He founded GNU in the early eighties at MIT
He released Linux in the early nineties in Finland, became a US national, and decided to take it commercial with the corporate Linux Foundation
THE BIRTHDAY of Linus Torvalds is today. He's a grown up man. He's 50 now. Stallman is nearly 70 (or getting there) and he'll soon be giving talks in the UK. His 'cancellation' has apparently not worked (not fully; he's still in charge of GNU).
"...no 'boss' is perfect and almost nobody likes his/her boss. Stallman is, in relative terms, not bad and we've witnessed the FSF suffering somewhat without his presence."Stallman is still doing reasonably well. His critics in the GNU projects have toned down the letters and now pursue improved transparency instead of removal of Stallman from GNU. No defacement of his Web site, no smears. They just want to better understand the GNU-FSF relationship.
Now, going back to Torvalds, compare the attitudinal concerns expressed about him and about Stallman. Consider what the petitioners from GNU have said about Stallman. Did they complain that he was rude? Intimidating? No.
"We maintain our position that if Stallman cannot retake his old position at the FSF he should at least be invited back to the Board."As we said months ago, no 'boss' is perfect and almost nobody likes his/her boss. Stallman is, in relative terms, not bad and we've witnessed the FSF suffering somewhat without his presence. Since he stepped down two members of the Board have left. We heard from people who canceled their membership specifically because Stallman had left.
We maintain our position that if Stallman cannot retake his old position at the FSF he should at least be invited back to the Board. That would certainly address some of the above-mentioned concerns (from the letter signed by Ludovic Courtès, Andy Wingo, Carlos O’Donell, Andreas Enge and Mark Wielaard). ⬆
Comments
Canta
2019-12-28 15:37:17
IDK if that's ok. The guy isn't also any De Icaza, or even a Poettering. He has his history with the FSF, but he always strongly protected legacy compatibility and userspace isolation on Linux: two blessings for us users without which GNU/Linux would have never be what it is today. I mean... most likely, without Torvalds principles (and, as he also said, without the GPL, which he once changed), Linux would have all of its blood sucked by corporations a decade ago. He has his problems, but he doesn't seem to me either some media clown, nor a sellout, nor some guy in power who doesn't give a damn about people using the software. He does what he does, and I'm thankful for that: I don't ask him to do everything right, in the same sense I don't ask Stallman for that.