http://www.forbes.com/business/forbes/2006/1030/104.html
LOL. Man, but this is even better: http://forums.forbes.com/forbes/board/message?board.id=stallmanreaction&message.id=4 ---------- Ignorance and initial assumptions rschott Newbie Posts: 4 Registered: 10-14-2006 rschott This writer obviously is ignorant of the GNU/Linux history. It is acceptable to be unaware of a topic, but it should be unacceptable to be unaware of a topic that one is writing about. He also takes some initial assumptions that everything can be owned, money should own it, without money, there is no possibility of owning something. Is it anti-capitalistic to believe that some things cannot be owned? Stallman just simply believes that Ideas cannot be owned, and in this he is a visionary. Once upon a time, it was considered that money had a right to own people. Slavery is part of a "Ownership Society," is it not? Today our society no longer believes that slavery is appropriate. Does that make our society anti-capitalistic? Stallman shared his work, the gcc compiler, the file utilities, the emacs editor, all things that made the linux kernel possible. When he did so, he did not request money, he requested freedom. Now companies want to make great profits off of his work. Stallman allows that. What he does not allow, is for companies to create artificial barriers to entry. Are the creation of artificial barriers to entry "capitalistic"? Companies make use of the GNU/Linux operating system because of cost! What accountants, market analysts, and CEO's do not understand, is that the cost is still there. The cost is the fact that they will not have their artificial barriers to entry. It is not their kernel. It is not their compiler. It is not their file utilities. Anyone else can use it and provide that service. THEY HAVE TO COMPETE! On a fair and level playing ground. They do not like that. Since this writer chose to throw political epithets at Stallman, I will now follow up with some of my own. He is a corporate feudal serf. He should give over is wife to his corporate feudal lords, as was customary in feudal society. It is their right! Corporations are not "evil", but for the sake of profit, they are willing to do anything sometimes. This country chose freedom over communism right? Stallman wants to ensure our freedoms. A billion dollars thrown at something does not buy IBM nor Redhat the software that has not been sold to them. This software was given to them with certain restrictions. The restriction that they were not to try to steal others freedoms, and since they choose to find other ways around that restriction, by using mythological "Intellectual Property" rights to try to create further restrictions upon the freedoms of their users, given to them by Stallman, then he has every right to try to put an end to the practice. A corporations "value" is not in its "Intellectual Property", its in the "Intellectual Capabilities" of the people they financially reward for their service. Copyright, Trademarks, and Patents are not "Intellectual Property". Linux is but a Kernel. There are others, BSD for example. One small piece of a full OS that users have come to expect. There are window systems (No Microsoft does not own that idea, even though they like to think that they do. X-Windows, Apple/Macintosh/, Amigas all beat them to that technological advance way before their "Windows Revolution" in the early 90's. X-Windows was around in the 70's), File systems, Compilers, API's... I choose FREEDOM sir. You cannot buy my freedom by buying some stock. Sorry! This Post is copyright and licensed under the GNU FDL. Display of this post constitutes acceptance of its terms. --------- LOL. regards, alexander. _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
