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Originally Posted by Andrew Russell  I have no doubt that RMS has contributed much to the software industry - but if you follow his views on software to their conclusion, he would have it such that everyone had to give away their software (source and all) for free. Which is not a good thing if you're a developer (hence I say lightworker syndrome). It makes certain types of software unfeasible - the world is far better off with the current mix of open and closed source software. |
I was just reading about him in Wikipedia, and found a great quote:
"When Brian Reid in 1979 placed 'time bombs' in Scribe to restrict unlicensed access to the software, Stallman proclaimed that 'the prospect of charging money for software was a crime against humanity.'"
Just to clarify,
"time bomb" just means that the software will stop functioning after a certain date. This technique evolved into what's widely used today -- the "limited trial". In a limited trial, a program stops working a certain number of days after it's installed. If you buy it, you get a code to permanently activate it. But the quote says a lot about him. Imagine how many people would lose their jobs and how much of an economic worldwide impact there would be if it suddenly became illegal to charge money for software. His philosophy works great if you're living in Gene Roddenberry's world of Star Trek, but reality is quite different.
By the way, there's an
interesting article by Eric S. Raymond (major open source proponent and spokesperson) in which he criticizes RMS and the FSF. In essense, he says exactly what I think about the issue -- that the FSF's idea of "freedom" involves forcing people to not be able to exercise their freedom to choose a proprietary license for their software.
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Originally Posted by Andrew Russell I don't think that was their intent. They kind of screwed that one up. |
"Kind of screwed that one up" is an understatement. If they had to compete with other companies instead of being an entrenched monopoly, they would've either released an update much sooner or would've been long dead by now.
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Originally Posted by Andrew Russell As to large companies developing loads of new stuff, I'm surprised you neglected to mention Google. |
I guess so. But they seem to be mostly focused on (rather uninteresting to me at least) web services. So they're not one of the first companies I think of when I think of cool innovative stuff. The search engine is great, but everything else..