On Wed, 2002-05-22 at 16:25, Tom Brinkman wrote: > OTOH you're wrong (ie, 'more important things to do') I'd offer > OpenOffice as opposed to StarOffice, 'nv' vs. 'nvidia' drivers as > examples.
OpenOffice only came into existence because Sun were enlightened enough to release the code of all the parts of star Office that weren't owned by other companies (e.g. Adabas). Thus one of the most impressive (in mainstream, end-user terms) Open Source apps has a closed-source background. It's possible that the NVIDIA drivers could eventually become Open Source, which would be good, because if we compare nv and nvidia, as you recommend, there is a simple difference: in 3D, nvidia works and nv doesn't. > > Unfortunately you're in the mainstream along with most of us. > RS's delivery is often a turn off. I'd say it was half turn-on and half turn-off. The man's enthusiasm and idealism are infectious (I saw him here in Turkey and was impressed) but his dogmatism and bile are off-putting. Stallman is the Bakunin of software. the Same goes for Eric Raymond - he has some good ideas (notably about Lojban and Elvish) and some kooky ones (notably his good ol' gun-totin' pioneer spirit). However, PR disasters aside, perhaps it's good that we have such colourful and disparate personalities in the Open Source / Free Software movement, since then it can strike a chord with different people. We have Stallman, the hairy radical who appeals to the hippy element, Torvalds, the hygienic Scandinavian who goes down well with the technocrats, and Raymond to get us the NRA vote. Sir Robin
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