Richard Stallman has cancer

Linux@lemmy.ml – 846 points – 1 years ago

From his website stallman.org:

Richard Stallman has cancer. Fortunately it is slow-growing and manageable follicular lymphona, so he will probably live many more years nonetheless. But he now has to be even more careful not to catch Covid-19.

Recent video of him speaking at GNU 40 Hacker Meeting. Screenshots of video stream.

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That’s a terrible joke that deserves the downvotes, because cancer is shit and I only wish the best to anyone who is diagnosed with it, but I laughed.

I don’t get the joke :c

Cancer is absolute shit, but I do also love dark humour (when I get it lawl)

Comes from the copy pasta of "I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux" and. And a bit more memeing with the fact that Linux itself is not as "free/libre" as GNU AFAIK (or the famous quote of Linux is cancer from Ballmer)

Thank you! I’m just getting into Linux and stuff.

It's a reference to a copypasta.

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux,” and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use.

Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.

Aha! Thank you for the context!

It's also a reference to Steve Ballmer from Microsoft calling Linux a cancer