusting, long-haired, fat-guy-in-a-stained-shirt, pile of goo.
TFA is a little different then original text (Score:5, Informative)
Complete translation of the original article in the Business Journal Baguete
FISL: Stallman's autograph auctioned for R$ 22 (~US $10) 22/04/2006
An autograph from Free Software guru Richard Stallman was auctioned for R $23 (~US $11) at FISL 7.0 (International Free Software Forum) this Saturday, the 22nd. The initiative by gaucho Leonardo Vaz (Open BSB - RS) [Ed: Residents of the state of Rio Grande do Sul are called "gauchos".] caused a joyful uproar on this last day of the event when he went to personally deliver the money collected to Stallman, accompanied by about a hundred people.
Vaz bought Stallman's signature during the first edition of the Forum, six years ago. To charge contributions for the Free Software Foundation in trade for autographs or photo ops is only one of the eccentric habits of the American, who accepted the money gratefully and affirmed that it would be delivered to the recently founded Free Software Foundation of Latin America.
The auction concept summarizes the distracted atmosphere of this last day of FISL 7.0. The launch of GULA (Alcoholic Linux Users Group) is scheduled for 4:00 pm, which promises to shake up the final hours of the meeting.
[Obs. Apesar de ser canadense, moro em Brasil há seis anos agora.]
Re:Hatchet piece - RTFA next time, stupid editors (Score:3, Informative)
please don't assume we're all "GNU/linux" fanboys.
What does that prove? (Score:3, Informative)
Far, far more people use Bill Gates's software every day than RMS's, so what does that prove? (Yes, I know Bill didn't write most of MS's code but RMS didn't write much of the available "free" code either.)
Re:Sellout? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Sellout? (Score:1, Informative)