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Slashback: Stallman, Again, Wanderungen
Which way to America, please? After word of Microsoft Honcho Jim Allchin's (somewhat bizarre) words on Free software (later "clarified" by MS), we linked to a (preliminary) response to Allchin from RMS. Now RMS has himself issued a final version of his statement, here for your edification, passed on by Dan Gillmore, technology columnist for the San Jose Mercury News.
Very eloquent.Thanks, Dan.
And if you're not yet out of sparklers, pie, bunting or RAM, matthew writes: "Bradley M. Kuhn, the new Vice President of the Free Software Foundation, has an essay published here. It's a more personal answer to Microsoft's attack against the GPL."
Start flossing that stein and pressing those Lederhosen! Jetzt! Alex writes: "I'm proud to announce that we finally got it managed. The date is fixed. The Linuxbierwanderung 2001 (1) will take place from 25th of August to the 1st of September in Bouillon (2), Belgium. As the hall we get the upper floor of the Archeoscope (3), a museum direct in town. It's warm, dry, nice, with enough electricity and has up to some 20 ISDN-lines. To get things easier for you we added a lot of phonenumbers and addresses of camping sites and hotels on the webpage. See (4) to look for your favorite place. So, now it's time to register ! To register yourself, your family, your pets, your computers and your lectures see (5). Thank you for your attention, Cheers, Alex.
(1) The Linuxbierwanderung 2001
(2) Bouillon on the Net
(3) The Archeoscope
(4) Hotel Overview
(5) Join the Linuxbierwanderung and register !"
I wish this didn't sound suspiciously close to LinuxWorld (San Francisco) 2001, because a lot of people would probably like to go to both. Lucky Europeans;) How about one of these in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee? I'll bring the fireworks, you bring the moonshine ...
I would have stopped at Pizza-Nizza afterward ... Google bought Deja. RallyDriver sends a report from the coolest six-letter city on I-35 between Dallas and San Antonio (gulp -- covered my bases?).
"On Thursday at the Omni hotel here in Austin [?] , we had the now familiar wake: the auction. While the public was overbidding on everything from furniture to laptops, dual P3 VA FullOn servers were going for as low as $275 a piece.
The show, however, goes on. Rumors of unemployment levels in Austin are greatly exaggerated, and it seems like most of the Deja people are already moving on to new opportunities. If you work in high tech, Austin is a small town of 1 million people.
Most of the server equipment (they still had the previous generation of equipment and the one before that) was picked up by junk dealers and resellers according to its vintage, but ironically a number of the rackmount boxes will be going right back where they came from -- Exodus Austin, where Deja was hosting, is also our co-lo provider."
Of course, being straight, white, middle-upper class protestant males, we really don't need to worry about that kind of thing, so it doesn't matter, right?
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
What I was trying to say is that a concentration of hate crimes in an area is an awfully good reason not to live there, especially if you fall into one of the catagories for which people are victimized.
You know, for a group of people who seem to think that high school bullies deserve the death penalty, Slashdotters are sure quick to defend the rights of people who pick on others for non-clique related reasons.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
That was one of the concerns which lead to the creation of the Open Content License back in 1998:
http://www.opencontent.org/opl.shtml
It's commonly used for books which are released both in print and on a free basis on-line, eg., Linux Administration Made Easy, and all the content at Linux.Com.
Why weren't his comments released under the GPL?
:-)
Yes, considering every post critical of RMS has been labeled as a troll or flamebait, it is absolutely natural to conclude what you just did.
I'm a liberal... What I want to know is, why are you so afraid to acknowledge that Richard Stallman's ideas are based a lot upon the Communist writings of Karl Marx.
People kill for love so don't get involved with voilent persons or those involved with violent
or irational persons.
People kill for money so take extra recautions when you cary money around. Or better yet don't cary much money with you. And when you do make it aparent that you don't.
