Richard Stallman Addresses 'Speculation and Rumor' About His Appearance at Microsoft (stallman.org) 116
This week Richard Stallman responded to "a certain amount of speculation and rumor" about his recent talk at Microsoft, addressing dark suggestions that, for example, Microsoft might've hoped to seduce Stallman away from the free software cause. "I resisted Steve Jobs's snow job in 1989 or 1990; I am no easy mark for those who want me to change my views....
"[T]he fact that people make nonfree software is no reason not to show them reasons why software should be free." I don't think Microsoft invited me with a view to seduction, or opposition research, or trickery, or misrepresention. I think some Microsoft executives are seriously interested in the ethical issues surrounding software. They may also be interested in carrying out some of the specific suggestions/requests I presented. I started with a list of actions that would help the free software community, and which I thought Microsoft might be amenable to, before stating the free software philosophy in the usual way. I think there is a chance that Microsoft might change some practices in ways that would help the Free World practically, even if they do not support us overall.
It is only a chance; I would not try to estimate the probability. Microsoft did not give me any promises to change; I did not ask for any.
What I can say now is that we should judge Microsoft's future actions by their nature and their effects. It would be a mistake to judge a given action more harshly if done by Microsoft than we would if some other company did the same thing. I've said this since 1997. That page describes some hostile things that Microsoft famously did. We should not forget them, but we should not maintain a burning grudge over actions that ended years ago. We should judge Microsoft in the future by what it does then.
Another thing I've said for years, about various companies, is that when a company does several different things, it is best to judge each thing on its own, provided they are separable. Actions that benefit freedom are good, and we should say so, while being careful not to let a small good distract us from a large evil.... Time will show us whether Microsoft begins to do substantial activities that we can judge as good. Let's encourage that in all prudent ways.
Stallman's 10 suggestions included urging Microsoft to "help make the web usable with Javascript deactivated" -- and he also called on Microsoft to release the source code of Windows under the GNU general public license.
"I know that is a stretch, but from what I heard there. it isn't totally impossible."
"[T]he fact that people make nonfree software is no reason not to show them reasons why software should be free." I don't think Microsoft invited me with a view to seduction, or opposition research, or trickery, or misrepresention. I think some Microsoft executives are seriously interested in the ethical issues surrounding software. They may also be interested in carrying out some of the specific suggestions/requests I presented. I started with a list of actions that would help the free software community, and which I thought Microsoft might be amenable to, before stating the free software philosophy in the usual way. I think there is a chance that Microsoft might change some practices in ways that would help the Free World practically, even if they do not support us overall.
It is only a chance; I would not try to estimate the probability. Microsoft did not give me any promises to change; I did not ask for any.
What I can say now is that we should judge Microsoft's future actions by their nature and their effects. It would be a mistake to judge a given action more harshly if done by Microsoft than we would if some other company did the same thing. I've said this since 1997. That page describes some hostile things that Microsoft famously did. We should not forget them, but we should not maintain a burning grudge over actions that ended years ago. We should judge Microsoft in the future by what it does then.
Another thing I've said for years, about various companies, is that when a company does several different things, it is best to judge each thing on its own, provided they are separable. Actions that benefit freedom are good, and we should say so, while being careful not to let a small good distract us from a large evil.... Time will show us whether Microsoft begins to do substantial activities that we can judge as good. Let's encourage that in all prudent ways.
Stallman's 10 suggestions included urging Microsoft to "help make the web usable with Javascript deactivated" -- and he also called on Microsoft to release the source code of Windows under the GNU general public license.
"I know that is a stretch, but from what I heard there. it isn't totally impossible."
Whoah (Score:5, Insightful)
"We should not forget them, but we should not maintain a burning grudge over actions that ended years ago."
Wow, I never thought I'd see the day that Richard Stallman would talk about "forgiveness" and "Microsoft" in the same sentence. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!
Re:Whoah (Score:4, Interesting)
And remember my prediction: Someday there will be an official "MS Linux" distribution. Mark my words. And I don't mean the shit currently available through Azure.
