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Interview With Richard Stallman
An anonymous reader writes "KernelTrap has a fascinating and lengthy interview with Richard Stallman who founded the GNU Project in 1984, and the Free Software Foundation in 1985. He also originally authored a number of well known and highly used development tools, including the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), the GNU symbolic debugger (GDB) and GNU Emacs.
The interview covers a wide range of topics, from rms's early years, to his current role in the Free Software Foundation. He discusses the current state of GNU/Hurd, the problems with non-free software, and much more."
This is a GNU/Interview. Get it right please!
Someone should teach the editors how to diagram a sentence.
I guess I better move IBM to the inconsequential list now :\
... and as usual the person who makes it his business to inform, impower, and proliferate benefitial technology will be ignored by the greedy, insane corporate monster and comments against him will be moded up by the PR sock-puppets who frequent Slashdot.
btw frell off sock-puppets. `(
Stallman will not change his beliefs because they aren't practical.
No sane person would sit down and write their own C compiler+debugger from scratch because he didn't like the licenses of the currently available compilers.
Stallman is gonzo batshit crazy, and that's why he was able to start a movement - normal people would have evaluated the difficulties and not even tried. If his movemement hadn't caught on, Stallman would still be labouring by himself, in obscurity, trying to make his vision a reality.
BTW, the market hasn't been slowly squeezing out Open Source, quite the contrary.
Funny you should mention that. I'm relatively new to /. and thus frequently feel like I must be completely missing something when I see the huge /. devotion to the open source world. But, here I am a bright, worldly, technocentric, system-building, wired guy... and I've just simply not heard good enough sermons to convert. I'm intrigued, periodically very impressed with so much of the work, but at some gut level I'm just not sensing the long-term head of steam and ecomonic viability of the approach (or is it lifestyle?).
Most interviews like this seem to take as irreducible truths that people like me are dumb as rocks... but not a single IT customer of mine (ranging from non-profits, to retailers, to municipalities, and so on) as developed the sense that they're on the wrong track, let alone done anything to go this route.
OK, do your worst (or, save me from myself, if you can!).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
> Maybe he's ahead of his time or something, but right now, his ideas just aren't
> viable
That's not his problem. Or at least, it's not just his problem. You can't blame someone for identifying problems and coming up with solutions just because most people don't understand their worth at the moment. Current womens/black/animal rights were won through slow, unpopular and sometimes illegal methods, and people criticized those at the time too. When people can't tape programmes off the tv or listen to music they've bought on CD (or wherever) in the car is when people will start to pay more attention to some of these issues.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Very true. However, just because laws may be put into place that say you can't use Free Software doesn't mean that those of us who do will stop using it. It just means we'll have to find ways to use them no matter what. It's not a crime to compute. Sure, Joe Average may not be able to go into a store and buy a brand new PC that he can run Linux on if MS has their way with Palladium, but that dosen't mean that someone else who is really into Linux can't. Unless they enforce a death penalty, in which case I'd move out of the U.S., I plan to be using Linux for a long time. The same goes for software patents. I don't care whose unknown secret patent I infringe on, if I come up with my own idea of something I want to make on my computer and I write my own code to do it, the corporations can take a deep dick for all I care. It's not like they have any right to control what I do in my own house. Just because the rest of the population are a bunch of idiots, I don't have any plans on joining them in their folly anytime soon.
The death announcment of OS is a little premature. I work for a large biotech and we see OS as a valuable, litlle different, business model. Sure it will have a hard time with Joe Sixpack who just wants to surf pr0n, but there are already enough non-PHB bosses out there who see the benifit of OS. Just take the religion out of it and start realising that not all OSS is written by ideologic amateurs. The % of OS software written by people who get paid for it is on the rise!
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
It's not an interview, it's a questionnaire. *yawn*
Desperately trying to find RMS' fault?
Why do slashdotters hate RMS so much? I hope you realise that slashdot (and all such sites) would not have been here if it wasn't for RMS' efforts.
...here is a Gloklaw story about a patent (U.S. Patent number 6,836,883, titled "Method and system for compiling multiple languages", described as a method or "process involving the parsing and analyzing of more than one source language to produce a common language file that may then be read by the same or another front end system.") that was awarded to Microsoft. Says PJ, "The patent cites the Free Software Foundation's GCC in the prior art section." Microsoft's motivation for applying for this patent is: "The protection and licensing of intellectual property allows companies and individuals to obtain a return on investment, sustaining business and encouraging future rounds of research and investment in the IT industry."
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Exactly. The best thing RMS has done [w.r.t. software] was get the ball rolling. I think he deserves all the credit in the world for that.
I don't think he deserves the credit for the current state of things. GCC is now the result of 1000s of contributors and several dozen active developers none of whom are RMS.
But does anyone know their [GCC developers] names? Hell, I couldn't even name one off the top of my head. [Mark Mitchell comes to mind but I don't think thats right]...
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Then eat cheerios.
Stallman may be fanatical but you must be blind. I see companies embracing open source and thriving. And you know what. Open source was here before their was a market for it, and it will be here after if it comes to that.
Sounds like "There is no God but Allah; Mohammed is His Prophet".
I care about the idealogical bents of Richard Stallman. I am a consumer and a producer. Please don't speak in my place, especially without my permission. I shall refrain from speaking in your place, albeit I had beans yesterday...
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
They should have asked him about his thoughts on the recent introduction of software patents in India.
Surely they mean SNOBOL.
The subtext of your argument is that (if I'm reading you correctly), because only a small minority see freedom in software as important, free software is not viable. That minority however is important: that minority is a huge proportion of those who make technology decisions for computer companies, which is why we're seeing a situation where most servers today seem to run free software. That minority is also intelligent and educated enough to be able to support free software, to provide the infrastructure that allows it to exist. And free software, to an extent, is self-sustaining as long as someone, somewhere, believes in it. If there's only one person in the world who believes in it, that person can modify and improve the software they have. The same argument cannot be made for proprietary software which requires a large enough market to become sustainable.
In other words, the marketshare of free software is not a serious issue and never has been. Those handing their private parts and a mallet to Apple have more to fear than those handing them to RMS and ESR.
RMS has already won the war, to a certain extent. Free software is no longer a lunatic idea. The second most popular operating system is free software and is just as viable as the first.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
blah blah blah bullshit.
Public domain software existed before RMS started his FSF and GCC/GDB projects.
No, you wouldn't have Mozilla to type your post in if it weren't for 100s of developers [none of whom are RMS] or a desktop mananger [gnome/kde.... again not RMS] or X [not RMS] or fuck, even a shell [not RMS] or a kernel to host it all [not RMS].
What's your point?
Even the current state of GCC/GDB has little to do with RMS's efforts.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Umm, dumbshit, because they can sell service contracts. The same reason BestBuy sells service contracts--that's where the money is (incidentally, that's where BestBuy's second biggest source of income is). The OSS software is so poor and difficult to maintain that entire industries have popped up to step in and provide support. IBM doesn't care shit about OSS so long as it continues to require companies to need service.
That's why I completely support the anti-piracy measures that companies like Microsoft favor. I just think the MS and company don't go far enough in enforcing the anti-piracy measures. I want every person in the United States to know that installing the same copy of a single user license of Windows on their PC and all their friends and families PCs is piracy. I want all of them to know that swapping music and movie files online is illegal and that there are no loopholes no matter how much they might wish there are. I want them to know that even sharing a VHS copy of a TV program broadcast for free over the air is considered to be an illegal action here in the U.S. And I want these things enforced. Once there are consequences behind these actions, I think people will realize how totally screwed they are. Then I can sit back and say, "I told you so"... :)
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
You're right. We should wait until Netcraft confirms it.
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
He doesn't get it? I think YOU don't get it. Why on earth would there else be such a massive amount of copying of copyright protected works? Because people don't want freedom? Because people are happy to pay inflated prices???? Please, please, explain that to me.
If you pull all the Linux based products off the market right now, I guarentee retailers would feel it. If you forced all IT companies into costly contracts for Windows, and therefore reduced the capabilities of their servers, I guarentee they would feel it.
If you don't care about your freedoms, then you're an idiot who doesn't deserve to have them. The beauty is that if you think I'm wrong, by inference you must take Stallman's side as truth.
You talk about RMS like he has "missed" something. Do you think a guy who has been fighting this hard since 1984 hasn't had time to contemplate his goal? I think perhaps it's you who has missed something.
And on a more personal note, you're a fucking retard.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
In no particular order:
- RMS was useful at one time but he should now leave serious persons do the real work.
- RMS is too extreme
- RMS is a crackpot
- RMS is a communist
- RMS is a dirty hippy that smells bad
- GNU/Linux is childish/idotic/ego-driven
- The GPL is not free/ viral etc...
I just wish for once all the idiots who will inevitably spout their mouth would just shut up.
Richard Stallman has consistently proved he was a true visionnary. He forsaw the problems with software and copyright law 20 years ago and devised an extremely clever answer : the GPL.
Not only that but he gave us great software to work with. Some he wrote himself (GCC, GDB, Emacs), some he inspired others to write.
He warned us many times when few would listen. About the importance of protecting freedom. About the importance of tracking copyright ownership. About software patents. About the right to read. Every time he's been criticized, ridiculed or dismissed as a lunatic and every time he was right.
It is time to recognize Richard Stallman's place in history as a great modern philosopher.
So I, for one, would like to thank deeply RMS for dedicating his life to our freedom. For standing tall when no one else would.
Live long, RMS, and never give up.
Where, in my post, did I say that its all because of RMS' code? Its because of his efforts. Get a dictionary and look up the word 'effort'.
I mean I love most of the gnu software I have running on my system and god bless any contributor to that effort but - woh! - he says some of the funniest things like:
The Workplace:
JA: What if your job requires you to use non-free software?
Richard Stallman: I would quit that job. Would you participate in something anti-social just because somebody pays you to?
I mean come on. Both free and non-free software has its place in the modern world and I need to take technology to a religious level like I need a hole in my head.
He is sooo wacky.
ACK
so what you're saying is, you expect me to support your ideological rant that people don't care....
mindrape
Hmm, somebody is full of themselves.. but it doesn't seem to be RMS.
A bit of reading comprehension and critical analysis would go a long way, you know.
As is amply clear from the article, RMS doesn't see his major contribution to be code. He has coded, and he enjoys coding, but his cause is not to produce code - it is to spread the free software ideology. Now, you might agree with that ideology, or you might not, but to intentionally misread somebody's words in an attempt to characterize them as 'full of themselves' is arrogant, small-minded, and spiteful.
For what RMS considers important (the promotion of the Free Software ideology), he IS indispensable. There is no-one else that is as well-known, respected, and staunchly committed to the FS movement as Stallman is. And that's what he cares about, so he is correct when he calls himself 'indispensable'.
You might scoff at the 'respected' comment, but trust me when I say that there are a lot of people (including me), that are not in complete agreement with his philosophy, who still respect him - because he acts in good faith, has good intentions, and makes his intentions clear. RMS is the fucking ephitamy of a straight shooter. And that's a lot more than you can say about most people.
-Laxitive
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I can already see the way these posts are heading.
Talk about a bunch of ungrateful children...
He is now and has been consistent in his views. He hasn't changed his message. The fact that his message is still relevant after 20 years should say something.
Richard Stallman, over the past 20 years, has done more than most of you put together will do in your entire lifetime and all you can do is complain and make fun of him for it.
That's ok, Jesus likes me anyway.
Nice Troll, there has been a serious lack of them since netcraft comfirmed the gnaa is dead
It's particularly interesting that he's radically libertarian about things like software, but disapproves of companies from different counties doing business unimpeded by governments.
The best thing developed countries can do for under-developed countries is trade with them. Protectionism only prolongs the poverty.
Public domain software existed before RMS started his FSF and GCC/GDB projects.
But GCC is probably the biggest reason that free software runs on just about anything now. Before GCC became widespread, porting software used to be a major bitch. GCC changed that, mainly because it was one of the first ANSI C implementations that worked well.
(S(SKK)(SKK))(S(SKK)(SKK))
"Free Software" vs. "Open Source":
"...for our readers that may therefore be confused themselves, can you explain the differences, and why it is important to get it right?"
Richard Stallman: "...In the free software movement, our goal is to be free to share and cooperate. We say that non-free software is antisocial because it tramples the users' freedom, and we develop free software to escape from that..."
I found this to be the vaguest answer possible to the question. As someone who is not on the front lines of "Open Source vs Free Software", his response does nothing to clarify his position and only adds to the confusion for me. Are we talking licenses? How is non-free software anti-social? Does it not play well with others? Does it run with scissors? Sit in a dark room listening to emo music all day?
