Rms: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay

Well, that is a great interview of Stallman! The man is a monster of exactness. Each of his answers hits precisely right :) . As for those who say RMS is an extremist/lunatic, I wonder of which planet they come from. He strikes me as a pragmatist. He has an ideal, of course, but he is pragmatic about the way to achieve his ideal. For instance, after the heated discussions I've seen and participated to in the matter of Free Software-based web services, I find the solution Moglen and he are considering for the GPL v3 to be extremely well thought out (see page 2 of the interview). It should silence all the people that were afraid that that RMS would extend the definition of distribution unduly. He doesn't. He is even clear about the fact that public use is *not* distribution.

And he is dead right about TC and DRM! (not to mention software patents)

Freedom is always pragmatic when it comes down to it. True freedom balances, it finds the perfect solution (even if it may not seem to look like that at the moment to the so called "pragmatics" (open sourcers if you will)). Freedom in the end yields superiority of both the system of operation and production and the product itself.

When freedom is paramount, everything *just works* better in the end.

RMS is the man! ESR did alot, but as much as he did of good, he did bad too, created a big division among the community and caused a spread of shallowness within it - people who don't care about freedom, nor they really understand it, using GNU/Linux as just yet another supposedly better operating system which just happens not to hurt their wallets.

RMS truly was, is and will be the father of the Free Software movement. The community is it's life.

Thanks Daniel

Yes, the Asperger behaviour is so textbook ;-)

Yet, being realistic, I'd take his ilk a thousand times before the borderline sociopaths running our political and commercial powers-that-be.

Well, I'm not sure you can call that Asperger behaviour. Yes, RMS keeps on saying the same things. That's not because he's obsessed (OK, not only ;) ), but just because it is fitting to the situation we are in now. Unlike what ESR said, now more than ever we need the GPL and a strong idealistic man behind it. And anyway, when it's about Freedom you can never repeat yourself too much :) .

And anyway, being an Asperger is nothing wrong. Who needs social skills anyway in software? ;)

Seriously, given that nobody can pretend to be mentally sane (no, not even people who've been treated ;) ), Asperger is relatively harmless compared to the problems so-called "sane people" sometimes have ;) .