The comments in the blog talk about arrogance and how someone else would have done what RMS did if he didn't exist. They also complain that him being a "nutjob" has actually done harm to freedom. This line of thinking is dead wrong. It takes someone precisely like RMS to stand for his ideal and dedicate his life to what he believes. I, personally, feel a great debt to the man.
An appropriate quote from George Bernard Shaw: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man."
I don't see Stallman's statement as to whether his birth had a good impact on the world or not as necessarily arrogant. Arguably, that's a question everybody needs to or ends up asking themselves: on balance, has my existence been a positive one?<p>While there might've been an open software advocate without Stallman, it can't be seriously said that the world would've been better off without Stallman's advocacy. And thus, on balance, the world's better off with Stallman than without.
I'm glad he lived, and I'm thankful for his contributions. But holy shit, he makes me sad everytime I see him or read about him.<p>This guy needs to cheer up.
Seems to me that without the programmers who went the commercial route (Gates et al), computers wouldn't be as widely used and his impact wouldn't be as big. Or that someone else wouldn't have stepped up in his absence. And statements like those quoted in the article seem just a wee bit overdramatic.
Either computers would be useless novelties or they would be mainstream and lose the hacker/counterculture status. Those are the only two options. There is no way that every person on earth was going to care about source code. Progress is still progress even if it's not what you want.<p>There is plenty of fun to be had still in technology, just don't get married to a philosophy. I learned that the hardway.<p>In the early days I ran a BBS. When the Internet became mainstream I remember thinking "how do I compete?" I redoubled my efforts: upgrading modems, adding drives/door games, increasing my software library, etc.... All the time thinking "where's the 'community feel' on the Inet?" By the late 90s I realized the problem was me and not the world.
<i>Sure, in his absence others may have stepped up to the job, but in this world, he did. We can sit and imagine all we want that with a different leader, FOSS would be better. But, that doesn't change the fact that we have him to thank for so very much.</i><p>From the comments on the OP's blog. :)
I know very little about Stallman beyond his role in the GNU Project. What pain is he referring to that makes him wish that he had never been born? The loss of hacker culture?
Stallman's hubris is shocking -- and I'm not talking about his claim that the world is a better place for him having lived. I'm talking about this line of shit:<p>> I’m the last survivor of a dead culture.
The linked article [1] is worth reading.<p>1. <a href="http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/ff_hackers/all/1" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/ff_hackers/all/1</a>
"This "pain" that Stallman says he has endured makes his decision to champion tirelessly freedom and free software for all these decades all the more remarkable."<p>Alright, I realize this might be a bad statement to make on this subject... but seriously? He's a free software advocate. It's not like he's Ghandi going on a hunger strike or Martin Luther King Jr going to jail over his beliefs.
After reading this I felt a deep sense of pity for RMS.<p>Even if he was only referring to his perceived lack of belonging, openly fantasizing about suicide is not the sign of someone in a healthy emotional state.<p>I hope very much that he has grown past this point his life.
It's a real shame that inventor of the time machine, Leo Schultz, travelled back in time from 2042 and killed himself as a child. We'll never have a time machine now :-(