Posted on May 15, 2008 at 9:48 am

Open Source Community Has Richard Stallman Put to Sleep

Sad news from the world of open source computing today as Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and principle author of the GNU Public License, was put to sleep.

“It was for his own good, really,” remarked Eric S. Raymond.  ”He was getting, well, rabid is the only way to describe it.  I mean, some of the things he wanted to put into GPL 3.0 were just strange. I won’t get into specifics, but where would we even find a kangaroo suit in Linus Torvalds’ size?”

Raymond assured us that it was done in the most humane way possible. “We brought him into a nice living room with Charles in Charge on the TV. He loved Charles in Charge…” Raymond paused for a moment, his eyes moist. “Sorry…  Anyway, while he was distracted by the antics of the lovable Scott Baio and Nicole Eggert, a technician came in behind him and injected 40,000 lines of pure Windows ME source code into his beard.  Richard was gone before the second commercial break.”  Tears were running openly down his face at this point. “We’ll miss you, big guy.”

In recent months Stallman’s mental stability has weakened, as evidenced by a recent manifesto calling for a change in the name of most operating systems:

In order to underscore the role that GPL’d software plays in our lives, we need to convey to people the idea that the GNU foundation is at the heart of all good software. To this end we need to use the following names:

  • All IBM Products will be called “Prison/DOS”
  • FreeBSD will be called “GNU/FreeBSD”
  • OpenBSD will be called “GNU/OpenBSD”
  • No, SERIOUSLY, call it GNU/Linux!  Stop laughing at me!  I mean it!
  • OSX has been heavily influenced by free software.  It should be called GNU.5/OSX.  
  • Windows will be called “Spawn of Satan”.
…
The manifesto continues for several more pages.
“We do need to remember the things that Richard has done for the community,” remarked Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux. “I mean, without him there would be no open source, and the GPL version 2.0 really is a masterpiece of legal writing. But, no, it’s called Linux, not ‘GNU/Linux’, or ‘Stallman/Linux’, or ‘FSF/Linux’ or whatever unpronounceable crap he wants to call  my, I mean, ‘our’ operating system.”
Apple was contacted for a comment, but it was busy watching old episodes of Joanie Loves Chachi  and weeping gently to itself.

Tags:, ,

4 Responses to “Open Source Community Has Richard Stallman Put to Sleep”

  1. Ace Deuce on May 16th, 2008 at 8:31 am says:

    Truth be told, Linus Torvalds lives in Lake Oswego, just a couple miles from here. I’ve seen him at the farmer’s market and he is just the size of a kangaroo, so that’s a red herring, or maybe a straw man. Or a paper tiger?

    Otherwise, they’re dead-on.

    On another note, as the sole commenter here, I believe I’m entitled to my own key to the executive washroom.

  2. Nate on May 16th, 2008 at 9:36 am says:

    As soon as we get enough money to have executives, washrooms, or keys, then we’ll talk.
    I believe the correct term is a red straw tiger. With feet of clay, $2.95 or $4.50 with feet of clay and spring roll.

  3. Nate on May 16th, 2008 at 1:03 pm says:

    Ace:
    An Executive Washroom is in the works. And you will get the very first key.
    Stay Tuned!

  4. Crazy Apple News Site » Guest Editorial: ZRMS on August 11th, 2008 at 1:28 pm says:

    [...] have a great one to start out with. Yes, today we are proud to publish wit and wisdom from beyond the grave. We present the undead father of Open Source, a great man and now a great zombie, please put your [...]

Leave a Reply