4 ms·
Unrelated but, I'm curious: how does RMS pay the bills? The FSF board seat is a volunteer position and he no longer works for MIT. Is he paid as a consultant
by Zelphyr 6y ago
Unrelated but, I'm curious: how does RMS pay the bills? The FSF board seat is a volunteer position and he no longer works for MIT. Is he paid as a consultant or something?
- tjr 6y agoHe has both earned (as a software consultant) and been awarded fairly large sums of money in the past, and has purposefully lived inexpensively. Not sure if he presently has any income or not. As far as I know, neither the FSF nor MIT paid him since the early 1980's.
- javagram 6y agoHe has given paid talks for the last decade or two I believe. Considering he was sleeping on a mattress in a MIT office, hopefully he saved a good portion of that in a bank account. He will also be eligible for social security and Medicare at his age, assuming he had enough working years in the social security system to qualify.
- amelius 6y agoIt's kind of sad given that probably all the FAANG companies wouldn't exist (yet) if it wasn't for his work.
- madpata 6y agoYou make it sound like only RMS' contributions were significant for our current state of software. There are a lot of people with significant contributions without which the world wouldn't be in its current state.
- amelius 6y agoYes, but RMS seems to be at the root of it all. For example, Linux depends on gcc and binutils and other GNU software, and many other software does.
- okprod 6y agoHe won that MacArthur award that came with money. He also owns a home in Cambridge that he rents out. Maybe social security as well.