Re:Whoah (Score:5, Insightful)
And remember my prediction: Someday there will be an official "MS Linux" distribution.
I thought it was just called Ubuntu
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Ubuntu was taken over by Google while they were making Android.
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Well, with WSL2 there is an actual Linux kernel in Win10 and there's Ubuntu in the Windows App Store, so in a way there's already a very official MS Linux inside Win10.
That's the day I switch to Linux. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is what MS Linux gets you:
Trouble free installation, drivers that work, Direct X, no audio issues.
MS will fix the issues FLOSS couldn't, or wouldn't.
Re:That's the day I switch to Linux. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is what MS Linux gets you:
Trouble free installation, drivers that work, Direct X, no audio issues.
MS will fix the issues FLOSS couldn't, or wouldn't.
I wouldn't be surprised if this proves to be true. Microsoft has a lot of experience in deployment, and although I'm definitely not a fan of Microsoft, I suspect that if they ploughed a few tens of millions in developer time into producing a Linux distro, it'd be pretty seamless. I hate to hear myself say that.
They'd need to port the Office Suite over to Linux or build some kind of tricky-ass translation layer (ala an integrated, built-in Wine or Crossover), but with the money and know-how they have I don't doubt they could do it.
And yes, I hate the idea of MS getting involved in Linux, but I think it's inevitable.
Re:That's the day I switch to Linux. (Score:5, Interesting)
And yes, I hate the idea of MS getting involved in Linux, but I think it's inevitable.
Inevitable? They have been doing it for ages now. Microsoft contributed more code than Canonical to Linux since 2.6.32 [theinquirer.net].
Re: That's the day I switch to Linux. (Score:2)
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Microsoft contributed more code than Canonical to Linux since 2.6.32.
That's all well and good, but as yet there's no official "MS Linux" being distributed. Not yet.
And you sort of proved my point- MS has all the dev teams and money needed to make what would probably be a very nice, very usable distro. I'm only surprised they haven't done it yet. Maybe it's under wraps and in development.
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1. Embrace
2. Extend
3.???
4. Profit!
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They won't use something like Wine. They just have to properly port .NET and they'd have what they want.
Re: That's the day I switch to Linux. (Score:2)
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Office's days are numbered on the client side - that said I think most people are using the online version or Google Docs.
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Office's days are numbered on the client side - that said I think most people are using the online version or Google Docs.
No way. The online version is genuinely miserable and has about 1/10th the features. It's sorely lacking in practically every area and mangles complex documents irreversibly. Ask me how I know.
If you only create or edit simple documents then it'll suffice, but for documents of any size or complexity the online version isn't up to the task.
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I haven't used online Office 365, but I just this last week had to use Google Docs for a fairly major document. And afaict, it's appallingly lacking in terms of even simple features, like captions for images, or cross references to numbered items. I almost used LaTeX for this doc, and I think the next major doc I have to co-edit with someone over the web will be written with an on-line LaTeX editor, like Overleaf or Papeeria. They're not free for what I want to do, but the quality is easily worth it.
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And afaict, it's appallingly lacking in terms of even simple features, like captions for images, or cross references to numbered items.
Exactly.
Google Docs and Office 365 are fine for simple documents, but they're missing soooooooo many features compared to MS Word or Libre Office that there's simply no way to use them for real work.
For a grocery list or "What I did on Summer Vacation" essay, they're fine. But anything beyond that and they're useless. I don't know if the web version of MS Word will ever catch up to the desktop version, but I seriously doubt it.
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Even windows doesn't have trouble free installation, why would Microsoft Linux? Microsoft has never demonstrated that level of competence before.
I've had tons of Windows drivers that didn't work correctly. Granted, most of them were AMD video cards, but some of them were wireless cards. And some were even print drivers.
DirectX is a festering pile, and through most of its history it was even worse. 3dfx set us back grossly when they decided to make GLIDE instead of MiniGL out of the box. Not using a standard
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Trouble free installation? Working drivers? No audio issues?
2000 called, they want their cliches back.
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GNU/Windows ?
The "gwin" in Cygwin (Score:2)
GNU/Windows ?
