
Open Source 'Needs To Ignore' Stallman, says GNU Maintainer - amazedsaint
http://news.efytimes.com/e1/97274/Open-Source-Needs-To-Ignore-Stallman-says-GNU-Maintainer
======
silentmars
Hilariously written article. Here are some of the most wonderful snippets:

"this is possibly one of the biggest war that as been witnessed ... Paolo
Bonzin, who has maintained the Free Software Foundation's GNU grep and GNU
sed, has quit from his role." This is just the warmup. It's the beginning of
the article, and has a few funny typos to get your juices flowing. My favorite
part, is there's just something about the idea of "the biggest war witnessed"
being kicked off by these unassuming command line regex utilities that gave me
a little thrill.

Two paragraphs later, the article starts the real hit parade. "Bonzini put it
bluntly saying, 'To put it somewhat bluntly, ...'" In my writing, I've
sometimes found it difficult to properly introduce a quote. I never realized
that I could simply repeat the quoted person verbatim. This is a brilliant
technique.

Next paragraph, the brilliance continues: "it would be impossible to convince
a diverse group such as the group of GNU maintainers to agree on coding
standards for C. He wrote in his post, 'It is likely not possible to convince
a diverse group such as the group of GNU maintainers to agree on coding
standards for C++, for example...'"

The author was so enamored with this technique that he repeated it at the end
of the very same quote. "'all Stallman had to offer on the topic was "We still
prefer C to C++, because C++ is so ugly" (sic). As a result of this, the GNU
coding standards have not seen any update in years and are entirely obsolete.”
Bonzini blamed that it was Stallman's attitude because of which GNU coding
standards have not been updated in years and were entirely obsolete."

I also love the last line of the article. "Well, if the trend continues, it
can be a trouble for Stallman and his FSF ..." It rather puts me in mind of a
young child, having spoken at unaccustomed length and exhausted their
material, who shrugs and ends with, "well, they were in big trouble."

This article was a great Christmas present. Thanks, Hacker News!

~~~
codex
Most likely English is not the author's first language. While they do not
contribute much beyond the quotes, at least the article had a modicum of
information and was not a complete waste of time. I'm afraid I can't say as
much for your comment.

------
_delirium
Previous discussion, based on the original post from the maintainer (which
this article doesn't really add anything to):
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4956899>

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69_years_and
All too often I have been amazed by RMS's foresight, I would say ignore him at
ones peril, but by all means temper his advice.

~~~
stephenr
Seriously, anyone who claims mobile phones are the work of the devil, and
should not be trusted, but will then use someone else's whenever its
convenient, is a hypocrite not a visionary.

~~~
69_years_and
Sorry, my initial comment was about RMS and 'freedom in computing'. The
article(s) are more about his ability to lead a team, and in that they may
indeed be valid (and at first glance do seem to be). As to the cellular
phones, sure they have been empowering to almost everyone in the world (and I
esp. think of 3rd world countries), but I think we have yet to see the end
game. Hypocrite, maybe, practical yes.

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threepointone
google cached version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3kLx8iX...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3kLx8iXgTHYJ:news.efytimes.com/e1/97274/Open-
Source-Needs-To-Ignore-Stallman-says-GNU-Maintainer+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)

------
dsl
I have been saying this for a while. Fanatics are bad news, regardless of how
noble the cause.

~~~
pekk
I'm not sure that it makes sense to compare RMS to (say) suicide bombers. Not
all "fanaticism" is equivalent.

~~~
peteforde
I'm pretty sure that you can be a fanatic without being a suicide bomber, and
that he didn't imply "RMS is like a suicide bomber".

I am prepared to acknowledge that he might well be right in his positions on
freedom, but he comes across as a lunatic in most of his talks. I have a
problem with this; if what he's saying is important, could we not advance a
more charismatic, tactful and effective ambassador?

~~~
Executor
Or get rid of your expectations on what an ideal leader is?

Either way we already have a community of people sharing similar values of
open source - I don't think we need a hierarchical leader/follower structure.

------
wpnx
Link returns 404 :(

~~~
jhales
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:news.ef...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:news.efytimes.com/e1/97274/Open-
Source-Needs-To-Ignore-Stallman-says-GNU-Maintainer)

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machosx
404.

~~~
micro-ram
<http://www.efytimes.com/e1/fullnews.asp?edid=97274>

------
Deprogrammer9
Yeah, thats not going to happen. HAHA!

