Something from the talk page on GNU/Linux naming controversy:
...Second, since the FSF owns the copyright on most of the GNU code, it
could freely change the license tomorrow to require any operating system
distributed with GNU code to be called "GNU/something".
That’s an interesting possibility to consider. Of course, the probability of that happening is almost as small as Windows ever being released under GPL 3, but if we suppose it happened, will the free software community fork all GNU projects?
That did happen with X and the fork of Xorg, but this is GNU (and, in connection, FSF) we are talking about here, not X consortium. It would be almost like comparing possibility of a coup in the U.S. against the possibility of a coup in Serbia.
It’s almost ironic.
I never paid for software in my life. I will admit it now. I never bought any software I used, ever.
But then, when I started using free software, and when I started identifying with ideals of free software (well, not as a coder—I am a talentless hack), I started paying a lot more “for software” than I used to. I won’t divulge exact amounts, but let me say that I donate to FSF enough to buy a version of Windows every year (and I plan on continuing to do so as far as I can see).
And, now that I dived headlong into “free culture” (again, not as an artist, because I am a talentless hack), I suddenly want to pay for music that I never paid for (the only time I ever “paid for” music was with the iTunes gift card I got from my Discover card).
But here’s the ironic part—none of these artists who freely license their music … have any way I can contribute to them. I looked for some sort of donation links and such, but I don’t see any.
Well, what a world. People who I think do not deserve my money seem to be demanding it, ever pursuing it, and people to whom I would like to give my money … don’t seem to want it.
I suppose opposing the Pope no matter what is a kind of consistency, a foolish consistency, hobgoblin of little minds:
ROME (AFP) — Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday cancelled a speech at Rome’s La Sapienza university in the face of protests led by scientists opposed to a high-profile visit by the head of the Catholic Church to a secular setting.
You know what?
I completely agree. The judgment against Galileo WAS rational and just. Execution of Bruno was completely justified. It is only a shame that Copernicus was too cowardly to publish his heresy while alive so they could have punished him for the blasphemy.
Just how ironic is it that these scientists, the so-called skeptics and champions of open discourse and intellectual freedom, are protesting the pope based on what he said, not what he did?
And also,
Cini said of Benedict on Thursday: “By cancelling, he is playing the victim, which is very intelligent. It will be a pretext for accusing us of refusing dialogue.”
Well, MISTER Cini, I do not know of your particular accomplishments in physics. But let me say that you are a disgrace to the profession of physicists and the integrity of academic researchers. If your protest was not to get the pope to cancel the visit, then what the hell was it for? Anti-religious persecution?