Richard Stallman is a hero for all of us who believe in Free/Libre Open Source Software. But he is like the grumpy uncle we all have too. Always complaining about something, one day because certain magazine isn't called GNU/Linux Format, other day he starts talking in an interview about the "iMoan", the "iBad" or "Windows Phoney 7" (read the interview in LXF 145). Frankly, those unnecessary qualifications devaluated everything he said in that interview, and that is really a pity.
Now, he wrote a not very nice post about Steve Jobs:
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.
I can understand his point but I think that insulting Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Apple users is not the way to share his ideas. And there are people like Larry the Free Software Guy, a.k.a. Larry Cafiero, who think that he has gone too far. He says that it's "Time to fork the FSF". In that post, he says:
So today I resigned my membership in the Free Software Foundation, so I am no longer Member No. 5030. I did so because Richard Stallman no longer speaks for me after making a completely ludicrous, tactless and heartless remark regarding the passing of Steve Jobs.
His conclusion is:
So I think it behooves thoughtful free software advocates to seriously consider forking the Free Software Foundation, and create a new organization; a more flexible, more responsible organization that marries today’s technological realities to the possibilities and necessities — especially the necessities — that the free software paradigm offers society.
I have to say that I'm starting to feel tired about some of the bad manners of the FSF and Richard Stallman. I don't think that we need a new FSF, but I think that we need somebody to substitute Richard Stallman. He should be like an emeritus professor, somebody who is there but let other people to do the real work.
What do you think?
Javier