Re: sourceforge is nasty [ Was Re: [seul-edu] Request for Mailing list for Crosswords For Linux ]

[Manuel Gutierrez Algaba <irmina@ctv.es>]

On Wed, 12 Apr 2000, mrzenn wrote:
> I agree. Bloat sucks.
> 
> But user-friendly and non-commercial are not inherently
> mutually-exclusive. 

I meant mutually-inclusive.

> And non-commercial does NOT mean rational. 

At least, it means that nobody is hiding info or has second/third
intentions and that he won't change formats from one version to 
another, or tha the won't ever intend to postpone a real working
 version, because he wants people to keep on buying. Commercial
impliest that lots of *strange* stuff is present, due to the interest
of producers. The product and the consumer are secondary in 
commercial life, always!

> RMS is very non-commercioal,
> and he's anything but rational.

I don't like RMS nor Eric S. Raymond, and I use emacs and fetchmail
daily, in fact I adore emacs. RMS is as a matter of fact a 
commercial guy. Yeah, he's for the GPL, and all that. But, even
if he doesn't earn benefits from FSF, the truth is that he's own
chief and handles a lot of power,... and I think he behaves
rather commercially: 
- imposes his own standards (RMS wants to substitute  man pages 
for info files, for example). Or, why he intends to impose guile
if python and tcl are available. Sometimes RMS seems the Microsoft
of the free soft world, whenever a new idea pops up, he comes and
say:"ok, that's nice, but here in FSF we have the standard for 
that stuff you've done ! So forget it, boy!".
- huge blocks of info  ( think about emacs or gcc or...)
- GPL license
- GPL coding standards
- settles what's necessary in the "free" world.... fascinating!

Ok, he's done a lot of good for all of us. But the way he behaves
is such that he can fight against pure commercial guys with
the very same weapons, and such that a "free soft" guy not accostumed
to such "hardness" is swept by RMS laws. 

RMS makes a lot of money of free soft. He could have made more
if he stayed at MIT, but on the other hand he's got more public
recognition, power and besides he's free, free from bosses, free
from customers...

As long as any soft may be influenced in its functionality and 
design by GNU and their lust for power , surprisingly, GNU 
turns to be something commercial.

Eric S Raymond is a bit more nasty. 

Ok, I have usual radical opinions, but I think  everyone has 
noticed in some degree part of the things I'm saying. 

Ok, here's got my definition of "commercial" :
- When functionality isn't the first priority, and other interests
( commercial, power,...) modify heavily the way the product is
presented, handled, designed, .... 

When something has get rid of "commercial" what is left is:
pure information, pure functionality, ready to be reused, ready
to be understood. 

Linus Torvalds is not a commercial guy, by no means, when he
did Linux Kernel, his only one aim was functionality and it's still.


Regards/Saludos
Manolo
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