On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 01:49:19PM -0700, Jack J. Woehr wrote:

quoted text
> mcb, inc. wrote:

> >Watching the latest flame war, I can't help thinking that as

> >founders of their respective projects Theo and RMS are trapped

> >in a jail of rigid consistency and absolutism demanded by

> >children and utopians.

> Well, yes and no.

>

> Theo's absolutism has kept OpenBSD pretty much the last

> blob-free OS in the Free Software world.

>

> RMS's absolutism has kept alive an ideal that launched

> the mainstream open source movement.

his absolutism also causes people to see BSD as a "problem", a

"social failure".
> So it's not non-functional. It's emotionally hard on the

quoted text
> individuals concerned, and often emotionally hard on

> us who bask in the reflected glow of these geniuses :-).

> But it  all seems to work out in practice. Has for a cuple

> of decades now, give or take a few years.

recently we saw theft of BSD to GPL, and a large part of the

GPL community thinks there's no problem with that, that the

BSD community is being "petty" to make an issue out of it.
and all stallman says about it is basically, "I am not familiar

with the situation, leave me alone."
I would like to see more cooperation between the free software

developers.
but IMO, stallman is the one being far more unfriendly and

uncooperative.  of course stallman is not directly responsible

for the actions of the GPL community.  but his opinions do wield

power.  didn't this whole thread start because of his opinions

and recommendations?
now stallman won't talk to theo, because theo is unabashed in

stating his opinions?  just look at the thread.  between theo

and stallman, who posted the most words, and who gave less

misinformation/slant?
in much fewer words:  the gutless politician attempted to use his

influence to snub and smear his opponent.  when fallacies in his

campaign were brought to light, he accused his opponent of being

unfriendly.
--

jakemsr@sdf.lonestar.org

SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org