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Stallman Feeds Gates His Own Words
soloport writes "C|Net has published an article, written by RMS, in which Stallman points out that Gates is merely calling the kettle communist. Toward the end of the article, Stallman strengthens his point by feeding Bill his own words. Back in 1991, Bill said, in an internal memo: 'If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today...A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose.' Now, if only Bill were as clear-minded on the subjects of Innovation and Interoperability."
Idealism dies when you actually get put in the big chair.
If Apple (or Xerox) had patented the GUI, we would still be stuck with DOS!
So, if M$ patents everything it can get its hands on, what innovations would it stop?
...but first...
RTFA! I think he makes a valid, lucid point here and does a great job explained why software patents tend to be evil.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
For those of us with a few years between school and the present, I'd ask you if you really wanted to be judged by what you think now, or what you thought then? Does it really matter that you're opinion of a decade ago doesn't gel with your opinion of today?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Technically, Mr. Gates is right. The whole Open Source idea is a communist idea, not in terms of Soviet Russia (where software owns you) but in terms of a community of workers all banding together to produce their own labor, instead of selling themselves to the capitalists.
Seriously, folks, the current situation of Linux v. Microsoft is exactly what Marx and Engels were talking about.
What the Open Source community has is what all communist countries thus far have lacked, which is the admission of only like-minded people. For a commune to work, the citizens must all have similar ideas with respect to how to interact with the outside world. In a nation, where all citizens just become communists, this simply isn't possible.
fsh
In preaching only to the choir, Stallman is unfortunately representative of the entire OSS crowd.
Here's a hint for the Linux zealots - if Joe Public gave a flying fuck about security, his copy of Windows wouldn't be infested by spyware, unpatched and unprotected by an antivirus.
Can you site an instance where M$FT ever sued someone on patent grounds? Remember, we're talking patents, not copyrights or software piracy.
As far as I know, companies like M$FT take out patents to defend themselves, not to launch offensives against their competition.
Every important element of the modern GUI (windows, icons, menus, pointing device) was demonstrated by Doug Engelbart in 1968. His system even had something that looked a lot like a blog. The patents all would have expired long ago.
I knew how to rule the world in 1991 but unfortunately it changed. For the better.
Yeah, Linux happened and Stallman's free software vision took off.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Why would you "admit" that RMS is a commie when in fact RMS himself says he is not (in TFA)? Or is anyone who questions any facet of capitalism automatically a communist?
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Many of the news /. posts, are based on the work of RMS.
Many don't agree with him, i respect that. But even when you don't agree with many things he says, most of you are using an operating system that exists because of Richard's Work. You are also using thousands of lines of code that he wrote by himself. He has proved in the past to have been right, and the fact that he continued with his fight, even against what most others told him, has benefited the whole community.
So, don't agree with him if you don't want to, but at least hear what he has to say, you will learn a lot, and it's the least we can do to thank him for everything he has given us.
ALMAFUERTE
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
"Everyone's a Democrat until they get a little money." -
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
"he only ever seems to garner attention from those who are already on his side"
That's true, it's our work to reach other people. Richard is out there to remind us what Free Software is all about, our task, is to understand it, and help develop and spread it. And do it the way it should be done, which is, by showing the real ethical reasons to use this system, and not just technical advantages.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
I guess the big fear right now is that at some point Microsoft, when it feels sufficiently threatened, may start using its patents to beat down open source products. Whether that materializes or not, I dunno, but I simply don't have much faith in Microsoft's good intentions. I suppose some things, like Samba, may be at least partially protected because of IBM's claims on Lanserver, but who knows. Maybe they will try to beat Linux down by claiming that people who want to mount FAT or NTFS partitions have to pay a licensing fee.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Realistically, Microsoft threatening to sack Danish employees if the EU doesn't adopt software patents isn't consistent with merely wanting to defend themselves from patents. If that was what they wanted then they'd be on the anti-patent side of the fence.
