Monday, October 23, 2006

Misinformation will hurt Linux more than Stallman ever could

Undoubtedly, Richard Stallman will be pissed when he reads this article. And it won't be because he's accused of killing the Linux revolution (in terms of Linux proper, he doesn't much care about that either way I think). No, I think he'll be pissed because the article suggests that he thinks all software should be free of charge. I've read and listened to Stallman several times and he's clearly stated that he's not against charging money for software. He's against proprietary code. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. How can a large publication like Forbes do an article on Stallman and miss the whole 'Free as in speech, not as in beer' concept?

Ignorance and misunderstanding will damage Linux and open-source much more than Richard Stallman ever could.

Update: Here's the author's blog post remarking about the influx of hate mail he's getting. Care to leave a reasoned comment for him? Fight FUD with facts and not zealotry. It works better.

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