FFS FSF, you're 35 already? Hands up if you just sprouted a gray hair or felt a craving for a Werthers Original on reading that. Happy birthday, folks The Free Software Foundation turned 35 on Sunday, ushering in a week-long celebration of its user liberation efforts. Founded in 1985 by Richard Stallman (who was not-so-oddly absent* from the announcement), the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has its origins in the GNU Project and is all about opening up software for tinkering …
My first son's birthday is the day after my wife's birthday, and my second son's is two days after my wedding anniversary. As the boys start counting down the days to go at least a month before hand, and are continually suggesting toys they want, I'm now very unlikely to forget either preceding event.
I know I'm getting old and my remaining teeth are dodgy but mint imperials are like pebbles these days - I'm sure I could happily crunch them thirty years ago. For comparison I can quite happily crunch the hazel nuts that have escaped the squirrel bastards with their long tails and twitch noses.
Bonfire night used to involve making a whole variety of sugary treats. Properly made treacle toffee would remove filling from your teeth and make temporary door hinges. I remember watching something about the Cubans making some form of metal filler/glue from sugar and it brought to mind having to drink lava temperature hot chocolate in an attempt to melt your jaws apart. I was pleased to discover mulled cider with added vodka worked pretty well as I got older. Last time I went to the cinema I estimated I made over a thousand pounds worth of cinder toffee most bonfire nights!
"Cancel Culture" notwithstanding, I'm both disappointed AND relieved at Stallman's absence.
I disagree with Stallman on his rigid interpretation of what the GPL should be. Copy-left indeed, because if it intends to FORCE people, it is about as left as it can be.
If the FSF is *truly* about freedom, free as in freedom, then MAXIMIZING freedom is what it should do. These alleged "license incompatibilities" between the GPL and MIT, BSD, and others, could simply be resolved by allowing for copyright statements to comply with the other licenses. Instead, GPLv3 emerged.
I tend to 'dual license' my open source stuff, so that you can use a BSD-like or MIT-like license if you want, OR a GPLv2 or later license, YOUR CHOICE. [I got quite a bit over on github, easily found if you want it, lots of W.I.P. though]
In many cases you need to have 'closed source' for at least some of the code, to protect a trade secret, to comply with legal regulations, and so on. BLOBs are often used for this in Linux kernel drivers. But it's my understanding tht GPLv3 *eliminates* that possibility. Also it was necessary to adapt the gcc library licensing to allow for linkage into closed-source applications, because [L]GPLv2 was ambiguous on this possibility, favoring the NON-publishing of source compiled with gcc as binary-only. Clang doesn't have this problem, just to mention. [nor does gcc any more, to my best understanding]
So Stallman had a good idea, to make software open, and keep anything you license under GPL "open". it also attempts to drive ALL software into becoming "open" which is not practical, and shoots its own foot in the process. [but without Stallman directly driving, this may be improving]
So if Stallman really IS "pro freedom", and wants software to be "free as in freedom", he shouldn't try to CONTROL things so much. And I think the FSF is doing that. Without him.
(profit is good - it is NOT evil to make money! Who said that? *ME*)
IANAL but the main purpose of GPL3 isn't to prevent blobs - it was to prevent somebody taking opensource code and using it in a product but locking it in such a way that you couldn't make changes.
On the other point I agree that there should be MIT/BSD alongside GPL. Some important libraries I work on are popular because they aren't GPL and so can be used without getting corporate lawyers in a state.
But I can see the point of having a "true believer" pushing for extreme freedom - if only to drag the others along. I suspect if all open source was BSD/MIT there would be a lot of internal corporate forks and very little sharing.
> He remains head of the GNU Project and has said his statements were mischaracterised.
Yes indeed, agree wholeheartedly with the mainstream opinion or get your professional life destroyed.
The cancel culture got into full swing for RMS, one of the more shameful episodes in computing history, a situation that I'm sure Turing would have some sympathy with.
If I believed in conspiracy theories, I would suggest that someone had it in for him.
I also heard someone accuse him of showing someone his office mattress: quite a common thing for dyed-in-the-wool nerds to have for those all-night coding sessions. You can imagine how that was dressed up.
Absolutely disgraceful.
From what I hear, he certainly is all round weird.
Is he not on some kind of "scale" whether that be aspergers or whatever? Not really sure.
Time was, lefties stood up for people that had disabilities/difficulties physical or mental and gave them some latitude. No longer. You fall foul of the opinion police, you can be ended by the crushing force of a million ignorant, uncaring voices.
> "S Club 7"
Indeed. More properly called S Club these days after Paul Cattermole left the band, although I think they have all gone their separate ways now.
Actually I really liked the music, very positive. I still listen to some of it and I aint no teeny bopper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3lUa6DvkYs
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