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RMS Accused Of Attempting Glibc Hostile Takeover
Bram Stolk sent a bit in thats been floating around lately where Ulrich Drepper, glibc maintainer announces the new version, and sidetracks to discuss an an RMS takeover attempt and how he feels about it. He raises several good points and I tend to agree with him. The FSF has done, and continues to do so much good, but more and more tension continues to grow between the extreme free speech faction and the more moderate folks. People have asked my opinion, and I'll just leave it by saying I don't prefix "Linux" with those 3 little letters and a slash even tho I've been asked.
_Who_ asked?
RMS, or some slashdot troll?
This matters, you know. As you put it know, your statement is meaningless.
RMS said that support for Linux would be "Counter productive" to the FSF. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure many people knew about GNU (besides Emacs) before Linux. Also, if it wasn't for Linux, GNU would've probably been forgotten and people would use Free BSD systems. RMS's probem is that he has the SAME EXACT opinion of software that he had 15 years ago. Now that is not normal, normally it would've evolved a bit, but not in his case. Personnaly, I think what RMS did for the Free Software community is great, but I don't think he has rights to control people and projects like that. Seems like "If a project is GNU, the project belongs to RMS."
RMS: All your projects are belon to us!
I don't consider myself a "rabid RMS fan", but if it weren't for this megalomaniac, I wouldn't have a means now to thumb my nose at proprietary software and live my life Microsoft-free. I deeply respect him for that, and I'm willing to cut him some slack on occasion, especially since nobody (including this Drepper guy - his story looks more like a rant than anything else) has particularly compelling evidence to support their "RMS is a raving lunatic megalomaniac" claims. Now don't get me wrong, I will be as dissappointed as the next guy if it turns out that RMS is really losing it, but I won't deny the obvious, WHEN it becomes obvious. Call me conservative, but right now, Ulrich Drepper looks more like a raving lunatic to me for venting off like that in an official release document.
:-)
Besides, RMS can't really harm free software anyway, his own license would prevent him.
I hope I don't see any README files bitching about "give credit where credit is due" and not calling GNU&Linux (my variant which is a bit more descriptive imo) by a name which gives credit to the GNU developers (not the FSF developers but anyone who releases their code under the GPL).
On the other hand, does the name of XMMS give credit to the mpg123 developers? There are plenty of projects which repackage other GNU software without giving credit in the name. Does the GNU licensing give enough credit? I really don't think so, but demanding that the name of every project incorporated is not the answer either. Mozilla/XPCom/Bugzilla/Talkback/etc.
--Drew Vogel
The core that is needed to whom? YOU? What if I need Xfree86, BSD, and perhaps other commercial applications as part of my operating system? Then do I refer to all of them?
I mean, surely when I tell people what OS I use, I say Windows 98, not Windows98/Office2000/Winamp/AOL/ATI Drivers/Creative Labs Drivers/Winzip/Acrobat Reader...
I approve of different vendors calling their distributions whatever they want, based on Linux or not. Let Red Hat Linux simply be Red Hat... let them call it Red Hat Linux if they have a Red Hat Windows Compatible OS too. Maybe there's good reasons not to do that either, but I see no reason why Linux should be called GNU/Linux. GNU does not own Linux. And I would laugh if Linus sold the rights off to the kernel one day, as Stallman would be very very screwed...
Ulrich is actually a pretty staunch defender of software freedom. I think this is a political and personality conflict, more than a difference in ideology.
But then, Ulrich is quite inscrutable, so I don't claim to speak for him.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
I'm NOT complaining about the story being posted per se. I just didn't like that very last paragraph. What I'm complaining about is CmdrTaco trying to paint himself as a balanced observer when we all know that he's as big a FSF/GPL zealot as they get.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
A more complete version of the tale can be found in the Contributors file in the ispell distribution. That narration bends over backwards to avoid starting a flame war, so it is quite generous in describing Stallman's actions. But I haven't forgotten his attempts to trick the general public into doing what he wanted (which continue to this day), nor the generally rude way in which he behaved.
To quote:
--
Make mine methylphenidate.
I really admire RMS, but I have to say, he does go off the deep end to the point that he may be doing more to HURT the FSF than help it.
