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Stallman Clarifies Position RE:Gnome & .Net
RMS ? has sent The Register an email in which he corrects their 'inaccurate' representation of his stance on the GNOME & .NET issue. He states, "I am pretty sure something was garbled in the quotation which has me asking Miguel to 'explain himself to us', because those words would be
explicitly confrontational, and I did not have any wish to do that."
RMS "explicitly confrontational?" Surely you jest!
;-)
Wow, this is turning into a ping-pong match.
You have to wonder how much relevant information is lost before a story makes it to press these days. Partial quotes, reassembled sentences, poor fact checking. This is meant to address the media in general, not this article specifically.
We need a newspaper/website that quotes people word for word rather than just the highlights, and always sends two reporters to cover a job separately. Not that it will ever happen but I bet we'd have a considerably different view of world events if it happened.
No, he is not lying.
The "free software movement" based upon the
GPL, LGPL, GFDL etc. and started by GNU is
very different from the Open Source movement
started by Bruce Evans?
Anyway, the latter you can inform you about
at http://opensource.org
The former at http://www.fsf.org
FSF is the Free Software Foundation, which is
the nowadays' head of the GNU project, the
GNU licenses and non-GNU projects that are
under the [L]GPL and hosted by them but do not
belong to the GNU project as a whole.
RMS is head of the GNU project and the FSF,
so I think he is right to decide which direction
the GNU project follows, although I am not, in
my PERSONAL opinion, happy with this line.
Take the Gnu Compiler Collection (GCC) as an
example: http://gcc.gnu.org
The Copyright lines in the Copyleft license
(sigh!) refer to the FSF as owner.
If you want any of your changes be committed
into gcc you MUST transfer your copyright on
these changes to the FSF, which then, in turn,
incorporates them under the current GPL (or LGPL,
for example in the glibc, but I don't know if
this practice is there, too).
These are because then the FSF can be sure that
no third party copyright owner can claim anything
about such core projects as the gcc. For example,
if the GPL would prove invalid in court, the FSF
would change the GCC license from one day to
another to a protective one.
As I said, *personally* I am no GNU fan and do
use a modificated MIT/X/BSD license for my projects,
but on the other hand I am glad that RMS started
things such as the gcc that early.
Credits to whom credits belong.
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
RMS has never been confrontational. But he has always stood his ground.
Unfortunately many "nutbags" seem unable to understand the difference.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
The very existence of GNOME is the direct result of our ideals of freedom, precisely what the open source movement was founded in 1998 to reject.
:)
So open source rejects your ideals of freedom, and has done since its foundation?
Someone better notify the press
Henry
i don't do sigs. oops.
He's not. If you bothered to read the article you'd see that someone told RMS that Miguel wanted to change the licence of Gnome to the X11 licence. RMS said he would not like that and that he did not belive Miguel would do that.
Miguel's response to this controversy appeased a lot of my concerns about what they actually want do do with Mono, and especially his apparent admiration for Microsoft's stuff (he likes .Net, but still thinks everything that came before it is garbage). While I still disagree with his fetish for next-gen APIs over designing an actual desktop (which KDE seems much farther along with), at least he doesn't appear to be selling out to M$ as readily as it first seemed.
Methinks you are mis-judging him. I had my attitude about RMS corrected at The Bazzar.
One of the 'linux columists' (aka he had web site where everything is rosy in the Linux world, everything would be running linux, etc la) was standing next to RMS. RMS said 'I need to get my ID badge' and the 'journalist' said "Badges? You are RMS, you don't need no stinking badges" RMS then put him in his place by explaining there was no need to be confontational with the security guard who was just going to do his job and ask for a badge.
RMS is passionate about his GNU thing. And, he's willing to be confrontational about the GNU thing.
the Register neglected to actually link the here in that statement!
