[CoLoCo] RMS interview.

[Neal McBurnett]

On Thu, Dec 20, 2007 at 11:25:54AM -0700, Jim Hutchinson wrote:
> On 12/20/07, David L. Willson <DLWillson at thegeek.nu> wrote:
> > The full interview:
> > http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/cnews/article.php/3717476
> >
> > RMS is the North Star.  If he ever changes or compromises, I will be
> > disappointed.  No, I don't think we should all speak and act like RMS
> > does, but I think we should listen to him and understand why he says
> > what he says.  He has an admirable purity of position.  RMS loves
> > something fiercely, and he, more than any other single individual, has
> > brought us where we are.

Right on!

> Agreed. I was just pointing out that he doesn't seem to like the term
> "open source". Although I don't really understand why. If it's open
> source it's still "free software", right? I think what he doesn't like
> it when project like Ubuntu include proprietary drivers or apps, but
> that doesn't change the open source aspects (although the whole distro
> is no longer "free"). I don't really see how open source and free are
> not synonymous.

There is a huge difference, as RMS notes, in both the practical and
philosophical realm, between Free and Open Source software.

BSD- and MIT- licensed software is open source but not "free" in the
GPL sense.  People can (and have) ripped off BSD software and closed
it up in their products and never give back patches or improvements.
RMS doesn't like that, so he invented the GPL which is the most
popular open source license.

I like GPL because I know that I'll benefit from people who use and
improve on the software I write.  That just isn't true with non-free
licenses.

A good read:

 http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

Neal McBurnett                 http://mcburnett.org/neal/