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Happy 35th Birthday GNU!

posted by takyon on Friday September 28 2018, @10:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the latent-killswitch dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Happy 35th Birthday GNU!

The GNU project was officially announced on 27 September 1983 by Richard Stallman. Thirty-five years of a project that has now become the fundamental building block of everything we use and see in technology in 2018. I would not be wrong to say that there isn't a single proprietary piece of software that anyone is still using from 35 years ago – please post comments if there is something still being used.

There is only one reason for this longevity: the GNU project was built upon the premise that the code is available to anyone, anywhere with the only restriction that whatever is done to the code, it shall always be available to anyone, forever. Richard Stallman's genius in crafting the copyleft license that is the GNU General Public License is probably the best hack of the 20th century software industry.

Extra: Happy Birthday, GNU: Why I still love GNU 35 years later

Original Submission #1   Original Submission #2

 
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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @11:00AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @11:00AM (#741270)

    All because Linus has been a foul mouthed asshole.

    Linus has as much right to be a "foul mouthed asshole" as Stallman has to be a "cantankerous, smelly commie". That's what it means to live in a free society, the GPL subverted the authoritarian control of corporate copyright to promote freedom. It's time to rethink it in light of creeping authoritarianism under the false banner of "social justice".

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday September 28 2018, @02:53PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Friday September 28 2018, @02:53PM (#741350)

    Linus has the right to be a foul-mouthed asshole. That doesn't mean that being a foul-mouthed asshole is good for Linux or good for Linus. By all appearances at least, nobody forced Linus to take a step back from Linux, nor did anyone say "stop being a foul-mouthed asshole or you'll be off Linux forever" or something, he decided to do both of those things on his own accord. I mean, perhaps something happened with Tove that Linus doesn't want to make public or something, but that's not coercion unless she threatened to use her mad karate skills on him or something.

    In short, he made a choice. Why are you worried about "creeping authoritarianism" over something somebody did voluntarily?

    --
    "Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin