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RMS Replies to "The Stallman Factor"
Ryan Amos writes "RMS has replied to the article "The Stallman Factor," as
posted on Slashdot about a week ago. In specific, his replies deal with the University of Texas SIGLinux naming fiasco and Bitkeeper. As always with RMS, an interesting read."
I'll try to ignore the fact that Stallman is obviously whoring for credit here and try to be intelligent.
Especially offensive here is this "free Linux" vs "non-free Linux" based on firmware for drivers. I admit that this is an issue, and even respect that its one that is really important, but if the community allows Linux to be splintered like that to the point where we have to start excluding mainstream hardware because something doesn't measure up to the "Stallman yardstick-of-freedom" wont we just be hurting the very cause we purport to embrace? Wouldn't it be better to approach the problem from the other side? This appears to be Stallman's recurring pathology. Instead of finding a way for him to accept more people, concepts and things he tries to come up with a way to force more people, concepts, and things accept him, by taking the moral high ground. It just doesn't work like that; at least not for long. The person who never makes any sacrifices or concessions for their friends is a lonely man indeed. I hesitate to say this but it seems like RMS can't see the forest for the trees.
This too shall pass.
Eventually, users will grow tired of the ravings of this half-wit savant and find new tools and a license without a megalomanic behind it to power the system.
If it ain't a Model M, it's a piece of crap.
RMS again proved his absolute gayness. Although I am member of the "Foundation for Furthering of Free Software in Austria" (an associate organization of the FSF Europe), I absolutely hate RMS because he thinks he alone and the GNU project created free software. This is absolutely not true, e.g. there are the fine BSD operating systems around, with an even better license (e.g. you can fork the whole project and relicense it to e.g. GPL) and technically much better than the GNU software (at least the userland). The GNU userland is so damn bloaty, all the GNU libraries also (ever tried statically linking the GNU userland against glibc? Have a lot of fun with your 0.7 MB tar binary and your 2 MB bash!).
He should also shut up about Linux. In 18 years the GNU project was not able to produce a usable operating system kernel (heck, even The Hurd uses _Linux_ drivers from the 2.0.x series!), so he absolutely has no right about complaining that something in the Linux development process is wrong.
Yeah, mod the down, I have loads of karma to burn!
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
I think the best point RMS makes is his insistance that social issues, such as licensing, use of proprietary tools, be weighed as or more heavily as technical issues.
I agree with him that it is a shame that the kernel is managed with bitkeeper, instead of an open source alternative. If the GNU project has done one thing well, it is that he has proven beyond a doubt that that free software can be superior to proprietary software.
There's no reason CVS can't be improved, or alternative efforts such as subversion put on the fast track. By choosing bitkeeper over these alternatives, Linux kernel development is missing an important opportunity to focus talent into these free tools. Some would argue that this is socially irresponsible, and I agree.
If the GNU project has done a second thing well, it is that GNU has shown that free software is better for society than proprietary software. At least some of world *will* be a better place if more software is free. A vision like RMS's takes great effort to realize in our world. Along with reaping the benefits of others work comes the responsibility to give back to future generations. Linux kernel developers, as a high-profile group, bear an even greater social responsibility than others.
Many developers conveniently ignore social issues to absolve themselves of responsibility. All I can say that social responsibility is a good and important, and selfishness and shortsightedness is not. People should strive to be their best, all the time.
The naming issue is the more minor one at stake here... Obviously it is easier to say "Linux" than "GNU/Linux", and it's not clear this particular battle is worth fighting if there are better alternatives. I agree with RMS that the GNU project should get front page credit along with Linux for their mutual success, but I hope for everyone's sake that there can be open negotiation on how this credit can happen in other ways than the nomenclature "GNU/Linux".
Massive karma points for anyone who can mediate a solution to this one.
what drove me to linux was technical merit AND freedom, or if you prefer freedom AND technical merit.
They both (Linux and RMS) incarnate those points. To the point that this kind of articles is boring and "deja vu".
The only problem I see is that nobody represents the "free as in beer side", which may be a side effect of the gpl, but is an important one. If we enter an "age of information" society, the means to legally access information shall not be impossible to the poorer part of the population.
Which is what happen when the components of an information system are expensive, wether they are software or hardware. You are either cut from the rest of the civil society by not having access to vital piece of information or obliged to enter illegallity, which also cut you from the rest of the civil socity.
Cutting his own population in two is the only thing a democraty cannot survive.
Idiots. There is no "linux" without GNU. Not only does GNU software provide the bedrock on which the system rests, GNU and the FSF provides the intellectual framework on which rests the whole conception of a "free" operating system. If it wasn't for the FSF and RMS, you wouldn't have "linux," period.
But don't worry. Nobody really expects any of you to actually DO anything in defense of free software. It's clear enough that with you folks, it's all take and no give.
mp
"The secret to strong security: less reliance on secrets." -- Whitfield Diffie
Ummm, I've argued the same thing. I've done both types of programming (worked in a software house, worked in different industries IT group). I'm against open source because I believe it actually hurts my economic possiblities of being in the latter group WORSE. I want to continue to demand a high salary and I demand it because of some scarcity of people who re-integrate and re-solve the same problems over and over. It may not be glamorous, but damn if it don't pay the rent.
I spent five years being an idealistic newspaperman in a field that "made a difference". Making $22k a year bleeds your idealism real fast once you have a family to provide for. Go be idealistic in a way that impacts someone else's career path, please.
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
I don't think you understand the man at all. He doesn't want anything that isn't GNU to be called GNU. He does think that when you have the various distributions of 'Linux' which are bundles of the linux kernel and a bunch of other Free Software, a good portion GNU, you should call it GNU/LINUX. I don't think that's so crazy.
GNU did start the ball rolling, and they did a lot of crucial and necessary work along the way, and they're still doing important work today. It was Stallman's dream alone not so long ago that there would be an entire Free Operating System (and not just one!) that has not only caught but in many ways beaten the commercial Unixes that had only a little earlier accustomed the world to commercial software. He was laughed at, but instead of worrying he wrote code, and pursuaded people to write code, or to donate money to pay people to write code. Crucial tools without which a Free kernel could not be written - shells, fileutilities, compilers, text editors. The infrastructure of the Operating System.
GNU's Not Unix. Linux Is Not UniX.
Ignorant nonsense. GNU tools are used on every Unix, on Apple systems, on Microsoft systems, on VMS even. The GNU tools literally made Linux possible, and Linux is not the only kernel on which the GNU tools and other Free Software can be combined to produce a complete functional and completely Free system.
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