Re: ESR wishes to retire
I think the flame against ESR from Phillip R. Jaenke was a bit harsh.
Let me address a few issues:
If you don't believe a PR person is important, consider that ESR got
free software (and even Stallman) more press over the last 14 odd
months than RMS has managed to do in 20 years. Has that been good for
the free software movement -- yes! I think so, anyhow. After all,
the big boys such as Netscape, IBM, etc., are now pouring money and
effort into free software, and how can that be bad?
RMS is a visionary, a theoretician, radical, consistent, even
compelling in many ways. But he's not a pitch man. Oh, god, he's not
a pitch man. He needs to really stop whining about how marginalized,
get off the Ego, and focus on what matters: guiding the FSF,
licensing, intellectual property issues, the big stuff.
Sure, ESR has his flaws -- let's catalog them:
* doesn't push hard enough for the GPL (Perens is much better in
working out licensing details with ISVs, IMHO)
* "lone wolf" attitude, giving out approval, for instance, to
Apple's recent license w/o communicating with anyone, AFAIK
* flawed economic model of what free software means to commercial
businesses, which I can really only characterize as a "pyramid
model"
But, still, we all need to recognize the value of the work ESR has
been doing, and give him some credit -- even if we need to pressure
him to remove himself from license haggling entirely.
--
.....Adam Di Carlo....adam@onShore.com.....<URL:http://www.onShore.com/>
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