Big Surprise: RMS favors OSS over that of Microsoft

For an exceedingly brief and likely wanting description/translation of that subject:
RMS are the initials for Richard Stallman, one of the biggest talking heads for OSS (the open source movement). Stallman and consequently OSS feel that source code should be something open that people can peruse for bugs and contribute to in order to make it better.
As a result, he frequently is outspoken against the likes of Microsoft which are essentially the opposite of open source - they have products which are extremely closed off in order for them to maintain control of it and make money off of it.

While either side has their points, RMS tends to sound like a blowhard pretty much anytime he rants on about this stuff and this appears to be one of them.

Again, Slashdot has a post up in which it points to RMS stating on some mailing list for another very similar option to SPF, he doesn't think Microsoft's SPF implementation is any good due to licensing issues - meaning it isn't sufficiently open to his liking.

This should all be taken with a grain of salt since Microsoft clearly stands to benefit from their side, and RMS will always rant on about whatever side he is on and in this case he is involved with yet another implementation of this concept - but his is called "MARID".

This comment on Slashdot essentially says what needs to be said on the topic - that RMS is ranting on about an old concept which was Microsoft's original implementation which was called "Sender-ID" but then then merged together with SPF.

All in all, it is a bunch of nerd egos making cracking sounds as they butt into each other, trying to split hairs over things that don't necessarily even apply.
Whether it is to extend press time, or just due to enjoying the sound of his own voice (or the way his writing looks on screen), RMS tends to do this a lot.

Posted by Eric at July 25, 2004 11:44 AM | TrackBack