.NET technology specifically for GNOME
I believe "here" was meant as "here at The Register", so it's a small matter of going to The Register's front door and doing a search for "Icaza". You'll probably be most interested in the three most recent articles. If you still can't find the connections, just look a little harder.
Icaza is portraying Microsoft as having graciously created the
Oh, don't be such a drama queen. You, me, and everyone else here know that's just silly and obviously unrealistic. Put your tinfoil hat back on and take some deep breathes.
Is this individual actually praising the evil empire's security model?
You can say a lot of horrible stuff about Microsoft, and in most cases they will deserve it. But just accept for a moment a difference between a security model and a security implementation. While it could easily be argued that their model may not be the best, Microsoft has generally had a bad history of implementing security. If the same model were given to a bunch of Linux zealots and a bunch of Microsoft suits, though both based on the same foundation, I think we can agree that our prized zealots would pull through with a better implementation. So, for me at least, it not that bad of a sin to praise their security model. I just wish they would follow through a little better.
On an OT note: If you really want to throw up, read this. Direct quote - "The recent release of Windows XP illustrates the concept of intelligent design. If Windows XP points to Bill Gates, how much more do the marvelous complexities of DNA point directly to God, the great Intelligent Designer?"
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
It's no big secret that I don't like Stallman.... however, he's had some good ideas and he gave us the GPL, one of the most useful pieces of software of the last 20 years (yes, contracts are software too!)
So why is it that he continually manages to irritate so many people? I think the answer is, you have to think a lot like RMS in order to understand what he's saying... particularly on the first try. As a result, he's prone to miscommunication. He appears confrontational because he frequently speaks his mind in a way that's going to get misinterpreted by everyone else. So is it our fault for not understanding his 'great mind'?
I don't think so. Richard, if you'd just have some respect for other people's 'user interfaces', you'd have a lot fewer problems, and do the community a whole world of good. RMS is not 'intuitive' or 'user friendly' for most of the world. Understanding how people communicate is critical to building effective interfaces to software. It's even more critical as a tool of persuasion. The Free Software community, like it or not, has a public face now, and you're it. Do you really want to keep hurting the community you built?
It continues to amaze me over and over, how uninformed people attack Richard Stallman not substantively, but personally - attacking the way he looks, the way he talks, but never substantively refuting what he says. It amazes me even more, how these ad hominem attacks get up-modded. Apparently there is a lot of hatred out there for people of principle.
/. "community"). But it was precisely his unyielding, principled approach to software development that made the GNU project succeed in the end, despite the odds.
Well let's first get some facts straight. No one who uses GNU/Linux or any of the related free or open source software built on the Gnu/Linux platform would be enjoying the use of this stuff if it wasn't for Richard Stallman. In the mid-80s when he decided to rebuild Unix from scratch, all my geek and hacker friends who were Unix users at the time, thought he was totally nuts (just like a good part of the
Linus Torvald, a great programmer and a man worthy of praise, finished up what Stallman had started. But he was standing on the shoulder of a giant. If Richard Stallman feels that the OS should be called GNU/Linux he is 100% justified, whether or not its an ego issue as many here contend, or an issue of principle, as he does. Either way, as the man who made it happen, he has the right to make that demand. Whether you honor it or not is your choice. But insulting him while you continue to use the fruits of his labor is worse than hypocrisy - its theft.
There is not one, not one person, in the free software or open source world who has contributed more to the existance of this stuff than Richard Stallman. So at the very least, he deserves the gratitude of anyone who uses this software, for whatever reason they might use it.
To say that Richard Stallman's radical ideas are a hindrance to the acceptance of non-proprietary alternatives is absurd. This is the guy who invented the whole concept, this is the man who made it happen. It's precisely because he is fanatical and unyielding that this movement came into being. All those willing to compromise would never have stayed the course he did.
That doesn't mean you have to accept his point of view. I personally think that in the commercial world, there is a place for BSD-style licenses, and unlike Richard Stallman I don't think these are immoral.
