Re: Free software and making money.

[mike3]

On Aug 16, 12:52 pm, mike3 <mike4...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Aug 16, 1:59 am, David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org> wrote:
>
> > mike3 <mike4...@yahoo.com> writes:
> > > I heard someone claiming that Free software (as in Freedom for the
> > > users), or the GNU project, or RMS, is against making money. Is this
> > > so?
>
> > Mike, how long have you been trolling here?  Do you think it still
> > believable to feign ignorance about the GPL FAQ?
>
> Well, I can't feign ignorance of it, but I can forget what was
> mentioned.
> It's been a while since I took my last read. The reason why I was
> asking
> was because I _heard_ this and wanted to know if it was just a rumor
> or something.
>
> > > I think Free software is about Freedom for the users, and not anything
> > > to do with making or not making money.
>
> > And nothing new with that.
>
> Ah.

I guess this is why it is not good to trust some dumb blog commenter's
opinion on anything! They were saying Stallman's philosophy,
motivations,
or something were against making money even if the GPL did not
explicitly
prohibit it... (so a *GPL* FAQ would be useless as that talks about
the GPL itself. It's not a Stallman FAQ or an FSF Founding Intentions
FAQ.).

It turns out, however, that a Google search for "richard stallman" +
"making money", conducted at the time of this post, turned up this:

http://www.tlug.jp/docs/rms.html

"HY: Hmmmmmmmmmm.....I guess you've went through this sort of
conversation, and you've no doubt encountered skeptics and people who
have a hard time understanding. Where do people stumble?

RMS: First, the meaning of the word "free". This is "jiyuu" in
Japanese, and it doesn't refer to money.

Also, people have lots of assumptions that they unconsciously make.
Some people assume everyone is either a Capitalist or a Communist.
Since I'm against proprietary software, they think I must be
communist. Or people assume I'm jealous of people making a lot of
money from software. People are so used to thinking that the important
issue is money, it is hard to understand someone with a different
priority.

I've never opposed making money, and I'm not against selling copies of
software. I'm opposed to taking away users' freedom. That's the issue.
"

Which goes to show that said blog commenter was WRONG!!!!
Damn, I should've just hit the Google first instead of the g.m.d
Usenet group, duh... (I found that so quick) Well, I guess that's
what happens with mistakes (or should): you learn from them...