After reading Melody Horn's article titled Post-Open Source about a couple weeks ago I've been doing a lot more thinking than I normally do about the state of the Free Software movement. I suppose this expose of Stallman's habits over the past several decades can serve as another gravestone to cap off an era which has ultimately failed in making free computing a reality for the masses.

I used to think of Stallman as being simply idiosyncratic, but after reading this I think it is pretty clear he's been actually harmful. It is a hard pill to swallow when you use things like GCC and Emacs, and thousands of programs licensed under his brainchild, the GNU GPL, but is the truth. He doesn't have a monopoly on the concept of Free Software, and in a lot of ways, the longevity of the project was doomed by his canonization along with the more general failure to consider what the implications of private ownership would do consumer devices and the Internet as a whole.

Little by little, I see the seeds of a more radical free software movement sprouting up, questioning the assumptions of the old guard. I look forward to what the new generation will usher in.