After reading the entire interview, I'm sort of sick of seeing him respond with the word "freedom" without really clarifying.
shame on us / for all we have done / and all we ever were / just zeroes and ones
I totally disagree, the mad poster. You say that people don't care about open source and the ideology behind it. Wrong. However, you are entitled to your own opionon. Just be careful when you decide to speak for "everybody" soley because "everybody" does not share you views on open source and if it's idea's are viable or not. For my self, I don't won't to be bonded by intellectual software. I want to be free. I want to use software and be productive without worrying about copyright laws and such. But for those who just don't care about that, I would understand how Stallman's movement may seem useless and "ahead of his time" as you put it.
And, he doesn't even understand himself. Here he is, trying to legislate what we call Linux ("That's GNU-slash-Linux"), as if he owned it. One of the things you have to give up, if you develop open-source (or free, or whatever) software, is the right to be credited as you'd wish. Someone may grab your code, rename & repackage it, strip many of your identifying marks from it, & sell it for a million dollars. That is precisely the freedom I thank Stallman for inspiring us to achieve, & it's exactly what Stallman, now that he's been eclipsed, wants to take away from us.
That said (or ranted), us Slashtrolls' reaction to this is too predictable. Why is the OSS community, on the whole, so antipathetic toward RMS? Is it because he's become such a dogmatic preacher? Is it that he's always been so, but now that we're nearly on top, we'd rather not be reminded of our moral obligations? Is it that we only respect the one with the latest Freshmeat entry?
Open source can't survive in this market because nobody of consequence really wants it to.
sorry but open source existed WAY before closed source.
and you can not kill open source, at least anyone that knows what open source is knows this.
If they were able to capture enough of the value of what they write to pay for the legal defense of their rights they'd probably write a lot less free software.
This gets to a fundamental problem with the incentives created by taxing things other than asset value:
Possession is rewarded over creation.
Think about it: Once you possess something, you basically have no tax burden. You enjoy the benefits of young men dutifully going out to die in wars, the entire legal edifice describing and protecting your rights and without you having to pay a cent. You can just soak the public for these benefits.
Taxing everything but possession (income, capital gains, sales, value added, etc) is just a way to tax the creative process.
Naturally, creators who are trying to get a leg up on the situation end up selling their creations cheap to those whose possession is subsidized by the tax payments of the creators.
Well, there is one exception to this rule of no taxation of possession -- and that is the patent maintanence fee. Patents are the only assets that the government taxes. This is an incredibly regressive tax hitting hardest those who are earliest to support the realization of a new technology's value -- forcing them to sell their rights ("assign") cheap to someone who has been sitting around enjying the government's protection.
It all adds up to a very nasty way of sucking capital out of the hands of creators and giving over to the hands of possessors.
So the creators, unable to change the tax laws to tax assets rather than creative processes (becuse they can't buy the Ways and Means Committee) become socialists.
This is directly related to the issue of outsourcing since if programmers who had created the value of the information industry had been allowed to retain the value they created, they wouldn't need jobs. The corporations would be paying them royalties or be paying companies owned by the programmers for the rights to their software instead of just throwing creators out on the street after extracting their youth and creativity.
A system that would work would elimnate all existing taxes (although not necessarily tariffs) and just tax net assets at a rate equal to the interest rate on the national debt -- exempting from taxation the same assets that are exempted by personal bankruptcy protection: home and tools of the trade.
Seastead this.
JA: In talking about GNU Linux...
Richard Stallman: I prefer to pronounce it GNU-slash-Linux, or GNU-plus-Linux. The reason is that when you say GNU-Linux it is very much prone to suggest a misleading interpretation. After all, we have GNU Emacs which is the version of Emacs which was developed for GNU. If you say "GNU Linux", people will think it means a version of Linux that was developed for GNU. Which is not the fact.
JA: You're trying to point out instead that it's a combination of the two.
Richard Stallman: Exactly. It's GNU plus Linux together.
JA: Which makes up the GNU+Linux operating system that everyone uses.
Richard Stallman: Exactly.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
That is like saying you dont see the long term head of steam and economic viability of the warez scene ...
Cue the GNU/assinine comments...
In no GNU/particular order:
- GNU/RMS was useful at one time but he should now leave GNU/serious GNU/persons do the real GNU/work.
- GNU/RMS is too extreme
- GNU/RMS is a crackpot
- GNU/RMS is a GNU/communist
- GNU/RMS is a dirty hippy that smells bad
- GNU/GNU/Linux is childish/idotic/ego-driven
- The GNU/GPL is not GNU/free / GNU/viral etc...
That was always the biggest complaint I heard about RMS: his insistence that Linux be called GNU/Linux.
I think it depends on who you are and what you do with it. Personally, I don't care at all about the economic viability of Free/Open software since I'm not involved to make money. I was just having a conversation with a friend yesterday. I've had two revalations about myself lately. Although I am a "wired" guy, I'm not really a geek as I once thought I was, but really more an artist who uses computers. I just happen to be much more advanced in my use of computers than most others who are primarily artistically inclined. Music is my main focus and the computers help me get there easier. Combine that with Open/Free music software and it's a really great thing. :) Though many people who know me would probably think otherwise, I'm not really a "gadget guy" but more of a "device guy". I'm more likely to buy a set of electonic components to build something or a bunch of computer parts to build a dedicated system of some kind, than I am to want a prebuilt product.
Yes, I have a computer as part of my entertainment system and it's been years since I've used my CDs directly to listen to music. The same goes for video tape. But everything that I use for the computerized portion of my entertainment system (as well as my speakers and soon my amp) has been assembled by me for me. Just as I've always prefered to build my own speaker systems, wire my own house and build my own electronic circuits, I like to compile my own collections of software using raw materials (code). There is something so unsatisfying in going to Best Buy and buying a gadget. It's a combination of being let down and feeling ripped off at the same time. It's truly depressing. Of course, there are things I can't build (LCD monitors, digital cameras, etc...) but for those that I can build (Amplifiers,mixers, MIDI thru boxes, power supplies, speakers, video switches, etc...) I prefer to.
Some of us just like to build our own because we know it will work better than what we can buy. It might cost more, or it might be cheaper, but the cost is irrelevant compared to the satisfaction of having something that is custom made. If you apply that same ethic to software, you get Free/Open software. The only thing better than having something custom made is to know that you can share it with everyone else. I would love it if I could build a good pair of speakers or a nice amp and then easily duplicate them and give them to people for free. That would be the most phenominal feeling ever. But, sadly, it's not possible to do that at the moment. This is the desire that Free/Open software satisfies. Some of us aren't in this for the money, we're in it because we love to do it and we love to share. That doesn't mix very well with economics.
While there are people who support the Free/Open movement who can get quite zealous (I've been guilty of it at times) it doesn't mean we think that everyone else is stupid. It just becomes annoying to have to keep defending your own position when all you get back are childish arguments about why all of the things you do are wrong. The anti-Free/Open side is just as zealous about their support of making money over everything else. That's what most of us rail against.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
The OSS software is so poor and difficult to maintain that entire industries have popped up to step in and provide support.
What an odd comment. What do you think closed source companies are selling when you buy an upgrade version of their product? You get some new features, and you get a whole bunch of bug fixes. Have you ever called Microsoft Technical Support? You'll either be asked for you credit card number at the start of the call, or the company you work for will have already paid for a support contract which covers your call; either way, you pay just the same for support from Microsoft as you pay for support from IBM or Redhat. Oh and Microsoft support ain't cheap, either!
And my point was if you want to hero worship for why Linux/BSD is the way it is today... it's not RMS you should look at. This is 2005. The software you are currently using was not written by RMS. It was written by 1000s and 1000s of other people.
Why is he the figurehead for OSS anyways? Most kids who are writing/working on OSS today [I'm talking teenagers to young adults] were barely alive in 1984.
I can seriously say that I wasn't motivated in the slighest by RMS political views [or his FSF movement]. I write OSS because *I* want to share. I don't use the GPL because I don't want to unduly restrict.
RMS may have kicked OSS into gear in the 80s but it's been sustained through the 90s and so far this decade by so many other people that it's largely moot.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
What he failed to note, however, is that people don't care about doing what's right. The vast majority of the public doesn't even care about losing some freedom (such as the FCC broadcast flag issue he mentions). What the public cares about is discomfort.
As long as a loss of freedom, even a "big" freedom, does not manifest itself in the form of present discomfort, a person has no motivation to change. Folks like Stallman who feel a present discomfort due to future possibilities are a rare breed, and while there is a danger in worrying too much about possibilities there is value in thinking about the future.
However, since most people only care about the discomfort they feel "now", it will be hard to get political change. We will probably see some soon as there are a lot of people feeling "now" discomfort due to the international trade policies (you cannot blame capitalism for sending jobs to lower-cost providers, even if the companies that do it abuse the power, because that is what capitalism is designed to do. Capitalism is working just fine!).
I'm also not quite sure what Stallman thinks people will do for food if people quit their jobs over non-free software. And you have to ask the question, if people "donate" money to you for writing non-free software (i.e., they pay you for your services as a programmer rather than for the right to use and control the software), is it really non-free?
Anyway, those are just a few thoughts. In summary, I don't think any of Stallman's "solutions" are real solutions as they merely mitigate the symptoms; they don't eliminate the cause, which is basic human selfishness.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
RMS calling something anti-social, now there's an interesting tidbit...
We began this interview via email, but later had to finish by telephone after Richard Stallman fell and broke his arm.
I wish him a speedy recovery.
RMS bashing is about the only type of trolling you can perform on Slashdot that carries with it positive karma.
Um... yeah... except Microsoft, SCO, the RIAA, the MPAA, lawyers, the U.S. Government...
Because there are suckers out there who'll do the work for them at a fraction of the cost of hiring programmers.
"Information wants to be paid"
There is not taking away that GCC is a good tool. It is.
My point though is that GCC [as it is today, and by that I mean competent and competitive] has little if anything to do with RMS.
It's as if Linus gave up on the kernel in 1995. Would we still go "oh well if it weren't for Linus, who missed the 2.0, 2.2, 2.4 and 2.6 releases we wouldn't have the kernel we have today?"
People also seem to misunderstand my anger a bit. I'm happy that RMS started the FSF movement and got OSS/FS rolling. I think what he did was important and sticking to an unpopular idea shows character.
I'm just trying to dispel this floating myth that all the tools we use today are because of RMS. They're not.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It's nice to see that at least *someone* on slashdot is not an idiot.
Amongst the flames & trolls there were some detailed & reasonably thoughtful responses (including from someone who's got as 'Foe' - hi spectecjr:) - & the only argument I heard that stood up as not obvious Straw men, irrelevant, or based on a misunderstanding, was that some developers do not consider the four freedoms described by the GNU philosophy page to be fundamental freedoms.
The best counter-argument to that that I can think of is that it is only a matter of degree; the freedom to study, redistribute (etc) software is less important than the freedom not to be beaten to death by government clowns, say, but that does not mean that the software freedoms are not, in themselves, important.
I have a bad feeling I'm getting into areas dealt with my philosophy-101; can anyone else (a) advance sensible reasons why intelligent, informed people might produce non-Free s/w, and (b) refutations of those reasons.
Please, no confusion with 'Open source' development advantages or disadvantages - I'm specifically interested in the purely MORAL arguments made by RMS.
Arguments such as 'my family has to eat', 'how would programs like Photoshop be developed if it was Free?', "I am free to distribute software I write under any license I like", etc etc, are missing the point. I'd hate to find myself deciding that the reason is that proprietary developers consciously dismiss the moral / ethical issues as uninteresting or irrelevant. I know there are a lot of people here working on proprietary as well as Free s/w and you can't all be trolls :)
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
You think of RMS as a hippie. One could disagree, about that, but one shouldn't forget hippies are people too. Friendly, freedom loving people with no intent to hurt anyone.
I really don't see any reason for you to spit dirt at RMS.
As I wrote in the comment to another KernelTrap story, using the term "GNU/Linux" (referring to the GCC and glibc essential role in the system) is totally misleading.
Both GCC and glibc are in the current state despite the RMS and FSF efforts. For GCC, remember the situation from the 2.8 times, when an independent team (egcs) had to fork GCC, because the FSF-managed development of GCC was dead. In the same way remember years of work that H.J.Lu invested in Linux libc, because GNU libc was unmaintained and unusable. And of course the work of Ulrich Drepper, who took GNU libc2 and developed it into a form usable in Linux-based system. Ulrich considers none of his work on glibc to be a part of a GNU project (details here, see the bottom part of the text). And it looks like even the present situation in the GCC development is the same (anonymous comment at KernelTrap).
So I can say run GCC/glibc/perl/X.org/TeX/etc/Linux system, but it has nothing special to do with GNU and FSF, and I just prefer the short name "Linux" (named after a single biggest, always-running, and essential component of the system).
-Yenya
--
While Linux is larger than Emacs, at least Linux has the excuse that it has to be. --Linus
I think it's because he rants about freedom and then champions an expressly non-free license (GPL) over one that is (BSD).