People kill for personal vengence. Be honest in your dealings to avoid creating a motive.
People kill because they dislike your race, religeon, nationality or sexual orientation. For this kind of crime there realy are only 2 options. Don't live near such people or cary a large loaded firearm at all times.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Courts still have the option of giving suspended sentences to convicted morderes. If both the convict and the judge are in the KKK and this is a hate crime it WILL hapen.
This particular legislation circomvents the judges discretion.
More importantly it was only created because that discretion was so frequently abused.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
"Hate crime" as a category is ridiculous, and should have no special legal standing.
It is entirely appropriate that a murder directed toward a group be handled much differently than a murder directed toward an individual. A person who kills his neighbor over a common fence is a menace to his neighbors. A person who kills a jew because he's a jew is a menace to millions of people, and his intent to kill doesn't go away when the first victim is dead. He is also capable of much greater carnage -- no one who is pissed at their neighbor is going to blow up a hundred people because of it. But people driven to hate crimes can, and do target hundreds of people.
Well put. For example, he is very strongly pro-copyright- the GPL falls completely if there is no copyright. In fact, if I had to make a blanket statement about RMS on IP, I'd say that e isn't anti-IP- he's against the trend where IP is used by large corporations to control our computing lives, and in favor of individuals chosing to share their IP. He certainly can't be against IP in all it's forms- if that is the case, we live in a BSD-licensed* world, and $LARGE_CORPORATION could exploit RMS's code without giving two bits back to RMS and his community. And I think we can all agree on what he'd think about that.
~luge
*Note: this isn't to knock BSD folks. If you want to allow others to use your code without encumbrance, that's your bag- you have that choice. In an IP free world, there would be no choice- everything would be BSD-style, whether the coder liked it or not.
IAAL,BIANLY
Thus the crime is perpetrated upon more then the individual lying broken / bloodied / dead but rather upon the catagory / class / community of persons who were targetted; and the penalties reflect this.
While ignorent folks try and claim it's some sort of "special protection" to be a member of a community listed under many hate-crime ordinances it's entirely irrelavant unless the crime was committed upon the basis of the victems being a *whatever*.
Before going spouting off it's oftentimes enlighening to do a bit of research first and discover the reasoning behind a set of laws rather then spouting off an ignorant opinion.
As to this being a strike against Austin - it is. A former employer attempted to move me there upon which I had to explain was not an option: I was not going to move to a place where my legal protections were lessened.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Uhhh no. Weaklings, losers, and morons will give up freedom to have their needs met. Which is, of course, most everyone.
The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion.
A hate crime is distinct because it is also an act of communication to others in the target group (and I - as well as the courts - believe that a non-white person who attacks a white person on the basis of their race is committing a hate crime) - in addition to the direct attack on the individual as a target, the act threatens other individuals in the target group. If I am gay, and three people in my community have been attacked for being gay, then I am being directly menaced (essentially, assaulted - it can be seen as an act of assault on all people in the target group), while if I am attacked for having cut someone off in the freeway, there isn't really an implicit message being sent to people who cut other people off on a freeway. That is the nature of the hate crime.
The hate crime has special status because there is an implicit threat even to those who were not attacked or killed. The threat of violence with the ability and will to carry it out is defined as assault. When one demonstrates that will by attacking or killing someone, motivated by their membership in a particular group, then all people in that group are implicitly assaulted. It is these corollary victims that compound the injustice of the act and justify additional punishment.
You know, for a group of people who seem to think that high school bullies deserve the death penalty, Slashdotters are sure quick to defend the rights of people who pick on others for non-clique related reasons.
How does my taking the position that all murderers should be taken out of society permanently, regardless of whether they murdered because they hated their victim or because they hated a broader class of people, equate into protecting the murderer's rights?
Are you even reading these things before you reply to them?
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Yeah, yeah, and the majority of people convicted under hate crimes laws have been black.
