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RMS Views on Linux, Java, DRM and Opensource
An anonymous reader writes "All About Linux is running a transcript of a recent talk given by Richard Stallman at the Australian National University. Stallman discussed various issues facing GNU like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Digital Rights Management, about why one should not install sun's java on your computer, his views on Opensource as well as why he thinks people should address Linux distribution as GNU/Linux."
The speech the article extracts from was delivered at ANU back in 2004. I believe that was his last visit to Australia (he also spoke at UNSW). There are numerous, more recent speeches by RMS available in audio and video format on the same subjects, and I don't see why this one makes news.
This is modded funny, but it really is true.
/. crowd) don't read past even the first screen of material.
I think that the most passionate advocates for change throughout history use this kind of repitition quite a bit. Of course, check through your RMS history, and you'll find that it works time and time again. Check out RMS v. Trolltech (about QT licensing), or RMS v. X/Open ("The Open Group" now). And when he wins, he drops it. Also, you can expect him to consistantly push those ideals that he thinks are worthy. Hell, I'd be dissapointed if he didn't.
Plus, he adapts over time, constantly targeting key issues; DMCA, which really shouldn't have diminished in relevance as much as it has in the last 6 years, and now DRM which I believe to be key obstacle to a free future. It's unfortunate that the first point in the article is the GNU name issue, which I believe to be the least important of those the article mentions. I guess it's hard when a speech is transcribed to an article. In a speech the first point is usually the most trivial (you just use it to get the crowd warmed up), whereas in an article, half the people (and about 90% of the
I heard it was 'ahoy ahoy'. the way the phone company FIRST thought that it would make sense to answer the phone. yes, like greeting a ship.
(with you, you can 'get' the monty burns/simpsons joke. he's old enough to 'remember' when the phone was first invented).
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
True, RMS failed to produce a kernel, and the main reason he failed in my view is that instead of copying a proven design, he tried (and failed) to design something unprecedented. Linus succeeded because, unlike the GNU project, he copied a proven design (a monolithic Unix kernel). But Linus is not the only available source of kernels.
If Linus had never come along, RMS would be running GNU tools on top of a BSD kernel and telling everyone why it should be called GNU/BSD. The free BSD kernels were under a legal cloud until 1994, which is what gave Linux time to take off. Of course, Linus' impressive skills as a developer and architect allowed Linux to come from behind and dominate. But we would have gotten to where we are without him, because so many in both GNU-land and BSD-land were committed to the vision of an entirely free operating system.
Designing something completely new usually doesn't work. Other than Emacs, the rest of the GNU tools are re-implementations of designs from elsewhere, and so is the Linux kernel. That's not bad, by the way, as in both cases the copies are superior to the originals.
> The GNU project built the GNU operating system and combined with the Linux kernel, it
> makes the GNU/Linux operating system. It's really not a bad idea, you know.
No, GNU never built an operating system. They built a lot of really useful parts but have never assembled them into an operating system. On the day they do that final part we will at last have GNU. Not GNU/Linux, GNU. The FSF could have taken the freely redistributable Linux kernel and integrated it into a finished GNU, they chose not to. Only a year or so after Linux became popular the BSD kernel emerged from it's legal dispute. The FSF could have used it to complete GNU, they chose not to do so. The FSF could have done whatever it took to get HURD to a 1.0 version and thus completed GNU, again they chose differently.
Instead dozens of independent organizations (RedHat, Slackware, Debian, SUSE, Yggdrasil, etc, most now defunct) took all of the parts (including a non-GNU libc for the first several years) and did the hard work of integrating all the various parts (including a buttload of stuff that didn't come from the FSF, like X) and made a family of related operating systems. None of these are GNU. RedHat is not GNU. Debian was under the auspices of the FSF for a couple of years but still both parties chose NOT to call it GNU instead of Debian. But had they wished to co-brand it would have been GNU/Debian, Debian GNU or GNU/Debian Linux, but calling it Debian GNU/Linux is an incorrect usage of Mr. Torvalds trademark (even if not registered as a legal trademark at the time). Merging GNU and Linux with a / implies they are related however Linux is not under the auspices of the GNU project or the FSF.
> I'll give two reasons... one, as RMS states, Linus is not especially sympathetic to
> the free software movement - this means people hearing 'Linux' never get to hear about
> free software.
Tough noogies. Linus isn't the one who chooses the names of distributions any more than RMS can. RedHat could call their product RedHat OS, or could have paid for the trademark and certification testing and called it RedHat UNIX. Or anything else they wanted to. It was THEIR choice (subject to Linus's agreement regarding his trademark rights to the term 'linux') what to name their product. Same with Debian or SUSE. Just as a guess I'd say they all include "Linux" in their name because they feel customers will associate it in a positive way, something that wouldn't be true with GNU as only the already converted know much about it.
Democrat delenda est
There is also a page on GNU.org for audio recordings of (mostly) Richard's talks.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
Actually, the GNU project intended to produce a complete UNIX-like OS. The kernel, however, was developed quite slowly. I suspect the main reason for this is that they chose a very ambitious design, which significantly reduced the number of people who were competent to work on it.
BSD came after GNU, iirc
The first BSD release was in 1977. The GNU project was founded in 1984. Of course, the first BSD releases were patch-sets for the official UNIX code, so they don't count as complete systems. It wasn't until 1983 (only a year before the GNU project began) that there was a release of BSD UNIX that was a full OS. Almost a decade later, GNU/Linux was released in a more-or-less useable form.
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