Well, a previous Slashdot article linked to this:
_ lifecycle.htm
http://www.moonviewscientific.com/essays/software
It's pretty good, and it explains why OSS outcompetes and outperforms commercial software in the long run. Proprietary, commercial, software will always be around for niche markets or emerging market though.
The OSS development model works because instead of tapping the finite resources of individual companies, it taps the nearly infinite resources of human creativity through the internet. The only thing that could suck the steam out of the OSS movement is if the internet broke down (unlikely) or if humans stopped being creative (haha).
As for economic viability, I know this sounds crazy, but a lot of people do things just for fun, for recognition, for pride, for the love of their work or simply just because the problem was there. Money isn't the only thing that can make people produce excellent software.
He really comes across as duplicitous when he says over and over how he is "fighting for freedom" and then says the following:
... I do not think it means what you think it means.
JA: What about the programmers...
Richard Stallman: What about them? The programmers writing non-free software? They are doing something antisocial. They should get some other job.
JA: Such as?
Richard Stallman: There are thousands of different jobs people can have in society without developing non-free software. You can even be a programmer. Most paid programmers are developing custom software--only a small fraction are developing non-free software. The small fraction of proprietary software jobs are not hard to avoid.
So if one freely decides to write a program and not divulge the code, then that person is antisocial? Hey - I don't accuse Colonel Sanders of being antisocial just because he keeps his 11 secret herbs and spices a "secret". And I don't accuse Bill Gates of being antisocial because he refuses to divulge the code to Microsoft Bob. He may be a numbnut, but whom am I to accuse someone of being "antisocial".
This word "freedom"
They call me the working man. I guess that's what I am.
He's not full of himself? Then why does he feel the need to force people what to call Linux?
Face it, he has the ego the size of his beard. He can't stand being trivialized.
Amen, that's exactly what I was trying to say.
While Mac OS X is based on freer software than anything GPLed, Aqua and soforth are definitely not free software. Or did you mean the third most popular OS?
You forgot to add to the list of okay bash targets:
1) anyone over 25;
2) anyone with more than 5 years experience in true computer system use/development;
3) anyone not living in parent's house;
4) anyone who uses and enjoys using MS products;
5) anyone who sees that OSS undermines the career/science of software development and promotes an industry of technician-oriented service contracts;
6) Republicans and anyone who believes you should earn a living and minimize the idealogy of "handouts" and entitlements;
7) anyone who thinks Howard Stern is a freak.
Is of course the GNU/Darwin. Somehow it is what GNU always wanted to have - a GNU running on a microkernel (at least sort of). (I admit, I don't know what licence applies to Darwin).
You can defy gravity... for a short time
In nomine Stallman, et Emacs, et FSF sancti. Amen.
If your interest is more on creative media and copyright then we hosted a talk with Richard Stallman, the gist of which is here:m an0504.htm
http://www.plugincinema.com/plugin/articles/stall
My Personal Blog on Games and Technology and More
Because people want something for nothing. Freedom doesn't enter into it.
Mac OS X is the third most popular OS. GNU/Linux's marketshare has been higher than Apple's for a while (and all of Apple's marketshare tends to be bunched together anyway, a high proportion, possibly even a majority, of Apple users are using Mac OS 9 and earlier operating systems.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
No sane person would sit down and write their own C compiler+debugger from scratch because he didn't like the licenses of the currently available compilers.
Yet that's pretty much what the BSD folks are doing with Tendra.
They don't like the GPL.
If RMS had not started GNU, GCC would not exist. Period. So I would say that GCC 'as it is today' has quite a bit to do with RMS.
God, you're an idiot!
Most 3 year olds can understand the words "as long as it remains popular" and yet you fail it! Incredible!
Now take a look at the list of glibc/gcc/gdb supported architecures and then shoot yourself and rid the world of another turd. Please.
Linux is the second most popular operating system (with 3.1% of the market), Mac (OS X + OS 9 + other versions of Mac OS) has about 2.7% of the market, looking at current easily googlable marketshare statistics.
And what a kernel. Personally I doubt it boils down to monolithic vs micro kernels or other architecture decisions. I reckon simply that Linux was seen as a dynamic development process driven by practical requirements rather than politics. An example of this is Linus' decision to use non-GPL SCM tools for developing the kernel, simply because they were better than the free alternatives.
Frankly nothing about HURD supports any notion that Linux is ultimately doomed. It's a hobbiests OS that feels like Linux ten years ago but without any clear purpose. I can't see any possible benefit for using it, except for someone who wants to play with a GPL'd Mach kernel. All other cited reasons such as the supposed stability benefits have long since been disproven.
"Teh RIAA is teh sux0r!" may be dumb, but it's not exactly a highly personal attack against an influential figure who has done an enormous amount for FOSS.
By that logic FSF has nothing todo with RMS but his mother and father. For that matter...
But to turn this around on you. If GCC today was the same quality as GCC was then no one would use it. Commercial entities would [and still do] use commercial compilers and hobbiest/students would use what they can find or pay 100$ for a watcom license.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Perhaps because he continually insists on the term GNU/Linux. This challenges the Linux zealots world view that Linux is the be all and end all. Mr. Stallman's view points out that Linux needs a lot of help from GNU, FSF, ISC, BSD, MIT, IBM, ASF, Moz, etc., to be a useful system.
Zealots, of any stripe, hate it when you disagree with them, and tend to be more vocal that your average fan or user. And when you make a point they can't debate....
I think Stallman is a bit eccentric about his ideas about freedom. I would venture to guess that he's wired a bit funny. His ideologies are are not practical nor are they rooted in reality. My freedom is not in jeopardy because I elected to use MacOS X on an Apple G5 (my wallet was but not not my freedom). Stallman presumes that his intelligence and knowledge give him the right to not respect the boundaries of others. When someone tells him that he can't have his way with their software (or if it isn't written by his own minions or philosophies), he cries foul and plays the freedom card. This isn't an ideology, this is arrogance and extreme anti-social behavior. This sort of behavior is very consistent with a high-functioning autism known as "Asperger's Syndrome."
Draw your own conclusions...
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
That is one paranoid son of a bitch.
I'm not particular knowledgeable about RMS' views nor do I support them. I just hope he still doesn't look like that picture. The crazed psycho killer look is so dated.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
PS - I don't think the BSDs are directly involved /w Tendra, are they?
Open-source code is protected just as strongly by copyright as closed-source code.
Interesting how one must choose to license their program under the GNU GPL and one must choose to distribute GPL-covered programs, yet "the GPL forces [RMS']" view of free software on others.
There's no force involved. If you don't like the GPL, don't choose to distribute programs licensed under it. There are entire free software operating systems written by people who are working hard to rewrite GPL-covered programs because they don't like the strong copyleft implemented in the GPL.
Quite to the contrary of what you're saying, the reason the BSD licenses qualify as free software licenses is because they grant the licensee the freedoms free software talks about.
Digital Citizen
fwiw, your 4 examples are really just 2 examples (IBM twice, and Sun twice).
In any case, do you really think that IBM and Sun care about Open Source? They only care insomuch as it's part of their strategey to deflate Microsoft and perhaps then be in a better position to compete with them in other markets.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Ditto.
b.g.
The multi-billion dollar companies are only spending money on it because it has a prospect of being profitable. And that profitability comes not from the ideals that Stallman thought of, but from the "accidental" usefulness of OSS being reviewed by thousands of peers for free.
http://zero-to-enterprise.blogspot.com/
### but at some gut level I'm just not sensing the long-term head of steam and ecomonic viability of the approach (or is it lifestyle?).
Free Software is not about economic viability, its not about making money or anything. Its about giving freedom to the user to share, modify and distribute software, it is NOT about the programmer who wrote it, that one is rather irrelevant in the view of the Free Software movement.
The Open Source movement on the other side now kind of reverses it and inserts tons of marketing speach to argue how Free Software can be cheaper to maintain, to produce, better and what not, at least half of it just marketing lies and such.
To make it short, when you want to make lots of money and buy yourself a Ferrari, don't try to acomplish that with writing Free Software, just won't work. If on the other side you want to make good software available to the community a Free Software license might help to ensure that your software stays protected while still giving your users all kind of freedoms.
Yet, strangely, he doesn't feel compelled to get political about everything and the kitchen sync, he doesn't drag the community in pointless debates, he doesn't alienate commercial partners, and he also doesn't imply he knows what's best for everybody.
Yes, I am very grateful for the software he wrote. Yes, what I've done so far in my life is like a firefly to the sun, compared to what he did. But that doesn't mean that I'm not entitled to a critical opinion, especially towards his "political" enterprises.
P.S. one should be careful about labeling someone "communist" - after all, communism killed an estimated number of 100 million people (more than fascism, albeit over a longer period of time)
The Raven
Freedom is the most important aspect of these projects. While good things should follow, having the freedom to fork, as GCC and glibc and others have done when the originators stagnated is what I would interpret as RMS/FSF's most important contribution.
If they recognize the changes as good and accept them back into their code base, that is their right, and that is how free software projects work.
Richard Stallman never said he personally wrote the code all by himself, any more than the creators of a Redhat, Mandrake, Debian distribution who slap their names on the collection do, even though the RMS/FSF contribution to the code and project that created them was in my view clearly superior to that of Redhat, for example, even if I think his personal judgement on EMacs UI and many other things does not produce a product I want to use. The key is I can fix it or choose to substitute something else.
His desire to attach the GNU name is, again, the desire to teach about the free software nature of some basic building blocks there, which he consideres the most significant aspect of the software. What other name would convey the spirit of freedom like GNU? Others contributions, while valuable, are technical except for their choice to follow the GNU lead and code under the banner and license of free software.
the dude could use a good dose of George Will.
Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind. -- Mark Harrold
IBM has been inconsequential since the release of the PS/2 and grows more so each day.
Having said that IBM's support of open/free source is primarily a marketing tool. IBM hasn't converted any of its money-making closed source applications to OSS and shows no sign of doing so in the foreseeable future.
Look at Rational Visual Test for example. Since Rational was purchased by IBM, they've discontinued the product, won't let you buy a license, and won't open the source. All of this to protect the profits of the much more expensive closed source Rational Robot. So not only won't IBM open the source for a profitable product, they won't even open the source for a product that competes with it.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but if you called it an onion you'd get cooks very confused.
"It's pretty good, and it explains why OSS outcompetes and outperforms commercial software in the long run."
Perhaps you should wait until the "long run" has occured before you draw conclusions about what happens there.
I think RMS really missed the question here. In most cases it is not that you could quit one job and find another that allowed you to use Free Software. Entire fields of work cannot be completed without proprietary software. It's all fine that he can find himself another programming job that only involves Free Software, but most people have no desire to be programmers.
"Legislate" is the wrong term. It's best desribed as "asking." He's asking you to call it GNU/Linux. That's all. You don't have to do it, you don't have to listen. But he's asking you.
He doesn't want to take it away from you. He never says that, and he says quite the opposite.
From his site:
"Why not sue people who call the whole system "Linux"?
There are no legal grounds to sue them, but since we believe in freedom of speech, we wouldn't want to do that anyway. We ask people to call the system "GNU/Linux" because that is the right thing to do.
Shouldn't you put something in the GNU GPL to require people to call the system "GNU"?
The purpose of the GNU GPL is to protect the users' freedom from those who would make proprietary versions of free software. While it is true that those who call the system "Linux" often do things that limit the users' freedom, such as bundling non-free software with the GNU/Linux system or even developing non-free software for such use, the mere act of calling the system "Linux" does not, in itself, deny users their freedom. It seems improper to make the GPL restrict what name people can use for the system."
Could that be any clearer?
Well, this is linked to from the project front page, plus there's the MAINTAINERS file in the top of the source tree (although that lists the active maintainers and their responsibilities, not everybody-at-any-time-ever). Yah, Mark's one of them.
GCC isn't like the Linux kernel, where the development teams are formed around cults of personalities, and /.ers eagerly congregate to hear the heated flame wars between their favorites. :-) The GCC people are way milder, way less vitriolic, and as a result, don't make the tabloid news.
The inflammatory statements made on LKML concern stuff like DRM and proprietary drivers and things about which more Linux users actually care (or even understand). Inflammatory statements on the GCC list are of the kind which only arouse the ire of other compiler geeks. We can almost get into fistfights at the annual summit over whether a combined CSE and DCE pass should be done even when optimization is off ("the Laffer curve argues for-" "bah, users shouldn't notice!"), but nobody on /. will care. *grin*
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
How ironic that you celebrate the practical outcome of software freedom RMS started talking about and working for 20 years ago, yet you refuse to cite the name which is most associated with software freedom.
I remain unconvinced and I'll continue to choose to give GNU a share of the credit when I talk about the GNU OS and the Linux kernel.
Digital Citizen
>JA: What if your job requires you to use non-free software?
>Richard Stallman: I would quit that job. Would you participate in something anti-social just because somebody pays you to?