So what? The very fact that we're compiling this kind of statistic is further evidence that these wrong-headed laws divide us.
Giving a murderer a lesser sentence because the color of his skin is the same as his victim's isn't equal rights.
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A person who kills his neighbor over a common fence is a menace to his neighbors.
No, a person who kills his neighbor over a common fence is a menace to anyone with whom he interacts, because they might cut in line in front of him or double park. Such a person has demonstrated that he cannot live by the rules of a civilized society, and that he will not resolve minor disputes by taking them to small claims court, but instead by killing someone.
Such a person should not be in society, and it is reckless and irresponsible to allow him to continue interacting with others. Whether that means life in prison without paroll or the death penalty is a seperate topic, for which I have an opinion that isn't really relevant to what's being discussed at present.
A person who kills a jew because he's a jew is a menace to millions of people, and his intent to kill doesn't go away when the first victim is dead.
Nonsense. Most bigots who kill don't kill even a dozen people, much less millions. As for being a bigger threat, do you honestly think your hypothetical unstable neighbor is going to encounter less rude people than your bigot is going to encounter Jews?
The bigot is going to self-select himself AWAY from potential victims. He's probably less of a threat than the unstable fool, who is going to be interacting with other people every day.
Both the bigot and the unstable neighbor have one thing in common; they have demonstrated that they cannot live by the rules of society, and that they present a threat to the lives and well-being of others as a result of this deficiency. Both should be removed from society permanently.
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All criminal for all of human history has and must punish those actions which follow from evil thought more severely than those actions which do not (i.e., negligence).
And you're missing a CRUCIAL point:
If we punish a murderer inspired by skin tone more serverely than we punish one inspired by money, BY DEFINITION, we aren't giving the one inspired by money the "ultimate" penalty. In order for one to be more, the other has to be less, and that "wiggle room" means sociopaths let loose to prey upon society.
It comforts me not at all that I am more likely to be killed for my wallet than for my color. I'd rather both crimes carried the same penalty; life without possibility of parole, spent in a little bitty room with adequate food and sunlight, but nothing else.
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Of course, the reason you should personally be concerned about "hate crimes" is that you're open to becoming a completely arbitrary victim.
And am I less so, because of hate crime laws?
Read what I wrote again; I'm not saying hate crimes don't exist, I'm saying hate crime LAWS accomplish nothing other than dividing us further.
Nowhere have I said that hate crimes should not be punished. Quite the opposite; simply that the punishment for ANY violent crime should be very severe, and extremely violent crime (murder, attempted murder, assault with intent to kill) should be punished permanently.
Of course, being straight, white, middle-upper class protestant males, we really don't need to worry about that kind of thing, so it doesn't matter, right?
I am far more likely to be killed for my wallet or automobile than for the amount of melanin in my epidermis, and this would be true even if I were a black female living in Austin.
The fact that I am a straight white male (lower-upper class, atheist, but you were close enough) doesn't make it any less tragic if I'm killed. My wife and child wouldn't love me any more if I were a minority.
Hell, the fact that I'm not called a minority is further proof of the arbitrary and illogical nature of these divisions. I'm Irish, my "people" are still being oppressed.
Except that that's bullshit; I'm an American, and so is the American who was born in India in the next cubicle, and the American born in China in the one after him, and the American of African descent walking by, and the American of Greek descent in the next room who happens to be gay.
It's just as wrong to kill one of us as the next one, for any premeditated reason.
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And we're not just talking about ordinary crime. We're talking about hate crimes.
I fail to see how you're any more dead if the man who kills you hates all people of your skin tone, not just you.
I further fail to see why such crimes should have greater penalties than "ordinary" crimes. If murder demands a certain penalty, it should demand that penalty regardless of the race, color, creed, or religion of either victim or assailant.
Hate crime laws merely divide us further, by perpetuating the wrong-headed notion that there is a non-trivial difference between us that is based on our non-immediate ancestry.
