• dan@upvote.au
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Stallman is the reason open source software (as we know it today) even exists.

          • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Sure. Okay. No argument.

            Stallman is also his own worst enemy. Feet-picking aside, coat-tailing Linux with this whiny “but ack-shually, gnu is a big part of it so we want equal billing” is just weak and arrogant and has been for decades.

            … and if stallman can’t see that without Linux he’d be just a hippie with other issues, he begs for the same trivialization of his own role.

            Call it Torvalds/tridgell/baumel/Bourne/Ritchie/Linux before GNU/Linux or gtfo. And if we call it gnu/Linux, we should say chisel/David or Mussolini/UN because, like GNU, they were in the right place at the right time to have a completely fungible sidecar role in what actually happened to catalyze actual work.

            Stallman made emacs. Cool. I use it daily. GNU is great but not vital. Without Edison, we’d have a Marconi somewhere.

            • Captain Beyond@linkage.ds8.zone
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              I’d argue that Stallman’s principal contribution to the world of technology was the GNU GPL and copyleft in general. Without that, neither Linux the kernel nor “Linux” the operating system would have taken off.