So RMS uses only open source bios, open source CPU microcode , open source firmware in his computer hardware...
The creators of Unix started the user written software movement, not RMS.
Commercial software has been around for 40-50 years. OSS has been around for about half of that. I'd say there's a long enough history to extrapolate long-term trends, at least as much as there is for anything else in the software industry.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
Stallman constantly talks about the freedom of users. What about the freedom of programmers? By this I mean the freedom to decide whether to publish your source or not, to charge money for your work or not. That concept never enters his lexicon. Yes, he has made huge contributions to computing over the years. No, he is not always right.
And I suppose we all have Bill Gates to thank for making the PC a commodity, so you can afford to run your free software on it.
Same logic.
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Earlier revisions of the APSL were non-free, but Apple changed it to make version 2.0 of the APSL a free software license. The APSLv2.0 is now a GPL-incompatible free software license.
Digital Citizen
Open source is thriving in spite of Stallman, really. In fact, with the exception of the Linux kernel, most of the popular open source software is not GPL'd. Apache license, X license, BSD'd license...
Even the Linux kernel is a modified GPL, giving explicit permission to make derivitive works (ie linking to the API).
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
charging money for software to cover costs and run a business. Everyone is free to buy it or not. I worked for 12 years on a software package that assists and optimizes the manufacture of printed circuit boards. It has become very difficult to produce PCBs without this type of software. It would never have been developed as free software. Custom "one-off" solutions would force hardware manufacturers out of their expertise. Without charging for software I'm guessing there would be alot fewer choice we'd be able to make.
Like the current state of the U.S. being a free country has little to do with the founding fathers? Oh wait... ;)
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Summary of this entire thread: The Richard Stallman "I Love Me" Thread.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
How the hell did this get modded up? No, you don't give up the right to be credited as you wish. You may put things in the open, but the GPL is meant to protect free software from actions EXACTLY like "[grabbing] your code, rename & repackage it, strip many of your identifying marks from it, & sell it for a million dollars".
I call it Linux because it's easier. GNU/Linux may be more correct since it includes the whole toolchain and such, but I know what went into the system. A whole different beast than using freely licensed code in a way it wasn't meant to be used. Get a clue.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I wouldn't be willing to have Windows on my computer, and you shouldn't have it on yours ...
So I'm not free to use Windows? How does that fit in?
God bless you, Toph.
I think what he means is that Open Source can't survive as a viable business model. Sure, open source will be around forever, so long as people maintain it. The question is, will we continue to see massive corporate sponsorship of it? I don't know the answer to that one, and I doubt you do either.
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I only hope that he doesn't have to survive a lifetime of negative remarks and bad publicity; he deserves to lay on his deathbed knowing that he truly made a difference on global society.
Slashmail.org "The Open Source Email Company"
Someone may grab your code, rename & repackage it, strip many of your identifying marks from it, & sell it for a million dollars.
Huh? Hmm, I was about to tell you that you're wrong - but of course, someone could fork gcc, rename it and sell it for a million dollars. But they could not lawfully prevent their (rather foolish) customer from having the source code and redistributing the program to whomever they like.
That's why the GPL is more free than, say, the BSD license. Your users can do what they wish with your program as long as they don't try to take anyone else's freedom.
(Stallman does come across as fairly mental, though - stating that programmers of non-free software are 'doing something antisocial' and that they should quit.)
#define struct union
Stallman considers himself indispensible; Linus makes jokes aout stepping in front of a bus.
Sometimes seventeen/Syllables aren't enough to/Express a complete
I do not deny big RMS and FSF contributions to GCC, glibc, and of course the GPL. Yes, they get (part of) the ball rolling. But this does not justify their requests to use the term "GNU/Linux". DEC's (and X Consortium) contribution was of the same magnitude, because without the good graphical interface Linux (and any of *BSDs) would be nowhere near the current state. Yet they do not demand the term "xc/Linux" should be used.
If they recognize the changes as good and accept them back into their code base, that is their right, and that is how free software projects work.
In fact this is precisely the way Open source projects work. I.e. judging the code by its quality instead of some "political" reasons.
Do not get me wrong - I consider freedoms I have from using (and writing) the GPL-licensed code to be very valuable. Let me repeat that: I agree that without RMS (and FSF) we would be nowhere near the current state. But this is about as true for RMS/FSF/GNU as is for Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox et al./Linux, Jim Gettys et al./DEC/X Consortium, */Apache project, and many others (Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie did not contribute much of the code for my system, but they created an excellent API and design; the same for Internet protocol authors, and so on). But nobody except RMS does request that I use the term their project name/Linux. And, unfortunately, the present FSF efforts with respect to GCC and glibc looks less than nice to me.
Currently I can switch the kernel I use for something else (*BSD, may be even HURD) the same way as I can switch my glibc (to dietlibc, for example), and GCC (to Intel CC or lcc). I use Linux, GCC, glibc, Perl, xorg/X11, etc., because they best fit my needs. GNU project is nothing special in this.
-Yenya
--
While Linux is larger than Emacs, at least Linux has the excuse that it has to be. --Linus
I suppose that part of my problem is that I work on projects where the most valuable thing brought to the table (expertise in some process or approach to performing some info-centric task or business/administration model) is expressed through both the consulting time AND the software that is developed/implemented to support the users. The software, in its form and function, is a critical part of the value. Knowing when and how to deliver it, and when and how to enhance it is how I put a (modest!) roof over my head and buy food. This isn't about buying a Ferrari - it's about helping end users to keep in mind that software and the systems that support it, are part and parcel of keeping useful professionals at hand and practicing the skills.
/. has of course commented on the perception that since (say, Linux) is "free" and certain apps are increasingly "free," that the value in knowing how to put together a technology solution is going to be eroded. Truly smart end users will see that's not true, and truly smart consultants can get at least some of the rest of them to understand it, but there's a large chunk of the IT-consuming world that is lowering its perception of technology value (and thus their perception of what I'm worth, all in the same bucket) because of the free-software buzz. It's incorrect, but it's still very corrosive.
Many another post on
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Yeah. That's the point of freedom. You don't get to make decisions for somebody else.
The world isn't black and white. The world is unfair. That's why everyone is a mixture of idealism and practicality.
Stallman seems to believe that Free Software is a moral issue. That is his choice.
But what really irks me is that he tries to impose his own set of values and beliefs upon other people.
He talks about "Open Source" having a different philosophy, about how "Open Source" focuses on the GPL and sharing of source code because of its tangible benefits. And how these are "narrowly practical values".
By his definition, that would mean my thoughts about getting a decent job are "narrowly practical values".
People use software for a purpose. People develop software for a purpose. For some it is a hobby. For some it is a way of putting food on the table.
Its just like people who believe that no country really needs a military, since no one fights wars anymore. Is that realistic? Is that practical?
I don't think Stallman even knows what practical means anymore. All he wants is credit, and his chance to shove his world view down other people's throats.
Last I checked, using a license didn't mean subscribing to another person's philosophy.
Another poster mentioned that Linux has come so far in 10 years compared to Hurd. This is because Linus is a practical person. Linux is a practical piece of software engineering. Hurd, is more like a academic research project mired in politics.
Sometimes, talk is cheap. Stallman has made great contributions yes, but that doesn't give him or anyone else the right to shove his views down my throat.
Be kind. There are too many mean people out there already.
I only can give my utmost respect to Richard Stallman. He is a true visionar and good person. We should all support him!
How on earth could a credible threat be made against a free software developer? Details, please. If he was receiving benefits or consideration from the FSF or the FSF was offering something, then it is appropriate that FSF has some say in what he does. Otherwise, as I told Darl McBride to his face, what part of the GPL don't you get? How does it make it possible to threaten someone and force them to work in a direction they do not believe to be of value?
Please do provide specific examples of where RMS is "trying to legislate" what some call "Linux", and be sure to point out how RMS is not merely requesting something which people are free to dismiss or reject.
That's not true. One does not need to give up getting credit for one's work when one writes or distributes free software. In fact, the most widely used free software license (the GNU GPL) requires all copies to carry an appropriate copyright notice.
I fail to see where RMS has "been eclipsed" because I don't see anyone involved with the open source movement championing software freedom squarely and without reservation. The people I see talking about software freedom in this way all come from the FSF--Eben Moglen and Brad Kuhn, to name a couple people I've heard speak on the subject recently.
Finally, you and the grandparent post got the name wrong--the name of the movement RMS started is not "open source". It's called the free software movement. It seems fair to call the movement by the name the founder of the movement gave it, no?
Digital Citizen
This thread won't be of much help to you because it chiefly concerns the free software movement, not the open source movement. There is a difference. If you're interested to learn more about the free software movement, you should consult the philosophy directory on gnu.org as the interview pointed to.
Digital Citizen
Technically games are also software, and require programmers to program them. By his philosophy, all games should be free? How will we get good games then, if we don't pay a whole bunch of people to make them? Surely people are not able to make Halo 2 in their spare time.
I don't hate RMS, but I dislike his "movement".
I dislike that he says I shouldn't have the freedom to decide what to do with my code.
I dislike that he says I shouldn't be able to profit off of software that I have writtern. (The custom programs/modifications argument doesn't apply to all software, so please don't pretend that it does.)
I dislike the fact that he throws around the word "freedom" cheaply, without defining what freedoms are actually violated by proprietary software.
I dislike the fact that he insults me because I do not share his views.
I dislike the fact that he is trying to trample on my freedoms in some narrow-sighted campaign.
I think the problem is that RMS is of the opinion that anyone who isn't sitting on the farmost left tip of the line doesn't count and is morally repugnant. Most people even on slashdot will share a mix of some open source and some free software views, and I think that's important. You've got to be flexible and work with other people who may have different views in life. Personally I'm about 25% along from the left- I'm sad when a BSD-licensed program is taken, a little extra is added, and a proprietry software product produced (e.g. Posidon UML editor). On the other hand, I couldn't say hand-on-heart that I'd still be interested if my Linux computer didn't work very well.
... I thought that man was already dead.
If there's one thing I wish for RMS, it would be that he and his team finally wrap up and release the Hurd kernel. Maybe then he'll finally bugger off and leave Linux alone.
"You did WHAT to WHO for BEER MONEY?!? Jeez, man - you don't even like beer..."
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
(all from the FSF)
Possessions/assets are taxed, in various ways:
Most obviously, real estate tax is assessed on the value of the real estate. This is a direct tax on assets. Real estate makes up a very large proportion of the nation's net worth, so this is not an insignificant asset tax.
Less obviously, inflation provides a built-in tax on assets. In particular, if you earn, say, 4% in a bank account, the govt taxes you on that 4%, even tho inflation might be 3%. The tax on the 3% which is inflation is, in effect, an asset tax. If you keep your money under your matress, to avoid paying tax, then inflation itself eats your money away.
You did miss something. These arguments were huge during the mid 90's. At this point there are settled. Read /. from 8 years ago and you'll see people arguing.
1) The Linux has surpassed the NT kernel in just about aspect
2) Linux based servers outperform just about any other Unix server on the same hardware or on a cost basis
3) There are almost no innovations that are not part of the Linux kernel
Similarly for Apache. Similarly now for Mozilla. Things like Open Office still have a long way to go to catch up with Microsoft Office but the path of progress is well known, well understood and being implemented. You aren't hearing the debates because it is a settled issue. My guess if you went your whole life without every hearing the debates on the continuous theory of matter vs. the atomic theory.
I have never met him personally, but I prefer to regard him as a person who has an extensive record of creating useful tools for the benefit of everybody in the community, and as such, someone who is perfectly entitled to suggest principles along which the software development community should run.
I find it somewhat tiring to read continual criticisms of his standpoint from those who have contributed nothing whatsoever.
When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
If you have the time of inclination, check out the novel Confederacy of Dunces.
either that, or you have major retardation issues. see a doctor, then please tear up your republican voter registration card.
Easy, there. Most working consultants voraciously consume information that they perceive to be meaningful to their paycheck. If you write proprietary software or build highly specialized systems for a living, you tend to have an allergy to any school of thought that suggests there is no rent-paying/food-earning value there. I'm not suggesting that the open source arena results in a demand for unpaid technology experts, only that it makes it much more difficult to make a living in that space. There are probably a LOT of very successful IT pros that leverage open source and free IT tools, and more power to them. In my arena, though, it's difficult at best.
BTW, if this was "settled" 10+ years ago, why is it not settled? I'm sure you know what I mean.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
You need permission from RMS not to feel guilty?
That is downright scary. You would make an excellent addition to a flock of mindless sheep.
I wonder if all of you people who love the fact that he "stands up" for his principles, feel that same level of respect when Jerry Falwell and others stand up so hard for their principles.
It seems around here that the value of defending one's beliefs directly correspond to agreeing with them.
Richard Stallman: I would quit that job.
So in other words, anyone who is required to use Windows at their work should quit their job. Wow. So basically, he just suggested that somewhere around 80% of the US workforce hand in their resignations. I can't understand why anyone would think this guy is insane.
