[TriLUG] White House response to FOSS petition?

[Joel J. Adamson]

"Peter Neilson" <neilson at windstream.net> writes:

> On Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:45:02 -0500, Robert Dale <robdale at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> rms may not have a substantive doctorate but he sure does have a lot
>> of honorary doctorates. [1]
>>
>> But it is he himself that refers to himself as "Dr. Richard
>> Stallman". [2]
>
> Hmmm. That, and the style of wording of the petition, suggests to me
> that rms might be its author.

I also seriously doubt that: rms is an activist and a programmer, not a
politician.  He has strong political views, one of which is denigrating
the political process itself.  He frequently refers to laws being
"bought" in the US government, so I doubt he would endorse becoming part
of the process.

Here's my disgust for politics: agreeing in principle but rejecting the
details is one of the biggest problems of the political process.
Lawmakers frequently vote against measures whose main principle they
agree with because they couldn't get money for sending styrofoam
manufacturing overseas where there are fewer regulations.  This is why
so many of them later get called out during campaigns: "Yes I voted
against tougher restrictions on pollution, but that's because I couldn't
get anyone to agree on the details of creating pottery classes for
monkeys."  That's what they should be saying ;)

That's a long way of saying that I signed this petition because anything
calling the White House's attention to the problem is a step in the
right direction.  I don't think there should be a Software Czar (don't
they already have a Technology Czar?) but most politicians are probably
completely oblivious to something that isn't going to help them get
reelected.  Obama's White House at least made a pledge to follow up on
these petitions, should they generate enough interest.

Joel

-- 
Joel J. Adamson <adamsonj at ninthfloor.org>
Servedio Lab
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
http://adamsonj.ninth.su

Free Software Foundation Member #8164
Join the FSF: http://www.fsf.org/jf?referrer=8164
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 229 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www.trilug.org/pipermail/trilug/attachments/20120202/ef22a05f/attachment.pgp>