4 ms·
IMO, Stallman should be nominated too.
by gtt 17y ago
IMO, Stallman should be nominated too.
- jff 17y agoYou're right--Gore started the job of devaluing the prizes, now we just have to give one to Stallman and nobody will ever care about the Nobel Prize again.
- omouse 17y agoWithout RMS there might not be a GPL nor Linux licensed under the GPL. There would probably be no open source movement either because it relies on free software. So you can stop with the insults now.
- holdenk 17y agoThe thing is there are a lot of GPL-like licenses. Linux might have ended up under a BSD-style license rather than a GPL license. While things certainly would have been different, I'm not convinced they would have been worse. The assertion that there would be no open source movement without RMS is a bit difficult to believe, unless we are going for a very narrow definition of open source.
- prodigal_erik 17y agoLinux under BSDL? We already know how that would end. We'd lose half a generation's best work because it's trapped in the wreckage of vendors' failed proprietary forks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_wars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_wars
- antonovka 17y agoYour argument makes the unfounded assumption that those vendors would have done the work you "lost" if the code had been GPL licensed. As a counterpoint, FreeBSD has progressed at a steady clip -- I fail to see how it is significantly behind Linux, and is significantly ahead in many areas.
- Aegean 17y agoIt falls behind by not being as popular. I think this is not a result of BSD being inferior, it's just how things came into being. I don't have numbers on BSD developers or the rate of improvement, but I guess one reason for it is that BSD license put off more developers compared to GPLv2.
- ilkhd2 17y agoSo do you think that success of MacOS X (derived from FreeBSD)does not show benefitsof BSD model? Or Microsoft's use of NetBSD? And also, many developers put off by GPL( I am for example), The objective reasons for being not as popular I think, that FreeBSD never positioned itself as a desktop system, and many small things (such as how fast it boots) are neglected. Yet, overall simplicity and order is attractive to me; a lo easier to understand internals IMHO.
- omouse 17y agoIt shows almost no success because the code that makes MacOS X and Windows what they are is still proprietary. Having a UNIX shell in MacOS X might be nice, but that's only one part of the system.
- prodigal_erik 17y agoWhat's the benefit? The users are still running proprietary software, and the vendor is still confined to the same 10% or so of the computer market.
- antonovka 17y ago... I guess one reason for it is that BSD license put off more developers compared to GPLv2. No, it was just timing. The AT&T lawsuit cast a palor on the BSDs just when Linux started hitting its stride. By the time the lawsuit was settled, Linux had dominant mindshare. Same reason why MySQL is popular -- PHP gave it the mindshare. Same reason why PHP is popular -- it was one of the few options available at the time, and by the time better things came along, it was already firmly rooted.
- 17y ago
- jrockway 17y agoWithout RMS there might not be a GPL nor Linux licensed under the GPL. There would probably be no open source movement either because it relies on free software. Yeah, but RMS doesn't shower as much as I think he should, so clearly he is not worthy of recognition for his work. GNU, Emacs, gcc, the Free Software Foundation... even a plant could have made all those. But showering... there's something that makes you truly elite... </sarcasm>
- antonovka 17y agoOpen source has long existed and thrived without RMS and the GPL.
- RyanMcGreal 17y ago> Gore started the job of devaluing the prizes cough cough Henry Kissinger.
- hyperbovine 17y agoPeople began laughing when they didn't award Gandhi, and haven't really stopped since.