Slashdot Mirror
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."
Someone should teach the editors how to diagram a sentence.
... 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.
> 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"?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
"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....
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)
I'd hardly classify that as a religious level. Most people have certain principles that they won't compromise. For instance I refuse to work for the DOD or a company that is contracted by them. I refuse to work for any organization that develops weapons systems or supports them. Is my unwillingness to be part of the war machine on the religious level? I wouldn't say so.
He is sooo wacky.
I would argue that an individual who has no principles which can't be bought is truly the whacky one.
Why is he wacky? Because he has believes and stands up for them?
Would you work for a company that is using child labour? Would you work for a company that uses slave labour? I certainly would not; child labour and slavery is anti-social IMHO.
RMS thinks and feels that not-free software is anti-social. You might start a debate on that (and against RMS, well, I would put my money on him), but please refrain calling someone who 'fights'/works for freedom of other people wacky.
RMS is one of the few extremists in this world that actually make this world a better place.
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
You have a very simplistic way of viewing the world.
If a large corporation offers to move one of its factories to a country with a GDP less than that of, say, Nevada, in return for some tax breaks, do you think the government of that country will say no?
After a couple of years, if that corporation says that wages are climbing too quickly and it may have to leave if it isn't stopped, do you think the government will sit by and do nothing? Or do you think they might move ahead with measures to reduce further wage increases?
If you're saying that that's what the people in that country have to put up with in order to be given a better standard of living at some point in the future, that's bullshit. Corporations these days play countries off against each other to ensure that they get the best deal they can, and they ensure that this state of affairs won't change by locking in countries to free-trade agreements, which are enforced for them by larger, wealthier countries.
The world ain't black and white, and smartass soundbites like "protectionism only prolongs the poverty" don't help people living on an annual wage lower than your weekly junk-food budget.
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
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.
There is trade and then there is trade. In one case you have a bunch of totally psychopatic and anti-social artificial personalities called corporations seeking to abuse differences in income between countries to make less then 1% if US population even richer and on the other hand you have attempts to control the flow of goods and services in order to ensure that the local populations' standard of living actually goes up as trade increases and the standard of living of the country to which the goods are exported does not decrease as a result.
Yes I do buy into the Naomi Klein "BS" as well as many other people who thought these sort of things do. It is the prophets of Ayn Randish unrestricted capitalism that is creating such economic wonderlands as Iraq who are in the wrong on this one.
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.
The GPL gives me freedom to decide how the code will be used in proprietary software. It doesn't, by itself, remove any freedoms from anyone. The BSD license may force a situation (if you're required to license under the BSD license, which, without forking, you generally are for BSD projects), but the GPL merely has the absense of that force.
Generally it's a strange definition of freedom that denies it to contributors.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
My feeling that the DOD should spend less and build less weapons systems has nothing to do with whether or not I would defend myself, my family or my country. Your argument is what we call a straw-man. Stockpiling nuclear weapons has nothing to do with defending my family, developing new nuclear weapons has nothing to do with defending my family. Its the product of a an incredibly lucrative indrustry controlling political candidates. It has to do with flawed arguments about how a nuclear war can be "winnable".
If I was drafted, if a sufficient international crisis that I felt strongly about existed(and I knew I would be sent to help it) I would willingly go and grab my gun. Unfortunately such a crisis(darfur) does exist but our troops are currently off on a debacle that could and should have been avoided.
My convictions do not preclude me from killing those attacking me, they do not disable me from defending my home and country with force. The flipside is that my desire to defend my country does not extend to allow me to wrecklessly build weapons, sell and trade them to future enemys, and to destroy innocent life only to excuse it as collatoral damage.
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.
Others have addressed your "stuff" characterisation for software, so perhaps I could address the specific point above with a quote from Sam Williams' biography of RMS, Free as in Freedom:
Despite the energy he puts into the Free Software movement, you'll probably find that RMS spends a lot more time on those real causes you refer to than your average person.
Did I claim that installing Slackware on derelict hardware makes for "geek cred"? Did I claim to be a "geek?" I am not a "geek." Following instructions like a good little trained ape and installing Slackware doesn't classify for any credentials. What did you do when /your/ kernel didn't recognise the hard-drive? I know what I did, I hacked it so it would.
Yes, Richard M. Stallman is a very opinionated guy. Thats just how visionaries are. As a visionary he is very good, unlike the dorques who keep proclaiming "200X will teh year of the Lo0nix." And unlike the soap-box material over at Wired, he made his mark on the world. He created the FSF, the GPL and a ton of software you likely use. Please tell me, ThJ, what contributions have you made so far that give you +v to claim Stallman as "obsessed" "overdramatic" and "harming more than helping?" Harming? Don't make me laugh. He created that which you claim he is harming. Of course you're not the only one who thinks that RMS doesn't belong. A thousand years ago you wouldn't be the only one thinking the world was flat too.