RMS

Why is Stallman revered by some but detested by others?
From what I gather he founded the free software foundation and the GNU operating system. He pioneered open-source software.

However, some feel his extremeist views have hindered the progress of free software.

Anything I missed or is that the jist?

you are fucking retarded

>>2
Anything to contribute apart from the ad hom?

Stallman is a great, intelligent man. No doubting that. However, his eccentricities generate more of a response than his ideas. I prefer BSD license over the GPL, but if the Free Software Foundation didn't exist; constantly promoting their ideas, would the people behind the BSD license ever drop the "advertising clause" from the old version of the license? Maybe not.

Richard Stallman is worlds 3rd greatest troll.

Worlds greatest namefagging troll, which is why /g/ looks up to him.

>>5
Richard Stallman is worlds 3rd greatest troll.
Who're the world's first and second?

>>1
Why is Stallman revered by some but detested by others?
Some people understand his message of "freedom to the users" and heartily agree with it. I am here. I revere him because he has opened my eyes to something that I would have never realised on my own - he has conveyed a message that only a visionary could see.

Other people understand his message and disagree with it. These people argue that developers/publishers of software should have power over their users. These people usually justify this with the message that developers do not financially profit when users are given their freedom. They also use the idea that users cannot make use of their freedoms as they are not programmers and thus, they don't need their freedoms at all. Other people are inconvenienced by the conclusions that would result from having a strong stance to valuing freedom. These people value convenient and powerful software more than their freedom to software.

Then there are other people that just don't understand his message.

From what I gather he founded the free software foundation and the GNU operating system. He pioneered open-source software.
He founded the FSF and the GNU project. According to Stallman, the principles of the open-source initiative is something different to his free software principles; free software is not the same as open source.

However, some feel his extremeist views have hindered the progress of free software.
People call him extreme because they fail to agree with his viewpoint that people who choose proprietary software do not have freedom (they choose to give up their freedom to use a proprietary program). Without this understanding, people also fail to understand why RMS calls for people to reject all proprietary software. To these people, the goal is good software. RMS's goal is that freedom is more valuable than powerful software.

>>6
1. God
2. Stalin

Stallman is consistent.

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/134412

RMS debates some guy

>>10
That was his famous debate with Theo de Raadt (the founder of the OpenBSD operating system). I lol'd most heartily when first reading that.

>>11
Who won?

>>12
I dunno. I'm guessing Theo since somewhere in the debate he said something along the lines of "Richard doesn't follow even his own principals". I really wasn't paying attention to who was "winning" because the whole thing was just so damn hilarious to read.