It is also part of communism where the group tries to centralize all of the means of production. In other words, all productive activity is to be controlled and organized from one place, and production for individual benefit becomes illegal.
Now, does that sound more like what MS is trying to do, or what Open Source people are trying to do?
It sounds to me like that one place is Redmond, and that for free/open source software, there is no such place or controlling entity.
With free/open source, anyone who doesn't like a development group's decisions can fork the code and develop their own code base. So, your comparison is not a fair one.
You say that like it's a bad thing. In reality, there's a huge amount of research done by universities that would never be done by private industry, simply because there's no short-term profit in it. I'm not defending Stallman in particular, but to criticize "living off academic endowments" is to spit on many of our best scientists. Nearly every famous chemist was a university professor. Many never worked in private industry. Linus Pauling comes immediately to mind.
One's right to use software.
That's all RMS is about. The right to use and modify software for one's purposes once it doesn't impeach on other people's rights.
I thought RMS was a bit wacky but once I actually read a bit of what he was saying, it made perfect sense. RMS isn't a radicalist. He makes perfect sense.
Here's a hint for the Linux zealots - if Joe Public gave a flying fuck about security, his copy of Windows wouldn't be infested by spyware, unpatched and unprotected by an antivirus.
Here's a hint for Linux zealots - Joe Public doesn't want to pay for shit. He will steal Windows and Office from his job or his friend. He will use Kazaa to download porn and music til he can't move his hand anymore - so make your beloved Linux user friendly or stop bitching that it's not used by Joe Public.
Just because you have the time to set up and tweak to your hearts (I have no clue where the apostrophe is supposed to go there Mr. Grammar Nazi.) content Joe Public has a few other things to do during the day - even if it is listening to downloaded music and cleaning up under his desk from watching the lastest Bookworm Bitches video off of Kazaa.
Doh
In lefty terms:
Capitalism=market based, means of production are owned by a few.
Mutualism=market based, means of production are owned by all.
Communism=non market based, means of production are owned by all.
Stalinism=non market based, means of production are owned by a few.
Obviously that's a very loose set of definitions, based around the Trot line, and changes depending on which lefty cult the person you're talking with belongs to.
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
"Seriously, folks, the current situation of Linux v. Microsoft is exactly what Marx and Engels were talking about."
Of course it is. Marx and Engels talked about man tools, and how, a man , in orther to be truly free, should have access to the tools he needs. If the tools he needs to work, are owned by the rich, they become their masters, and can have him dominated.
It's the same argument that Stallmans points out, about software, and, IMHO, it's a fundamental issue.
There is a serious misguided idea that most USA citizens have, which is that communism = URSS, and that's an utter bullshit. The URSS was a corrupt dictatorship fighting for world domination (And we had 2 corrupt dictatorships fighting for world domination in that years, now there is only one left). Communism is an economic and social system, that (just like Capitalism) can work ok if implemented by honest people, or be a terrible weapon if implemented by a corrupt government. This is true for both systems. The issue is in the society, not on the system.
ALMAFUERTE
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
In true capitalism I can use any resources at my disposal to make money. Only murder and theft in the sense of breaking in and lugging away things is not allowed. If Microsoft sells Windows CDs for $100 and I can figure out how to copy my CD that I bought from them and sell copies for $1, nobody should interfere with me.
So now companies come to government and say other people should give them money for something created without their further labor. Even worth, they want to tax an inventor who came up with their idea independenly. Any why? Because they "worked hard and they are good for the society"? Well cry me a river!
That's social protection, and companies don't really need it. If not for patents and copyrights, businesses will form consortium to joinly invent something they can all then manufacture. And in particular software companies will sell personalized support for their software. Like a poolman, there will be a computerman that comes to my house and teaches me how to use software for reasonable rate. There will be some shake up and loss of efficiency, and maybe Microsoft will have 5 billion in the bank instead of 40 billion. But it will not be all bad, and much of the money will be in the pockets of Microsoft customers who are now overcharged for whatever wealth Microsoft actually created.
