[Fsf-friends] Linus ... the peacemaker

[Frederick Noronha (FN)]

>From: "Soundara Rajan N.S." <searchlight@sancharnet.in>
>Subject: [Fsf-friends] The Peacemaker
>To: fsf-friends@mm.gnu.org.in
>The Peacemaker
>How Linus Torvalds, the man behind Linux, keeps the revolution from 
>becoming a jihad.
>By David Diamond
>It's no accident that Linus Torvalds has been calling the shots for Linux
>longer than most world leaders have been in power. In the 12 years since 
>he uploaded his operating system and became de facto master of the open 
>source

	Linus Torvalds is an amiable guy, granted. But, it
	is perhaps a grave mistake to reduce an entire
	movement to simply building a technically
	more-efficient solution.

	Loaded terms by the media don't help either (e.g.
	"keeps the revolution from becoming a jihad").

	Free Software is no more about software alone. It has
	grown far beyond that. Today, it is challenging the
	manner in which artificial blocks are used to control
	the spread of knowledge and information in fields
	ranging from education to music, from journalism
	to scientific knowledge. We need to take the
	boundaries of this debate further.
	
	This is an issue that affects the lives of hundreds,
	if not thousands, of millions. We in the 
	information-deficit, knowledge-scarce regions
	face this daily.

	Linus seems to look at the word "politics" as
	something negative. One could argue that even the
	decision to "keep out politics" is a very
	political stand in itself. 

	Last year, when I visited Finland in connection with
	the FLOSS-in-the-developing-world study, there was 
	quite some debate on Linus "just for fun" approach.
	Someone came up with the suggestion that he was
	keen to make himself seem less political, so as not
	to become unacceptable in the US. 

	Sam Williams biography of RMS has an interesting
	point. 

	To quote Williams: "Most importantly, the MacArthur
	(genius grant) 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 those trips. In 1990, Stallman paid
	a visit to the Polytechnic University in Helsinki,
	Finland. Among the audience members was 21-year-old
	Linus Torvalds, future developer of the Linux
	kernel -- the free software kernel destined to
	fill the GNU Project's most sizable gap."

	(Okay, one can expect disagreement here from
	Free Software enthusiasts over the "sizable gap"...)

	Williams continues: "When it was time to release the
	0.12 version of Linux, the first to include a fully
	integrated version of GCC, Torvalds decided to voice his
	allegiance with the free software movement. He 
	discarded the old kernel license and replaced it with the
	GPL. The decision triggered a porting spree, as
	Torvalds and his collaborators looked to other GNU 
	programs to fold into the growing Linux stew."

	Without intending to turn this into a Linus-versus-RMS
	or Linux-versus-GNU tug-of-war, we must not reduce
	the entire idealism (or politics, if you want to call
	it that) that has gone into this movement which is
	nearly two decades old. 

	Should we diminish the goal to just building
	technically efficient software? Or is this a battle
	over whether knowledge itself becomes another
	commodity, sold to the highest bidder? FN

PS: They say, reasonable men change to the ways of the world. Therefore, 
all progress depends on unreasonable men....
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Frederick Noronha (FN)        | http://www.fredericknoronha.net
Freelance Journalist          | http://www.bytesforall.org
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