Stallman

From wiki – “Linus Torvalds has criticized Richard Stallman for what he considers black-and-white thinking”.

One software engineer accusing another of being a software engineer. Hilarious.

Stallman is the grandfather of the open source OS world. He claims he is an atheist but I suspect that software is his religion. His main claim to fame is the creation of a free operating system called GNU which is compatible with Unix.

We all use it, often without knowing it, and it makes our use of the devices and the internet a little cheaper. Its cheaper because they built the OS and didn’t charge for it. It was an act of charity to the planet that hardly anyone cares about.

Stallman thinks that if we depend on securely compiled code then our lives are impure. Its just the vibe of thing and all that. Specifically there is a risk that the code will be able to control us or hurt us in some way due to the malevolence of the sort of people and companies that use copyright, restrictive software licenses and the like.

A side issue that upsets Stallman is intellectual property because of the risk that someone or something might try to assert the same against the open source OS and its use. IP is just a nuisance that should go away.

Well I guess it’s one scenario. It’s sounds a bit odd to me but so are most scenarios. We just get used to what is and we also think that the Quixotics and exotic, or mad, or both. I’m glad that there is someone out there pushing this barrow even if I think they are all mad.