Basically, this guys is telling the same stuff over and over for 15 years... :
And everybody is listenning him as if he was some kind of messiah.......
so save our time and please make a RMS interview generator whith some parametrable element
1 gnu linux (I can't believe can programmer he doesn't get the fact that gnu linux spell like NEW Linux and every one I know who heard that has always answered : what ? there's a new linux ?, forget it Richard, that's not gonna happenned, ever)
2 the hurd : can someone shout me a bullet in the head ? (it's not usable, it's slow as hell and the 2 guys who are working on it have just finished their their computer degree so they have to understand the whole gnu compilation chain and it's really hard, believe me)
3) can a world survive in a only free software world ?
yes, just make your code unreadable and release it when it's obsolete while letting all its data copyrighted (as ID software do)
pfffffffff, I'm fedding up my self with all those rms talk
Zehavoc
The "free" argument needs some clarification. I think it's too easy to read these sorts of interviews and come away thinking that "free" means:
1)Source Code
2)The right to do ANYTHING you want with said code
I get the feeling that it's more that the code should be provided, and you can do whatever you like with said code on your own machine, but the original author has the right to limit other rights like distribution or sale. I say this because it simply makes sense to me. To say that if you're going to write a program that is meant to be distributed, you should be required to provide all code and give up all rights of ownership over said code seems to discourage serious development of anything overly complex in anything close to a timely fashion.
Freedom is all well and good, but who would have preferred we never had proprietary software to begin with? How far behind current standards would we be if companies like Apple and Microsoft had not pushed the GUI as they did? Where would modern word processing be if it weren't for WordPerfect and Office? Most free software out there now is working to emulate non-free equivalents. Does the FS/OS community have the vision to pioneer technology instead of immitate?
It's too easy to say "Apple bad! Microsoft immoral! They no give code free!" Dislike the giants all you want, but they accomplished in a few years what has taken us geeks decades to do in our free communities.
There is a place for Free as well as Non-Free software. To say one is inherently superior to another is simply ridiculous. To say one is immoral by it's nature makes you sound like a self-important maniac.
Since when should geniuses only work on that area in which they express their genius abilities? Also, RMS is upfront about what free software won't do. After explaining the way in which businesses turn the Phillipine 2-year exemption from labor into a perpetual exemption by closing up shop and establishing a new business every 2 years, RMS is asked: (emphasis mine)
It sounds to me like he realizes the limitations of free software and is quick to answer as such. If you listen to his speeches, you'll also hear him respond that if he knew a way to help get corporate money out of political campaigns, he would work on that and nothing would make him more proud. This too is not a problem free software can solve alone, perhaps playing a minor role in making such a thing happen, but it is critical that we work on this when we consider the amount of power that comes with campaign donations and how much more money multinational corporations have to put into campaigns than most ordinary people.
Digital Citizen
You asked why it wasn't being debated on /. I explained it was settled on /. years ago.
In terms of consulting most consultants (and most programmers for that matter) write custom code for specific clients. There isn't really a closed vs. open source issue here. Under either paradigm a company pays you to write code on essenttially a per hour basis.
As far as the general public open source hasn't quite gotten all the apps yet. The focus of the open source movement was: server applications and an operating system. Going after desktop business productivity apps is newer and things like the game market aren't being meaningfully tried at all. So things like Bind, and Sendmail are very mature. But right now Oracle sells a product which is vastly better than any open source product. Even still MySQL (which is worse than SQLServer, Oracle, DB2 on virtually every front) has eaten up a huge market share based primarily on cost. Similarly with Microsoft office.
The big issue for Microsoft OS is that it is the best platform (with the possible exception of OSX) for running Office.....
Time has zero worth to the validity of a belief.
A truth today, is usally true tomorrow.
It's not like Hitler didn't spend time reflecting upon his beliefs in the master race....
We know where that lead to.
And it is an analogy simply to point out a flaw in logic. Please do not post back in the....HOW CAN YOU COMPARE HIM TO HITLER vein, as it is misleading to the point
I do not deny big RMS and FSF contributions to GCC, glibc, and of course the GPL. Yes, they get (part of) the ball rolling. But this does not justify their requests to use the term "GNU/Linux". DEC's (and X Consortium) contribution was of the same magnitude, because without the good graphical interface Linux (and any of *BSDs) would be nowhere near the current state. Yet they do not demand the term "xc/Linux" should be used.
But I would still be happily using the free software I have, and who knows what technical advancements would have replaced them. I used and valued DEC software long before there was a GUI, and the GUI isn't the indispensible piece for me that you seem to think it is, even assuming nothing else would have taken it's place. Believe me, DEC's GUIs were never worth writing home about. I do not run a GUI on my most important systems today, which is freedom that free software gives me with no contribution from DEC. DEC wrote all kinds of wonderful compilers as well as operating systems but were never philanthropic enough to allow me to use them freely. The UI was not much of an intentional contribution which you would understand if you ever licensed software from them, including their DEC adaptations of the UI.
DEC's contribution was at most a technical contribution to a narrow part of the system. I do not find this comparable to the FSF contribution.
Linus already gets all the credit, some of which he deserves for the kernel. Alan Cox contributes under his Linux kernel banner. Linus does not seem to value freedom and GPL (based upon past actions) to the extent it is merited. And what does the Apache Foundation have to do at all with Linux distributions or free software?
While the Linux kernel may be substitutable, I have never found the GPL, GNU utilities and other things as substitutable.
Linus seems to believe that the technology is more important than the freedom (as he has clearly expressed WRT bitkeeper and on many other occasions), which is part of why they tend to undervalue the GNU contribution. I suspect Linus is coming to value it a bit more with the SCO nonsense.
That is why I respect the idea that being forced to use non-free software where reasonable alternatives exist could easily be reason enough to change jobs.
...I'm almost with him until somewhere in the late middle of the interview he goes off into raving luniticism...
He has good ideas, but he fends them and speaks of them like a Muslim arguing with a Catholic about the nature of GOD.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
and declare this discussion terminated. Read about Godwin's law here.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I suppose, then, that was has my hackles up a bit is the degree to which the longer-term free software celebrities are find themselves quoted in the types of news that CFO-types consume. The folks that are looking for highly proprietary solutions now pollute almost every one of those projects with a lengthy (thus costly) round of "first show me all of the free solutions that we might use" phase.
With these decision makers, it's not a discussion about which server or file system to use, or a debate about PHP vs ASP... it's an understandable (given what their college-age kids tell them) sense that, "Aren't we at the point now where some of this stuff doesn't cost anything?" It just muddies the waters to the point where they'll spend 20 hours (x $150+ an hour at local consulting rates, or $3000) to avoid spending that much on a commercial product, and then: still have to buy the commercial product!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I haven't seen that many acronyms since I worked for the DOD.
I have no problem with the world according to Richard Stallman as long as compliance is voluntary. As a software creator I am free to choose to release the software for free and I am free to demand payment for my software. On the other side of the coin, consumers are free to accept my terms or not.
Oh wait, we already live in that world. So what is his beef with people making decisions for themselves?
Are you a complete idiot? Don't you see the amazing potential of HURD? Think about it. If you had a system where you could multiplex the whole system without root access, you would still have security problems, but those would be confined to that percentage of the system, and not affect other things. You could donate processors to the whole lan, or the whole internet. You machine is sitting idle? Someone else in your house or business could use those cycles or a defined percentage of them. I think Tunes will achieve this computing ubiquity before anything else You can see on their Wiki that the project is not dead.
Bypass Compulsory Web Registration -- http://bugmenot.com/
If you're writing GPLed software you are "working for Apple for free" too. Last time I checked Samba was GPLed, and so was GCC, and dozens of other programs included in OSX.
Let's be honest - no matter what the license - OSS is free slave labour for the corporations.
Interesting enough, every developed country used protectionism as a mean in its development. In fact, most critics of China's current monetary policy (ie fixing the price of its currency) blame it as a form of protectionism. And you can see China's growth.s /Chang1.h tm
http://www.btinternet.com/~pae_news/text
http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/faculty/chang/
No, really ? Imagine that.
Stallmans ideal is to protect the right of everyone to review and improve software. The profitability of OSS comes from the right of everyone to review and improve software. But somehow the profitability of OSS does not come from Stallmans ideals, despite those ideals being the state of things where the profitability of OSS comes from.
Please explain ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
It's a shame that Stallman seems to be mostly interested in bashing the Open Source movement.
1. Open Source is more like Microsoft than GNU:
"The open source movement promotes what they consider a technically superior development model that usually gives technically superior results. The values they cite are the same ones Microsoft appeals to: narrowly practical values."
2. Linus Torvalds is a corrupting influence:
"People know that Linus Torvalds wrote his program Linux to have fun. And people know that Linus Torvalds did not say that it's wrong to stop users for sharing and changing the software they use. If they think that our system was started by him and primarily owes existence to him, they will tend to follow his philosophy, and that weakens our community."
The problem is that BusyBox is mostly GNU; if you don't believe me, download its source and check the copyrights; large parts of it are copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, because it was built from cut-down versions of GNU tools.
I did not mean to suggest that business should be completely unimpeded by governments, if that's what you took it as. I have no objection to reasonable laws regarding such things. I meant that impediments to international trade should be removed.
he's a dirty commie (really - read the interview)
But he WAS right. People just don't get that yet. They will though. After all the crap going on in the middle east and our having to come to the rescue, they will understand it and see that it is true quite clearly. Abu Ghraib was the first step. Next you will see the U.S. military marching into the jew infested corners of the world and cleansing them once and for all.
This reminds me of the ending of the book "Prince of Lies": "The world was doomed but it kept going anyway."
And even the title of the book fits your post !-)
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
----- There are two kinds of people in this world, my friend; those with loaded guns, and those who dig.
What Mr. Shaw didn't mention is that there's a big difference between a unreasonable, intelligent man and an unreasonable idiot.
He is making valid points. Stop abusing your mod point.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
So if one freely decides to write a program and not divulge the code, then that person is antisocial? Hey - I don't accuse Colonel Sanders of being antisocial just because he keeps his 11 secret herbs and spices a "secret". And I don't accuse Bill Gates of being antisocial because he refuses to divulge the code to Microsoft Bob. He may be a numbnut, but whom am I to accuse someone of being "antisocial".
When Stallman says "social", he is going to the root of the term - talking about society.
How is it NOT harmful to society to have any one thing controlled by one person alone? How is it not harmful to have myriads of documents that are in a format no-one but Microsoft can REALLY read. How is it not harmful to have many video files that one company can control weither you see or not? How is it not harmful that you have an OS that millions of people use every day and yet are not able to modify in such a way that it is secure or built to thier satisfaction?
So anti-social, in terms of being bad for society - yes Bill Gates is Anti-Social. Just as are car companies that try to make sure you cannot repair or modify a car away from a dealer.
If you like, think of this in terms of dependancy. You are reliant on Microsoft for care and feeding of your OS, if Microsoft every went south or in a direction you did not like you are reliant on thier good graces to get a job done you could do before. But a healthier mode of existance is a compartmentalized one, an encapsulation if you will of the tools that you use that isolates your dependance from the tool makers. A socket wrench I bought 20 years ago still works to turn a bolt, but really no software I BOUGHT twenty years ago is still viable - the only software I used fifteen years ago or so that I still use today is Free Software. There is a message in that truth.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While I might have different feelings on the matter, did anyone actually stop to notice that the_mad_poster never said anything derogatory or negative regarding Free/Open software? If anything, a careful re-reading of his post seems to indicate that he has a certain reverence for the Free/Open software community. Why would he take the time to say that Stallman is "ahead of his time". Since when is that a put down? What about his use of the term GNU/Linux? It would seem that he is respecting Stallman's request that distros adopt this naming convention for what it symbolizes. Methinks that there is another Slashdot effect. It is the one where kneejerk reactions abound when careful reading is not applied and assumptions are made. It is the one where intelligent and coherent thinking is replaced by firey retorts being puppet-mastered by a well crafted troll. It the one where you are all stupid crabby stump fuckers, and I am your master. Sayonara bitches.
the_mad_poster posting as AC
CRUNCH!
Yummy.
Actualy, he would have the right to do that. Admittedly under the GPL he would have to provide his modified source for free so anyone paying him $1000000 for it would feel pretty stupid.
btw, Adobe Photoshop isn't licensed under the GPL.
The rich get richer because they spend less than they earn. I am weathly (by my friends standards anyway), solely becuase I spend less than I make and invest the difference. They could also do this but would rather have a starbucks, new $35K SUV every year, plasma TV, etc. Better yet, I get wealthier every year without do anything except spending less than I earn. The problem is not capitalism, but an inequality of financial education and an unwillingness to sacrifice in the short term to come out ahead in the long term. Like studying in school rather than getting drunk three night a week, or choosing a degree based on the ability to earn a living rather than the ease of the coursework, or living in a $120K house rather than the $250K my peers live in.
