Essay RFC delayed.

[Signal 11]

Alejandro Forero Cuervo wrote:
> I believe more hackers would rather listen to Richard than to you, Eric.

I disagree.  I think both of them are worth listening to.  One of them is trying to
be practical, the other is trying to be ideological.  There's nothing wrong with either approach, and some people will listen better to one than the other.  But neither is "better" than the other.  I don't believe it is possible to create a system that is 100% free of proprietary software (and be useable by a large number of people) - nonetheless it shouldn't stop people from striving to make that possible.  We didn't believe we could land a man on the moon, nonetheless somebody tried - and we landed a man on the moon!  Progress depends on unreasonable people.

If Richard hadn't been so unreasonable in demanding free software and forming a grassroots movement to make that possible the more practical open source movement would never have left the launch pad.  Whether open source will become the de facto standard, or act as a stepping stone to free software, I don't know.  But I can tell you that this won't turn out the way anybody thought it would.  That's the way social revolutions work - and don't kid yourself, this is a social revolution.


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