Messages in this thread | | | From | "Dimitrie O. Paun" <> | Subject | Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently" | Date | Thu, 9 Jan 2003 01:44:35 -0500 |
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On January 9, 2003 02:28 am, Richard Stallman wrote: > These discussions will never convince those people, but they do win > support from others who read both sides and find that we have right on > our side. So we have something to gain.
I have not touched upon the principle side of things on purpose: what I'm trying to say is that it does not matter how's right or wrong.
Yes, you can say your campain gains people on the GNU/Linux side, and you are correct -- it would in any case, it's just the law of large numbers. You can view that as a gain, and I don't dispute that, but that gain comes at a huge price: you greatly erode your credibility and stature within the community. You can use your influence within the community in ways that would server the FSF a _lot_ more effectively.
Yes, you will say, but we are _right_. Well, you might be. But the world is not a fair place, and sometimes you have to accept that. There is unfairness all over the place: you take credit for other people's work by putting under the GNU umbrella a lot of stuff you did not write. That's unfair. Is it fair that Alexandre Julliard, the Wine (http://www.winehq.org) project leader is listed in a list together with 200+ other developers that contributed a tiny fraction of what Alexandre did? No, it's not. There are endless examples of these in the free software world. Once can not simply state the names and importance (and _how_ would you gauge *that*?) of every single contributor when you refer to the system.
And because people like a simple mnemonic, they chose one: Linux. You would have liked they pick the acronym you invented, but they didn't. People have chosen. It's a tiny detail in the grand scheme of things, let's be all happy that a catchy acronym was invented and addopted, and move on!
-- Dimi.
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