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Yeah, 10 years ago I used to love Richard Stallman and free-as-in-freedom and all that, but over the years it started to dawn on me that free software isn't rea

Yeah, 10 years ago I used to love Richard Stallman and free-as-in-freedom and all that, but over the years it started to dawn on me that free software isn't really the solution to the worlds problems.... Plus, the GNU license does it in a really adversarial way. I actually have started to avoid GNU software in general, so I'm not forced to buy into this copyleft religion if I ever wanna look under the hood. I'll be the first to say Apple does some pretty messed up stuff but avoiding GNU is not one of those things. It's been 40 years. If Richard Stallman was right then we would be in a free software utopia right now.

potamic 4y ago
I don't think you understand the spirit of the GNU license. The idea is to contribute your sources back to the community so that it can be built upon. Ultimately one individual can do only so much, but allowing the community to extend and improve upon derivatives allows us to stand upon each others' shoulders and build higher order software that is otherwise beyond the individual. There is nothing really adversarial about this idea. You should also understand that utopia is an imaginary construct of perfection, and by that definition there will never be a utopia for anything, ever. It's in fact the detractors of the free software movement who claimed that it was utopian, in the sense that it can never be achieved. The fact that GPL is the most widely used license for open source software today means it has easily quelled those claims. I also don't know whether you realize that linux is GPL licensed. If you're set out to avoid linux in this day and age, especially as a programmer, that's quite something indeed.
- deleted 4y ago
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- jhatemyjob 4y ago
  I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux.

potamic 4y ago

I don't think you understand the spirit of the GNU license. The idea is to contribute your sources back to the community so that it can be built upon. Ultimately one individual can do only so much, but allowing the community to extend and improve upon derivatives allows us to stand upon each others' shoulders and build higher order software that is otherwise beyond the individual. There is nothing really adversarial about this idea. You should also understand that utopia is an imaginary construct of perfection, and by that definition there will never be a utopia for anything, ever. It's in fact the detractors of the free software movement who claimed that it was utopian, in the sense that it can never be achieved. The fact that GPL is the most widely used license for open source software today means it has easily quelled those claims. I also don't know whether you realize that linux is GPL licensed. If you're set out to avoid linux in this day and age, especially as a programmer, that's quite something indeed.

deleted 4y ago
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jhatemyjob 4y ago
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux.