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Comment by hi41 | Hacker News Reader

Why did rms choose to remain poor when he could have earned a lot of money. That must’ve been a difficult choice. Programmers who are a lot less talented than he is earn a lot more money. I also noticed that other open source programmers also were poor. There was an article on hn about the programmer who maintains ssl.

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Why does everything have to be about money? This view is really prevalent on HN and it's actually really tiring to read week after week.

It boils down to this: some people prioritise other endeavours. And if your response to that is 'but they could be doing the same thing AND getting paid £££' then I guess they just don't care as much as you might do.

It doesn't, but a lot of doors open with sufficient amount of money at your disposal. And it is very easy to get lost in the pursuit, because there is never really enough and someone always has more. I am not excusing it, but I understand the strong pull.

For the record, I agree with you. There are things that I effectively add money with no hope of money return. From a purely monetary perspective, those should have been ended a while ago.

> Why does everything have to be about money?

Because of those pesky habits of clothing, feeding, and sheltering yourself.

I'd love to know the special mix that make a person more detached from material possessions than another. See I love open-source, I really do, and the idea of a world with a bunch of Oracle-like businesses competing for software makes me shivers. Yet in my day-to-day, I take the job that pays the most and I probably wouldn't take a 50% pay cut to maintain the kernel.

To be clear, I wish I was able to put my ideals above my personal wealth, but I have a hard time doing it. For those that might wonder, yes I do feel morally bankrupt at times.

Because the amount of money determines the amount freedom you have both in terms of time and location. How this is lost on people like yourself is maddening.

My impression was two things: (1) he had a mission; (2) he had strict and unusual ethical rules for himself, which precluded most other work.

RMS wasn't the only one with ethics that was a barrier to getting rich, however. One odd thing was that, at the start of the dotcom boom, I had the impression (perhaps mistaken) that the programmers with the most experience with Internet and such were also disproportionately more inclined to see themselves as bringing some altruistic vision to everyone, and nurturing it. Things like privacy violation would not fly, I don't think. The privacy violations were snuck in, initially, and the original visionaries either weren't in a position to stop it, somehow didn't realize it was happening, or simply took the money.

The problem is that the programmers in the dotcom boom did have an altruistic motive that is why they can justify the privacy violations. They simply see themselves as the good guys and thus it is okay when they do the wrong things as long as it is for the greater good.

I'm sure there were some people like that. But the impression was really that it was an orgy of anyone who could program at all acting the role of some rock star genius visionary, while most people were hopping companies to whatever seemed to have the best IPO prospects at any moment.

His net worth is estimated to be in the $1-5 million range. Choosing to live a lifestyle we associate with being poor doesn't necessarily mean he's poor.

"I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place." --rms

What makes you think he's poor? What do you think his net worth is?

Well from his Rider for talking engagements

    Flights:

> The FSF does not pay for my travel, and I can't afford to.

Not able to afford several worldwide flights a week doesn't make him poor, but he seems like he probably donated most his money to the FSF.

On a similar note, I run a popular (and probably the best) personal finance website on the internet.

I use data and math to find the most optimal ways to eat, buy health insurance, etc... And everything is free.

I make trivial amounts of money by donations.

I've seen my competitors are significantly worse quality, downright Dave Ramsey Snowball effect tier bad advice. But they sell advertising space for snake oil, they sell yet another budgeting spreadsheet, books, courses, and more.

Their marketing is pretty interesting "I'm a bad girl that likes fashion, so I invest and save." Or something to give them personality. They claim to make 30k+/yr. But they don't get the traffic and I'm sure they haven't been on BBC.

I'm happy with the thank you emails I get, my day job pays well.

It's just another example of lower quality, but charging money making bigger profits.

Could you provide a link? I’d like to check this out.

Efficiency Is Everything

I'm also curious for a link to your personal finance website. I understand if you can't post.

Efficiency Is Everything

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