[Fsf-friends] Replying to one of Orlando's queries...

[Frederick Noronha]

On Sat, 14 Dec 2002, Orlando Fernandes wrote:

> btw can anyone tell me how Richard make his money, did he always have it?
> did he have to work for it? or did he get it fre 'cause he gave all his code
> away for free?
> Orlando

	This is from Sam Willians' book *Free as in Freedom*, the
	biography of RMS (aka Richard M. Stallman). Look at the 
        amazing way in which sharing begets further sharing:

	"In 1990, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
	certified Stallman's genius status when it granted Stallman
	a MacArthur fellowship, thereby making him a recipient
	for the organisation's so-called "genuis grant". The grant,
	a $240,000 (sorry for getting this figure wrong earlier-FN)
	reward for launching the GNU Project and giving voice to the
	free software philosophy, relieved a number of short-term
	concerns. First and foremost, it gave Stallman, a non-salaried
	employee of the FSF who had been supporting himself through
	consulting contracts, the ability to devote more time to
	writing GNU code.

	"Ironically, the award also made it possible for Stallman to
	vote. Months before the award, a fire in Stallman's apartment
	house had consumed his few earthly possessions. By the time
	of the award, Stallman was listing himself a 'squatter' at
	545 Technology Square. "[The registrar of voters] didn't want
	to accept that as my address," Stallman would later recall.
	"A newspaper article about the MacArthur grant said that and
	then they let me register."

	"Most important, the MacArthur money gave Stallman more
	freedom. Already dedicated to the issue of software freedom,
	Stallman chose to use the additional freedom to increase his
	travels in support of the GNU Project mission.

	"Interestingly, the ultimate success of the GNU Project
	and the free software movement in general would stem from one
	of these trips. In 1990, Stallman paid a visit to the
	Polytechnic University in Helsinki, Finland. Among the
	audience members was 21-year-old Linux Torvalds, future
	developer of the Linux kernel -- the free software kernel
	destined to fill the GNU Project's most sizeable gap."

Read this book if you can. Ironically, it's freely copyable under the GNU
Free Documentation License. Maybe our FSF-India friends could think of
getting some publisher publishing a low-cost (or possibly
updated) version of it for India.

I know some young programmers who swear that their views on programming
were drastically changed after reading this book. FN