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I recently watched the documentary called "Revolution OS" and became disenchanted with the guy as a personality.

(The movie is available on the NetFlix WatchNow service...ironically only if you run windows+IE+MediaPlayer.)



It's also available on Google Video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7707585592627775409

or as avi: http://vp.video.google.com/videodownload?version=0&secur...

It's funny, but I thought Stallman was portrayed very well in that movie. I found final scene in which he describes what "the whole GNU project" is in one sentence especially touching - it's my favorite in the film.


The scene I found most amusing was during Stallman's acceptance speech of an award at LinuxWorld when Linus Torvald's kids were running around on stage distracting everyone. Stallman then goes into his usual diatribe about how Linux should always be refered to as "GNU/Linux". Cut to scene of LinuxWorld show floor, with no "GNU" in sight.

Very symbolic and representative of the GNU and Linux relationship.

(starts at 1:11:45)


Sometimes I wish Linux distributions would totally dump GNU and use newlib or something. I suspect the only thing that has kept GNU in the distros for so long is GCC.


You can always use BSD if you want a non-GNU userland.


That wasn't the point. I like the GNU userland. I just get tired of hearing RMS bitch about the fact that everyone calls Linux kernel+userland distributions "Linux" instead of "GNU/Linux". That ship has sailed; it's time to let it go.


Yeah, the GNU/Linux naming issue is one thing I never understood. It seems very petty to me, arguing over credit. I wish his attitude were "The good is done, great! Let's do more." :)

But maybe that's because I've never worked on anything as hard as Stallman did on GNU. Still, it seems impolite.


RMS doesn't seem to really care that much about credit, per se. Certainly, he believes it right and proper that GNU receive credit for what GNU is and has done. But more importantly, if GNU is not part of the name of the system, then users will be prone to forget about GNU, and in so doing forget about (or never even become aware of) the issues pertaining to software freedom.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/linux-gnu-freedom.html




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