Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 24th Sep 2009 13:35 UTC, submitted by Hiev
If you don't like personal, blog-style reporting, you might want to skip this item. A few days ago, during a speech at Software Freedom Day in Boston, Richard Stallman has, at least in my book, crossed a line that I thought he would never cross.
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Member since:
2005-07-06
um. they're two entirely different things, so no, it's not quibbling. if steven's argument had been that being a free software fundamentalist, *correctly defined* - i.e. simply believing it's fundamentally bad to use or create non-free software - was a bad thing, then that'd be OK. I'd disagree with him, but it's a perfectly legitimate viewpoint.
Equally, if he'd said that being a free software evangelist was a bad thing, then again, I'd disagree, but he would be correctly presenting a perfectly valid point of view. No problem.
However, he didn't do either of those things. He tried to use the emotional connotations that are often attached to the term 'fundamentalist' in today's political climate to denigrate evangelism. Which, as I said, is fundamentally flawed argumentation. I don't hate the guy, or anything. I'm just pointing out that what he said was not actually _valid_, not just that I don't agree with it.