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Transcript of Talk with Richard Stallman
An anonymous reader writes "This is the transcript of the talk with Richard Stallman, the father of GNU in the background of the 4th International GPLv3 Conference being held at Bangalore where RMS is a prominent delegate. He answers questions related to GPLv3, DRM and a couple of other queries."
A transcript of a talk with the father of free software is something that will forever go down in history as a very meaningful talk. It will be remembered long after Abraham Lincoln's State of the Union Address is forgotten.
Richard Stallman is a dick.
Now, this is something I do not get: are Linus, Richard Stallman some kind of Gods ?
Everytime they just say something, it appears as if it was God in person speaking...
No matter what they did (I mean: how many people wrote their own kernel ? be it Un*x or not), I don't understand why they always appear as Gods...
The original interview (which the blog has just copy-pasted, inexplicably introducing errors) is here. There is also another interview (another newspaper, another Indian city) here. Both of them are short and say the usual things, and not much info on GPLv3 itself (naturally, as they are newspaper interviews).
Just a heads up. The article contains nothing new, interesting, or provocative (which many of RMS's interviews tend to be). It's very much a fluff piece.
Although, I was interested to see how an interview that takes place outside of the mainstream tech media unfolded. There was no discussion of a FSF/RMS vs. Linus Torvalds/Linux headbutting. Nothing at all about why there is much contention of v3. That being said, I found it admirable that he did not take the opportunity to express his opposing views in this one-sided piece. Many would take such a chance to bash the oppositions arguments.
I've seen the light. I mean STALLMAN has spoken! Let's create a Stallmanic Bible so we all, oh, believers can use and adore every minutes of our, oh, so insignificant life. Alleluya the holy trinity, Father Stallman, Son Linus and Holy Jobs (yeah, notthing to do with freeware but he **IS** a saint indeed, isn't he?)
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Richard Stallman is, in my humble opinion, A HERO and even a true american patriot.
b _start:int=0
h ard-stallman-protests-at-un-world-summit/
He has been protesting evil surveillance technology such as RFID for years. And there are few other people who have contributed more to free software and humanity in general as he has.
Take a look at his past speches: http://www.fsf.org/events/past-rms-speeches.html?
And remember his protest at the UN Summit: http://www.secureidnews.com/weblog/2005/11/21/ric
(as you may or may not be aware, the UN are evil. They openly admit they want the UN to be a one-world government and that they want to destroy the sovereignty of any existing nation. Richard Stallman is a hero for protesting against UN evil)
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
RMS: "First of all there are many people who don't have to make money. Importantly even if a person has to make a living, he doesn't have to make a living from everything he does."
In other words, software developers aught not be paid for their efforts; it should be something they freely contribute to some global software collective. Software developers should instead find another way to make a living.
It has never been more clear to me that Stallman has zero perspective on the average working human being.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
thinGs the right
Now, this is something I do not get: are Linus, Richard Stallman some kind of Gods ?
Everytime they just say something, it appears as if it was God in person speaking...
No matter what they did (I mean: how many people wrote their own kernel ? be it Un*x or not), I don't understand why they always appear as Gods...
O Lord Stallman, forgive this unbeliever for his foolish words of blasphemy. We, your true believers, will shun him and send him out from our fold. Once he could visit Slashdot and bask in the glory of (transcripts of) your wisdom, but now he will live on the streets and fight over garbage with alleycats.
Quoted from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/10/15/the_bofh_q uestionnaire_how_geeky/
2. You're locked in a room with Richard Stallman and Bill Gates and have only a gun with two bullets in it (which you normally secrete on your person in case you ever get locked in a room with Richard Stallman, Bill Gates, etc). They both clear their throats to speak. What do you do?
