RE: OSS in the news

[Matthew Benjamin <MBenjamin@comshare.com>]

I have mixed opinions on ESR as a person, but then, I also have had no
chance to know him personally.  I certainly think there is spillover from
ESR the person (gun nut, "DerGates.jpg", etc) and the ESR who has been
lobbying for OSS.  This is not surprising, he is a lisp
hacker-turned-corporate spokesman, quite a job transition.

But, as so often on this topic, what you say about his objectives is just
silly.  ESR, RMS, Linus, and everyone else in OSS have no power to "drive
all else but Linux out of the market," and no desire to do so.  (God knows
RMS doesn't want to.)

"World Domination" is explicitly a parody of Microsoft domination of the
software market, and its very real, and openly stated goal of driving other
operating systems out of common use.  How else could we have, "Windows
Everywhere?"

As Jordon Hubbard--as Brett knows, he is the very successful development
lead for FreeBSD--has stated in print, Linux and FreeBSD developers, not to
mention OpenBSD folk, work together in a significant number of areas, and so
whatever ESR thinks--even if he did think badly of BSD, which he does
not--is flat out irrelevant.  

Stop personalizing all of this.  You've got a bigger distortion field than
Steve Jobs.

Matt


-----Original Message-----
From: Brett Glass [mailto:brett@lariat.org]
Sent: Saturday, December 05, 1998 8:46 PM
To: sujal@worldnet.att.net; Multiple recipients of list AM-INFO
Subject: Re: OSS in the news

<SNIPPAGE>

If he's honest, he will. He'll tell those businesses that he intends
to deprive them of a choice of operating systems by driving all
else but Linux out of the market. Those businesspeople might not
like the prospect of not having a choice, and so would be justifiably
concerned.

<SNIPPAGE>