Re: Roaring Penguin's view

Am Don, 2002-06-13 um 13.43 schrieb Roger Fujii:

> emacs/xemacs and the tiff over glibc
>    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/19/2039211&mode=thread&tid=117

That's only the dreaded GNU/Linux story ... what does it have to do with
our debate?

> > Vendors like RedHat would stop supporting the FSF, because they nee
> > to be able to run Oracle etc.

> unclear what they would do.  It's only indirectly their problem.   It directly
> affects oracle.

Only if Linux (and GNU:-) was the only platform for Oracle to run on by
that time. That'd mean you have plenty of time before your worst fears
come true.

> Never attribute to an idealog practical behavior.   It hasn't happened
> yet because it has not been advantageous to do so.

You think an ideologist is a person who does something if and only if
it's advantageous for him? Interesting definition. I would have thought
that is rather the definition of a pragmatist (well, an egoist,
actually).

Apart from that, only recently on this list someone told the story of
RMS agreeing to the ghostscript dual-license model for entirely
practical reasons. You are right, the FSF tries hard to push forward
their concept of free software. It is their right to do so, just as it
is yours to promote your own. But the FSF does not do that blindly.
If they see that pushing too hard would harm there goals, they pull
back. I'd call that pragmatic behaviour in pursuing an admittedly
politically and ideologically motivated goal. I am 100% convinced that
everybody at the FSF, including Stallman, knows that GPLling central
libraries of the GNU system that are now LGPL would harm their goal
dramatically by scaring people (and companies) away.

Martin

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