Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 19:50:50 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: "Victor R. Cardona" <vcardona@home.com>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Stallman stalls again Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20010311192602.04418bc0@localhost> In-Reply-To: <20010306224918.A25247@marx.marvic.chum> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20010306164606.046d4100@localhost> <20010305200017.D80474@lpt.ens.fr> <4.3.2.7.2.20010305123951.04604b20@localhost> <20010305205030.G80474@lpt.ens.fr> <4.3.2.7.2.20010305125259.00cfdae0@localhost> <20010305142108.A17269@marx.marvic.chum> <4.3.2.7.2.20010306011342.045fb360@localhost> <20010306081025.A22143@marx.marvic.chum> <4.3.2.7.2.20010306131533.046dfc60@localhost> <15013.18818.990246.193990@guru.mired.org> <4.3.2.7.2.20010306164606.046d4100@localhost>
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[Continuing this discussion after several days of "heads-down" coding....] At 09:49 PM 3/6/2001, Victor R. Cardona wrote: >I think you need to do a little more research on Richard Stallman. He >does not mind if anyone profits from creative work including software. Not true. In "The GNU Manifesto," Stallman wrote: "What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned." Which is what Stallman advocates: banning commercial software and commercial software companies. The stated purpose of the GPL is to destroy all programming jobs which pay better than what is earned by a starving graduate student or researcher. Levy explains the roots of this vendetta in his book "Hackers." Incensed at the fact that some of his colleagues were leaving the MIT AI Lab to bring the technology developed by its government-funded research to market, he vowed to sabotage their efforts and those of all others like them. What's scary is that so many programmers -- perhaps because they are not savvy about politics, economics, or propaganda -- have been deceived by his efforts and have been successfully recruited in a war against themselves. >I think Levy was much more sympathetic towards Stallman. I don't think >he protrayed Stallman as a vengeful person. Rather, Levy, seemed wistful >when writing about Stallman. Levy did see and portray Stallman as a pathetic figure. At the same time, he also noted that Stallman was extremely vengeful. Levy wrote: "This was RMS's opportunity for revenge.... Stallman had no illusions that his act would significantly improve the world at large. He had come to accept that the domain around the AI Lab had been permanently polluted. He was out to cause as much damage to the culprit as he could." --Brett Glass To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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