From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1161020AbWI1Sec (ORCPT ); Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:34:32 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1161023AbWI1Sec (ORCPT ); Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:34:32 -0400 Received: from smtp.osdl.org ([65.172.181.4]:18411 "EHLO smtp.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1161022AbWI1Seb (ORCPT ); Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:34:31 -0400 Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 11:34:09 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: Chase Venters cc: Sergey Panov , Patrick McFarland , Theodore Tso , Alan Cox , Jan Engelhardt , James Bottomley , linux-kernel Subject: Re: GPLv3 Position Statement In-Reply-To: <200609272339.28337.chase.venters@clientec.com> Message-ID: References: <1158941750.3445.31.camel@mulgrave.il.steeleye.com> <1159415242.13562.12.camel@sipan.sipan.org> <200609272339.28337.chase.venters@clientec.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Chase Venters wrote: > > After lots of careful consideration, I think it is fair to say that Stallman > vigorously and extremely promotes and stands by his ideals, but the ideals he > stands for aren't all that radical or extreme. That is the difference, isn't > it? I would disagree. What you talk about is "idealism". You can be idealistic about anything. I agree that rms is also idealistic, but that's not what makes him extremist. There are a lot of idealistic people who aren't extreme. Extremism has nothing to do with _what_ the ideal is, but with how you state them. That's not just my interpretation, I can back it up with actual meaning of the word. S: (n) extremism (any political theory favoring immoderate uncompromising policies) That's from wordnet.princeton.edu. Note the "ANY" in "any political theory". And that "immoderate" and "uncompromizing" is rms to a T. So please, if you want to argue semantics, at least look up the word first. When I said extremist, I didn't use that word in the wrong way. For example, the difference between a "deeply religious person" and an "extremist religious person" is not in their depth or trueness of their beliefs. It's in whether they want to allow other people to believe otherwise and can compromize when dealing with those other people. Linus