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Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project known by many in the open source worlds as rms, is not the sort of person you'd expect to endorse a product. But Stallman and the FSF have formed a partnership of sorts with Crowd Supply, a crowdfunding company that has been largely focused on open source hardware and software projects.
Crowd Supply is best known for launching the Librem laptop (a privacy-focused computer built by Purism) and the Novena (an open-hardware "laptop" designed by Andrew "bunnie" Huang and Sean "xobs" Cross). Based in Portland, Oregon, the company was founded by Joshua Lifton, a Ph D alumnus of MIT Media Lab and the former head of engineering at Puppet Labs. In addition to providing product designers with a crowdfunding platform, Crowd Supply also provides them with long-term sales, marketing, and fulfillment services.
The partnership with FSF was a natural fit, Lifton said in a statement on the arrangement. "The lines between hardware and software are blurring," Lifton explained. "It only makes sense to consider them jointly rather than separately."
Is this RMS's version of selling-out?
(Score: 5, Informative) by jmorris on Sunday July 26 2015, @01:22AM
Of course RMS is not selling out. RMS and GNU have always endorsed the idea of selling things, even software. GNU itself sells software and manuals. So long as you aren't selling things with locks on them they are fine with making a living selling stuff.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday July 26 2015, @02:22AM
I guess it's too soon for GNU/Realtor, then...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by jmorris on Sunday July 26 2015, @08:03AM
Ok, should have been more clear. Even locks are usually OK so long as it is the owner who has the keys and not the homebuilder. So unless there is other homebuilder/HOA lock in, RMS would be ok with homes having keys if the buyer gets ALL of them. He would probably object to common tricks like deeds carefully excluding a one foot barrier around the lot so you have to buy access to cross it, merge two lots in the future, etc. Lots of evil in the homebuilder and realty business.
Although he does get picky and goes off the rails even in what should be clear cases... the users of a timeshare system don't own it but he disapproves of the wheel group in UNIX on the grounds it is used to allow the admins to wield power over the other users. Which is kinda the point and why admins are hired in the first place; keeping a system up and available despite the best efforts of the users.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday July 26 2015, @01:32PM
Tho I was being a smartass, consequently you bring up some good points!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday July 26 2015, @06:08PM
Yeah, I remember when I heard the first time about "wheel" without knowing what it was, except that it was somehow related to permissions. Sitting on a Linux system, of course my first instinct was to try man wheel which indeed turned up a man page. But instead of explaining what wheel is, it contained a rant about how evil it is. I was no wiser after reading it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimios on Sunday July 26 2015, @08:18AM
It's not RMS, it's rms. http://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/mundane-name/ [geekz.co.uk]