Is There a French Richard Stallman?
Recently, France directed schools to stop using Office 365 and Google Workspace. Naturally, the internet rejoiced at the news. But this begs the question, is there some sort of French Richard Stallman behind the scenes?
Richard Stallman is an American software freedom activist who has been highly critical of commercial software. He’s known as the founder of the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation.
A French Richard Stallman (Richard Étalhomme) would be clearly less perverse and more politically correct, and he would definitely enjoy oysters when the autumn breeze creeps through his Parisian window and tickles his hairy ankles under his wavy suede pantaloons. Free as in freedom, my friends!
His majestic CSS 2.1 blog would be full of thought-provoking posts, like “Why GUI is pronounced oui” or “Baguette before BSD.”
“The French are always ahead of the pack,” said acclaimed historian Simon Cadman. “Considering the French revolution, the French croissant, the French kiss, it’s no surprise they would be the first to produce a Richard Stallman that humanity can be proud of.”
One can only assume that there’s a French Richard Stallman somewhere in a secret base in France, carefully encoding secret messages to guide the world into a utopia of computerized ethics.
Je voudrais juste intervenir un instant. Ce que vous appelez Linux est en fait GNOU/Linux, ou comme je l’ai récemment appelé, GNOU plus Linux.
The French Stallman would also be:
- Better looking, because let’s face it, the American Stallman is kind of a weird looking dude.
- Much more suave and debonair, much more the type of guy that you would want to buy a drink for at a crowded bar. This is in contrast to the American Stallman, who is more likely to be found lurking in the shadows at said bar, glaring at everyone and muttering to himself GNU Bash commands.
- More likely to be found driving an open-source 3D-printed Ferrari down the Champs Elysees, with a beautiful age-appropriate woman by his side.
The list goes on.
We reached out to the French government for comment, but they were out having a smoke.
So cheers to the French Richard Stallman. Whoever you are, and whatever you’re up to. We owe you a great debt.
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