On Wed, 13 Dec 2000 hmoreau at digiserve.ie wrote:
> On 13 Dec, John P . Looney wrote:
> > He was very good. He made just about every in the place feel guilty for
> > paying for software, from games to shareware.
> >
> >
>> When are people going to realise that RMS is a nutter and a zealot?
Well, I'll just say he's extreme.
>> I think he gives the Open Source Community a poor image in a corporate
> world. As does ESR with his association between Open Source and NRA. And
> if one argues for a purer open source world, free from corporatism then
> it would be poorer too. After all most of the open source software being
> written today is being paid for by someone.
Well, should you decide to go listen to the man, you'll hear him talk
about how he used to make money from free software, by making distribution
tapes, and by doing paid customisations.
I think that if you stop regarding rms as part of the open source
movement, which he continually distances himself from, and think of him as
part of the free software movement, you'll understand him a bit better.
>> We can't all live in a box room on MIT's campus and live off grants and
> stipends, bumming beds and food when we travel etc.
Sheesh, what an ungenerous way of looking at things. Fair enough about
MIT, but living off grants? I don't think prizes given for outstanding
contributions to computing would really fall under the category of grants,
and I think that's something everyone here would aspire to.
As to bumming beds and food - the man is asked to give talks, like many
others, but rather than ask that a hotel be paid for, he requests that
he stay with someone from the organisers to save them some money.
>> I do of course appreciate the great work RMS and ESR have done in the
> past. But their opinions and utterances today are mixed up, crazy and
> largely illogical.
I don't see how either are crazy, mixed up or illogical. As for crazy and
illogical, there seem to be quite a lot of other people sharing some of
their views, otherwise where would this list have come from? And as to
mixed-up, I think it's just that they are consistent with themselves.
>> --
> --harry
Jimmy
--
"The Information Superhighway made it possible for the average person
to find out what some nerd thinks about Star Trek"
http://lit.compsoc.com/http://www.litsu.ie/
GPG Fingerprint: B6C4 9E2B C62F 1B05 FC0D F543 6800 67C7 FF5D 8291
Maintained by the ILUG website team. The aim of Linux.ie is to
support and help commercial and private users of Linux in Ireland. You can
display ILUG news in your own webpages, read backend
information to find out how. Networking services kindly provided by HEAnet, server kindly donated by
Dell. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds,
used with permission. No penguins were harmed in the production or maintenance
of this highly praised website. Looking for the
Indian Linux Users' Group? Try here. If you've read all this and aren't a lawyer: you should be!
