Daniel Lyons (Forbes) vendetta against Richard Stallman
I just read this article in Frobes.com, the article intentionally tries to portray Richard Stallman and te FSF, in a negative light. This became clear to me in the first few paragraphs when the author refers to Stallman and the FSF as "He and a band of anarchist acolytes". At another point it says:
"He hasn't hacked much new code in a decade or more. Instead he travels the world to give speeches and pull publicity stunts, donning robes and a halo to appear as a character he calls "St. IGNUcius" and offer blessings to his followers."
The article not only features rancorous diatribe against the FSF and Stallman, but its ridden with factual inaccuracies, showing the authors limited knowledge about F/OSS.
The article primarily attacks GPL v3, at one point the author says:
"At worst it(GPL3) could split the Linux movement in two--one set of suppliers and customers deploying an older Linux version under the easier rules and a second world using a newer version governed by the new restrictions. That would threaten billions of dollars in Linux investment by customers and vendors alike."
First of all, as any open source guy would know. GPL v3 is just a license, and it is upto the developers to use it or not, even if the FSF rolls out the GPL v3 today, its not compulsory on anyone to use it. The Linux kernel developers have clearly said that they are against the GPL3. So I dont understand how it could be that the older kernel uses gpl v2 and the newer one gpl v3?? The Kernel is going to remain under v2 for some time to come, as many kernel developers are employed by companies such as IBM and Redhat, and if they have reservations about GPL v3, the kernel will not adopt it.
And at another point in the article:
"Stallman and his allies hacked away for nearly a decade but couldn't get GNU to work. In 1991 Torvalds, then an unknown college kid in Finland, produced in six months what Stallman's team had failed to build in years--a working "kernel" for an operating system."
The above quote tries to show that Stallman and his "henchmen" were poor hackers, and tried years and couldn't get GNU to work!! A college kid from finland achieved it within 6 months! First of all this is pure Bullshit!! True the GNU didnt produce a working kernel when Linus Torvalds came with one, but the kernel was not the only focus of the GNU project, they were working on many things over all the years, like Compilers (GCC, which is one of the finest compiles around), Debuggers (GDB, another fine tool), Emacs etc.. The GNU project created a plethora of tools which mimicked Unix, and the relevant development tools, which actually launched the Open Source movement, as nearly all F/OSS software uses the GNU's development tools.
Yet at another point the article states:
"In recent years Stallman and the FSF have been cracking down on big Linux users, enforcing terms of the existing license (GPLv2, for version 2) and demanding that the big tech outfits crack open their proprietary code whenever they inserted lines from Linux. Cisco and TiVo have been targets; Cisco caved in to Stallman's demands rather than endure months of abuse from his noisy worldwide cult of online jihadists."
This quote refers to the GPL violations some companies have done from time to time. Where GPL'ed code, which was produced collaboratively by programmers around the World, was unethically ripped by companies and included into proprietary products from which the community didnt benefit. What Stallman and his "worldwide cult of online jihadists" did was right as the companies in question were not "Big Linux Users" as claimed in the article, but "Big Linux Exploiters". Who exploited open source code for their selfish benefits.
I dont think I need to state any more quotes from the article to prove that the articles sole purpose was to denigrate Richard Stallman, and the FSF, and mostly is not based on factual arguments to prove that GPL3 indeed does pose a threat to the Open Source revolution. It's just sad to see that Forbes, a major publication has a anti-FOSS troll in their payroll!