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Alan Cox wins free software awardAlan Cox wins free software awardPosted Feb 22, 2004 18:39 UTC (Sun) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)Parent article: Alan Cox wins free software award
Alan has been far more of a "free as in freedom" activist than Linus, which I'm sure makes the FSF happy with him, even though he's not the purist that RMS is. He's been particularly active in opposition the the DMCA, going so far as to refuse to visit US soil because of it.
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Alan Cox wins free software award Posted Feb 23, 2004 2:23 UTC (Mon) by gavino (guest, #16214) [Link] Keeping the Linux kernel under the GPL liscence is all the 'activism' that I or anyone else should require of Linus. I prefer the fact that he is a level-headed engineer and not an activist (in the sense of an outspoken controversial radical ala RMS), as that would distract him from his true strengths of project management and software engineering.
Alan Cox wins free software award Posted Feb 23, 2004 20:59 UTC (Mon) by Eudyptes (guest, #15589) [Link] I couldn't agree more. Let RMS do what he's always done - rail againstthe machine and let Linus do what he does best - make kernels. I can understand some of Alan's positions, especially regarding the DMCA. Living in the U.S. the DMCA is more a blight than a protective piece of so called legislature. So having RMS on the socio-political front and having Linus over at OSDN (hacking a better mouse trap as it were) is the way things should stay IMHO.
Alan Cox wins free software award Posted Feb 25, 2004 2:08 UTC (Wed) by steveparker (guest, #19769) [Link] Linus and Alan have both been dedicated to the technical stuff, as has RMS - Alan and RMS focus on the Free aspect, where Linus focuses solely on the "make it work" aspect.It'd be wrong to accuse either Alan or RMS of ignoring the "make it work" aspect - without them, we wouldn't have gcc, and would be unlikely to have Linux 2.4. They also care about the "whole picture" - it doesn't just work, it works and it's free. Linus needs the Alans and Richards of this world - just because he doesn't focus on it himself doesn't belittle the necessity of this work. Without them, Linux would be another *BSD-wannabe. It's symbiotic - Linux would be dead in the water without the GPL (the *BSD's are "good enough"); Alan would have no place to use his skills if Linux (and GNOME, as an aside) weren't GPL. Just because Linus stands on the "does" side and Alan and RMS stand on the "why it does" side doesn't create any kind of divide - both are needed.
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