Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 08:10:00 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: GPL nonsense: time to stop Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011218181554.00d6f900@localhost> In-Reply-To: <0gn10gyxwd.10g@localhost.localdomain> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20011217221801.02841bc0@localhost> <20011218121011.E21649@monorchid.lemis.com> <4hzo4hyv3c.o4h@localhost.localdomain> <4.3.2.7.2.20011217221801.02841bc0@localhost>
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At 03:19 PM 12/18/2001, Gary W. Swearingen wrote:
>To be fair, he does want software developers to earn a living, but he
>wants them to be paid by the hour or by the job,
Actually, his stated goal is to go farther than that. He wants to
reduce that pay to the point where they can BARELY earn a living.
To a level paid by "low-paying" organizations such as academic
research labs. In "The GNU Manifesto," Stallman writes:
>>For more than ten years, many of the world's best programmers worked at
>>the Artificial Intelligence Lab for far less money than they could have
>>had anywhere else. They got many kinds of non-monetary rewards: fame and
>>appreciation, for example. And creativity is also fun, a reward in itself.
>>
>>Then most of them left when offered a chance to do the same interesting
>>work for a lot of money.
>>
>>What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than
>>riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will
>>come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in
>>competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the
>>high-paying ones are banned.
In short, as revenge for the dissolution of the MIT AI Lab (Stallman's
personal "Nirvana"), Stallman wished to ensure that the programmers who
dared to seek better rewards for their work by leaving the Lab cannot
attain them. He wishes the same fate for all programmers. He wants
"high-paying" jobs for programmers, regardless of skill level, to be
"banned."
>rather than living off
>license royalties. It's a common socialist mindset that desparages the
>capitalistic things like capital and investment and risk and winners and
>loosers and especially profits.
He does seem to harbor a dislike for capitalism as well, but his
primary goal appears to be revenge. Remember, Stallman fell apart
and had a nervous breakdown as a result of the dissolution of the
AI Lab.
>The other big motivation of the Manifesto is to discourage the
>development of software which people are not allowed to repair and
>enhance and pass along fixes and enhancements, by having the guild of
>copyleftists hoard their software so it can't be used in non-guild
>software.
Ironically, he calls commercial developers "hoarders" when in
fact the FSF has the largest hoard of software in the world.
>Unfortunately, he also decided to punish developers who WILL allow
>repair and enhancement (eg, FreeBSD) but won't join in the punishment of
>others; that is way the GPL has no virus-escape clause for other open
>software, which it easily could do. I don't understand why more people
>don't find this bullying of other open ("free") software developers
>distasteful.
Many do.
>Wrong animal. It's a gnu.
Also known as a "wildebeest." Coincidence?
--Brett
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