There’s no doubting the accomplishments of Stallman, and we probably wouldn’t have open source of any kind if it wasn’t for radical thinkers like him, but with the rate the world and its requirements are changing, can we continue to stick to ideals like an ancient religion’s diktats? This is why I hate the term “evangelist” - it’s basically a word used to describe someone who tries to convert you to their “religion”. To be honest, I’m inclined to agree with these criticisms. In very public arguments, Stallman has been criticised by other “evangelists” for being too rigid with his thoughts. His view has always been that unless the source is shared, software just isn’t truly free. Now Stallman is (in)famous for being absolutely against all software with closed source, including freeware. What started in 1985 as a paper titled the GNU Manifesto, by Richard Stallman, has grown exponentially, under the GNU license and the Free Software Foundation, into the biggest community initiative of all time. Although we’re covering all of the above in this issue, to help you understand how basically anything you can think of can be “open source” and community driven, including our own Digit Open Source Project (details on page 38), there’s still some confusion about how open, open source really is. Open source has extended to cars, gadgets, hardware, cooking, music, movies and much more. It’s not just about software, or Linux distros, but more about a way of life. You’ve known us encourage the use of open source in the past, but this time we wanted to highlight all the other aspects of the open source philosophy. I hate the term “evangelist” - it’s basically a word used to describe someone who tries to convert you to their “religion”ġ Digit | August 2009 | s you’ve probably figured out, we’re celebrating open source this month, and no, we’re not talking (just) about software.
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