We need social protection. We work for the good of the society and already don't get royalties, don't get paid again and again for the work we only did once. It's only fair we get some type of royalties first - like job security and the company that outsourced jobs paying for retraining costs for layed off workers. Then, once we are well protected, we'll think about shelling out a few bucks for their CDs that we can easily make ourselves.
By the way, I am not arguing for unlimited social protection or that capitalism doesn't have benefits. But patents and copyrights are definitely NOT capitalism.
Yes, but they are trying to patent (or have already patented?) their "new" MS Orifice format, based on XML. How you can patent a file format is beyond me, but then again we are talking about the same patent office that approved the setuid patent oh so many years ago.
I remember reading that the patent office used to require a working model of the invention. It might be time to bring that rule back.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
It's amazing that labelling someone a communist is still considered an effective strategy. Patents are scary not just because developers can be sued for writing software, but because distributors can be sued and so can end users. If software patent enforcement becomes common place the few developers who try to continue developing software will be forced underground. That is, they'll put their software in the public domain and disavow all responsibility for it. But that won't be enough because distributors will have to be underground too, else they can be sued, and end users will have to keep their illicit software quiet also. The end result will be so horrifying that perhaps even normal people will notice it. By then the software industry will be long dead though.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Wait, lemme get this straight.. When people are the underdog, they support measures to even the playing field, and when they're dominating, they support measures to keep themselves on top?
Holy sh*t, people are only out for themselves? When did that start?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
When Microsoft was tiny, patents were bad for them; now they find them useful, simple as that.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
What are these "fundamental economic principals" (yes, you spelled it wrong, but I'm not asking the question as a spelling nazi) that you speak of?
There is nothing "fundamental" about selling softwares---bunches of codes that can be copied at a fraction of a cent. There might be question whether a completed software becomes public good or private property, but that's far from being settled, and in fact, in this point, I think computer science (or software industry, but computer science draws a better parallel) is an aberration in fields of science. When one discovers something in science (say, the technique of optical pumping, or nuclear magnetic resonance) it gets published in peer review journal and everyone gets to test (read: "use") it in their own laboratory. Imagine what would happen to physics if every physicist patented every experimental technique, theoretical derivation they discovered. Physics would always be 15 years (or however long those damn things last), and, yes, we would have had to wait until 1960 until the end of WWII!
What is going on with softwares is an aberration---an error that should be fixed, despite corporations and corrupt politicians, and RMS, in spearheading this effort, is in no way violating any unwritten codes of academics. I know that academics are often criticized of living in the ivory tower, but is it too much to ask of a critic to say that they are criticizing when they are?
PS. BTW, know the distinction between "capitalist" and "monopoly": ask any economist---capitalism, good, monopoly, bad (by default---there are, of course, special cases where monopoly is desirable).
Very few patent disputes with big companies ever become lawsuits, and it takes a while for lawsuits over patents to be filed (in fact, it can be in the interest of companies to wait a while). Microsoft has only started getting on the patent bandwagon fairly recently and they have already been throwing their weight around with patent-related threats.
Furthermore, the notion of "defensive patents" is nonsense. In order to defend an idea against a patent claim, all you need to do is publish it (you still need the lawyers to actually win in court, but you need those also if you have a patent).
The term "defensive patent" is really a euphemism for becoming a member of a patent cartel: the "giants" that Gates talks about, companies like IBM, Apple, Xerox, etc., have amassed huge patent portfolios that they are cross licensing. As a result, they can operate almost completely free of worries over patent infringement, while small companies that don't have cross licensing agreements are at constant risk of being put out of business by any member of that club. Well, Gates's solution to the problem has been to become a member of the cartel.
I guess (hope?) that would be about the point where the US Patent System would collapse and take the corrupt government and courts with it.
