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Won't Happen
This article went to press one week before Richard Stallman abruptly resigned as head of the Free Software Foundation. Yikes! All is flux in the FOSS world. Still, the trend toward détente between Microsoft and the Free Software community is bound to continue, and these thoughts on Stallman’s recent visit to Redmond offer a glimpse into how real change happens – one small step at a time.
Dear Reader,
In the latest update in the ongoing rapprochement between Microsoft and the FOSS community, several news sources report that Free Software legend Richard Stallman actually arrived at Microsoft Research headquarters this month and gave a talk for Microsoft employees [1]. As I have often used this space to mention in the past, this spirit of cooperation between Microsoft and the FOSS community is so unexpected that it actually seems a little unreal to those of us who remember the wild rhetoric and unrestrained legal wrangling of the bad old days.
As amazing as it might seem that Microsoft invited Richard Stallman to speak, people seemed more amazed that Richard Stallman actually accepted the invitation. Back in the days when Microsoft had a lot to say about Free Software, Stallman certainly had a lot to say about Microsoft. To this day, Stallman has a page on his personal website entitled "Reasons Not to Use Microsoft" with a fiery list of Redmond transgressions [2].
[...]
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