History of FOSS and stuff (was: The Silent Woman)

[Ben Scott]

On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 12:42 PM,  <VirginSnow at vfemail.net> wrote:
>  Knowing a lot does not make you "brilliant".

  A'yup.  Knowledge.  Experience.  Intelligence.  Wisdom.  All
different things, and much more valuable together than individually.

> Without RMS the GNU tools, the GPL, Linux, and probably
> FOSS in general would never have come to exist.

  Several thousand BSD users would beg to differ.

  Software started out Free.  The idea of locking it up came later.

  More specifically: Unix started out Free.  Ken Thompson gave it away
to anyone who asked.  John Lions published the source in a book.  BSD
was based on it.  Then AT&T tried to lock it all up.  BSD fought back.
 It was a long, ugly fight, but ultimately, a Free BSD (no pun
intended) prevailed.

  RMS has made major contributions.  RMS took the assumption many were
operating under and codified them into the GPL.  He recognized the
need for an organized campaign to protect software Freedom, and
actually undertook that campaign.  That's quite a lot.  But let's not
go too far.  We all stand upon the shoulders of giants.

-- Ben