Indeed. The GNU system has been capable of running on Windows for a long time. Ever heard of Cygwin? It stands for "Cygnus GNU/Windows."
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: Someday there will be an official "MS Linux" distribution
There already is - for network switches.
"Microsoft Sonic" - https://azure.github.io/SONiC/ [github.io]
They power Azure Networking.
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Nobody, absolutely nobody in realistic terms will want to use the M$ Linux distribution because it will be full of proprietary privacy invasive bullshit
Sadly, I suspect there would be a ton of users who would glom onto it. A lot of "joe user" types will see the MS logo and decide to try it.
I wish it wasn't true but I can't deny that I think it's likely to happen.
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I expect he knows the difference. (Score:5, Informative)
28 September 2019 (GNU Project)
I hereby step down as head of the GNU Project, effective immediately.
Richard Stallman
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Where are you getting that from? It doesn't seem to be on his personal site or anywhere else public I can find.
His last public statement on the matter is this:
On September 16 I resigned as president of the Free Software
Foundation, but the GNU Project and the FSF are not the same.
I am still the head of the GNU Project (the Chief GNUisance),
and I intend to continue as such.
Thu, 26 Sep 2019 13:20:25 -0400
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/... [gnu.org]
The GNU website still lists him as the chief: https://www.gnu.org/people/web... [gnu.org]
Stallman did not resign from the GNU Project (Score:2)
The parent post is currently moderated +4 Informative but it refers to something that does not appear to have happened.
Nowhere on Stallman's list of posts for July 2019 through October 2019 [stallman.org] will one find a quote that reads "I hereby step down as head of the GNU Project, effective immediately." as the parent post claims (no wonder it was sourceless with no link to where the quote came from). That appears to be a completely made-up quote—fake news—in the parlance of today. That this could escape s
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I need one of those MFW reactions.
Child in this case was 16 and older
Rapist in this case meant someone who thought they were engaged in consensual sex.
I don't agree with his position, but I can see how it can be honestly held without making the person a pariah.
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Re: He just announced he is leaving the GNU proje (Score:5, Informative)
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No one involved has even alleged that sex happened, rape or otherwise.
??? In the word of RMS:
The reference reports claims that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein's harem. (See https://www.theverge.com/2019/... [theverge.com] .) Let's presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
Or maybe your point is different, that you're casting a very narrow net about what constitutes "involvement"? Maybe your net solely includes Minsky himself and Giuffre? Are you including Benford in that net on the grounds that he witnessed them not having sex? Or maybe you're making the technical point that Giuffre said she was directed to have sex with Minsky, and she had sex with a bunch of people she was directed to, but she wasn't explicitly asked and hence didn't explicitly answe
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There is a lot of misinformation flying about so allow me to clear up some misconceptions.
Firstly, RMS has not resigned from the GNU project, he is still at the head of it. He posted a short email confirming that.
Regarding his comments on Minsky, he stated in his email that he was assuming that they did have a sexual relationship and that his statements were all based on that assumption. There is some doubt as to if Minsky did have sex with her, and let's hope he didn't, but either way it's not really relev
Re: He just announced he is leaving the GNU projec (Score:5, Informative)
According to witness Greg Benford, Minsky was propositioned by a 17-year-old. Minsky turned her down.
The 17-year-old propositioned him at the behest of Epstein. Probably to get blackmail dirt on Minsky.
Re: He just announced he is leaving the GNU proje (Score:1)
Wow, that super reliable witness who is known to have lied to mit, hiding that they were working with Epstein when it was specifically prohibited.
Iâ(TM)m sure that their frequent trips to Epsteinâ(TM)s mansion were purely to discuss fine points of computer science. It must have been a total shocker that Epstein lived with a retinue of child prostitutes. And when an underage prostitute propositioned then, surely they said no, although they didnâ(TM)t really think much of it, I guess, because
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So far nobody has claimed that sexual contact took place. When or if that happens, Minsky can go under the bus for it. There's little motivation to say it occurred if it didn't, because he's dead and there's unlikely to be any reward of any sort. Until then he's not on the hook for this... just for helping cover up Epstein's involvement with MIT.
