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Wired: No Free Dinner for Free Software

“The Free Software Foundation is not known for its $250-a-plate
fundraisers at fancy San Francisco restaurants.

“Mention its name to most people here at LinuxWorld and you’ll
conjure images of a grassroots hacker organization that’s better
known for creating the GNU C Compiler and GNU Emacs than for its
fundraising tactics, which before yesterday consisted mainly of
selling T-shirts and software manuals. The foundation was founded
in 1985 by MacArthur Fellow Richard Stallman to create a free
version of Unix.

“But change is in the air at the FSF, and last night a small
group of lawyers and digital rights philanthropists–checkbooks in
hand–each coughed up enough money to buy a year’s supply of
T-shirts, in exchange for the honor of dining on grilled
butterflied filet mignon and rajas potato gratin at an upscale
Mexican restaurant in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood…”

Complete
Story

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