I attended an RMS presentation at Macquarie Uni a while back.
I found he was somewhat inconsistent on one issue.
To the issue of keeping true to your core values (eg. the ideals of FS)
while making a decent living and getting on with the rest of it, he
advised:
- stay away from financial addictions eg. credit, cars, houses, big things
on credit .. the things you lived happily without until you got a job
and money in your pocket ... which is cool.
- earn a living from a job that doesnt compromise on your values. In
his early days, he was prepared to be a waiter or anything else
people would pay him for, if he couldnt write free (as in freedom) code
... which is noble.
- and if after paying for the cost of living, you had money to spare,
he advised 'put it into managed funds' as he did ... which I suppose
got invested in Microsoft and the rest of the big corporates. Anyway
the stockmarket did well for RMS and although he didnt set out for
big bags of money he got them and is financially
comfortable/liberated. He used this to demonstrate a non-compromise
lifestyle neednt be one ending in poverty/financial ruin. Now unless
he made sure his investments went to ethical causes, I'd argue he
could have indirectly profitted from the evil exploitative
corporates that rub against the FSF cause.
Anyway, _glory_ to the guy for all he's done. I think there's a
decreasing turnout for the RMS talks coz they're all the same judging
from what others have told me.
Van (x5545)
On Wed, 3 May 2000, Rachel Polanskis wrote:
> On Wed, 3 May 2000, Ben Donohue wrote:
>
> > RMS' opinion about free software... good
> > RMS' opinion about other topics... maybe not.
> >
> > he's not an expert on everything and nor am i.
>
> RMS is just your typical eccentric.
> Without him and other like him, we would have a much more conservative
> and downright sad view of the world.
>
> BTW I regard with favour RMS' opinions on tabbouleh.
>
>
> rachel
>
> Rachel Polanskis University of Western Sydney, Nepean
> Senior UNIX Admin PO Box 10, Kingswood NSW 2747
> Systems && Operations Information Technology Services, Kingswood
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: +61 (0247) 360 291
>
> --
> SLUG - Sydney Linux Users Group Mailing List - http://www.slug.org.au
> To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
> unsubscribe in the text
>
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux Users Group Mailing List - http://www.slug.org.au
To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
unsubscribe in the text
