A Fan of Freedom: Thoughts on the Biography of RMS

masinick

In the Linux Humor section, we read about Eric Raymond and his entertaining humor with Master Foo. Eric Raymond has been known for many other works. He was deeply involved with the GNU project at one time, and he, along with a few other notable names - Bruce Perens also comes to mind, formulated the notion of "Open Source", much to the chagrin of Richard M. Stallman.

In spite of that, Eric S. Raymond, esr, and Richard M. Stallman go WAY back, and as described by esr, remain friends in spite of their conflicts and disagreements.

I have read Free as in Freedom, a very entertaining book, and I have read bits and pieces of the Cathedral and the Bazaar by esr. I had not previously read this review, which sheds new light on both Raymond and Stallman, two of the most influential men in software.

Read about it over at catb.org, esr's site for his writings.

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Brian Masinick
Distros: SimplyMEPIS
sidux - no CAPS!, antiX, Debian

JP · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2024 10:46 pm Post subject:

Very interesting ...... I had to bookmark it so I can read it again later .... Wink

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masinick · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2024 11:18 pm Post subject: more comments on the review

The book, Free As In Freedom is a very good book, but it does have all of the rms biases in it, as esr indicated. I think that esr is more pragmatic. He touches on some very good reasons why Richard is the way that he is - and even why he, Eric Raymond, is the way that he is. Stallman is a genius, but he is also an idealist and very much stuck on his moral objectives (which, by the way, have NOTHING at all to do with the usual kind of moral values that we would be thinking about).

Stallman did some great things. Raymond brings him back down to earth in a slightly different manner than was originally given in the book. Good read when you have the time to digest it. Whether what Raymond says is 100% accurate or merely HIS perception remains to be seen, but i think that the combination of the book and Raymond's review of it give you a better picture of the highly unusual personalities and natures of both of these guys, both of whom have far better than average intelligence and have contributed much to many of their efforts.

_________________
Brian Masinick
Distros: SimplyMEPIS
sidux - no CAPS!, antiX, Debian

JP · Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2024 4:41 am Post subject:

I almost bought "Cathedral and the Bazaar" once, just to have it for reading material, but I passed it up for a "Linux Bible" that was much more expensive, had a great DVD in the back cover. The dogs ate the back cover, but fortunately, I had the DVD's on top of one of my boxes. Unfortunately, none of the distributions on the DVD's were Mepis Sad

Is Mepis upgradable now, or do you still have to download the latest & greatest? (NOTE: The last simplyMepis I successfully downloaded was 2.something I think Wink

)

EDIT: I just went to O'reilleys Openbook page Clik Wink

and it seems that both "The Cathedral and The Bazaar" and "Free as in Freedom" are available for a free download ..... looks like I've got no excuse now ...... Rolling Eyes

EDIT #2: Forget those questions about Mepis ..... I see they charge $18 bucks for downloads now

masinick · Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2024 9:04 am Post subject: Free mirror site downloads

You can download SimplyMEPIS at any of the download sites in my signature. See the free mirror sites.

_________________
Brian Masinick
Distros: SimplyMEPIS
sidux - no CAPS!, antiX, Debian

JP · Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2024 2:34 pm Post subject: Re: Free mirror site downloads

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