Forget RMS, fly Dr.NU up from Peru!

[der.hans]

Am 06. May, 2002 schwätzte Derek Neighbors so:

> I find it near hilarious that this list is so impressed by Peru and the
> statements they make.  I ask all that were applauding yet were flaming
> GNU\Linux and RMS to step back and look at the situation.

Dr. Núñez hasn't gotten irate at me because he disagreed with what I was
saying or a question I was asking in an attempt to better understand his
point. For all I know he's actually worse than rms and the translator fixed
the letter :).

The letter is well written and makes good points. As do many of the things
rms writes. Dr. Núñez contends the points in the original letter without
attacking anyone and specifically saying companies will be allowed to
continue business as normal outside gov't contracts. Even there they get to
continue business as normal, e.g. they have to meet the gov'ts requirements
for the contract. It's just that the gov't will now be requiring the
freedoms that are necessary for the gov't to be responsible to its citizens.

> They are calling it 'Free Software' and not 'Open Source' and there is a
> reason for that.  RMS has made several visits to Brazil, Argentina and
> Peru to meet with their heads of state on getting 'Free Software' in
> place in these countries.  So why we like to call him foul smelling and
> obnoxiously rude etc, he is sitting in dinners with head of state of most
> of South America making a difference.

And I say someone else would likely do a better job. Many people were put
off by different things in his talk here. Some of those just didn't get his
point, so they weren't gonna come around anyway. Others couldn't get over
some of his habits or his manner of responding to questions. Not that I know
anyone else willing to dedicate their life to this, so maybe rms is what we
get because as he said when he was here, 'we can get Stallman for free' :).
I'm also not suggesting we try to hire a supermodel to become our
spokesperson ( it might sound good and get us press, but no one would be
listening ).

I'm grateful for rms's dedication and all the work he's done and organized.
I'm glad we have GNU and the FSF. I look forward to celebrating 20 years of
GNU in two years ( I hope GNU/hurd will have working released version at
that point ). I think the freedoms protected by Free Software are important
and I think Dr. Núñez's letter did a good job of not only showing that
they're pertinent, but that there can be compromise. While I think that most
software functionality can and will be made available as Free Software, we
still have a long time before we get there. In the meantime, "can't we all
get along" :).

ciao,

der.hans
-- 
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#  A t-shirt a day keeps the noose (tie) away. - der.hans