On Mon, 7 Oct 2002, Raja Guha wrote:
> Reeeally convinced, were you? not me either! nor Linus! > nor any but RHS and a few(very few) camp-followers :). It is RMS (Richard M. Stallman - http://www.stallman.org/ ), and those who agree with him are not 'few'. I will be meeting him in person for the first time next week, and I am looking forward to this. We have written each other many times over the last 10+ years. I will be on a panel titled "Open Source vs Free Software": http://weblog.flora.org/article.php3?story_id=253 I did need to disagree with him on the GNU/Linux terminology recently. The Linux Community, the Open Source Community, and the Free Software community are three different communities. There is a considerable amount of overlap, but they are not the same. I am primarily part of the Free Software community, and use Linux not because I believe it is the best OS but because I believe it is the best Copyleft OS. > Open Source is about source sharing - NOT about doctrinare beliefs thereof. When the term "Open Source" was first coined by some members of the Free Software community, it was about avoiding the confusing word 'free' in the english language. The phrase "free as in free speech, not free beer" was simply not being understood. It grew into a separate community after the term was coined. It is only now that much of the Free Software community is joining RMS in not substituting the phrase "Open Source" for "Free Software" when it really is Free Software we are talking about. I will be talking to members of parliament this afternoon and tomorrow, and it is Free Software that I will be talking about. I will likely be using my slides from my recent OCLUG presentation: http://weblog.flora.org/article.php3?story_id=248 Some europeans have started to use the phrase "Software Libre" to separate from the confusion with Software Gratis (or Freeware, etc). > RHS is to be respected for being the original author of the BEST > existing compiler, free or otherwise as well as several other such > creations - not because of the endless 'free' vs 'open' debates that he > has generated and continues to fuel. I hope I am remembered for my fight for software and other freedoms, not for any silly piece of software I happened to write. Software isn't interesting except for what you can do with it. I am a firm believer that software should only ever be thought of as having 'use value', not value in its own existance. --- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> See http://weblog.flora.ca/ for announcements, activities, and opinions Submission to Innovation Strategy | No2Violence in Politics http://www.flora.ca/innovation-2002.shtml | http://www.no-dot.ca/ -- To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the body "unsubscribe ilug-cal" and an empty subject line. FAQ: http://www.ilug-cal.org/help/faq_list.html