Linux is not Windows
I spend a lot of time fixing their computers and when it's easier to wipe and reinstall I ask them for their disks and they hand me burned copies of XP Pro (sans serial number) and complain that their Word won't work until they go get the copy from the office because someone else came and 'upgraded' their computer for them. They don't know they aren't supposed to be doing that.
When their wife leaves the room they quietly ask me if it was all that porn they were looking at and downloading that caused all the problems and they want to know if I can save all the music they downloaded from Kazaa.
The only people worried about being sued are those that follow tech news. The rest just want their free music and porn.
These people just want their computer to do all the nifty things that the tv says it can do and don't want to pay more than the cost of the hardware for it. They are not dumb. They are just lied to left and right.
I guess you won't understand what I mean if I tell you that (above a certain minimum level) money doesn't matter that much for everyone.
Linux is not Windows
There is nothing "fundamental" about selling softwares---bunches of codes that can be copied at a fraction of a cent. There might be question whether a completed software becomes public good or private property, but that's far from being settled...
Big shocker that this garbage is coming out of Berkeley. First of all, you equate the value of software to the cost of duplicating it. Pretty convenient that you can ignore the cost of creating it in the first place. And as for software being a public or private good, that's why we have licenses. If you create the software, you get to decide which license to use. What an amazing system!
Maybe not yet, but it would would seem that it would not be entirely out of character for them to do so. Forgive me if I believe that they have it in them to do so again.
We apologize for the preceding message. All those responsible have been sacked.
Most people seem to just pass over this passage in Republic,
"Come, then, just as if we were telling stories or fables and had ample leisure, let us educate these men in our discourse."
right before the passage about poetry and banishment of Homer and Co---Socrates (*coughplatocough*) never establishes his philsopher-king kingdom.
I like open source. I write open source. But I won't have it shoved down my throat.
What academics do are, well, academic---they don't matter. Only when people take it seriously (as you have, apparently) and act on it, then it takes a life of its own.
It is also my understanding that when an academic outsteps his boundary (i.e. force his view (which may still be controversial) upon others, such as in public policy), he stops becoming academic---and becomes (or at least should be) a pariah in his own community.
I don't need advice on how to make a living from some has-been who already hit his motherlode with a macarthur grant and now tells everyone they can just work at wal-mart if they're not willing to serve the community over themselves.
Thus the often-cited (thrice by me, now) accusation that academics dwell in their ivory tower---a too-oft well-deserved accusation, I should say.
There is nothing "fundamental" about selling softwares---bunches of codes that can be copied at a fraction of a cent. There might be question whether a completed software becomes public good or private property, but that's far from being settled...
But there is something fundamental about selling your ideas and your labor. Those things are valuable to me, and I'm not necessarily going to give them away.
I love free software, and at some point I'd like to get to thank RMS personally for emacs and gcc. But software doesn't have to be free, and it has a value which comes from the smarts and the labor that goes into it. That software as great as Debian and apache and XEmacs and gcc and Firefox is all given away for free is pretty damn cool - but it's not that the software has no value; it's that some very smart people have been kind enough to give something valuable away for free.
But the only question about whether a piece of software is a public good or private property is for the people who created it. It's up to them whether they want to give it away, or try to get some money for it.
Even better, why do we give a damn if he is or he isn't? Is Free Software or Open Source suddenly a bad idea if one of its proponents supports a different political system?
"Hark! I should buy all of my buggy, virus riddled software from the richest man on the planet because a communist created the GPL!"
It's silly.
TW
Integrity, self-respect, moral clarity, admiration of peers ... I'd say RMS is infinitely wealthier then Bill will ever dream of being. It all depends what your "currency" is...
I dont think bill needs to learn much from RMS.
By this yardstick, Bill has nothing to learn from Mahatma Ghandi either... not that he would comprehend anything, ever. I sense you are belonging to the same school of thought Bill does: The Society of Insanely Greedy Psychopaths.
From Richard Stallman's original post to net.unix-wizards (1983) in which he announces GNU/GNU's not Unix:
Why I Must Write GNU
I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I
must share it with other people who like it. I cannot in good
conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license
agreement.