Nonetheless I feel tremendous gratitude for what he has done and continues to do, I respect and admire his principled approach to his work and his life. I strongly resent the ungrateful, spiteful, empty-headed sniping that gets thrown his way in this forum. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!
Don't forget the tendency of this community to interpret everything he says in as negative a way as possible.
If he disagrees with something, everyone starts screaming about he's a ranting ideologue who's bent on coercing everyone to follow his ideals. It doesn't matter how he phrases it, it's immediately translated by the anti-RMS crowd into some kind of insane crusade against whatever he's talking about.
Look at the current incident. Someone asks him a question that's based on faulty assumptions. He points out that the questioner might have some of his facts wrong, then says if they were right he'd disagree with it. Instantly the anti-RMS crowd comes out en masse, shrieking.
What's next? RMS order soup with his dinner, and we get the slashdot headline "RMS blasts salad as entree choice"?
I'm not sure why there's such a huge anti-RMS movement in the free software/open source communities. I have some theories though:
1. Stallman has the audacity not to uncritically support everything everyone else does in the open source arena.
2. He represents an older generation of programmers who did the real pioneering stuff, and young programmers today have self-esteem problems with recognizing anyone older than themselves.
3. They don't like his political views.
Freedom #3; freedom to redistribute with modifications. See, for example, the SISSL, which is accepted by OSI but does not allow one to redistribute changes that aren't compatible with the standards setting body. [See section 3.1.] Or the revocation clause in the APSL, which is one of the three reasons the APSL isn't free.
All of that said... the point you're trying to make, Russ, is a sound one- the basic OSI philosophy is not incompatible with that of the FSF. But the FSF's philosophy is a superset of the OSI's- it isn't just 'see the source', which the OSI cares about, it also includes 'have freedom to use the source once you've seen it'- which the OSI doesn't care about, and which is why RMS dislikes them so much.
[up front: I'm a Ximian employee; I don't think that makes any difference to this point but I don't want to be accused of hiding it in an article about Miguel.]
IAAL,BIANLY
"A free replacement for Visual Basic which works with GNOME would be a major step forward; any capable team that wants to launch this project should please contact gnu@gnu.org." --RMS
Psst, Mr. Stallman sir, you've already got one: GNOME Basic.
Wow...you really have a low opinion of the Reg, which to me sounds ridiculous. Yes, they do have sensationalist (and very funny at times) headlines. But one of their mottos is: "Integrity, we've heard of it." And if you don't read the Reg with a little bit of your tongue in your cheek then you are missing the point and you are missing out.
However, I'd also like to point out that in the original article, they did mention exactly where they got their information: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23939.html ...from the Brazilian site Hotbits. And it seems to me that a journalist can do no better in reporting the truth than if he/she uses the unadulterated words of someone - RMS's full letter - to respond to their (the Reg's) statements about that person. How could they get closer to admitting that they were wrong other than saying explicitly "we were wrong" !? How is that weaseling out? They are the ones who posted the damn letter!!!! And what the hell at the bottom below RMS's letter consists of demonizing Miguel de Icaza? Here's the text below the letter, read it carefully:
We've been promised a tape and a transcript of the Porto Alegre Q and A.
Miguel de Icaza has issued his own clarification, here, which also amounts to "move along folks, there's nothing to see".
On Friday he repeated his desire to base future GNOME development on the .NET APIs using work from his Mono project.
".NET is a fantastic technology upgrade for GNOME from Microsoft," he said.
In the interview, he praised many aspects of .NET including SmartClients and the new Microsoft security model. ®
And again, if you go back to this piece: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23939.html it really seems that they are defending Miguel rather than demonizing. It seems that most of the demonizing of Miguel (and RMS) goes on on Slashdot.
Now, really...what the hell are you talking about?
Go read what he as to say about the .NET Framework, Mono and GNOME.
He also replys directly to the RMS controversy.
Wax on, wax off baby!