BTW, I am signficantly wealthier than my parents, who were solidly working middle class. In turn, my parents are signficantly wealthier than thier parents, who were sharecroppers. So much for the poor getting poorer.
----- There are two kinds of people in this world, my friend; those with loaded guns, and those who dig.
can I mod my toaster any way I wan't? Then my toaster is free. But not open-source, since I wouldn't know how to get the blueprint for the metal, the electronics etc.
So almost anything I buy is free, but not OS and not gratis.
First, there is the good old "free as in freedom (libre)" vs. "free as in beer". I think most slashdotters get that distinction.
Here's the thing, though. There can't be unlimited freedom (libre). If I were free to do anything I feel like, that impinges on your freedoms. My desired right to punch you in the face impinges on your right to personal security. These freedoms cannot coexist.
Upshot: which freedoms do you fight for, which do you value? Which has priority, which is right? Should people and/or corporations be free to earn an exclusive revenue stream from a creative or useful work that fits in the "IP" category? Or should there be, rather, unrestricted freedom to copy said works? Should a corporation/person be free to distribute a program as binary only, or must the public be free to view the source code?
I'm not trying to be redundant (as this may seem obvious to some), and I'm not trying to get everyone to repeat themselves in reply to my post. I'm just stating what I see to be an underlying theme in the discussion, which I think sometimes gets murky when people on multiple sides of the issue all argue for "freedom".
Stallman advocates free as in freedom, not free as in beer. A very important yet subtle difference. He describes freedom as a freedom to cooperate and work together, which is hindered by proprietary software. Considering the importance of computers as computational and communication tools, this is a very large issue that will shape the foundation of our entire social system. RMS is not out of line or crazy, he simply sees the importance of computers and software in our society and sees how they can be used to push us more into a fuedal society, or how they can be used to move us forward. Software is not just a tool but a social mechanism.
Or perhaps I am a nut bar too.
If something is moral, it's moral for everyone. Embracing moral relativism isn't much different from saying that you don't have any confidence in the authority of any moral system - 'thou shalt not steal, unless you think otherwise' has no moral force. Believing that something is moral inevitably means believing that other people should adhere to it.
What I think actually irks you is not that Stallman wants others to adhere to a moral standard, but that Stallman holds a moral standard you don't agree with.
Maybe you are right and Stallman is wrong, or vice versa, or maybe you're both wrong. But just as the practicality of not-stealing or not-murdering really has nothing to do with whether or not it is moral, your entirely understandable desire to have a job says nothing about what is moral.
Basically you are making one kind of assertion about morality, and Stallman is making another. Stallman sort of has a moral rationale, though it's admittedly crazy. I don't really know whether you have one. But here you are, shoving your viewpoint down other people's throats as much as Stallman does - that is, having your own opinion and asserting it in public as if it were right.
It doesn't make a lot of sense for you to take a relativistic 'high ground' if you are going to jettison the relativism as soon as it's convenient for you.
Maybe you should spend your time giving an argument which actually bears on a moral issue. I'm not sure everyone agrees that whatever ensures you have a job is moral.
Be sure you aren't leaving it to the idiots to decide who is which kind.
Stallman: "It's the GNU operating system, and the Hurd is its kernel."
Instantly reminded me of "There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet"
also
Stallman: "When people forget that, they start drifting toward the practical but superficial values shared by the open source movement and Microsoft: the idea that the only thing that matters about your software is whether it gets your jobs done and what it costs." Sweet.
Stallman: "We will keep supporting Linux-based versions of the GNU system for as long as they remain popular."
At the end of all time, the galaxies will rush towars each other and all matter and energy will end up compressed into a gravitational singularity...thus the universe will disappear and nothing at all will remain...nothing, except the Free Software Foundation, of course, who will be there, invulnerable, immune to everything, waiting for the next big bang...
Because some computer users are Theives.
..
These people do not want software freedom they want free software
free as in beer not as in speech.
The one point that cannot be forgotten is that whatever the reason for people developing OS or Free software they choose to donate there time and effort into creating free software.
If they do not choose to do so and you take there work anyway you are a theif.
To force them to provide there software for free by breaking copyright law has no moral argument at all.
I dislike the fact that you are a gigantic hypocrite.
You seem to have plenty of opinions about what people should say and do, yet you have no problem criticizing people for saying different things about what people should say and do.
Richard Stallman: Any development of non-free software is harmful and unfortunate - that's the most ridiculous statement out of the entire interview. I so don't care if an application that came with my web-camera is free or not, it's not even funny. I don't care about the source to that app and I don't care about my ability to change it and redistribute it, in fact I don't want to do any of those things. Leave my non-free software alone it's not going to go away anyway.
...You know, it's no coincidence that we're having all this outsourcing. That was carefully planned. International treaties were designed to make this happen so that people's wages would be reduced. - That's also quite questionable. I don't think the corporations do anything just to annoy their employees, but they do follow a simple pattern of trying to minimize the cost.
Richard Stallman: It is better to develop no software than to develop non-free software. - a load of BS. Who in hell would have created computers in the first place, if it wasn't for IBM and their non-free software and non-free computers used for war? It's better to develop something than to develop nothing. The users themselves are not interested in development, they are interested in the results of their use of the applications. I am so not interested in developing most of the software I use, but this software does serve its purpose and I am glad I can buy it. If I had to wait for everything to be free, I would have been dead before seeing most free software equivalents of the apps that I use daily.
So if you find yourself in that situation, please don't follow that path. Please don't write the non-free program--please do something else instead. We can wait till someone else has the chance to develop a free program to do the same job. - Maybe RMS can wait for whatever free software, I can't. Sure, if it exists now, that's great, but it's not the case. Why shouldn't I use nonfree tax-return software? I will use it and recommend it too.
- I have two words for RMS in this case: Fuck You, RMS. I will write all the non-free software I wish and no-one is going to stop me. I also wrote my first software on paper because I did not have a computer, you are not the only one. You are not to dictate what kind of software I will develop. Why the hell is it about software anyway? How many non-free (sort of like closed source, electronics for example) things you buy, what should everyone stop working on proprietary systems and all of a sudden release everything for 'Free'? Not while I am around that won't happen. But I am antisocial like that.
Richard Stallman:
Richard Stallman: FTAA. The World Trade Organization. NAFTA. These treaties are designed to reduce wages by making it easy for a company to say to various countries, "which of you will let us pay people the least? That's were we're headed." And if any country starts having a somewhat increased standard of living, companies say "oh, this is a bad labor climate here. You're not making a good climate for business. All the business is going to go away. You better make sure that people get paid less. You're following a foolish policy arranging for workers of your country to be paid more. You've got to make sure that your workers are the lowest paid anywhere in the world, then we'll come back. Otherwise we're all going to run away and punish you." - This is just paranoia, the guy truly believes in the 'evil intent' of corporations and individuals. That is not impossible of course (with me in charge, for example, everything is always an evil intent,) but I don't believe all companies care enough about such a long term prospect as inflated wages in their specific country. RMS always looks too far into the future and he believes others do too, but people are mostly not philosophers, they are just realists.
Businesses very often do it, they move operations out of a country to punish that country. And I've recently come
You can't handle the truth.
was not even asked.
Richard, have you showered anytime in the past 20 years since you founded GNU?
bash: rtfm: command not found
but at some gut level I'm just not sensing the long-term head of steam and ecomonic viability of the approach
Not to convert you, but I'll say something about the long-term head of steam and economic viability of free software. Fist, how free software tend to be better than closed one: On free software, there are plenty of projects trying to do the same stuf. On closed software, this is very hard because no project can be forked, but on the free sofware word, a single project tends to be a colections of forks, each one slightly different, and a lot of users have their own fork, also different. This create a "feature testing space" much larger than closed source projects. Also, free software help putting all the features togheter, it's not as simple as cut-an-paste, but it's simpler than closed software.
Now the economic analisys: No population becames rich by doing superfulous work. On the case of sotware, replicanting it is wasting money (I'm not talking about replicating sotware with R&D objectives, that generate features). So, once everybody uses the same software, everybody gains reusing it.
Now, if you are talking about companies and money, they are not essencial elementes of capitalism. Even if the companies doesn't survive (very unlikely) free software, society will adapt.
Rethinking email
Not at all. I said that I don't hate RMS but I dislike what he is saying. I'm not saying that he shouldn't be saying what he is saying, but rather that I disagree with what he says and dislike it. That is, in no way, trying to control what he says or do. Neither is it criticizing him for saying what people should say and do.
I dislike the fact that you choose to flame me without understanding my arguments, and decide to put words in my mouth.
That's because you don't understand the concepts. One is about the software remaining free, the other about the freedom of the developer to do what he wants with the software.
I just don't get why the only ethical way for me to sell or buy software is to accompany it with an unrestricted source code license. It's like saying that the only ethical way to sell milk is in 8-ounce glasses. Surely the details of the transaction should be left to the transacting parties.
Of course I'd RATHER have the source code, just like I'd RATHER have unlimited ocean cruises and Swedish masseuses.
The reason that capitalism favors the rich is because they own the capital, and it's easy to use capital to generate more wealth. Think about it - if you have money (capital) to buy a well and pump you can pump oil and get more money (more capital) much more rapidly than if you have to dig that well and pump it by hand. In fact - if you're poor and have to give up farming to dig that well, you get poorer while you're digging that well.
You are right in saying that financial education helps, and willingness to sacrifice in the short term helps, but if you are already not able to save more than you make (and you have no cushion) you cannot sacrifice without sacrificing your health. The only way to avoid having the poor get poorer in a capitalistic society is to create a flexible workforce that can adapt rapidly to changing market conditions. This is not something our current policies or sentiments allow (the stereotypes about "we don't want our jobs replaced by machines" were not for no reason - this was an unwillingness to adapt to market conditions. The problems in the steel industry and auto industry - in any industry - are all at root an unwillingness or incapactiy (due to managment or whatever) to adapt to the new global marketplace).
Of course, even in the US we don't have a true capitalistic economy, because we don't have truly free markets. The Wikipedia has a good article on capitalism and links to other economic systems.
But, I'm pleased to find that there are other sensible folks out there who spend less than they make!
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Any intentional invocation of Godwin's law is ineffectual!
Humorless sig goes here.
### Open source can't survive in this market because nobody of consequence really wants it to.
OpenSource itself can survive quite good even without any market at all. However you are right, OpenSource could have it a lot easier if it moved a little bit closer to the end user, currently there is still a whole lot of elitism or hostility around against the average user and a lot of projects simply don't care about the end user at all.
R. Stallman gets enough money and fame, alright. What about the thousands of the silent hard-working geeks toiling away for nothing? Toiling away for the "businessmen" network more easily, and "yuppies" make more money, and "party animals" to have a better sex life? The geeks gave it all away, and got nothing back. When I try to buy an apartment, nobody cares how much software I gave away. When I buy a car, nobody cares how much software I gave away. This "freedom" stuff has been going on for a while, and everyone benefitted, except for us. Take a look at The Rat and the Butterfly.
Yes, but OTOH, if Apple wants to improve that software, then they are working for me for free also. Just see what's happening with KHTML/Safari.
It's not slavery if you get to keep (and share) the fruits of your labor.
I believe that one of the reasons that Open Source is winning the terminology war with FSF is because it actually supports more freedom, while pointing out the real benefits of this model.
I do dispute that there is a sizable percentage of the world population that cannot save (without actually knowing what I am talking about because I have never lived in these areas). In any community, I have observed that there is always someone who makes less than you do. I am comfortable that this applies in most third world areas. By simply living as these poorer people do, you can save money. I believe that the reason these people cannot save capital and become rich(er) is the fact that the political systems in these areas are feudal, and you can only get right with the proper connections. Thus, I would argue that real capitalism would free these people.
The fact that you *can* spend less than you earn and stay healthy and content does not make you rich, it makes you psycologically healthy. Numerous studies have shown no link between wealth and happiness once basic essentials are provedd for, and you do not have to make $30,000/year US to provide for basic essential despite what the media tells you. There are plenty of happy tribes in the Amazon that have no income, and happy people in the third world making $500/year.
What leads to unhappiness is the belief that you need more than you currently have. I am not sure who all is to blame for this, but you can start with Madison Avenue and Hollywood.
BTW, do we have a point here? :-)
----- There are two kinds of people in this world, my friend; those with loaded guns, and those who dig.
The reasons for the exemption are manifold and really very obvious:
Do you get it?
Seastead this.
Recall the asset tax exemption which has a very clear purpose and justification:
The vast majority of residential and small busienss real estate would become totally untaxed directly or indirectly. The middle class would be dramatically expanded by such a reformed tax system.The reasons for the exemption are manifold and really very obvious:
Do you get it?
Seastead this.