I understand that free software is as much a political movement as it is an idea for better software. However, RMS seems to be HOSTILE to those who don't make the same choices he does. Freedom to me, means, that, freedom. It's about having the freedom to make good or bad choices.
The KDE controversy, and this takeover attempt on GLIBC etc, makes him look more like a raving lunatic, and by extension, makes ALL of us who support the principle of the GPL and open source look the same. Why? Because Stallman proclaims himself the leader of the whole movement whenever asked, or not asked.
While I have tremendous respect for the man, and his philospohy, his despotic style runs contrary to the whole anarchistic nature of free software. RMS needs to realize that not EVERYTHING needs to be called "GNU/".
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Don't forget MS BSD/NeXT/PARC/Mosaic/Windows 2000: Built on NT(OS/2 & VMS) Technology
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
That's why I don't use the GPL, it's way too complicated, and you really don't feel in charge when you use it (because you aren't in charge).
-bugg
RMS sent one of his lackeys to bug the procps
people (Michael K. Johnson and myself) about
making procps part of the GNU project. I got
all sorts of demands to trace where every bit
of code came from, and no offer of real help.
So I told him where he could stuff his lawyers.
"Isn't it striking that people who claim to be members of a group advocating free thought and speech would be so anal and vitrolic about everyone who doesn't call Linux GNU/Linux?"
I get your point, BUT, its not that simple
For many years RMS was, if not the sole keeper of the "Open Software" (avoiding all the cliche and predefined terms) the "Atlas" upon whose shoulders the burden of making the case for open software and systems against ALL of IBM and the "BUNCH" (IBM and Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data, Honeywell) all of whom would have done just about anything to keep their intellectual fiefdoms as closed as possible ***FOREVER***!
In those many years of intellectual and philosophical isloation, Stallman became a "Gadfly", as this is one way to further your case in the face of overwhelming opposition and resistance.
RMS could have cashed in at any point, and there is little doubt that had he done so, he could well be a billionaire today. Instead, he stuck with his passion and beliefs.
So, now a new generation comes along, with a new perspective on open software and systems.
RMS looks at us and must think "If only they knew how hard it was to keep the FSF idea alive. and they're "selling it out" for a few dollars!"
Yes, he can be autocratic, elitist and intolerant, and occasionally manipulative and Machiavellian, but he's like those Japanese soldiers from WWII, found in the jungles of the Phillipines and other South Pacific islands, who emerge in their 80's and 90's still fighting for Imperial Japan....
Their early experiences have so imprinted them, that they have become captives of conflicts fought and battles long over.
Let's give him our respect and compassion for all that he's accomplished in the past, (we wouldn't be here without him) and fight our own contemporary battles for the advancement of open software and systems, and leave him to his memories.
Let us not be distracted by distracting and nonproductive tautological discussions from another time and place.
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
First, the leaders of a cause need to be extreme. RMS must make comments, and hold dear beliefs, that are not the same as the average persons' (users') beliefs. This must be, for you do not get people to change, without something that they must change to. The extreme position is necessary so that people will concede a more moderate position. This is done all the time. In Politics, someone will leak an exetreme position, see the reaction in the press, and instead go forward with a more moderate position, claiming the position was that of a staffer, and not of the politician.
:-)
Second, I do not seek to excuse any of RMS' behaviour. Even if we all feel that RMS is totally out of line, it is still RMS that must excuse himself -- if he feels that he needs to. It is the extreme position that RMS holds that both moves The Cause forward, and, at times, restrains progress. Let us hope that all parties involved can recognize when they are causing irreperable damage.
Third, if RMS were this much of a zealot, and a Mac user, who would notice?
But Linus Torvalds did not take an existing unfinished GNU operating system and merely add the missing piece. Yes, GNU could have taken the Linux kernel and completed its OS, but they did not. And it's not what Linus did.
The real, unrevised, history is very different. Linus started with the goal of creating a complete operating system. Once he got the kernel and a few bits of infrastructure done, he and his collaborators chose to use off-the-shelf parts already available to complete it. Some of those parts were from GNU, but many others from elsewhere. And many of the crucial components were written *specifically* for Linux.
