8 Dec
1998
8 Dec
'98
9:34 a.m.
On Tue, 8 Dec 1998, Ward Donald Griffiths III wrote:
Yup. Linux Ain't Unix. It Ain't Minix. It
ain't GNU, though it uses
Stallman's Copyleft. Yes, every Linux distribution uses gagloads of
GNU material, properly attributed, all source available, and Stallman
has nothing to complain about except that people have been making
money selling free software. (That's free as in something other than
the price -- Open Source).
AFAIK, Stallman never had a problem with people selling "free" software,
or making money from it in other ways such as Cygnus support. FSF used to
make money themselves by selling tapes or CD-ROMs with hefty margins.
They still offer "deluxe" packages for $5K and CD-ROMs for $240 to corps
and $60 to peons, but I doubt they sell very well.
According to the interview I read (from 1996), Stallman considers Linux to
be the fullfillment of his mission to make Unix free, but he might be a
bit unhappy that Linus is seen as the creator of something that couldn't
have been pulled off without his help. Linux would be a sorry joke
without GNU.
-- Doug