This entire thing we have going wouldn't be possible without the GNU project. And GNU would never have happened without RMS. The man is a giant. A giant with huge glaring flaws, but every single one of us that did anything with unix-like OSes in the past 30 years owes the man.
Sadly I fear that much like Peirce, Stallman will be forgotten by history because of the acumen of his primary detractors.
Wouldn’t the BSDs have happened sooner or later without GNU, and without Linus? I’m grateful for the contributions of both men (who by the way have expressed quite different ideological stances), but I still think it’s an interesting question.
Maybe yes. But BSD was encumbered by the AT&T nonsense for approximately a third of the free software community’s history. That’s a long time to sit around and do nothing.
This entire thing we have going wouldn't be possible without the GNU project. And GNU would never have happened without RMS. The man is a giant. A giant with huge glaring flaws, but every single one of us that did anything with unix-like OSes in the past 30 years owes the man.
Sadly I fear that much like Peirce, Stallman will be forgotten by history because of the acumen of his primary detractors.