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by benreesman 312 days ago
A lot of us are grateful in some abstract way for all the foundational work RMS did both technically and organizationally to preserve what remaining software freedoms we still have, but got off the bus a long time ago. He got really weird and it was on some "no fly zone" shit.

There's an `emacs` community that recognizes the history without being involved in any contemporary sense.
2 comments
bowsamic 312 days ago
Why did you?
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7e 312 days ago
Huh? Open source licenses long predate Stallman. He was, at best, an opportunist who tried to coopt the OSS movement and take it into a kooky ideological niche.
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7e 312 days ago
Do you remember how the world got all kinds of weird cults before we got good at identifying cults and the phenomenon of cults? Well, the FSF/GPL is one of those. Many people still need to be deprogrammed.
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benreesman 312 days ago
I never said that Stallman invented open source (he didn't) or that his motives for starting GNU up after the Symbolics fiasco were pure and high-minded (they were petty), or that the contemporary FSF is a force for good (it's not, c.f. glibc dynamic link lock in on a backdoored resolver SONAME chain and Drepper's weird ties).

I said he did a lot of foundational work that's still important today.

I acknowledged a contribution, I didn't beatify him.

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