this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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Stallman is the reason open source software (as we know it today) even exists.
All hail Stallman
Sure. Okay. No argument.
Stallman is also his own worst enemy. Feet-picking aside, coat-tailing Linux with this whiny "but ack-shually, gnu is a big part of it so we want equal billing" is just weak and arrogant and has been for decades.
.. and if stallman can't see that without Linux he'd be just a hippie with other issues, he begs for the same trivialization of his own role.
Call it Torvalds/tridgell/baumel/Bourne/Ritchie/Linux before GNU/Linux or gtfo. And if we call it gnu/Linux, we should say chisel/David or Mussolini/UN because, like GNU, they were in the right place at the right time to have a completely fungible sidecar role in what actually happened to catalyze actual work.
Stallman made emacs. Cool. I use it daily. GNU is great but not vital. Without Edison, we'd have a Marconi somewhere.
I'd argue that Stallman's principal contribution to the world of technology was the GNU GPL and copyleft in general. Without that, neither Linux the kernel nor "Linux" the operating system would have taken off.