Mr. GNU Meets Mr. RSS

The other night Richard Stallman and Dave Winer came over to my place. They'd never met each other before, and I thought they should meet because they've both have created world-changing ways for people to share their ideas and technologies using the Internet. Stallman's ingenious creation of  the GPL  -- which opens up otherwise proprietary source code  to developers, who can change code as long as they continue to allow others to change their changes -- and Winer's RSS -- which puts the power of  publishing and subscribing to information in the hands of ordinary people -- are upending  standard capitalistic operating procedures.

Winer thinks opening up source code, as Stallman advocates,  isn't as important as designing a product or service that's easy for people to use. Stallman focuses on the ethics of keeping one's source code open to all. They sort of talked to each other obliquely, but the end result of their efforts is the same: they have created approaches to elicit greater user participation over the development of both tools and content. They have made life more fun, at least for an agent provocateur like myself.

Side note: This conversation brought out the innate gentleness and humanity of both men. It seems obvious that anyone who is dedicated to bringing out the creativity in everyone is  a kind person, even though they might be characterized otehrwise by  those who still believe in elites.

Comments

[Stanley Krute]

I'm kvelling. Two of my favorite superheroes together in the same World's Finest comic. Perfect. Thanks Sylvia.

[Paul Andrews]

Now there's a podcast I would've loved to download! Thanks for the personal touch, Sylvia, it was brilliant of you to get them together.

[Desiree Miloshevic]

You must know how to bring best out of people or ?
I never met Dave, but his reputation preceeds him. I spent a lot of time with RMS over the last 10 years, so I can vouch that when RMS is in a great mood, it makes all the difference...