Free & Proprietary
mattmaroon.com
Free & Proprietary
1–10 of 98 posts
Re: Free & Proprietary
#2Stallman's inability to see how damaging his rhetoric is to his cause is rapidly overshadowing any of his achievements.
I went to HOPE 2006 in NYC a few years ago, and ran into him while heading to a lecture about Asterix PBX use. As a huge admirer of GNU tools and the GNU/Linux operating system in particular, it was thrilling to finally get to meet one my heroes. For about a few seconds.
I shook his hand and somewhat shyly asked him to sign one of the few paper-based items I had in my bag, a copy of (surprise surprise!) PG's "ANSI Common Lisp". He refused outright, claiming it was not "free" in its licensing and printing.
I shit you not. The man is that much of an asshole.
I just goggled at him for a moment, and wandered away in a daze.
Don't get me wrong, I love his ideas. Information wants to be free. But to be so mindlessly pedantic about little things like what he is signing detracts from his cause.
Re: Free & Proprietary
#3Irony: Matt uses Wordpress, free software that owes its success to the proprietary software from Six Apart starting to really suck.
Re: Free & Proprietary
#4Stallman's inability to see how damaging his rhetoric is to his cause is rapidly overshadowing any of his achievements. I went to HOPE 2006 in NYC a few years ago, and ran into him while heading to a lecture about Asterix PBX use. As a huge admirer of GNU tools and the GNU/Linux operating system in particular, it was thrilling to finally get to meet one my heroes. For about a few seconds. I shook his hand and somewha…
Odd. What's not free about ACL? All the code is
available online with a notice saying you can use
it for whatever you want.
Re: Free & Proprietary
#5Stallman's inability to see how damaging his rhetoric is to his cause is rapidly overshadowing any of his achievements. I went to HOPE 2006 in NYC a few years ago, and ran into him while heading to a lecture about Asterix PBX use. As a huge admirer of GNU tools and the GNU/Linux operating system in particular, it was thrilling to finally get to meet one my heroes. For about a few seconds. I shook his hand and somewha…
I recently watched the documentary called "Revolution OS" and became disenchanted with the guy as a personality.
(The movie is available on the NetFlix WatchNow service...ironically only if you run windows+IE+MediaPlayer.)
Re: Free & Proprietary
#6Stallman's inability to see how damaging his rhetoric is to his cause is rapidly overshadowing any of his achievements. I went to HOPE 2006 in NYC a few years ago, and ran into him while heading to a lecture about Asterix PBX use. As a huge admirer of GNU tools and the GNU/Linux operating system in particular, it was thrilling to finally get to meet one my heroes. For about a few seconds. I shook his hand and somewha…
Odd. What's not free about ACL? All the code is available online with a notice saying you can use it for whatever you want. http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/paulgraham/acl2.lisp
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Re: Free & Proprietary
#7Free software does not "need" an approach. It does not need anything from anyone, that's the point!
Re: Free & Proprietary
#8Stallman's inability to see how damaging his rhetoric is to his cause is rapidly overshadowing any of his achievements. I went to HOPE 2006 in NYC a few years ago, and ran into him while heading to a lecture about Asterix PBX use. As a huge admirer of GNU tools and the GNU/Linux operating system in particular, it was thrilling to finally get to meet one my heroes. For about a few seconds. I shook his hand and somewha…
Odd. What's not free about ACL? All the code is available online with a notice saying you can use it for whatever you want. http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/paulgraham/acl2.lisp
Was that available in 2006? If so, I guess he just meant the book, which is even more bizarre. So he won't sign any book not published by a "free as in speech" publishing house?
Curiouser and curiouser.
Re: Free & Proprietary
#9Stallman's inability to see how damaging his rhetoric is to his cause is rapidly overshadowing any of his achievements. I went to HOPE 2006 in NYC a few years ago, and ran into him while heading to a lecture about Asterix PBX use. As a huge admirer of GNU tools and the GNU/Linux operating system in particular, it was thrilling to finally get to meet one my heroes. For about a few seconds. I shook his hand and somewha…
To me the great irony is that FSF software isn't really free either - it just has its own restrictions that it prefers to others'. To me, FSF is synonymous with "hypocrite", and seems to have sprung directly from Stallman's own peurile bitterness, and not from anything so noble as what they claim.
Even if you like the FSF stances (and I have no problem with that), I think it's hard to argue that their idea of "free" is really, truly free as Stallman likes to pontificate.
I shit you not. The man is that much of an asshole.
After years of stories about interactions just like the one you described, interviews, and countless mailing-list flame fests, this should be perfectly obvious to anyone.
Let anyone think I'm picking on Stallman because of personality differences, here's another: Theo de Raadt. He is most definitely an asshole - but at least he's consistent, focused, and not judgmental.
Re: Free & Proprietary
#10Irony: Matt uses Wordpress, free software that owes its success to the proprietary software from Six Apart starting to really suck.
Where's the irony? Matt thinks proprietary software has its place, and he likes free (as in beer) software.