To use an analogy, imagine that RMS set out to create an automobile. He was all finished except for the engine. Now Linus comes along and builds an engine. He goes and grabs a drive train and chassis from GNU Autoparts Store, and an electrical system from BSD. He and many friends contribute to the miscellaneous components. Voila! It's an ugly car, but it works.
GNU does not get to name this automobile. They did not build it. They only supplied some critical parts.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
That's a contraction due to length constaints of RMS's actually sig in a letter to The Register.
Sincerely,
Richard Stallman
Principal developer of the operating system often inaccurately called "Linux"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/18291.html
No, no glory grabbing at all, nothing to see here, move along...
Tastes Like Chicken
You forgot the Xerox part, which was cloned from Xerox/Max (it is Xerox, right?)
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
Hmmm, lets look at my Dell machine that is running linux...
Sony CDR,
Intel processor
Rambus memory
IBM harddrive
Sony monitor
Dell motherboard
You can't very well run a computer without a processor, memory or a harddrive? What arogance of Micheal Dell to call his computers just 'Dell' when he depends on other company's to create THE MOST ecential(sp?) parts of his computers? Shouldn't he give credit to Sony for the CDR and monitor by calling the computer the SonyDell XPS 830? Why Sony even makes a competing product, should they be pissed that Dell just came and USED their CDR and monitor without making his own to sell? What about Intel? A processor 'defines' the computer as to what it can or can't run. I won't be looking at OS/X now that I've got an Intel processor, so shouldn't my comptuer be called a InDell XPS 830?
Of cousre not, Dell gets to name it Dell because they packaged up the off the shelf parts and put them together and most inportant, they TAKE RESPONSIBLITY for it working. If linux was a POS then RMS would proabaly SUE Linus for naming his OS GNU/Linux. Linux is named linux be cause you look to Linus, the kenrel developers and the distributers of LINUX to insure that Linux works as an operating system. RMS takes NO responsibility that GNU stuff will work with any new version of the kernel, therefore he gets no mention except as Dell might mention Sony. As a feature of the Computer. Not as the computer itself.
Do you think before you type? Are you aware how much money RMS has passed up (Macarthur grant notwithstanding) by giving away software his entire life?
It's safe to argue that Bill Joy and RMS are of similar skill and talent, and started within a few years of each other. Do you think RMS drives a Ferrari?
Crazy: A person who keeps doing the same thing again and again expecting different results.
In must be infuriating to him why people don't agree with him when he's sure that his arguments are both correct and, to his mind anyway, persuasive. The problem is that he is still using the same tactics he used 10 years ago, but apparently hoping that the results will be different.
He knows he's right and that if people just understood his point of view that they would rally behind his cause. It's his achilles heel, his kryptonite. Blessed with intelligence but without social skills.
But I'm sure that nobody here can relate.
Speaking of intelligent discourse... Am I the only person who finds it ironic that the primary reason the BSD license was incompatible with the GPL was its advertising clause? (You know, that clause that says that people who derive their work from the BSD-license-covered source must advertise that fact by saying "Contains code developed by so-and-so"...)
And yet, isn't that what RMS is asking of the Linux community? That is, for us to slap "GNU inside" on our Linux boxes?
Oh, the irony...
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
Linus had called it Linux while he was working on it alone. He then went to release it to the world, and was (embarrassed|too shy|whatever) to release it with a name so obviously derived from his own. So, he renamed it Freax and uploaded it. The FTP site admin, who was aware of the original name Linux, didn't like Freax at all, and renamed it back to Linux.
This article on Wired tells the story. Specifically:
And that is, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
And you can't statically link against it because of lgpl, but there are different bugs in every version. Then you tell yourself, self, why don't you just ship a version of glibc with the package and dynamically link? Well, it turns out that ld-linux.so is also a buggy piece of crap, and different versions of ld-linux will only work with certain versions of glibc. Then people whine that commercial apps say "requires redhat 6.2." THIS IS THE REASON WHY!
Oh yeah, one more thing that I just came up with: the GPL is intended to allow software to be used in any way for open source development with no obligations, which is what the Linux developers did in the early days - they used GPLed code to avoid re-implementing it themselves and save time. That is the whole point of the GPL!!. The only way I see for RMS to get around this is to change the GPL so a project the borrows code from someone must change the name to reflect that. If the linux developers used some GPLed code in their work, they should be free to use it in any way.
