RMS, Free software and the Ubuntu CDs

[Mario Vukelic]

On Sat, 2006-07-01 at 19:30 +0800, Michael T. Richter wrote:
> The problem with RMS and his cohorts is that he comes across as very,
> very snide and jealous 

It's a matter of interpreting him. I mean, yeah he comes across like
that. OTOH, it is well known [1] that he might be suffering from
Asperger's Syndrome [2], so cut the man a little slack.

He has quit a very cool job at MIT out of principle to shoulder the
herculean task of writing a free system, and has single-mindedly pursued
his principles since, with a LOT of success.
It is insane to complain that people who do such things aren't "nice" on
top of it. More power to them if they are, but who can demand it?

> when other people are successful where he isn't.  He's been snarky and
> snide toward Linus Torvalds (and Linux as a whole) because people call
> this Linux instead of GNU+Linux or GNU/Linux.

He has been snarky when Linus in his "I'm only an egineer" pose traded
freedom for convenience for the umpteenth time and caused a lot of
problems with it.

> Further, he only started doing that and insisting on that when Linux
> started to get successful instead of being another set of hacker toys
> like GNU had been up to that point. 

Look, it makes little sense to on the one hand attribute to RMS an
unhealthy desire for fame and success, and on the other hand blame him
for not getting out of the way on the road to success, fame, and money
by appeasing our proprietary overlords.

Taking his life and personality into account, I think it makes more
sense to assume he starting to insist when he saw the freedom started to
be forgotten in the interest of scratching itches and superior
development methods.

>  He's displayed similar snide/snark over Open Source and a whole slew
> of other things. 

I have probably read most of his writings and I have seen very good and
consistent arguments presented in an unforgiving style. What counts more
for you?

>  Despite him being the inventor of Free Software as we know it, I do
> think it's time for us to move on without him.  At this stage RMS is
> holding it all back, not moving it forward.

To sell freedom for convenience. It seems we still need him

But hey, I have allowed myself be pulled off-topic yet again, this will
be that last I say about this I hope :)

[1] http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2002/02/28/williams.html?page=2
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger's_syndrome