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This reasoning is almost as sound as that in the Chewbacca defense.
Re: He just announced he is leaving the GNU projec (Score:5, Informative)
Wasn't the point that Stallman made that Minsky *didn't* actually engage in anything. The girl just said Epstein *wanted* her to lure Minsky. So what Stallman actually said is that Minsky is innocent. i.e. he didn't commit the crime that was alleged. Stallman never said it *wasn't* a crime, he said it didn't actually occur.
So no, he didn't support a child rapist.
Additionally, the term might not even legally apply, even if the allegation was true. First, if someone is 16, that *is* the legal age of consent in many English-speaking nations, such as the UK or Australia, and in many states of the USA. The legal age in New York State is 17. If the girl was 17 and in New York and she was told by Epstein to seduce Minsky, then by no legal means was she legally a "child" according to the *relevant* laws, not would it be "rape".
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Wasn't the point that Stallman made that Minsky *didn't* actually engage in anything.
No. Stallman's email says he assumed that Minsky did have sex with her. He argued that he wasn't sexual assault as it did not involve violence and Minsky would have assumed it was consensual.
As has been pointed out, it doesn't really work. Legally sexual assault is usually defined as any non-consensual sexual touching, it doesn't have to involve violence. For example if the victim is incapacitated, or if the perpetrator lies and thereby invalidates the consent. As for Minsky's innocence by naivety argument,
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Free speech was never about the guarantee not to be criticized for your words.
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Wasn't the point that Stallman made that Minsky *didn't* actually engage in anything. The girl just said Epstein *wanted* her to lure Minsky. So what Stallman actually said is that Minsky is innocent. i.e. he didn't commit the crime that was alleged.
You've misunderstood what Stallman said. Here, in his own words:
The reference reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein's harem. Let's presume that was true. (I see no reason to disbelieve it). ...
The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin Minsky. The injustice is in the word "assaulting".
Stallman presumes that Minsky did have sex with the girl, but objects to the use of the word "assault" to describe this.
Re: He just announced he is leaving the GNU proje (Score:5, Interesting)
But Stallman's point was in fact that Minsky didn't actually accept any invitation that might have occurred. If Minsky didn't actually do it, Stallman has a point that the criticism is mis-directed.
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I don't know where this myth came from but allow me to bust it. In his email Stallman wrote:
The reference reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein's harem. (See https://www.theverge.com/2019/... [theverge.com]) Let's presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
Emphasis mine. Source: https://medium.com/@selamie/re... [medium.com]
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Posting factual information is flamebait when it undermines The Narrative.
Looks like Stallman is the new Damore. The lie has been spun, the truth suppressed, the alternative facts laid down.
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No it wasn't, and the people who modded you up are a pack of dumbfucks.
That was benford's point.
Stallman's point was that he didn't think it was wrong to have sex with a seventeen year old if she was "presented as willing" which is totally fucking wrong. Maybe if she presented HERSELF that way one could claim to be acting morally if not legally, but that wasn't the claim
Stallman's claim was not only false, it was irrelevant, and also antagonizing. Read: fucking stupid.
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Well, Stallman does currently need a job. . .
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Microsoft already has a warehouse of old, formerly notable, and now mostly useless computer scientists i.e. Microsoft Research.
So Stallman would fit right in.
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Re: Whoah (Score:1)
Considering Stallman probably feels he needs a bit of forgiveness right now, Microsoft has the best chance of receiving it from him too.
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Re: Whoah (Score:1)
When no one else wants to hire you, and you realise bills need to be paid.... anything can happen.
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RedHat 2019 (owned by IBM) acts more like Microsfot 90s than Microsoft.
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RedHat 2019 (owned by IBM) acts more like Microsfot 90s than Microsoft.
It's a good thing they don't have anything like a monopoly. They don't even have a monopoly on their own software, or service on same. Then they would really be scary. As a nodule of IBM they are even less frightening, because IBM has a long history of buying companies and ruining everything good about them until none of the original principals want to work there any more. Hopefully ol' Lenny will fit right in, and remain with Big Blue forever and ever, becoming less and less relevant over time.
