Mind the fact that Microsoft’s influence in France has it ‘buying’ universities now.

I dunno if France is alone.

I am a Bolivian student, 2~3 years ago my university used to teach C++ and Java, right now I am noticing that the beginners are proficient at C#, it looks like some time they suddenly decided to teach C# and a lot of focus is moving into .net, .

A parody is a parody and like many parodies and satires it can be seen as offensive to some. I see a lot of the stereotypical accusations in this messages, which conveys hate. That’s just what I mean when I speak about personal attacks and your name surely is fake with a surname like “Sublimation”.

Indeed, you quoted Slashdot comments earlier, and the Microsoft (whether it’s merely individuals or more coordinated) presence on that site has been growing for years. That coincides with my declining attention to Slashdot.

The same rule applies to pretty much any publication out there. For starters, consider the fact that Microsoft and the Gates Foundation own some media companies (affiliations and influence aside). Analysts are usually the same in that regard. They are funded by companies.

If one was to ask where objective news can be read, an answer would be hard to give. Speaking for myself, my only affiliation is Manchester University, I suppose, but that’s not a company and it’s not run by a company. Mind the fact that Microsoft’s influence in France has it ‘buying’ universities now. It’s most astounding that the press ignores many of these severe issues. The ‘global village’ devolves and becomes one person’s property and puppet show. Murdoch comes to mind here, not to mention Bilderberg and other groups.

Indeed, you quoted Slashdot comments earlier, and the Microsoft (whether it’s merely individuals or more coordinated) presence on that site has been growing for years. That coincides with my declining attention to Slashdot.

Some of the attacks against you betray some angry feelings. Rather than worry one iota over the slanderers, Roy, just keep Gandhi’s wisdom in mind. Nothing worth losing a second of sleep over!

I’ve done some further exploration to see what those latest smears are all about. Have a look at this leaked document from Microsoft:

http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX03096.pdf

From the memo/presentation/document: “Gathering intelligence on enemy activities is critical to the success of the Slog. We need to know who their allies are and what differences exist between them and their allies (there are always sources of tension between allies), so that we can find ways to split ‘em apart Reading the trade press, lurking on newsgroups, attending conferences, and (above all) talking to ISVs is essential to gathering this intelligence.”

I hope that you see what is happening here. Microsoft wants to create civil wars. It tries to turn its rivals against one another and it even sends ‘agents’ to forums (it has been caught doing this many times since the OS/2 days).

So, Microsoft wants to go to newsgroups, subscribe to mailing lists (mind the remarks in this post where we wish to analyse tarballs) and it also goes to Web sites such as Slashdot and Digg (I get harassed there by anonymous and very systematic characters).

That leaked memo is very telling. In case you wish to read some of it, there’s this new page also.

RMS said “all the BSD systems … they all include some non-free programs” and that is not true. That is the statement that he corrected later. When he said it in the interview, questions were asked on the OpenBSD list asking if this were true. Of course it is NOT true, and that was said on the list. OpenBSD does not contain any non-free software. RMS came to the OpenBSD list and then the fireworks began.

If you have a lot of time on your hands, do not listen to others… go read the actual thread for yourself:

http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=119730630513821&w=2

I.e., they lack such confidence in their own argument base on ideas, that they can only attack the man himself. How pathetic.

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=441432&cid=22295922

Look at this one!

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=441432&cid=22296098

Again, people put lies right inside my mouth. They try to incite people against me using lies. And some weeks ago people stole my identity and attacked Bruce Byfield ‘under my name’, which made him extremely angry.

And on top of this I have daily attacks and slander elsewhere. Who is behind these smears? It’s getting rather obnoxious. It’s libelous.

So what’s the big deal? After all, he believes that making it easy to install non-free sw is ethically equivalent to distributing non-free sw. I have yet to see an interesting debate on that point.

Where are the mistakes or misleading statements? E.g., is OpenBSD stricter than say, Debian, about not recommending non-free sw? I know that RMS does not recommend Debian either and that he would certainly be interested if OpenBSD were indeed stricter on that point. Is it?

What’s all this “threat” stuff? You’re back into the “winning” thing again. Linux isn’t going away, and neither are GNU or BSD.

An online friend of mine who like BSD (he used to be using Linux) realises that technology like Silverlight and software patents are a ‘threat’ not only to GNU/Linux, but to BSDs also (he said so). By “threat”, let us say that we speak about the threat of losing the freedom of software or the threat of being locked out of some Web sites.

Linux does not need to “win” against Apple or Microsoft or BSD to be worthwhile.

True. Linux does, however, need to gain acceptance so that it is properly supported. Sadly, in reality, many decisions are made whose purpose it to exclude and to actively punish rivals (c/f Java, Netscape). That’s one of the things this Web site keeps an eye on.

Perhaps that’s the problem: he’s hearing everything secondhand and then spouting sutff as if he really knew. Of course you’ll have to make corrections…

I too make mistakes. Everyone does. Admitting them is the harder part. I don’t know the incidents which you refer to, but I take your word for it.

All I can tell you at the end of the day is that Stallman is misunderstood and the character assassination against him does not help. Even at the moment (started a few hours ago), there’s a ~40-posts thread in Slashdot whose subject/title bears my name (someone Slashdotted my new article). People who attack me in USENET and Digg are using slander against me also in Slashdot (anonymously, as usual). I haven’t the capacity to rebut this (it’s like a DDOS attack). I guess what I’m trying to say is that I know the position Stallman must be in. People misquote him and single out some damaging phrases and then spread the damage quicker than he can mitigate it. That’s just not fair.

What’s all this “threat” stuff? You’re back into the “winning” thing again. Linux isn’t going away, and neither are GNU or BSD. It’s not productive to think in terms of threats, since this is not a zero-sum game here. Linux does not need to “win” against Apple or Microsoft or BSD to be worthwhile. Or maybe it does. You tell me.

In any case, my comment above noted that a clarification was there on the page along with the original podcast. Of course people make mistakes, and I expect that from Stallman too. But it seems awfully common with RMS. It’s hard to continue to take him seriously when he backpedals quite often with his corrections and clarifications, and his reliance on others to tell him what’s going on in the world. Perhaps that’s the problem: he’s hearing everything secondhand and then spouting sutff as if he really knew. Of course you’ll have to make corrections…

At times, the greater threat to GNU/Linux is Apple (compared to BSD), but it helps a great deal if it can diversify the market and open some doors.

Ricard earned te bile bein spit at im many times over, tat snip aainst OpenBSD was not te first time e stirred up sit for no reason.

I apoloize for te unusual text, te keyboard I am usin is broken, so many letters dont exist.

As for RMS making statements that may be wrong, well, to err is human. When I interviewed Stallman he later asked me to make a correction. He needs to have someone recheck the facts exactly for this reason. People often nitpick and use his words (even if he’s very careful) against him. I’ve seen CompTIA, a Microsoft lobbying arm, doing that quite recently to carry on with the smear campaign against him.

Always ask yourself if the person later made a correction or apologised. We can’t be judged for every single word we utter, especially when it comes to public speaking where quick fact-checking and proofreading isn’t possible.

Here is the original thing that started the RMS flamefest: http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/2007/10/bsdtalk132-richard-stallman.html , where you can listen to RMS. If you do not care to listen, on the above page is RMS’s clarification about what he meant.

What was it? I have seen this claim repeated over and over, but have yet to find anything to back it up.

It seems that he was asked whether he would recommend OpenBSD, to which he answered no, since it is not against the policy of the project to recommend non-free software, and, indeed, the project does make such recommendations. That was the main issue. Where is the error?

Care to be specific or elaborate please?