When Rob Pike first met rms
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When Rob Pike first met rms
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Re: When Rob Pike first met rms
#2Software patents are bad, okay?
He got into them before that became obvious.
Now it is. He is too stubborn or too blind to state this truth; instead he hides behind "business community is still excited".
Stallman organizing protest can not be more wrong than Pike not acknowledging the problem.
Re: When Rob Pike first met rms
#3Software patents are bad, okay? He got into them before that became obvious. Now it is. He is too stubborn or too blind to state this truth; instead he hides behind "business community is still excited". Stallman organizing protest can not be more wrong than Pike not acknowledging the problem.
That post shows Rob's opinion in 1982, 1991 and 2006.
I wonder what his opinion is now.
Whatever it is, its going to be considered. But it doesn't mean it hasn't evolved.
Re: When Rob Pike first met rms
#4This is a lovely outcome, and illustrative of how people can exercise their right to assemble peaceably and make their views known.
In the wider World, we should think twice about criminalizing peaceful protesters, as some recent laws seem to be doing.
cite: http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/ready-occupy-what-you-n...
Re: When Rob Pike first met rms
#5Software patents are bad, okay? He got into them before that became obvious. Now it is. He is too stubborn or too blind to state this truth; instead he hides behind "business community is still excited". Stallman organizing protest can not be more wrong than Pike not acknowledging the problem.
Yea, I'm a big fan of much of Rob's work (from Plan 9 to Go), but about this he is plain wrong.
At the same time I'm a big critic of RMS and his work (from GCC to the GPL, passing by the Free Software Song ;) but he is right that software patents are a very harmful monster.
Re: When Rob Pike first met rms
#6I enjoyed the story, but something bothers me (just a little bit). I don't like his attempts at sensationalizing the event:
> The protesters were surprised, I think, that my subject was interesting to them. At one point they all applauded spontaneously when I described a feature of the system.
Rob Pike is a renown scientist, at the time working on Plan9 , the most exciting project of the moment. He tried to portray the protesters as mindless sheep blindly following rms, where indeed they were smart people genuinely against the idea of software patents. After all, this is MIT we're talking about, is anyone surprised that these guys actually showed interest in Rob's talk?
I know that if I were there, I would've definitely put up a protest sign, while still being thrilled to attend the talk.
Re: When Rob Pike first met rms
#7>I also think they were surprised that the
inventor of #4,555,755 was funny, theatrical, and clever
I respect Rob as a programmer, but that came off as a little too self congratulatory.
Re: When Rob Pike first met rms
#8I don't think this article could have made rms look better. He increased attendance to an educational event, while protesting a piece of immoral legislation. Everybody wins!
Re: When Rob Pike first met rms
#9> I was congratulated warmly and people were excited about the future of software patents. Nowadays, however, the climate in universities at least is very different, and Richard Stallman is almost single-handedly responsible for the change. (The business community, on the other hand, is still excited.)
Written in 2006... O tempora o mores!
Re: When Rob Pike first met rms
#10Seems to me that the protestors furthered their cause very well. By being peaceful, respectful and non-violent they showed that they were not just mindless drones - they were thoughtful folk of a technical persuasion.
Software patents are bad for everyone. Even those who have patents get sued routinely by those who have other patents. They must file patents as "defensive patents", even if they have no intention of using them. The whole situation is predicated on greed and stifles research and innovation. The only folk who make any real gain out it are lawyers.