So that I can continue to use computers without violating my principles,
I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that
I will be able to get along without any software that is not free.
This, along with the rest of the post, seems like a direct response to Bill Gates' Open Letter to Hobbyists (1976) in which Gates states:
"Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. [...] Now we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC. The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.
and:
"The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC (less than 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.
Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?
Is this fair?"
and:
"I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software."
Mr. Gates has devoted his life to creating an industry, and it seems Mr. Stallman has devoted his to preserving the rights of those who use technology in response to Mr. Gates' inquiry. Mr. Gates' influence has been felt across the globe, and the influence of ideas by Stallman are still expanding. GNU GPL, written by Stallman, has given birth to the following behind Linux, has influenced the Creative Commons iniative, and influenced projects like Wikipedia and numerous other projects that 'share.' Wikipedia is incredibly successful, and sites are rapidly adopting the CC license for podcasting, music distrubition, etc. I have seen posts here on Slashdot regarding Stallman's statements as 'FUD' (fear, uncertainy, doubt.) I'm not sure this is fair; considering Stallman's record. The attacks on Mr. Gates by posters aren't completely unfair, but the man has changed the world and should be respected for that.
Patents are tricky, because they do promote 'openness,' yet at the same time are ambiguous, restrictive and provide a government granted monopoly. The problems with patents have extended past these software patents, though. Biochemical compound discoveries are being patented. An idea of say, a difference engine or steam-powered engine, are different than the discovery of a naturally occuring compound.
If there were no software patents, the big companies would appropriate all the innovations and dominate through marketing instead of invention.
Wait a minute...
For great justice.
Help a poor old programmer who has probably been creating software longer than you've been alive:
iff(writing_software~=singing_the_blues) then
patent("singing about my girl left me")
endif
I'm being facetious, but do you see how ludicrous software patents are? I've looked at and written as much software as anybody, and I've never seen anything worth patenting in terms of code and implementation.
The stuff that maybe could have been patented *never was* things like virtual memory, protected memory, job schedulers, etc.
The really ironic thing is that in the past 10 years, there's been very little innovative software that should deserve a patent. Yet before that time (before there was software patents), the software world was far more innovative.
Now we patent "one-click" and think we've really got something. Its really a travesty.
I will always be paid to write software to fill someone's needs. And paid pretty damned well, I might add.
If you think my job will ever go away from "free software", you're obviously not a programmer.
and most especially he advocates himself as the leader of it
He founded the darn thing, there's noo need to advocate himself to anything. He earned much respect, doesn't need much advocation for us to acknowledge his work.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
...other than How To Become Insanely Rich Through Dumpster Diving?
Maybe How To Justify Everything You Do, Hypocritical Or Not. Windows still occasionally bluescreens when you plug a new device in, years after this faux pas, in which Trey explains "that must be why it hasn't been released yet". Billions in cash, but still hasn't ironed out the bugs == "we don't really care about the bugs". Quality is not Job #1, getting the money is.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
No, I'm not who you're replying to... but I'll bite anyway.
really? Bill Gates donates billions of dollars a year to many charatable causes. What does RMS donate?
RMS founded - and works for - a charity. What do you think their paychecks look like side-by-side? You have to take it in before you can donate it. Would you rather RMS rob Peter to pay Paul?
I can bet you have used at least one computer today that has a Microsoft operating system installed. I would say that Bill Gates is clearly more intelligent than RMS. Otherwise, we would all be using GNU software.
I haven't. And your argument , if you can call what you wrote an argument, that Gates is more intelligent that Stallman is probably the worst cliché I've ever witnessed. Troll.
A lifetime worth of effort to provide freedom (in the form of free software) to everyone? It is easy for Gates to spend maybe 10% of his money on charities, he can't tell the difference anyway. RMS doesn't have much money (AFAIK) but he gives what he has.
if RMS really had moral clarity, he (and the FSF foundation) wouldn't go after people for violating the GPL.
