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Williams, Sam

"Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software"

In fashioning the free
software cause not as a mass movement but as a
collection of private battles against the forces of
proprietary temptation, Stallman seems to have created
a unwinnable situation, especially for the many
acolytes with the same stubborn will.
Then again, it is that very will that may someday prove
to be Stallman's greatest lasting legacy. Moglen, a
close observer over the last decade, warns those who
mistake the Stallman personality as counter-productive
or epiphenomenal to the "artifacts" of Stalllman's
life. Without that personality, Moglen says, there
would be precious few artifiacts to discuss. Says
Moglen, a former Supreme Court clerk: Look, the
greatest man I ever worked for was Thurgood Marshall. I
knew what made him a great man. I knew why he had been
able to change the world in his possible way. I would
be going out on a limb a little bit if I were to make a
comparison, because they could not be more different.
Thurgood Marshall was a man in society, representing an
outcast society to the society that enclosed it, but
still a man in society.


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