[NTLUG:Discuss] RMS's Speach

[kbrannen@gte.net]

I did not get to hear RMS, not only was I busy, but he's a bit extreme for
me.  I have considered the possibility that he's purposefully extreme, knowing
he'll never get all of what he wants, but hoping to get half, with which he'll
be satisfied.  Probably untrue, but I have wondered about that. :-)

Christopher Browne wrote:
> 
...
> Is there a bit of "historical revisionism" happening concerning Motif?
> 
> In more or less the same breath, he was very critical of both Motif
> and of "not-free-Qt."  I don't remember him being so critical of Motif
> in the past; there used to be the "apologia" that it was considered
> acceptable to "use system libraries that come with the system," which
> KDE proponents used as an excuse for saying that everything was OK.
> --

He's been quite critical of Motif in the past, though I'm not sure how public
it was.  About 5 years ago when I was much more active with Motif, he sent me
email trying to convince me to not promote Motif or do work that used it, IIRC
(I used to actively participate in comp.windows.x.motif and he saw my posts
there--was I spammed by RMS? :-).  After several exchanges of trying very hard
to convince me, he finally gave up.

For the record, I have no problem with commercial software.  I think it has a
place, a small one, but it's not inheritantly evil.  My biggest gripe with
commercial software is that many companies price it only for businesses,
putting it out of the range of individuals.  There is a similarity with
books.  I always buy paperback books (for pleasure reading) instead of
hardbacks; same sort of reasoning (not to mention that what I'd pay for 1
hardback would buy 3-4 paperbacks).

Kevin