I just attended a talk by Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation

by J. Hofer 5 Replies latest jw friends

  • J. Hofer
    J. Hofer

    and boy, it was almost like a geek kingdom hall. he talked about moral issues and what's right and wrong. that doing the right thing might require sacrifices and what not... i mostly enjoyed the talk, but some of the words he used were reminding me a lot of what i heard in the kingdom hall.

    but on a funny twist he put on a robe and a halo made of an really old computer disk and proclaimed the church of emacs. and he said it's the only church where you can be a saint without celebacy. i guess he doesn't take all of the stuff he tells so serious and just exagerates a few things to get his point across.

    anyway, has been a nice afternoon, beer and burgers and chicks and all that, you know... i've never been to university, but i surely envy students now.

  • jay88
    jay88

    church of emacs vs the church of vi/vim who will win out,....

  • james_woods
    james_woods

    In information technology, like everything else in life except air, nothing is actually free.

  • J. Hofer
    J. Hofer

    well he said VI VI VI is the number of the beast ;)

    he actually wasn't talking about free in the sense of gratis, but free like freedom. ie: programming for money is good. not giving the source code to the client so the client can check on what he's really running on his device, change it to his/her needs or redistribute it is unethical. that sort of thing. he does hold a grudge on just about everyone from microsoft and sony to apple even to linus thorvalds... the talk was fun and interesting for the most part, but he's more of a philosopher than a business man.. or so you would think. i guess he does make quite a living just by giving talks like that.

  • undercover
    undercover
    like everything else in life except air, nothing is actually free.

    Not even air these days. Try finding somewhere to put free air in a tire going down...

  • james_woods
    james_woods

    But in the case of a tire, you are not paying for the air itself - you are paying for the work of compressing it.

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