10 Nov
2006
10 Nov
'06
12:02 p.m.
Hi Dan,
Go back far enough, and one could argue we are the
traditional
software world, regaining territory lost to revolutionaries (quickly
turned despotic) back in the early 80s.
I quite like that argument, but the software of the 50's, 60's and 70's
wasn't free in the sense we have now. There were contrib tapes, but the
core software was government or military property, and most definitely
not for sharing with people in Cuba. (Oh, I forgot - the Intel open
source licence reminds us that US citizens still can't export software
to Cuba - see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Open_Source_License )
Three ways in which RMS is like Fidel Castro:
1. Beard
2. Been around longer than anyone else
3. No point arguing with him, because he know he's right
Three ways in which RMS is not like Fidel Castro:
1. RMS never executed anyone
2. RMS never put journalists in prison
3. Fidel Castro never contributed a single line of code to the GNU project
Cheers!
Daniel