Having moral clarity is not the same as being a pushover pacifist. Indeed, it means standing up to those who would do wrong. RMS is doing that.
if RMS had integrity and self-respect, he wouldn't have tried to change linux to GNU/linux.
A linux _distribution_ is (or was, at some point) 95% GNU software and 5% kernel. If you were the man behind that 95%, wouldn't you want to be credited for the part you did? RMS never wanted to rename the kernel, he wanted to rename distributions. And you know what, he has a pretty damn good point there.
This only helps actual 'companies' that could afford to pay this membership fee, and completely screws over the individual developer starting an entirely new program in his own free time and giving it away at no cost.
Software Patents? Who needs them?
Patents would/will (and maybe in some cases already do) only slow developement, software, hardware, doesn't matter.
Company A - Has an idea, patents it
then
Company B - Get's cought and forced to pay up.
or
Company B - Is forced to re-invent another way to do the some thing (re-inventing the wheel)
This is exacly what's holding us, the human species back. We could share ideas and/or methods and concentrate on support and improvement.
Company A - Invents, and releases to public
then
Company B - Takes the idea and improves on it,
releases to public
then
Company C - Takes the work of Company C and further improves on it. And releases it.
If the big companies didn't play this childish game (which they don't need to, they already have dominance/influence because they are big companies) we as species would be way ahead of where we are today.
Even if you didn't want someone to know how you did something. You could refuse to show your code. In this case companies would compete on better implementation of thesome idea.
Everone wants somethingm for nothing...but not at expense of keeping the little business out. IMHO...
Bill "donates" a negligeable fraction of his ill-gotten fortune to "charitable" causes which somehow inevietably result in government procurment deals for his products and tax breaks. Bill's charity is the Dickensonian kind, of a fat pig in a luxury carriage tossing a few silver coins to wretched poor in rags on the street on Christmas. "Self-serving" is a term we use for that.
As to RMS, a lifetime of effort, bearing fruit such as the GPL and Linux, to mention just the obvious ones. More importantly, he "donated" to humanity an entire movement which seeks to protect us from ... people like Bill who will not rest until they somehow enslaved us all.
if RMS really had moral clarity, he (and the FSF foundation) wouldn't go after people for violating the GPL.
I can't tell if you are serious here. GPL is a clever mechanism to protect our rights from those who would take them, using the villain's own legalese. If he would not use it as a weapon, the whole thing would be pointless.
if RMS had integrity and self-respect, he wouldn't have tried to change linux to GNU/linux.
I happen to agree that GNU deserves very considerable credit for Linux, far more so then any other component provided by others. The GNU/Linux campaign is perheaps unwise from the PR point of view, but it has all the moral justification it needs.
free software is fine, but the majority of people in this world don't enjoy getting rehetoric forced down their throats.
Do you know the beauty of free software? You don't have to use it, you don't have to contribute under GPL, you can do what you want with your own projects. What you just said is "Meeee! I wanna to make others make software for Meeee under Myyyy terms!! Everyone, gimmeeee!". Somehow I suspect a conversation on this subject with you is waste of time.
I can bet you have used at least one computer today that has a Microsoft operating system installed.
You would have lost your money, but that is beside the point.
I would say that Bill Gates is clearly more intelligent than RMS. Otherwise, we would all be using GNU software.
I see. So the measure of intelligence is an ability to foist one's "product" on the unsuspecting public. By that measure, the inventor of "pet rock" was a true genius, far above Bill. And I am getting an ominous feeling that I am feeding a garbage-covered troll.
FS at best, not OS or FOSS. OS doesn't exist in Stallman's world. Oh, btw, funny how you name ESR accusing Stallman about that. I was under the impression ESR wanted the *very same* for OS...
net worth is a useless measurement in this case. Dispoable income would be closer, and percentage of money you have nothing else to spent would be the most accurate metric