Priceless (Score:3)
"he also called on Microsoft to release the source code of Windows under the GNU general public license."
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Nice to see the old guys haven't changed.
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Frankly, with most of the .NET libraries released as open source (though with MIT license, not GPL) and the changes in MS in general - this just doesn't sound as crazy as it would have 15 years ago.
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Why not?
It wouldn't stop them selling Windows. Most of their customers are OEMs and enterprises who will keep paying for it rather than use some 3rd party distro.
Religion (Score:2, Insightful)
Stallman loves open source. He was one of the key arguers in favor of Linux. But Microsoft is of another religion when it comes to source control. They believe in closed source and APIs. PHP is free, Visual Studio is expensive.
Really, changing either side's views is impossible. They're never going to release Windows source code, and Linux is always going to be free. Bill Gates became so rich he hardly ever works anymore, and Linus profited from Red Hat so he's living off that wealth after almost being bankr
Re:Religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Visual Studio is expensive.
Actually the community editions of VS Studio are free. I have 2019 and 2017 installed on 3 different machines at the moment. And VS Code is free and runs on pretty well everything.
It's only when you want to do some corporation like things do you need to pay - but even with the community versions I use I can check code into and out of external Git repositories directly from VS
Also if you are setting a person up in a corporate office and supplying them with a decent Dev machine and providing all the back end stuff to support it, then the cost of a VS license for a non-community versions is trivial compared to what that person is already costing the business in general.
Now you could talk about the TCO of running windows, but that is a different thing.
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And to add to your point, Visual Studio is not the only way to write software for Windows, and several of the alternatives are free — and cross-platform. And Microsoft has never done anything to prevent other people from developing software for their platforms, or even whole runtimes. Anything that gets your software on their platform has always been a win to them. (With some caveats around the Xbox.)
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VS Code, C++ stdlib, C++ REST SDK, .NET, Azure SDK... and I'm sure many more things that I'm not aware of, are legit Open Source projects now. You can go discuss a feature on Github [github.com] right now and be on equal footing with the Microsoft employees.
I don't know if Office or Windows will ever end up Open Source, but devdiv really appears to see the light.
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Visual Studio Community is free. VIsual Studio Code is free (and open source).. I use VS Community to sync to the new Microsoft Terminal code, .NET Core code, PowerShell Core code, and PowerToys code on GitHub. I have build those, examined the code and made defect reports. I have yet to make a pull request, but that is an available option.
What was your point again regarding Microsoft, closed source, closed APIs, and expensive software?
Re:Religion (Score:5, Insightful)
If open source can help Microsoft lock users in to their ecosystems, they will use it. That's the problem, though. They found a way to use open source for the exact opposite reasons that most people support open source. That's why a lot of their open source stuff tends to be developer oriented.
Meanwhile, they still want every corporation in the world to subscribe to Office 365 and use Azure.
Microsoft using open source is like the Borg uses people. Sure, the end result is largely human, but it's been corrupted to the point where that doesn't really matter. I don't know why that analogy came to mind. How random.
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>"If open source can help Microsoft lock users in to their ecosystems, they will use it. That's the problem, though. They found a way to use open source for the exact opposite reasons that most people support open source."
A lot like Google with Chromium. It might be open-source, but in name only. It doesn't fit the "spirit" of open-source projects at all. Nobody controls it but Google. Nobody really contributes to it but Google. It can't really be significantly forked (or forked in ways that MATTER)
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I think that LineageOS (android replacement) has decoupled everything from google and is using open alternatives. I recall just seeing a headline recently regarding it, possibly a new release with all the decoupled goodies.
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There's a new major release of LineageOS following every major release of Android. I'm waiting for Android 10 before I switch.
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Sure, the end result is largely human, but it's been corrupted to the point where that doesn't really matter. I don't know why that analogy came to mind.
because it's quite accurate. "Open Source", the path of least resistance, is the Federation "falling back" as the Borg take and take and take. "Software Libre" says "no, the line is drawn HERE. no further". https://youtu.be/s3RNsZvdYZQ?t... [youtu.be]
Re:Religion (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft has done a lot of things as of late when it comes to openness. Visual Studio 2019 (the latest version) is 100% free for individuals, educational use, academic research or the development of open source software. And its free for up to 5 people in any organization that has 250 computers and US$1M in annual revenue.
