Max Eskin wrote:
>
> On Tue, 8 Dec 1998 gram_at_cnct.com wrote:
> > Yup. Linux Ain't Unix. It Ain't Minix. It ain't GNU, though it uses
> > Stallman's Copyleft. Yes, every Linux distribution uses gagloads of
> > GNU material, properly attributed, all source available, and Stallman
> > has nothing to complain about except that people have been making
> > money selling free software. (That's free as in something other than
> > the price -- Open Source).
>
> Why would he complain about that? I understand it may be against his
> philosophy, and RedHat-like products may not be the best examples of Linux
> (KDE is probably the worst example of Linux though it's getting shipped
> with every major distribution...) but how does he expect GNU software to
> get distributed? Someone has to make money along the line...what we need
> is to get back to the old days when people shared tips on how to speed up
> their computers by soldering in a couple of diodes. In those days, it
> wasn't as necessary to ruin software in order to distribute it. I got to
> use dial-up bulletin board systems for about three years, and I liked them
> more than the commercial internet, which killed these off, and harmed the
> sort of scientific-academic-university spirit that was previously more
> common among computer users.
The QT toolkit that KDE is based on is now fully open source. And
it _wasn't_ shipped with RedHat. If you can name a RedHat module
without open source, I'll eat a source listing. Aside from CDE,
Motif, ApplixWare and other things that were commercial or released
with the GNU library license before Linus Torvalds started college,
actually. A lot of stuff seems to be going open source lately. And
at least as much information shows up per month on the "commercial"
Internet as happened per decade when it was "free" to
"scientific-academic-university spirit" users (at taxpayer expense)
-- and most of the previous BBS _owners_ have moved to the Net, even
most of the ones who used to write BBS software and sell it or
give it away. My BBS calls in the mid-80s tended to cost me $100 or
more per month -- serious beer money -- in "local" calls. My ISP
subscription is a bit less. Admittedly the quality of Usenet has
gone downhill since the days when I could manage a full feed -- and
pass it on -- at 1200 baud.
RMS is essentially Trotskyite, he's basing things things on
traditional (failed) economic models. Stallman grew up in the
heyday of Marxism in American universities, Linus came of age as
European socialism was failing (though you'll have a job
convincing the associated governments of that -- they have guns,
their citizens generally don't). Linus uses an anarchosyndicalist
model, which works fine. I prefer the anarchocapitalist model.
Anarchosyndicalists and Anarchocapitalists get along fine as long as
the State stays out of the way. Marxism is welcome to compete with
those models on the open market -- it works in small communities as
long as they allow the right of pedal franchise.
--
Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram_at_cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/>
WARNING: The Attorney General has determined that Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms can be hazardous to your health -- and get away with it.
Received on Tue Dec 08 1998 - 19:28:31 GMT