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Lmao now this is like reading email debates in the FOSS community!

I think when you get down to debating definitions you’ve probably lost some of that professionalism.

As a manager I probably would be reprimanding people debating definitions like this. We should be asking: “do we understand each other?”

The point of this entire argument is Stallman isn’t paid, dedicates his life to this work, probably is overworked and runs his org and does so completely openly (ie you’re likely to see lots of good and some bad). He’s not a professional; he’s a passionate, often crazed and zealous leader of an organization with an extreme position (free software being the exception not the rule).

I frankly wouldn’t expect anything from Stallman. Manners, personal relationship, etc.




That I can agree with.

I posted this to highlight the absurdity of the original posting of another definition. I perhaps could have been more explicit, but I thought that my tongue being in my cheek was established by making the point that the original excerpt was taken from an American-English dictionary. Should've started with "Akshually..."


“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” - Bertrand Russell

Yes, perhaps this pattern of behavior is to be expected from someone who's staked out such an uncompromising position and stuck to it for ~30 years.

But it's also really sad that, in acting this way, he undermines his own goals.


> does so completely openly

Not so. This is partly where the "Cathedral" nomenclature came from.




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