michael hast wrote:
> steve szmidt wrote:
>
>> On Monday 27 February 2006 18:49, Paul M Foster wrote:
>>
>>
>>> steve szmidt wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Monday 27 February 2006 15:45, Eben King wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, 27 Feb 2006, steve szmidt wrote:
>>>>>
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> And I don't at all buy into Raymond's view of the software world.
>>>> He's an ideologist who's living in his own imaginary world.
>>>>
>>>
>>> What's Raymond's view of the software world? Or did you mean Stallman?
>>> Stallman's views are far more extreme than Raymond's from what I've
>>> read. I tend to think Linus's view is the most sane.
>>>
>>
>>
>> <Smile> Linus sure sounds like a pretty sane guy!
>>
> I don't know, guys. I've read some of Linus' writings, and I'm not sure
> he is totally balanced. I am a bit of a radical and Linus makes me look
> like vanilla pudding. I don't know about his financial stability, but I
> might want to classify him as a "rich eccentric." And, you know that's
> just a fancy way of saying crazy. He is obviously brilliant, but I
> think he's just a touch coo-coo. Sometimes I think that ingenuity
> breeds insanity--which many people get confused. I know that if
> thoughts could kill, I would like to see him in the ring with Bill, but
> that man is one beer short of a six-pack. That's just my $.02.
>
I have no idea whether Linus is sane or not. I'm just talking about his
view on open source vs closed, and software development. In general, his
decisions on kernel development have been quite good. But he also seems
to take a balanced view of open versus closed source software. We was,
after all, the one who chose Bitkeeper when no open source tool would
suit his needs. (Fortunately, being a talented programmer, he also
created an alternative when Bitkeeper's creator decided to bite the hand
that fed him.) Not sure what makes you think Linus is crazy, but I've
never read anything that gave me that impression.
RMS (Stallman) is at the far end of the spectrum here-- all software
should be free, just based on the ethics of it, and anyone who develops
non-free software is committing a crime and is to one extent or another
evil.
ESR (Raymond) takes a more realistic view of the OSS movement than
Stallman, viewing it in the context of what's actually possible versus
Stallman's ideal-but-never-achievable world. He is radical in other
ways, though.
-- Paul M. Foster ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 18:57:30 EDT