Re: RMS comments: Gnome part of the GNU operating system.
On Mon, Jul 24, 2000 at 12:59:59PM +0200, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> > > Some interesting comments on the nature of GNOME.
> >
> > Looks like more sore ego to me personally, there isn't a whole lot of
> > substance in there and a lot of this-is-my-doing,-not-Linus' which I've
> > come to be particularly annoyed with. He comes across as ticked off
> > because Linus and others stole his thunder and gets downright beligerant
> > with anyone who doesn't give him the respect he feels he deserves.
>
> Do yuo disagree with him because he is proud of what he accomplished,
> or because it is wrong what he says?
More it is wrong how he says it. Even if absolutely nothing else, Richard
is responsible for the GPL. Without that, things would certainly be very
different today in ways I am sure I wouldn't like. The GPL is positively
foundational to everything Debian does, certainly.
I do not reject his accomplishments. I do reject his open hostility
toward his supporters if they stray from his way of thinking.
> If you wrote a good deal of a book (several chapters), and one chapter
> of the book (let's say the first), was contributed by Mr Foo Bar, and people
> go and say "what an incredible book this book from Mr Foo Bar is", wouldn't
> you go and say "don't forget that a lot in this book is actually from our
> research group, and not from Mr Foo Bar, so please call it the Carter Group/Bar
> book".
>
> It's a miracle to me how people can get upset about this. It's a normal
> thing in science to ask for correct attribution (and if you give wrong
> sources for your quotes, your professor will get very upset). It's also
> normal in day life.
I honestly think a large portion of the objection is the sheer silliness
of saying "GNU slash Linux" (I hear there was an amusing discussion of
this in France), though I have heard the argument that Richard does not
call his system XFree86/GNU/LaTeX/insert-whatever-here.. No, he claimed
these huge subsystems often not even under the GPL and called them part of
his GNU operating system, so it's not really much different is it?
To be honest, I don't care what people call it. If I am talking about the
Linux platform specifically, that's what I call it. If I'm talking about
free software platforms in general, again that's what I call it. If I'm
talking about the GNU project or something...
That said, I am not going to stop being annoyed with Richard's tendancy to
be an ass about it until he stops. Last year at LWCE I watched him get a
large monetary award. He got up and berated the the people giving him the
award and the entire audience of several thousand for not giving him
enough credit. He described it as giving the rebel fleet award to Han
Solo or something like that. By the time he got to something important
(damned important IMO, software patent legislation) at the end, nobody was
listening to him - even I could see that much.
--
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org> GnuPG key 1024D/DCF9DAB3
Debian GNU/Linux (http://www.debian.org/) 20F6 2261 F185 7A3E 79FC
The QuakeForge Project (http://quakeforge.net/) 44F9 8FF7 D7A3 DCF9 DAB3
<dark> Knghtbrd: We have lots of whatevers.
<Knghtbrd> dark - In Debian? Hell yeah we do!
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