Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

No, because the people at the top are not the ones who do the work. They set policy, and sometimes directly tell people what to do - but, more often, they tell people who then tell other people what to do. If a conspiracy is going to involve the top of the chain - and it should be pointed out that the VP is technically not in the chain of command - then it's going to involved dozens, if not hundreds of others if the conspiracy is actually going to do something effective. And in that case, there will be enough written down that eventually it will out. See, for example, the Iran-Contra affair.

An excellent account of both what the critical points for intervention were, and what happened on the day is "The Ground Truth": http://www.amazon.com/Ground-Truth-Untold-America-Attack/dp/... The title has unfortunate "truther" connotations, but it comes from a term the aviation industry uses to establish what happened after a crash. They use first-hand material and evidence to establish the "ground truth" of the crash, and from there try to extract lessons. The author does exactly that, using primary sources exclusively - such as recorded conversations between air controllers - to determine the sequence of events.

    today's proprietary stuff isn't marijuana; 
    it's heroin, and it's really, really good

When it comes to freedom, there's is no black & white classification, only shades of gray. And the whitest of them all are the BSD-like licenses, which are frowned upon by the FSF.

And the reason I think proprietary software is like marijuana is because you CAN be careful when using it, you can also take it in small dosages where it makes sense, you're only required to use it responsibly to not end up hooked with freedoms lost.

And of course, for some people marijuana usage turns into heroin -- but everybody fears heroin and heroin comes with a heafty price for the junkies, which isn't that good in the eyes of consumers (best things in life tend to be cheap ;))

Also, leaving this analogy behind -- let's take as example GIMP.

Gimp is awesome for what it does and I actually think its grotesque interface is the reason why I ended up working with masks, really groking effects like smart-sharpening.

But if you're deep into photography, using Gimp is unacceptable. First, it has serious limitations like 8-bits per color (which means you're losing color info, when importing from RAW formats, or when composing layers -- and as a practical consequence, correcting over/under-exposed photos becomes a nightmare). CMYK support is hackish at best, and photographers (professional or passionate amateurs) do print their photos (whether it's for selling, or for doing exhibits). Then, while the UI forces you to learn about the inner-workings of digital image processing, it becomes a pain in the ass to quickly retouch hundreds of photos (unless you can do them as a batch, with some scripting, but since every photo is unique, no, you can't).

So comparing a product like Adobe Photoshop, which provides real/measurable value to photographers, with a drug that you can get rid of -- that's stretching it a lot. I also view a product like Photoshop as something that gives you more freedom for expression -- also saving you bucks which you'd spend otherwise on extremely high-priced gear.

saw an interesting documentary about this 9/11 stuff from zeitgeist: 4 videos in youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_E4N5YIycI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECMJ2LBK90Q&feature=relat... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSW1x_h4Kfo&feature=relat... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeSDOb7NcgE&feature=relat...

He's not. No radical people are practical, it goes with the job of being radical.

rms wants you to write code for free, give it away for free and never ask for any money if anyone uses it. It's anything but practical. It's not even realistic.

He was lucky to be at the right place and the right time where this kind of delusional ideology could actually work (because nobody had this idea before him). Good for him, and he's reaping the benefit of getting there first (basically living off speaker fees). But he totally fails to realize that nobody else can do this.

I respect what he did for the software industry, but personally, I think he's a lunatic, a bit like your crazy grandpa that you quietly wheel over in the kitchen when there are guests so he doesn't make them run away.

Given that Stallman used to charge $200 for tapes of Emacs, I gotta wonder how you come to this conclusion.