In the decade since launching the GNU Project, Stallman
had built up a fearsome reputation as a programmer. He
had also built up a reputation for intransigence both
in terms of software design and people management.
Shortly before the 1996 conference, the Free Software
Foundation would experience a full-scale staff
defection, blamed in large part on Stallman. Brian
Youmans, a current FSF staffer hired by Salus in the
wake of the resignations, recalls the scene: "At one
point, Peter [Salus] was the only staff member working
in the office."
For Raymond, the defection merely confirmed a growing
suspicion: recent delays such as the HURD and recent
troubles such as the Lucid-Emacs schism reflected
problems normally associated with software project
management, not software code development. Shortly
after the Freely Redistributable Software Conference,
Raymond began working on his own pet software project,
a popmail utility called " fetchmail." Taking a cue
from Torvalds, Raymond issued his program with a
tacked-on promise to update the source code as early
and as often as possible.
Pages:
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321