When the concerns of an individual are focussed so intently on a particular licensing agreement for their works that they lose the perspective that the death of any being is a sad thing. At that point, I’m afraid, I no longer can regard that person as sane, i.e. in control of their own mind.

I am grateful for the work the FSF has done in the past, but I’m also grateful for the work Steve Jobs has done.

Fanatical and extremist views lead to misery for the owner of the views and for those they effect. It doesn’t matter if the views are religious, political or just software licenses.

I don’t believe you need to defend RMS - I can separate the ideas from the man. However the FSF has just had it’s reputation burnt severely and if they want to have any useful contribution towards the ongoing debate about how best to move the industry forward they should reconsider the ir public image.

That is if they want to increase their support and not end up a fringe group.

I’m a great fan of open source software and have been for the last 23 years but let’s be clear - the producer of software always has the right to choose what license they have, that is their freedom and that was the freedom that Steve Jobs like many others chose. Sometimes the license was open source (Darwin, WebKit etc.) sometime it wasn’t, he chose, that was his freedom as the producer of the work. Freedom is such a loaded word but how often do we stop to see the freedom of other people not just our own when we cry it’s name.

When people cannot see the freedoms of others but only talk about their own freedom, be suspicious. Because their agenda is the most important thing to them, not the wellbeing of others.

I wish a long life to RMS, to the FSF and to open source itself. I would like to see a very quick end to a world view that is filled with contempt and hate for other people which is poisoning all three.