And they have released a LOT of open source code in the more recent past including the .NET runtime and core libraries, C# and VB.NET compilers and a whole bunch more. Their most recent open source release is the source code to their C++ standard library implementation.
Oh and not only have they contributed code to the Linux kernel but they are actually shipping a complete Linux kernel (and publishing the matching source code) as part of the new version of the Windows Subsystem for Linux.
Microsoft may never release the complete source code to Windows as open source. But its clear they no longer see free software and the GPL as a threat that must be eliminated or an enemy to be defeated.
Microsoft has even joined with other tech and software entities in urging the courts to find in favor of Google over Oracle in the whole "Java API copyright" fight.
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Re: Religion (Score:1)
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...and lest we forget, he eats his own toe skin on camera.
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Sure I have ... but I still don’t care. You can stuff emacs (long live vi). He’s like a rabid dog foaming at the mouth. Not quite as bad as Bernstein but still the ahole-quotient is high with this one. You can keep him.
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(And PS - his compiler work? K&R’s worked just fine.)
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I'm not buying the premise (Score:5, Insightful)
"There are those who think that Microsoft invited me to speak in the hope of seducing me away from the free software cause."
I'm reasonably confident there's not a person alive who thinks this. Perhaps RMS really does think they exist; but, more likely, he just set up this straw man as an excuse for the post.
The list (Score:1)
2. PRISM showed the thinking on "no back doors"
3. A new Copyleft policy in 2020 for education?
4. Application and library code? A new effort into low cost MS educational single-board computers?
5. Re "clear use of licenses" that would be for the person who put hours/days/years into their own project/code to select.
6. Copyright on interfaces would be something MS could talk about.
7. Web usable with Javascript deactivated would stop ads and track
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yup, a complete turnaround from what open source meant at heart.
wat [archive.org]
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That's not the war Free Software is fighting.
As such, it's premature to declare victory for closed source.
It doesn't actually matter whether what you're getting back from big corporations is useful to you. The GPL is there to make it useful to the people actually running the code.
However, big corporations have contributed millions of lines of open source code (some of which is Free) which is directly useful to the masses, like most of the Linux kernel, OpenOffice, AOSP, all the frameworks the majority of th
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"I've been in IT for over 20 years and the trend is crystal clear. We are moving away from desktop computing to centralized cloud-based computing. "
If you've been in IT for twenty years until now then i got involved at least five years before you did and I've seen trends come and go. We used to use minicomputers and terminals. Then everyone got their own PC. Now they're using PCs as terminals. Things are moving towards the cloud, sure. But as businesses realize that this represents a loss of control, they w
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" I'm not dumb enough to buy stuff that won't work without an internet connection. That this choice remains viable disproves your argument.": Reading your post, something occurred to me: as a programmer, there's no way I could be as productive as I am without the web as a reference source. Every day that I program, whether it's in Python or LaTeX or JSON or XML or XSLT (sorry for the swear word...) or anything else, I'm using the web for the documentation, for work-arounds, for bug checking, to download n
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Oh no, trust me, I'm crippled in many ways without internet access. I depend on it for a great deal of reference information. However, I have gone out of my way to collect the really important stuff offline. I have redundant copies of most of it, eventually it all gets mirrored. So I can still function when there's no internet access, albeit not optimally.
I depend on internet access for communications because of my physical location. But I'm still pretty functional even without communications. I can make po
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And it's no surprise that the major cloud companies are actively rewriting software from scratch with a more closed-source friendly BSD-like licence so that they don't have to adhere to the terms of the GPL.
It's people who have a simplistic idealistic version of freedom and spreading FUD about the GPL that is allowing these cloud companies to leech off open source developers.
Creates GPL, FSF, GNU, and is now homeless (Score:2)
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I thought he was always homeless.
Really, Microsoft wants to be ethical? LOL (Score:1)