You may remember being told to go to a board on a site called 4chan, the technology board. Your response to it was "I tried to read that page, but I only saw inane comments". This, is definitely true. It has become a bit of a lightning rod for fools. However, there is a little used part of the website that is a text only board, in the fashion of old BBS's, kind of. No one ever goes there, apart from...who has found it and goes there. It's the programming board.
The difference between this board and the inane imageboard you tried to read is that 1) it is not populated by people who are (generally) fools. The second attribute of it is that threads do not 404 within a day. I know you browse the web via some kind of wget setup, so if there was a question/answer thread there, you would actually be able to reply. People there are not the instant gratification types that would not appreciate waiting for an answer from you.
I'm not entirely sure why, but they have some kind of adoration for Gerald Sussman, and have had contact with him before. He lectured them on the cult of personality, and not to put him on a pedastal, which is great really.
I personally would dearly love it if you would agree to look at a thread of questions and maybe answer the ones you feel like. I know you are very busy, but if you don't ask you don't get. If you are OK with this, would you please let me know and I will send you the link to the thread.
Yours, respectfully, <redacted>.
I got this reply, which I've seen in other emails to him, so I reckom it's the right one.
He seems to be good at replying to emails from what I've seen. Also the subject of the email was "I really respect you". Hopefully that will make him click on it.
I am not on vacation, but I am at the end of a long time delay. I am
located somewhere on Earth, but as far as responding to email is concerned,
I appear to be well outside the solar system.
After your message arrives at gnu.org, I will collect it in my next batch of
incoming mail, some time within the following 24 hours. I will spend much of
the following day reading that batch of mail and will come across your
message at some point. If I write a response immediately, it will go out in
the next outgoing batch--typically around 24 hours after I collected your
message, but occasionally sooner or later than that. Please expect a minimum
delay of between 24 and 48 hours in receiving a response to your mail to me.
If your message is hard to understand or responding takes real work,
the response could take longer.
So please wait 48 hours after sending a message before you resend it,
remind me about it, or ask if I have received it. If it has been less
than 48 hours, the absence of a response from me only means you have not
given me time to answer.
If you are having a conversation with me, please keep in mind that each
message you receive from me is a response to the mail you sent 24 to 48 hours
earlier, and when writing it, I probably had not yet downloaded your later
mail.
If you are in big hurry to speak with me, and one day's delay would be
a serious problem, you can ask my FSF assistant to phone me. Send mail to
<rms-assist@fsf.org> saying what you would like to talk with me about,
and giving your telephone number. You can also call the Free Software
Foundation office at 617-542-5942 (weekday Boston business hours) and
ask them to phone me on your behalf. If it's really important, try both!
An intermediate measure is to email me your phone number and ask me
to phone you.
But if there isn't enough hurry to warrant phoning me, please don't bother
the FSF people. The mail you already sent me will reach me before any mail
they could send me now on your behalf. I will respond as soon as I can.
If you do not wish to receive this message ever again, please send a message
to rms-autoreply-control@gnu.org with the subject "OFF".
Otherwise, you might receive a reply like this one up to once a month.
Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.
As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone." Nobody deserves to have to die - not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing.
Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective.
Name:
Anonymous2011-10-07 19:23
Tell him you're a 17 year old girl at MIT trying to get it on a research opportunity and that you'll blow him if writes you a letter of recommendation.
RMS-san is our only hope, our saviour, in these dark /prog/ times/.
Name:
Anonymous2011-10-08 5:29
>>6
What's so 'dangerous' about Steve Jobs anyway?
Never used Apple but some people seems to love them, why not just let them do whatever they want? It's not like it's hurting any of us.
Name:
Anonymous2011-10-08 5:36
>>12
Steve Jobs conducted a business to offer computing prisons to customers. Profiting from business is not a problem, restricting users of their computers is evil as people choose to give their freedom to a entrepreneurial company.
Freedom in the context of computer software means that a computer ought to obey what the user desires. If the software fails to work as the user wishes, then the software ought to be modified to requirements. Proprietary software forbids users from studying and improving software. As a result, users who depend upon proprietary software are helpless to help themselves and must ask permission to get the software improved.
>>17
Did you know that RMS reads the web by messaging his email server to download a webpage and emailing the result to him?
Name:
!L33tUKZj5I2011-10-10 2:58
Ok, he replied. This is what he said
-------------------- I'm not entirely sure why, but they have some kind of adoration for Gerald Sussman, and have had contact with him before. He lectured them on the cult of personality, and not to put him on a pedastal, which is great really.
That is good. I sometimes say similar things to people who admire me
more than they admire freedom.
I personally would dearly love it if you would agree to look at a thread of questions and maybe answer the ones you feel like.
I can do it; I think I've done it before.
--------------------
Looks like he's up for it lads. What questions are we going to ask him?
>>20
Ask him if he read his SICP today, if the GNU project's meeting his original intentions/expectations, his opinions on all this juvenile crap (cloud, js-everything, etc).
>>24
For your information, rms is a smug Lisp weenie and hates the so-called ``Web 2.0'' and ``cloud computing''.
Name:
Anonymous2011-10-11 6:33
>>24
Here is how he'd respond:
The GNU project is successful in the sense that many millions use the GNU system. However, so many people still don't care about their freedom so he'll continue campaigning the message.
Cloud computing is just a marketing term that entices people to give up control over one's computing. Users cannot control their computing when the user doesn't control the cloud computer.
Javascript in websites is a problem in that the programs are non-free; the code is often obfuscated and the user is forbidden to share the software.
>>27
No reply yet. I suspect he will not be interested in replying.
Name:
Anonymous2011-10-11 13:51
>>26
Javascript code is only obfuscated to make the file smaller - nothing which can't be solved in 1 second in a decent IDE. Stallman confirmed for a retard.
Name:
Anonymous2011-10-11 16:07
>>30
Hey! You there! Stop it with the common sense or you will be banned from /faggot/.
>>30
Does that IDE recover all the obfuscated code into a form that is the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program? Is the recovered code equally as readable as the original-non-obfuscated code? If you answered no to these questions, the IDE translated code is not good enough. If this is the case, the original-non-obfuscated code ought to be made available to anybody who visits that site.
Name:
Anonymous2011-10-11 18:33
>>34
Yes, the IDE recovers the code perfectly, and makes it as readable as the original code. You're probably using emacs, I suggest moving to vim.
Name:
Anonymous2011-10-11 18:41
AUTISM
Name:
Anonymous2011-10-11 19:41
>>34
Good, so now there's the software distribution issue. Are users permitted to copy the software at will? Are users permitted to distribute modified versions of the software at will?