On Tue, 25 Mar 2003, Amol Hatwar spake thusly:
Well, I have my own opinions about RMS. I wonder why most of the population thinks of RMS that way. A recent slashdot post almost confirms this:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/16/2222254&mode=thread&tid=...
It is either that the majority population has skewed eyes, or RMS isn't projecting his message in a way that garners trust and wins people.
I went through most of that thread ... It just goes to confirm that the majority of our species is anyway a mediocre sheep pack. RMS is cranky. Certainly. That all can see and even agree with. But it must be remember that this crazy/cranky(ness) is what enabled him to throw his life for a cause. How many of us are capable of doing that, I must ask.
I personally dont like the GPL (except in certain cases). But RMS & his GPL was a major catalist to shape the path of the software scene as it is today. No one can take that away from him.
He and his FSF hardcore nutty blokes kickstarted the whole movement. They gave it stability and a certain support that enabled other to build on it. Linux happened due to them. This does not take away the credit due to Linus. But calling the whole system Linux does take away the credit from GNU.
GNU/Linux it is. And GNU/Linux it shall be. At least till I live.
Hail RMS & the temple of Emacs.