On 1/5/19, A. P. Garcia <a.phillip.garcia@gmail.com> wrote:
[concerning Richard Stallman]
>
> Building an operating system in and of itself was not so much his goal as
> building the friendships and community surrounding it.
>
The GNU Hurd kernel certainly seems to have gotten nowhere, and with
the success of Linux IMO the free software community doesn't need it
anymore. But FSF certainly has made a big impact and contribution
with the gcc toolchain and the free versions of the Unix shell and
utilities.
But RMS sort of invented that community, just like Al Gore sort of invented the internet (as we know it today). He was certainly an important catalyst, and his views remain influential to many people.
He was wrong about Unix, though. It is not merely an adequate OS. It is ideal. ;-)