From: cdale@silly.techmonkeys.net
Date: Tue Sep 12 2000 - 22:24:12 PDT
Hmm...seems like I read somewhere that RMS sorta works for RedHat. I
didn't hear that as an employee from the inside, so I dunno if it's true.
If so, he should probably be working in the bizdev dept. Ahem.
C
"A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity."
-- Robert Frost
On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, Kragen Sitaker wrote:
> Ken Coar writes:
> > Robert Harley wrote:
> > > http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-09-11-010-21-OP-CY-DP
> >
> > What's particularly obnoxious is that among the actions and motives
> > rms ascribes to Dave are precisely those in which he has indulged
> > when attacking me (if not others).
>
> Let me list the actions and motives RMS ascribes to Dave in the article:
> a- disgust for RMS
> b- disgust for RMS's work
> c- passion in his disgust
> d- rebuking RMS for things RMS has done
> e- imagining things Dave would disapprove of [which RMS has not done]
> f- rebuking RMS for these things Dave has imagined
>
> >>From my reading of Dave's past writing, A through C are definitely
> true, and are not limited to RMS, but applies to the whole
> free-software and open-source movements.
>
> Here's the piece I think RMS is responding to:
>
> Thank you. Don't give in to Stallman. Open source should not have
> restrictions. Stallman's philosophy is not open source, it's not the
> spirit of sharing, it's not generous. It has other purposes, it's
> designed to create a wall between commercial development and free
> development. The world is not that simple. There are plenty of
> commercial developers who participate in open source. Python belongs
> in commercial products. How does that hurt Python? Why should Python
> adopt Stallman's goals? What has he done to build Python? (Maybe I'm
> missing something.) I have a different philosophy which is
> incompatible with GPL, I will support any open source developer who
> truly lets the source go. Also, I much prefer the term "commercial" to
> "proprietary", which is perjorative, imho. (It's possible to make
> commercial software which is quite open and has major non-proprietary
> elements.)
>
> (From http://scriptingnews.userland.com/backissues/2000/09/07)
>
> It appears that Dave is accusing RMS of trying to make Python
> incompatible with proprietary software. (I'm using "proprietary" here
> because it means something different from "commercial", and I mean
> "proprietary", not "commercial", but I understand that Dave means
> "proprietary" rather than "commercial" --- since, obviously, the GPL is
> not incompatible with commercial development.)
>
> RMS asserts that he has not done this, and I believe him. This means
> that Dave has, in some sense, imagined it. (Unless I have
> misunderstood him.)
>
> I think the sense in which Dave has imagined it is that Dave has read
> some bits of the discussion and misunderstood the situation. I think
> Dave has exhibited quite a bit of general animosity toward free
> software in general and RMS in particular, and it is reasonable to
> guess that this animosity has predisposed him to misunderstand the
> situation. I don't think it's reasonable to assert it as a fact.
>
> So I think Dave is definitely doing items E and F, but RMS's phrasing
> of them was unnecessarily vicious and seems designed to worsen the
> situation rather than to heal it.
>
> I haven't seen Dave do D. Has he? Is that the issue?
>
> About "proprietary" vs. "commercial": Apache is commercial. IBM, among
> others, sells it. It was built by commercial developers who were
> working for money. But it's not proprietary. Gopherd is noncommercial
> software developed and released by a university, and could not actually
> be used for commercial purposes, last I heard. But it is proprietary.
>
> Someone on FoRK said that "proprietary" and "commercial" were mutually
> exclusive; I think they meant something like "orthogonal", because a
> lot of software is both proprietary and commercial.
>
> About the ASF license: AFAIK, RMS doesn't have any issues with the ASF
> license; it's just that it's written in such a way that you can't
> legally link it with GPL-licensed code. It would certainly be possible
> to change the GPL to accommodate it, but I doubt that this is a high
> enough priority that the FSF will do it.
>
> Ken, which things did RMS accuse you of?
>
> [Repliers: please don't Cc RMS unless you think he'd be interested in
> reading your response; he gets a lot of email. RMS, you're welcome to
> reply privately or publicly if you like, especially if something I have
> said is inaccurate. FoRK allows open posting.]
>
> --
> <kragen@pobox.com> Kragen Sitaker <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
> Perilous to all of us are the devices of an art deeper than we ourselves
> possess.
> -- Gandalf the Grey [J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"]
>
>
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