Recall the asset tax exemption which has a very clear purpose and justification:
The vast majority of residential and small business real estate would become totally untaxed directly or indirectly. The middle class would be dramatically expanded by such a reformed tax system. Such bankruptcy protection is routinely extended to retirement plans. The basic principle would probably be that a set dollar amount, say $100k, would be untaxed. If you wanted to live somewhere cheap and save up nearly $100k, you could do so without experiencing any taxes whatsoever. You'd never even have to file.The reasons for the exemption are manifold and really very obvious:
Do you get it?
Seastead this.
nt
Don't they both seem about 20 years away and always about 20 years away......
Fusion power - Generating enormus amounts of cheap power that will change the world. Just have to figure out how to make it work.
HURD - The operating system that will do all kinds of cool things and make it trivial to add things. Just have to rewrite it again.
Businesses very often do it, they move operations out of a country to punish that country. And I've recently come to the conclusion that frictionless international trade is inherently a harmful thing, because it makes it too easy for companies to move from one country to another. We have to make that difficult enough that each company can be stuck in some country that can regulate it.
Businesses move to punish countries? what a moron. businesses only do what they do to make more money. If they can make more money by moving to a place where the resources they need are cheaper then they will. The same way you will goto the store that sells the product you want at the lowest price. If you want to blame someone for the way economics works, blame yourself. Or go buy a more expensive product from a company that upholds your ideals.
He wants to restrict the rights of businesses but open up all source code as free for everyone? Does he think that businesses are these "things" that just exist magically and money just pours in? If you restrict businesses to the point that he wants, they wont be profitable, they will no longer exist. This guy is such a moron!!
Dunno -- seems to me Stallman has had a much longer time to look for a "replacement", which would again be folk with the same je ne sais quois. Torvalds has, from the start, claimed he is not irreplaceable. So what's behind that? I think S sees himself as a spiritual leader. T sees himself as a good project manager.
Sometimes seventeen/Syllables aren't enough to/Express a complete
"Stallmans ideal is to protect the right of everyone to review and improve software."
No. His "ideal" is for programmers to control one aspect of software they share, keeping it open. The GPL protects the rights of the IP holder, not the public at large.
These ideas will end up just like communism, just give it a decade.
Projects start up fast, but in the end they become ugly, inferior, unfriendly and rely on commercial solutions to keep them (and eat them) alive. Soon, commercial software will be vastly superior than its communist alternative which will no doubt share the same fate as Soviet Union and decompose itself.
It is only a passing observation but it seems that the rhetoric (obsessive usage of the word "freedom") is strikingly like the current US white house. I am not trolling here, I am only observing how an effective speaker like Stallman has to adapt to the climate in order to "sell" his ideas.
Had Linus stuck with the "no commercial use" NCU licence v0.01-0.12, he would have scared off RedHat, IBM and before that programmers who could justify using/developing Linux for their employers projects. Had he adopted a BSD licence he would have little to distinguish Linux, and FreeBSD would have dominated (BSD had a _huge_ headstart_.
I believe that many kernel developers were attracted specifically by the GPL, knowing that their work wouldn't be swallowed up by Apple. They didn't want to be food, and the GPL gives that protection.
"I dislike the fact that you are a gigantic hypocrite."
He isn't. If somebody takes a public position of telling other people how they should live, then that person has waived their right to be left alone. The grandparent is merely complaining about a particular busybody (RMS), not telling everybody else what to do.
Prayer: "./make all - I hope this works"
Charity: Give back to open source as you see fit.
Hajj: Just where *should* I go, except Redmond?
Observing Ramadan: From looking at some developers, getting them to not eat from sunrise to sunset for a month could be problematic.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
"sorry but open source existed WAY before closed source"
What do you base that claim on? What is the earliest year you claim that open source was available?
Look up the phrase "sunk cost" and be enlightened. Regardless of the state of gcc before or after, Redhat was forced to commit the time to meet their own needs. That they chose to release those improvements to the world allowed other groups to avoid incurring the same cost. Ideally, if every group addressed the problem this way, the overall efficiency would increase and the aggregated sunk costs of all parties would be lowered.
-Hope
Please, get it completely right,
it's a GNU/Interview with GNU/Richard GNU/Stallman,
nothing else nothing more.
When was the last time you took a shower/bath?
I don't think any of Stallman's "solutions" are real solutions as they merely mitigate the symptoms; they don't eliminate the cause, which is basic human selfishness. Selfishness is not inherently human. This is a common fallacy on which way too many people explain way too many things.
I think delivering source is only fair. They paid for it. It would only become unfree if the client couldn't make changes or redistribute it.
they don't insist that we say TEE SEE PEE SLASH EYE PEE
People on fixed incomes, e.g., pensioners, are especially affected. After they have retired into homes with increasing property values, what is to keep them from losing them?
It seems to me that an *all* free software world would kind of hinder progress or at least prevent competition based on software (maybe that's the whole idea!).
Let's say company A is using a "free" CAD program to design ultra light chairs (the only CAD available since, in a perfect free world, all non-free softwares have disappeared) and thinks of a new way to improve it to attain a production increase and gain an advantage over its competition, company B (Note that the modification could just be fixing a complex and obscure bug).
Imagine that company A doesn't have the expertise to implement the software modification so it pays a freelance developer to modify the software under GPL (*).
Now, what would prevent the developer from freely distributing the modification he was paid to make (since the original software was under GPL)... which would eventually end up in the hands of company B.
So the situation is that company B is getting the improvement for free but company A had to pay for it.
Company A would have been better off not modifying the software in the first place.
With this scenario there isn't much drive for investment in software improvement and creativity.
What's wrong with this scenario? I'm sure I must be missing something within GPL.
I also know RMS considers custom sofware as different from non-free software but I fail to see the difference. Aren't all the users of any software customers? If not, how do you make the difference - are users of an internet browser customers? Users of a spreadsheet program? Users of a mathematical suite? Wouldn't all free software eventually become custom software?
(*) I also assume most professional softwares can't be realistically created and delivered for free - development of product is long, difficult and never over (maintenance).
Barry, is that you?
I agree that "selfishness" is a vague term. That does not mean, however, that the drive to do what is perceived most attractive for oneself is not a very dominant (if not the dominant) factor in determining what a person will do. This is not to say people cannot act in a way which is not selfish (such as a parent going hungry for a child to eat - but isn't this just ensuring that the parent's genes will have the best likelihood of lasting longest*? Ok, how about giving up food so someone not related to you can eat. That does happen, and that is not selfish.).
I would ask, though, how you would explain any of the "way too many things" to which you refer without selfishness. I would posit, though, that if nobody was selfish, we'd never have wars (there would still be violence, because things like weather can be violent; harvesting a plant for food is violent, wild animals attacking is violent).
* - I love the "Selfish Gene" theory, don't you?
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Yes, DEC's contribution is probably smaller. But: GNU project is far away from providing a complete system (no web browser, ssh server, init, windowing interface, RDBMS, desktop [yes, GNOME is far from a complete desktop]). So I do not buy an argument that GNU project provides complete system. This project provided a significant part of the system I use (and the licenses for even bigger part of my system), but I think it is still not enough to name the whole thing (including X11-licensed x.org, dual-licensed Perl, MPL-licensed Gecko, etc) GNU/Linux.
As for the second sentence I have quoted, I agree that GPL is very important contribution of FSF and is not substituable (except the dangerous "or (at your option) any later version" clause, which I deleted from GPL text for every software I wrote). However, I think all of the other GNU work is substituable - just look at *BSD - the only part of the GNU project they use is GCC compiler. And even that can be replaced (but GCC is still superior, which is the reason they use it, not because of its license). And as I said before, the credits for the current state of GCC does not go to FSF, but to the egcs team.
Back to the "GNU/Linux" debate: I used to live in a communist regime (which is hopefully gone forever now). Because of that I surely value every single freedom I have (including the freedom of using, modifying and distributing the GPL-licensed software). I just hope the freedom of naming the system I use as I want and the freedom of choosing the license of my code as I want are among those freedoms. I got very nervous when somebody tries to order me what names should I use or generally how should I speak/what should I think.
-Yenya
--
While Linux is larger than Emacs, at least Linux has the excuse that it has to be. --Linus
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Stallman will not change his beliefs because they aren't practical.
Stallman's beliefs are practical. You're an idiot. STFU before God smites you, heathen.
This post is really a plea for people to be a bit nicer to and about RMS. Take my word for it, in time he will come to be considered as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
I'm reminded of a recent holiday commercial featuring philadelphia eagles wide receiver terrell owens...
---
"T'was the night before Christmas and all through the house
T.O. was the best receiver in the NFL
I know it don't rhyme, but y'all know it's true"
---
Does anyone (well, anyone who follows the NFL) doubt T.O.'s ability on the field? And certainly, it would seem that T.O. is aware of and not timid in aggrandizing his importance.
But is the fact that he's right NOT make him "full of himself?"
I'd say no. And I'd also say no about Stallman for the same reason.
Stallman IS indispensible to and for the hardcore Free Software enthusiasts... and he's also full of himself. The two notions are not mutually exclusive.
Is it just me, or does anyone else find the Stallman photo in the interview strikingly similar to one Ron Jeremy?
RMS is not the figurehead for OSS. He is the figurehead for the free software movement. They are different.
...which is why his emphasis on "GNU slash Linux" is a such loss of focus (IMHO). Far more valuable, I think, to insist on the name being GPL/Linux which is, after all, where the RMS contribution is so profound.
Give Linus some credit for picking that as the licence for the Linux kernel.
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
Nicer to RMS?
RMS is not a "nice guy"?
Why should anyone be "nice" to someone that is incapable of being "nice" himsef?
RMS created this atmosphere of anger with his own mouth, now he has to live with it. Now he SHOULD live with it!
I totally agree with RMS about free software, but when it comes to the issue of economic freedom we split paths.
When I go into a store and buy something, noone takes a gun to my head and forces me to buy it, and noone takes a gun to theirs and forces them to sell it. We are engaging in a free activity.
Now maybe I can't get a better deal - that might be an argument for more economic freedoms that lead to more market activity, but that is not a reason to try and controll the prices people sell things at or where they get them from.
When I get a job, noone takes a gun to my employers head and forces him to hire me, and noone takes a gun to mine and forces me to work for them. It is a voluntary agreement, and an act of freedom.
Now maybe I can't do any better - that might be an argument for more freedoms and thus more opportunities, but not to make him hire people or coerce him to pay my salary even if it is deemed not be worth it for him any more.
The same is true when I hire someone from another country, or someone from another country hires me. Of if I buy and sell goods from another land.
RMS can clearly understand information freedoms, I wish he would understand economic freedoms too.
We began this interview via email, but later had to finish by telephone after Richard Stallman fell and broke his arm.
See - real programmers don't drink coffee. Real programmers drink beer! Lots of beer!
> Short version: GNU needed some heavy lifting.
> Some enlightened members of corporate America
> stepped up to the plate.
It's pretty obvious that you weren't there. I was.
EGCS wasn't a corporate efort, it wasn't philosophical, it wasn't political, it wasn't Red Hat (well, Cygnus). It was just the response of the community of GCC contributors, when RMS/FSF decided to stop accepting many of their contributions. (For political reasons, natch.)
So the contributors collectively forked the !@#$ thing. Cygnus hosted the EGCS repository. The community voted with its feet: they began sending their contributions to the EGCS repository instead of to GCC. Eventually RMS caved in and let EGCS have the name "GCC". Unfortunately, his price for that was that he got on the GCC Steering Committee, and he has used that seat ever since to impede technical progress (for political reasons).
Speaking as one of the contributors, it's a pity he caved. We were doing better without him.
Or perhaps I am a nut bar too. No "perhaps" about it, chief. Equating personal freedoms with software "free"dom shows a lack of perspective on life. Computers are tools, people are not.
But compared to closed-source software which is poor and impossible to maintain, it seems OSS still wins.
Oh, please. Most comercial software is extremely well done, and is extremely well cared for. Please look at the whole picture, and not stereotype an industry due to a couple of bad players (but extremely shrewd businessmen).
I suspect that as technology becomes more advanced, what with robotics, AI and nanotechnology, then there will have to be some major reassessments of how to have a fair and productive economy.
It's time for people to start questioning the 'free market' ideologues, and assess how much this ideology actually contributes to the well-being of society and how much is actually just clever propaganda for maintaining the status of the wealthy.
mhack
Building a better ribosome since 1997
Before GCC became widespread, porting software used to be a major bitch.
Only if you didn't write your software correctly. Try separating your core application (written in Standard C, of course!) from its host OS hooks, and watch porting turn into a trivial task. Our complex enterprise-scaling application was trivially ported to Windows, Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and z/OS with a minimal of fuss. Performs extremely well on all those platforms, as well.
And you posted claiming to be me.... why?
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
You're engaged in an activity which is governed by an enormous number of laws and regulations.
