Mike Lorrey wrote:
>
> Miriam English wrote:
> >
> > Even Richard Stallman, the most hard-line free software advocate doesn't
> > suggest people steal software. He wants people to cease using any
> > closed-source software -- bought or stolen. His point is that it is not in
> > their best interests. He alway reminds people that he means "free" as in
> > free speech, not free beer.
>
> Yet his purpose in launching the GNU was to drive his former colleagues
> into the ground without making a profit, thus keeping his 'hands
> clean'... Stallman is nobody that should be held up for respect or
> adulation in the open source movement. It is he who is primarily
> responsible for the degree of socialist ideology in OSM.
Bullshit. There is nothing to justify this wild assertion
except your dim memory of some magazine article sometime in the
past that could have well got it very much wrong.
Stallman is a saint. He saw something he considered wrong and
limiting and he devoted himself to offering an alternative at
tremendous personal cost. Profit is irrelevant to what he was
concerned with and anyone who reads him knows this. There is no
sense of vengeance there. Besides, if that were his motive he
would embrace the Open Source world fully instead of continuing
to distinquish what he thinks is important from what has the
most
potential to change the face of software broadly right now.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:54 MDT