RMS discussion aftermath (hint, hint)

[Aviad Mandel]

Reading the recent drama regarding RMS' will lecture or won't lecture or may
lecture or must lecture or must not lecture in Israel, I'll try to do some
aftermath (I truly hope we're getting close to the "after". Maybe not. I
still have some popcorn).

1. Whoever reads the thread might reach the conclusion that RMS is a very
important person. Today, that is. While the thought about e.g. Linus
quitting his role may be a bit disturbing, I can't see what real influence
RMS has today.
2. The point of a boycott is to draw attention. Without this discussion, one
would hardly know that "il" in "linux-il" stands for Israel, and there's
someone we call RMS. And that Israel has issues with public performances.
3. Given that RMS is such an important person, I'm sure everyone will accept
him warmly three years from now, when some other state will be subject to
media attention and boycotting (Syria? Lybia? Egypt? Maybe even the
Palestinian Authority themselves. Who knows).

So the bottom line is that this discussion leveraged RMS from someone most
of us forgot all about, to the level of a key figure, whose recognition of
Israel is important. Maybe he knows his work after all. Some people say
there is no such thing as bad publicity.

And this is a good time to remind you, that in a previous thread, I found
myself with a simple method to circumvent GPL (by linking GPL code with
proprietary code on the target computer, hence no copying done after license
void). The idea that GPL is not worth the place it occupies on the disk was
naturally rejected, but nobody came up with a cutting explanation of why.
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