These say the shop can't refuse to serve you simply because you're better able to produce melanin than the next guy or wear a kippah, but it may be required to refuse service for some or all items if you've not yet been out of the womb for 570 megaseconds or have obviously already imbibed an elephant sufficiency of the product in question.
More laws say you're not allowed to sell "whipped cream" when it's really sweetened whipped raw pork fat plus additives, or include botulin with the burgers.
Laws that prevent the shop from opening on a Sunday or running continuous footage of cum-dripping anal assaults on twelve-year-olds through the waiting-room television in order to attract custom.
The stuff you buy was manufactured and/or imported, then transported and wholesaled under the aegis of another tonne of laws. It's not free, it's not anything like it. Ditto for the circumstances of employment you posit.
As it happens, I also disagree with much of RMS's economics as well as some of his personal philosophy (but do agree with a lot of what he says). OTOH, what you're spouting here is dangerous starry-eyed nonsense, and you don't appear to recognise it for the blind idealism that it is.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
This has been said before, and not by me:
GPL gives freedom (to control the relicensing of his code) to the developer by placing limits (only to GPL projects) on the distribution of the code.
BSD gives freedom (of distribution) to the code, by placing limits (on control of relicensing) on the developer.
You could go even further in either direction of the spectrum.In the BSD direction you will hit the public domain licenses (complete freedom of code distribution, complete lack of developer relicensing control), and in the GPL direction you will hit proprietary licenses (complete lack of code distribution freedom, complete control by the developer).
So it depends on what "freedom" you're talking about - not "speech" vs "beer", but producer vs product. To have one neccesarily requires the sacrifice of the other, and there are many places on the spectrum to choose from. If your concern is with the freedom of your code to spread and be used anywhere, BSD is more free than GPL, and public domain is the most free. If your concern is with your freedom to control the use of your code, then GPL is more free than BSD, and proprietary licences afford you the most freedoms.
The choice is yours.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Entire paragraph is missing, and it seems that one of my stronger-worded replies belongs to the previous paragraph.
JA: What about the programmers...
Richard Stallman: What about them? The programmers writing non-free software? They are doing something antisocial. They should get some other job. - I have two words for RMS in this case: Fuck You, RMS. I will write all the non-free software I wish and no-one is going to stop me. I also wrote my first software on paper because I did not have a computer, you are not the only one. You are not to dictate what kind of software I will develop. Why the hell is it about software anyway? How many non-free (sort of like closed source, electronics for example) things you buy, what should everyone stop working on proprietary systems and all of a sudden release everything for 'Free'? Not while I am around that won't happen. But I am antisocial like that.
You can't handle the truth.
Then, in the 80s, Stallman noticed that one company refused to release the source code for IIRC a printer driver. Stallman, visionary that he is, forsaw the consequences of this type of thinking and delveoped the GPL and the free software movement.
You'll remember that Gates' first public 'postings' was in a computer magazine, with an essay explaining why programmers should charge for their work. Back then, the mainstream idea was that software is free, and sharing it is not wrong. You paid for the hardware already, you should be entitled to copies of the software. Gates' radical argument was that people should pay for code alone.
So, you are in fact bass-ackwards. Commercial software came about the same time Stallman began work on the GPL. Both of these were a response to a technology world where sharing source code was not considered to be wrong or illegal in any way by the majority of computer users, but businesses were starting to limit the licensing of their software.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
You're probably are aware of this, but for the benefit of the general readership... I once read an article that had the following quote from Bill Gates. I found it compelling enough to copy and paste to a quotes.txt file. It illustrates that there are some very good reasons why these things go under-inforced. It's very planned (Dons tinfoil hat):
"As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."-- Bill Gates on software piracy in Asia
If anyone out there can provide the link to the original article, I'd be very appreciative!
---
But guess what? I am not the healthiest sheep on the farm, nor the brightest. Despite my minimal existence I barely earn enough to survive, and the idea that I might have money to invest, or the skill involved, is a pipedream.
This post isn't a request for pity - it's a counterexample. I not that an ivory tower MIT professor preaching about how Free software is going to stop ME from gettin cast out to the dogs is no more welcoming than the "here's how I did it so surely you can too no??" rhetoric you express.
Regards.
That would be a shame, but the overwhelming picture I got was of someone interested in promoting software freedom.
Your characterizations are a little over the top. Prominent members of the Open Source Movement would have no argument with RMS' statements, but would object to being called "like Microsoft" or "corrupting". Open Source does appeal to "practical" people who don't mind using non-free software when it gets a job done. That's something that RMS thinks is a mistake and that is a real difference of opinion that's worth pointing out. Linux Torvalds consistently describes himself as an "engineer" more concerned with getting things done than freedom. RMS is right to say he dissagrees with that and tell you why.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
the inevitable result of capitalism is that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Yes that's why everybody in the U.S. is so poor, and all those wealthy communist countries are laughing at them. I mean just look at all those countries that have succesfully implemented central planning on a large scale; they don't even have poor people!
The fact is that capitalism makes the poor richer, and the rich much richer. This is a net gain. In the end it doesn't matter if the rich in a country are a million times richer than the poor, instead of a thousand, if those poor now have more. More to feed themselves, clothe themselves, more opportunity.
I'm not sure where i'm going with this...
Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares?
I hope you realise that slashdot (and all such sites) would not have been here if it wasn't for RMS' efforts.
Pray do tell... why does this get a +2 Insightful? Where, what is the insight???
I think we agree more than we disagree. Although one could argue egoism as a motivation for everythign we do, I was pointing out that people too often assume that material wealth is an unsatisfiable urge within human nature. This seems pretty rediculous to me, so I may just be talking to the wrong people...
I don't get the fight between Open Sourcers and Free Software advocates. Isn't it obvious, the software is better BECAUSE it's free?
There's a reason humans evolved the concept of freedom and justice: because it works better than the law of the jungle.
You'd thing the USA would have learned about blind hero worship after Lindbergh. RMS is a living person, and we do not have to accept every idea he has, only the good ones.
That's IMHO why RMS condemns publicly distributed non-free software, while custom software that is never distributed to outsiders is okay to him. In the latter case, it might be better in some cases for the user to share the code with the world, but then it is the user's choice not to share it, and he would have made that choice no matter what. In the former case the license basically forced people not to share, unless they are willing to break the law, so it changes people's behavior for the worse, since in some cases it is very beneficial to share, but general disrespect of the law is undesirable for the society.
I own a refrigerator. That one thing is controlled by one person alone. Me. I guess that makes me anti-social. I guess I'm harming society. Oh well.
That's odd, when I look at my fridge I find I can order parts myself, or hire any number of people to repair it.
If you have bought a fridge that only you can repair, then I guess you're just a blithering idiot since the rest of us manage just fine. But then I guess you proved that already by missing my point. Oh Well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'll have you know that with those long black hair, those soft dark eyes, that bushy moustache, and the gorgeous beard (no wonder he's a freedom fighter!), some of us are quite ready and willing, eager infact, to please :)
WOW!!! I for one am all hot and wet just thinking about getting fucked by him!
Bring on the RMS Porn I say!
Abuzar
Yes, exactly, and well said. If I wasn't an AC, I'd mod you up :-).
Where would we be without the GPL?
Where would we be without the FSF?
Heck, where would we be without GCC?
The fact that FOSS even *exists* is because of RMS.
If FOSS is bad for the industry, how about patents on software algorithms/ideas? If Microsoft gets enough patents, they can require software companies to pay a license for their patents which will only increase the cost of software and limit software development since some companies can't afford or won't pay licenses. Capitialism works best with competition but closed source using patents/copyrights to protect their code will retard new software ideas. I view FOSS as a way to get good software to people that can't afford the closed source versions or as an alternative to piracy. Software industry will never be significantly hurt by FOSS since most people are dependant on Windows/Office/anti-virus/spyware removers. FOSS may indead help rejunivate software companies by coming up with ideas for programs people may need like an Apache/MySQL receipe datbase design or a calender to track mentration cycles. Commercial software tends to suck. Do tech support and commercial software flaws are rampent.
Not to troll although given the state of affairs these days, this probably sounds like one.
I respect RMS primarily for his sincere devotion to what he believes in. He's not "pragmatic" (ability to sell out when the monetary gains are high enough) and is the most dependable point in the whole Free Software community as far as I know.
However, his reasons seem to be things like "morals" and "ethics" rather than ideas which are fashionable in the US like "reason" and "maximum profit".
How "American" are these values? After opportunists like Eric Raymond capitalised on the whole idea of Free Software and produced a watered down "pragmatic" version called Open Source where companies can get work done without paying for it, the whole deal seems to have been a lot more accepted.
In any case, I don't think we're going to see anyone as devoted to a cause as RMS anytime soon and even though given the present state of affairs, some of his opinions sound "cranky" to some people. He's one of the few people who absolutely refuse to sell out or water down their ideals it's wonderful to have such people around.
The big difference I see is since I'm advocating fixing the tax rate to the interest rate on national debt, and Islam prohibits usury, fixing the rate would be somewhat problematic.
However I don't think Zakat Al Mal the primary source of revenue for Islamic states, is it?
Seastead this.
Is that a typical Friday night for you?
Ii doesn't matter if only 5% is crap, if that's the 5% I'm using.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
No, thank you.
I don't think the BSDs are directly involved /w Tendra, are they?
From what I understand, the BSDs (or at least openbsd) plan on replacing GCC for Tendra in their default distro when it reaches sufficient maturity.
Sure, but AFAIK they aren't actively contributing to the project.
It's more "wouldn't it be nice if there was a BSD-licensed compiler that compiled more quickly than GCC".
Face it, Asspussy, you just got both trolled and pwned, you idiot.
Stallman needs to update and refresh his soap box material. His arguments boil down into petty semantics, which make him look like a doofus.
There I was of course thinking of Gates - the reality of many larger companies is that the direction of a product is indeed at the whim of company leadership - technology companies are prone to this being one man (Ellison, Gates, Jobs, etc.)
Thus buying into products from these comapnies is indeed putting yourself at the mercy of the direction you choose to go. Buying Word is no different.
Even knowing this I choose to use Apple products for home computing, but in taht case I like the trend he has shown and wish to support it. At least there the tendancy is for open formats.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"The Workplace:
JA: What if your job requires you to use non-free software?
Richard Stallman: I would quit that job."
Then so shall I. I'll lose all my worldly posessions, not to mention my wife, but I'll be FREE!!
Hold on a second. My wife. Hey, I really will be free. This guy's on to something.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
What was meant was that since the computer is such an important tool in our culture(s), that indeed a limitation of freedom in software can directly translate into a loss of personal freedom.
So in essence the freedoms are the same. Also, your own comment seems to refute your last sentence.
Check this out, might help. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html
My theory is that subconsciously people feel uncomfortable around RMS because they recognize the debt they (we) owe to him.
Nice theory, but not the case.
I personally abhor people who go around saying that I'm antisocial, or evil, and who condemn me without knowing the first thing about me.
That's why I hate the guy - because he started it.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
I'm sure Roy has his doubts.
Sure it took a few years, but a Dallas safety (George Teague had his shot, and did well) finally fucked that bitch up.
At least TO will be able to play again.
How about the Playmaker?
One bullshit hit in one medieval stadium ended it all.
TO has never been to a division championship game.
He's the Shaun Alexander of recievers - can't win when it matters and blames his failures on others.
He'd be the Donovan McNabb of recievers, but DM has actually been in the division round and doesn't shift the blame to others.
TO?
FU.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
The same people would probably look at people that eat meat, and be baffled as to why otherwise nice and kind people take to eating meat, and at the same time, not give any (what they consider) sensible justification for their act.
This is not meant as a flame, but people have varying definitions of morality, and even if you don't agree with them, you should at least acknowledge them. To you and RMS, working on proprietary software is amoral. To some vegetarians, eating meat is amoral. To Muslims, drinking alcohol is amoral.
Every statement you have been made could have been made by any of those groups, wondering why people write proprietary software/eat meat/drink alchohol, and do not follow the teachings or RMS/the vegans/Mohammed. (I am assuming that you do not happen to be a Muslim vegetarian free software advocate at the same time)
good points all around. hope you didn't misinterpret my post - i can't stand TO and his egotistical baggage. however, his numbers are quite impressive. and right now, 2004/5 season, he IS by those numbers (and by what he did for philly's receiving corps) the best receiver in the NFL.
my point was simply that actually *being* important does not preclude you from being "full of yourself" if you take it upon yourself to extol your own virtues. and in that respect, TO is a case-in-point (as is Stallman, in my opinion, although to a lesser degree than TO).
He came up with a similar phrase to differentiate GNU/Linux when he was doing his Saint IGNUcius (a saint in the "Church of Emacs") skit. As it says on the site:
(Notably it's just a joke he does for a laugh, he's not *quite* that mad ;))
I would like to personally thank you for taking yourself out of the competition for all the interesting jobs out there. We need more people like you.