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
How about Stallman/Linux he might like that?
GNG = GNG's Not GNU
See it recurse! See it bifurcate!
You (I assume you are Geoff Kuenning) leave out a lot from that story...
1. The version wasn't merely not "GPL-compatible", it wasn't open software either. Specifically, it did not allow for-profit distribution alone.
2. People suggested removing these restrictions to you was vicioucly flamed, you wouldn't even accept that these restriction existed. This might be the cause of the "misunderstanding".
3. ispell 4.0 was not derived from your code. It was derived from the code of _original_ ispell author (i.e. not you), who had assigned his code to the FSF. Specifically, it lacked all the i18n features you had added.
It is true that FSF withdraw[1] ispell 4.0 as soon as ispell 3.x was released under a free software license. I think that makes it pretty clear that the action was in defence for free software, not an attempt to increase their control.
[1] As far as one can withdraw alreeady released free software -- ispell 4.0 still have DOS/Windows users as version 3 was much harder to port to DOS. This, b.t.w. is still a cause of confusion about what version is newer. Something that could easily be solved by releasing a version 3 derivative as version 5. That would require someone to be more pragmatic and less determined about whose fault it is, though.
I remember back in the good old days, when people were more than fully aware that Stallman was a frothing left-wing pinko frothing commie frothing fanatic... I specifically remember him trying to pull a very similar trick.
All at once, he popped up on the linux kernel mailing list and demanded that becuase he was a big and very important person, that linux immediately be renamed 'lignux'. Naturally enough he was laughed off the face of thelist.
Some weeks later the next major version of emacs was released featuring autoconf identifying systems as i386-unknown-lignux. Naturally enough, the rest of the world who hadn't seen Stallman's tantrum were puzzled by this. Eventually (the next day) someone released a patch and it swept the world bringing a certain frothing fanatic's to his knees.
After the laughter and taunting had died down, it all just died away. I wonder how many people now involved with linux and this issue actually remember. Perhaps it should be a maxim that fanatics of any kind make dangerous enemies, but even more dangerous friends...
B>
Read the licenses carefully and rip out parts which give Stallman any possibility to influence your future. Phrases like
just invites him to screw you when it pleases him. Rip out the "any later version" part [...]
And sure enough, it wasn't part of the License itself, but of the (although suggestive) part on how to apply the license to your source code. In the License it says:
This clause seems a little strange at first, and note, that you can restrict the licensing of a library to a specific version of the LGPL (although it's not explicitly said so you can do so by specifying the LGPL-Version). I think there is a good reason for using that option though, as long as one assumes, that the LGPL and the GPL will stay the same in spirit (the [...] part in above quote): what if you merge two libraries or use part of one library with part of another, soon you'll probably find all versions of the LGPL applicable to different parts of the code. Also an upgraded Version might close some loopholes of previous ones, so if you trust the FSF to do the right thing with the LGPL it's probably a good thing to leave the option of a License upgrade open to later developers. And anyway, as long as one person or group of persons keep control of a project (in the sense of being responsible for it) it's their choice, what specific licence the actual code ships with.
I also noted, that (3) allows to elevate LGPLd code to GPLd code. Again this makes sense, in the case that you want to use LGPLd code in a GPLd project (but not vice versa, which wouldn't make sense anyway, since that would 'degrade' the GPL to the LGPL). I think these paragraphs are in there for convenience's sake and not to give RMS total control over anything GPLd. Anyway, ripping the first quoted snippet out of context and using it to picture RMS as a controlfreak is, in my opinion, bad style. RMS often enough comes through, well, overenthusiastic, to say the least. The "GNU/Linux" vs. "Linux" debate doesn't help that either, but let's be honest, Linux wouldn't be what it is today, hadn't the GNU Software and the free software idea already been in place.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
He even left us the choice of using whatever names for whatever systems. But he did show us the difference between freedom and openness. Then it occured to me that the guy is actually looking for happiness and peace, and needs freedom to accomplish this. Now we finally have many systems going (with more and more threats showing up) we do have choice. There is freedom.
Now then, let us return to happiness and not fight a war, oaky!