3 ms·
"This "pain" that Stallman says he has endured makes his decision to champion tirelessly freedom and free software for all these decades all the more remarkable
by j_baker 17y ago
"This "pain" that Stallman says he has endured makes his decision to champion tirelessly freedom and free software for all these decades all the more remarkable."
Alright, I realize this might be a bad statement to make on this subject... but seriously? He's a free software advocate. It's not like he's Ghandi going on a hunger strike or Martin Luther King Jr going to jail over his beliefs.
- astrec 17y agoStallman agrees with you: "I hesitate to exaggerate the importance of this little puddle of freedom," he says. "Because the more well known and conventional areas of working for freedom and a better society are tremendously important. I wouldn't say that free software is as important as they are. It's the responsibility I undertook, because it dropped in my lap and I saw a way I could do something about it. But, for example, to end police brutality, to end the war on drugs, to end the kinds of racism we still have, to help everyone have a comfortable life, to protect the rights of people who do abortions, to protect us from theocracy, these are tremendously important issues, far more important than what I do. I just wish I knew how to do something about them." - Free As In Freedom by Sam Williams (p66 or p73 depending on version).
- apotheon 17y agoI think the importance of freedom as it applies to software is often underrated. The idea of freedom in software use and development is really a near-perfect model in microcosm of intellectual freedom as a whole, and there's little that can compare with that for importance. I also think the importance of Stallman as applied to freedom of use and development of software is often overstated, though.