Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement
1–10 of 35 posts
Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement
#2Hats off to RMS.
Whom I love and respect deeply.
Thank you for all have you done for free software.
P.S. I am from small third world country. Right now I am applying and starting PhD in one of universities in USA and my field is basically OS and File systems. I have said this, to mention one thing created the interest in me to study and persue CS when I was teenager. And it was GNU.
I remember first days when I installed GNU operating system when at 2002 when I was 11. The idea and openness of Free software literally changed my life.
Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement
#3RMS may be seen by many as a zealot or maybe even an extremist, and I personally disagree with some of his views, but it's clear that without him the open-source world would be in a completely different place.
Hat tip.
Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement
#4RMS may be seen by many as a zealot or maybe even an extremist, and I personally disagree with some of his views, but it's clear that without him the open-source world would be in a completely different place. Hat tip.
There wouldn't be a place for free and open software without him. I'm absolutely convinced of this -- he is a combination of good will, great programming talent, insane dedication who is not motivated by money.
It's just a shame he'll never be as well known to the general public as someone like Steve Jobs.
Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement
#5The Free Software Foundation and the GNU project have had an enormous impact on people's lives. We all owe a significant debt of gratitude to the many people who have worked on FSF/Gnu products. Even more significant is the ethos involved. Where would we be today were it not for the free software community.
Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement
#6Hats off to RMS. Whom I love and respect deeply. Thank you for all have you done for free software. P.S. I am from small third world country. Right now I am applying and starting PhD in one of universities in USA and my field is basically OS and File systems. I have said this, to mention one thing created the interest in me to study and persue CS when I was teenager. And it was GNU. I remember first days when I insta…
Same here.
I am forever indebted to RMS and his crazy vision. May he be with the world for a long time.
It has played a big role in turning my life around from a college drop-out to almost getting my PhD in the USA now. If I had just stuck with proprietary software, I don't think I would know what I know today. It is that the idea that you actually could touch and understand the world, given enough time and dedication in a small, hot, dusty corner in a third world country with a cheap computer is extremely, extremely powerful. There is nothing else like it. Especially when I compare to many biologist friends from the same country as mine, they are much more disadvantaged compared to American ones, because of not having the $1M equipment and software they need back home. In the software world, I always feel like I had the level playing field, and the rest was just my dedication.
As I am almost done with this stage, I am seriously considering devoting a big part of my life to developing free software so everyone will have the same chance I had. At the same time, I feel the world has moved on, and again social mobility now is not as high as when the PC was the king anymore (but maybe it's just because I am just in a depression now, the world changes alright).
Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement
#7RMS may be seen by many as a zealot or maybe even an extremist, and I personally disagree with some of his views, but it's clear that without him the open-source world would be in a completely different place. Hat tip.
There wouldn't be a place for free and open software without him. I'm absolutely convinced of this -- he is a combination of good will, great programming talent, insane dedication who is not motivated by money. It's just a shame he'll never be as well known to the general public as someone like Steve Jobs.
> insane dedication who is not motivated by money
You can say that again. I believe he's pretty far on Asperger's?
I view RMS as one pole of the philosophical spectrum of free software (the other being entirely proprietary). An uncompromising absolutist, his views can't survive contact with the real world intact, but they can influence the landscape as he exerts pressure on it.
And he has proven visionary and right time and time again.
I don't agree with many things he says, but I do appreciate the direction he's pulled the industry in. For that, he has my continued respect.
Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
There wouldn't be a place for free and open software without him. I'm absolutely convinced of this -- he is a combination of good will, great programming talent, insane dedication who is not motivated by money. It's just a shame he'll never be as well known to the general public as someone like Steve Jobs.
> insane dedication who is not motivated by money You can say that again. I believe he's pretty far on Asperger's? I view RMS as one pole of the philosophical spectrum of free software (the other being entirely proprietary). An uncompromising absolutist, his views can't survive contact with the real world intact, but they can influence the landscape as he exerts pressure on it. And he has proven visionary and right t…
> An uncompromising absolutist, his views can't survive contact with the real world intact, but they can influence the landscape as he exerts pressure on it.
Well, somehow his views survived.
GNU happened and is alive today. Billions of people are using it or a variant of it. In fact, GNU/Linux is arguably the most successful OS in the planet. The GNU has projects that power almost every computer and every mobile phone and it is inside many embedded systems today. There are even laptops that run strictly on free software, which hasn't happenned until recently.
What more you want?
Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement
#9The Free Software Foundation and the GNU project have had an enormous impact on people's lives. We all owe a significant debt of gratitude to the many people who have worked on FSF/Gnu products. Even more significant is the ethos involved. Where would we be today were it not for the free software community.
Indeed. GNU is way more than Linux. GNU Parallel, the ubiquitous GNU Make (did you know ":=" is a GMU extension?), GNU versions of Grep and Sed that have some really nice quality of life options, and the GPL which for better or worse has "infected" a lot of really important software.
That said, it's a shame that GNOME, Gtk, and Glibc are evidently not the best (I use none of them but I have read many complaints). Lots of other old, weird, and/or semi-abandoned projects too like Taler, the GNU version of 'yes' [0] and Hurd of course. What makes some GNU tools so great and others not-so-great? And where does this "everything but the kitchen sink" mentality come from with respect to options and configuration in GNU programs?
Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement
#10Thank you to RMS and the entire GNU community for their tireless efforts and the many wonderful projects they have created and shared with the world.
Whether you call it FS, FLOSS or OSS none of it would be where it is today without GNU.
Here's to the next 34!