Freedom, Innovation, and Convenience: The RMS Interview (O'ReillyNet) [LWN.net]

Freedom, Innovation, and Convenience: The RMS Interview (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Dec 23, 2004 6:16 UTC (Thu) by set (guest, #4788)
In reply to: Freedom, Innovation, and Convenience: The RMS Interview (O'ReillyNet) by lm
Parent article: Freedom, Innovation, and Convenience: The RMS Interview (O'ReillyNet)

Well, you might owe RMS a big thankyou for the *existance* of linux,as
it surely would have been a lot harder to get it off the ground without
GNU and the GPL... (as contrasted to the inability to easily customize
and contribute to minix.)
As far as the house analogy goes, speaking as the owner of a few and
the denizen of several privately owned houses, it is my experience that
people *do* do whatever they want to them;) But the misdirection of
building codes aside, I appreciate the analogy as I modify my house to
suit my needs extensively, and although I tend to do all my own work,
I also appreciate that there are many contracters I can get bids from
to do almost anything I can imagine.

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Freedom, Innovation, and Convenience: The RMS Interview (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Dec 23, 2004 8:13 UTC (Thu) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link]

I think the thing that a lot of the fundamentalist OSS types fail to realize is that OSS will live or die in any particular sector of the software market on its own merits. Trying to verbally club to death those of us who are less conservative or even god forbid agnostic on this topic is at best pointless and at worst counter productive.

Microsoft fears OSS, and with good reason. Bill Gates is rapidly being passed by Linus Torvalds as the single most influential person in the software industry. Linux continues to make gains in the server market and is poised to gain significant market share in the desktop area over the next few years.

Relax, enjoy the success, and let nature take its course. Where OSS makes sense it will thrive. Where it doesn't it will not. And the world will be in no way worse off because of this.