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I don't know why you would say this is ad hominem
Richard Stallman is a...
If you would like to avoid the ad hominem accusation, start your sentence with something other than "The man whose arguments I'm attacking is...". Whatever comes after this will be an ad hominem attack. Try this instead:
--
Vidi, Vici, Veni
I have no opinion on "intellectual property rights," because the term is too broad to have a sensible opinion about. It is a catch-all, covering copyrights, patents, trademarks, and other disparate areas of law; areas so different, in the laws and in their effects, that any statement about all of them at once is surely simplistic. To think intelligently about copyrights, patents or trademarks, you must think about them separately. The first step is declining to lump them together as "intellectual property".
I'm not sure if I understand why one would choose to misrepresent RMS so badly. In any case this particular passage seems quite clear and I see no evidence of his "speaking with a forked tongue". Perhaps RMS doesn't speak well for all of us, but we should at least give him the respect of quoting him accurately and then discussing the pros and cons of his views.
Try the right to not use GPL'd software.
Just don't use it. And don't whine about it.
Nobody cares if you don't. You're *never* going to make a contribution anyways, so we won't feel deprived when you refuse the participate.
Go and code another closed-source VB app. Yay you.
What's with the title? It's like "All you bullshit belong to us!" or something.
Yeah, although ZDNet is now claiming the copyright. Go get 'em, Stallman!
Look, I may not agree with everything Stallman says, but I never have a problem understanding what he says.
Here, it's pretty clear that he doesn't want to make the article too long, so he discusses only copyright. That's the form of IP that the GPL most clearly attacks.
The sentence you quoted is part of his explanation of why he isn't discussing the other forms of IP in that article.
Doesn't sound much like a troll to me.
Don't forget about Burning Man, which is August 27 - September 3. A large chunk of techie types trek there every year as well, especially from the Bay Area. I bet it'll draw alot of people who otherwise might have gone to lwe of the linuxbierwanderung.....
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
RMS's comments also made zdnet today (in the Commentary section). Picture and all :-/ .
He does not hate corporations.
He does not want to steal your property.
It infuriates me when people lash out against Stallman because they think he goes too far or they think he misrepresents them.
If you think he is too stubbornly stuck on Freedom then you're entitled to your opinion but it is stupid to attack him for his opinion. He has made a great contribution to our society. What good comes of attempting to discredit him and his work? To do so reveals your own malignance. I challenge you to go make your own contribution.
If you think Stallman misrepresents you then don't attack him. Instead, make your own opinion heard. He is defending his code and his rights. He is defending the rights of all of us who believe in the freedom of speech. He is defending all those who subscribe to the philosophy of the GPL. If you don't like Free Software then go promote your own Open Source software or your proprietary software. Don't stoop to Ad Hominem arguements to promote your ideas. Again, it only exposes your own lack of character.
"...when people have to tell you you're being oppressed, something is most definitely amiss. "
Maybe you don't feel oppressed using proprietary software. I think most people who don't write code don't feel too opressed. But most people also intuitively know they should be able to copy and distribute software freely. That's why most people will make an "illegal" copy of MS Word or Windows for their friends. They don't have to hate Microsoft, but they know that a proprietary software copyright holder should not have the right to tell you what you can (and can't) do with your copy.
Stallman is a generous, honest and brilliant man. Instead of attacking him, I challenge you to emuate him.
-R
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Tired of ICANN despotism?
Go OpenNIC!
Stallman has written that he doesn't think programmers should be paid salaries. He's written that he finds it disgusting that people would even suggest working for money.
Where? I just double-checked on his website, and what I find agreed with what I thought he thought, which is: There's nothing wrong with programmers being paid, as long as they're being paid to write free software.
And before I hear sniggering that that's a ridiculous idea, it's not at all. People at small companies such as Ximian and Redhat, as well as large companies like Sun and IBM are being paid to write free software all the time. (Sun has being writing free software at least as far back as the origin of Tcl, a long time ago).
