When I was 19, I heard this line from a friend of mine at college: "You know, when I was 18, I thought my father was pretty dumb. After a while, when I got to

When I was 19, I heard this line from a friend of mine at college: "You know, when I was 18, I thought my father was pretty dumb. After a while, when I got to be 21, I was amazed to find out how much he’d learned in three years." (Aside, the original author is hard to pin down - consider [1] - but the delight, of course, is that it's such a timeless observation that rewards the listener who can simply survive long enough to appreciate it.) I first met rms on a rare visit of his to Sydney AU back in the early 1990's, I saw him again at a talk in London in 2011, and then at FOSDEM in 2013. His position really hasn't changed much in that time - some people suggest this is a weakness, but perhaps it's indicative of his prescience in understanding what the long term concerns (threats?) for IT were going to be. That people are increasingly siding, or at least empathising, with his message is actually pretty encouraging, even if you ignore the likely outcomes. [1] http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/10/10/twain-father/ http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/10/10/twain-father/