On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 01:49:19PM -0700, Jack J. Woehr wrote:
quoted text
> mcb, inc. wrote:
> >Watching the latest flame war, I can't help thinking that as
> >founders of their respective projects Theo and RMS are trapped
> >in a jail of rigid consistency and absolutism demanded by
> >children and utopians.
> Well, yes and no.
> 
> Theo's absolutism has kept OpenBSD pretty much the last
> blob-free OS in the Free Software world.
> 
> RMS's absolutism has kept alive an ideal that launched
> the mainstream open source movement.

his absolutism also causes people to see BSD as a "problem", a
"social failure".

quoted text
> So it's not non-functional. It's emotionally hard on the
> individuals concerned, and often emotionally hard on
> us who bask in the reflected glow of these geniuses :-).
> But it  all seems to work out in practice. Has for a cuple
> of decades now, give or take a few years.

recently we saw theft of BSD to GPL, and a large part of the
GPL community thinks there's no problem with that, that the
BSD community is being "petty" to make an issue out of it.

and all stallman says about it is basically, "I am not familiar
with the situation, leave me alone."

I would like to see more cooperation between the free software
developers.

but IMO, stallman is the one being far more unfriendly and
uncooperative.  of course stallman is not directly responsible
for the actions of the GPL community.  but his opinions do wield
power.  didn't this whole thread start because of his opinions
and recommendations?

now stallman won't talk to theo, because theo is unabashed in
stating his opinions?  just look at the thread.  between theo
and stallman, who posted the most words, and who gave less
misinformation/slant?

in much fewer words:  the gutless politician attempted to use his
influence to snub and smear his opponent.  when fallacies in his
campaign were brought to light, he accused his opponent of being
unfriendly.

-- 
jakemsr@sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org