Jules
-- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a perl script.
No, RMS isn't at all pro-copyright.
The GPL uses the force of copyright simply to counteract (in his view) the evils of copyright. He'd be far happier if there simply was none.
He isn't against all IP, thought. He's got no objection to IP (indeed, copyright) on 'artistic works'. It's the unusual status of software as a tool which can be copied at near-zero cost, and modified and enhanced so easily which makes it possible and very powerful to share, benefitting everyone.
Jules
-- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a perl script.
An overview map can be found here.
Hate crime laws merely divide us further, by perpetuating the wrong-headed notion that there is a non-trivial difference between us that is based on our non-immediate ancestry.
Is it different if I steal a newspaper in peacetime than if I steal troop deployment plans during war? (treason)
Is it different if I kill four or five people out of personal hatred than if I kill four or five people in a politically motivated bombing? (terror)
I think you put your finger on the relevant issue, but in the wrong context. We always treat crimes which strike at our ability to coexist as a society. Hate crimes are designed to do things like this: make gays go into the closet; blacks go back to subservience; immigrants to return overseas.
In other words,the reason that hate crimes are worse than personally motivated crimes or garden variety depravity is that they are meant to unhinge society by striking at entire groups of victims.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Not quite. The law rightfully takes something else into consideration...
motive
A woman kills her husband after years of abuse, (but the case was not self-defense) and a woman kills a total stranger because he is gay. Should they be punished the same way?
I don't think so. We're not machines, every case is different. The law should provide guidelines to judging a case, but in the end motive has to be considered.
I smell the Automatic Complaint Letter Generator! If I didn't use it so much myself it might have fooled me.
But what I'm clueless about this time is about what happened to this article from earlier today:
Anti-Napster: What Will Happen Now?
I mean, it was there when I saw it, and it was then when I posted to it on the front page, and now I can't find it any place in the system except by the direct link.
I thought my Meds were kinking in, but there it is.
Ideas? (besides changing the drugs)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Hate crimes are often recorded in greater proportion to population in areas where the police are more attuned to them. I would expect police in Austin, a state capitol and a liberal college town rolled into one, to be more on the lookout for hate crimes than Dallas or Fort Worth. The stat reveals as much about the measurer as the measured.
I agree: if you kill someone in cold-blood, who cares if you did it because of his race, or because you wanted to steal his shoes?
However, the fact that a location has a lot of crimes that are attributable to intolerance does say something about the community. Mind you, I've never been to Texas and don't know what Austin is like, but if there are more hate crimes there than other similarly sized cities, than either people there are more likely to see something as a hate crime, or people there are more intolerant...
-- dR.fuZZo
2. Yes! No more people move to Austin! Austin is full! We don't want you! Go away! If it takes false figures from a slashdot troll about how racist Austin is to scare people away, so be it! Just leave and never come back!
-A former Austinite.
I'll have to take issue with this obvious display of intellectual deficiency:
- You do know that you don't have to publish your code under the GPL, right? Even RMS acknowledges that it is perfectly within your rights to keep your code proprietary, he just thinks it is the wrong thing to do and he says so, but tell me how does that force you to release under the GPL? After all, it says nowhere that you have to listen to RMS.
- Of course you might want to use a piece of GPL software for yourself, and resent that you would have to put your work under the GPL because of that. I'd think that you would have no problem with that, given that it is the original author's right to decide what happens with his software. You can't have it both ways: either you want author's rights respected, in which case you have to abide by the GPL if you want to use GPLed code, or you don't want intellectual property rights at all
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Didn't notice if this link was posted by anyone else, but RMS has submitted a response to Microsoft on ZDNet news.
Developers: We can use your help.
Bradley M. Kuhn later added that only in America, the Land of Opportunity, could he have tried out the open-source gnoQuake 6.8 on a city of his choice today.
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