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If rms or someone like him had never been born and the free software movement had never been started, with what would you have written your "equivalent software
by donaq 17y ago
If rms or someone like him had never been born and the free software movement had never been started, with what would you have written your "equivalent software"? Borland C++?
- axod 17y agoWhat he did was impressive, but anyone could have done the same. I don't think the field of writing software has many true geniuses really. We're all just cranking out code. Coming up with new algorithms is impressive, but churning out code is less so IMHO.
- donaq 17y agoI don't think just anyone could have done the same, but supposing for the sake of argument that it's true, I think not many people would have done the same, which is what compels me to respect rms in the same way as I would respect William Wallace as portrayed in the movie Braveheart. Sacrificing your life for the freedom of others takes no great feat of intellect or even physical skill, but in some ways, I think being willing to do such a thing deserves more respect than, say, proving P=NP.
- axod 17y ago>> "Sacrificing your life for the freedom of others" Are we still talking about the guy who wrote some software and made it open source? Do you not think Linus would have just made his own compiler+toolchain?