A. Shoot Bill, hoping he hasn't got a tablet device (or the XP Security Vulnerability notes) crammed up his blazer
B. Shoot Richard, hoping he hasn't got the notes for his speech in front of his heart
C. Shoot Richard AND Bill and take your chances
D. Shoot yourself, twice, for getting into such a contrived situation
To me it seems like RMS totally dodged the question. What is "...there are many people who don't have to make money" supposed to mean in this context? I'm sure there are people that don't have to make money, but most people do have to make money, and I wonder why RMS is so opposed to economic acceptance. It seems that he believes F/OSS's noble goals will be corrupted if Linux gains momentum in the corporate world, but don't we have the GPL to prevent just that? Ultimately, corporate support will help secure the foundation of F/OSS -- I'm thinking of IBM and Sun, and the corporate support behind OpenBSD and FreeBSD.
I cannot believe that those 5 tiny questions were the whole interview...
A collection of miscellaneous links about OSS developments in India.
Indian President Advises Open Source Approach
President Of India Advocates OSS
Indian President Advises Open Source Approach
Stallman Goes to India (and meets the President)
and finally, more recently...
Indian State Logs Microsoft Out
I'm hoping to see more active participation in OSS development from India, as more of it's educated masses come online. Computer and internet usage has surged among the middle-class only in recent years, with improvement (albeit gradual) in infrastructure.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
... under Linux?
..being held at Bangalore?
I thought it was over a week back.
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
I Find RMS to be to far Left to be a Hero and I for one would fear a world ruled by him and his ideas. His views are based on conspericy concepts. Like TFA about DRM he assumes DRM is out there for the sole fact that people cannot make players, while the real reason is that DRM is there because it is to easy to copy and share the data, the way the creators of the data don't want it to be spread. He has a complete lack of understanding why anyone shouldn't want to share data, and any attempt to not share data is part of some large conspericy or corruption. People want to protect their property, and some people but value in their property. Their Code is there property, they have the right to choose who should view it and how it is viewed.
The Devil will come to you when you are looking for it. RMS is in the practice of finding all the evils in the world and spends little time incorageing the good in the world. A true Hero in my book is someone who is willing to commend people for what they are doing right, and less nagging on what they are doing wrong.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You make money by doing something *else* than software development. In RMS's World, software development is a *hobby*, just like solving jigsaw puzzles. Selling sloved jigsaw puzzles shouldn't cross your mind as a way of making a living, even if you're good at it.
When Stallman landed in Bangalore all of the locals were heard saying, "Whoa.. what's that smell?"
This is neither the time or place for people to ask a Why? to RMS about free software. Sure, it was a place to ask a Why GPL v3 or about DRM licensing or patent protections, but the questions that were asked was almost total bullshit. Yet again, I'm not speaking from personal presence there - I've just talked to people on irc and read their blogs.
Was one of those weeks when I wasn't in Bangalore ... but RMS was in Kerala (where I am now) and the discussions here were more practical than those quoted from Blr. The ones here were really about the freedoms and mostly by students or political decision makers versus the armchair activists from the software industry.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Why doesn't RMS watch movies? Why does he not like Linus? Is RMS a pessimist? How does RMS feel about the record companies? Does he care about their profits?
Learn the answer to these questions and more in the new documentary "Alternative Freedom". The documentary is as independent as RMS himself!
http://alternativefreedom.org/
Also features Larry Lessig, Danger Mouse (of Gnarls Barkley), and others...
There is no need to be parsimonious with your gratitude. You say that as if we must choose between giving thanks to both the community and RMS and Torvalds. By the standard you endorse we end up essentially saying "what have you done for me lately?" instead of valuing both the community including both men for their work in the past and their continued work on things that matter.
After all, even by the silly logic of valuing what is and not what was, Torvalds and RMS both deserve thanks; Linus Torvalds is still involved in Linux kernel development, despite not writing all of the code in his fork of that kernel. Richard Stallman is the author of the most widely used free software licenses—the GNU GPL, the GNU LGPL, and the free documentation license the GNU FDL. And when it comes to the GPL (the subject of the talk at the heart of this /. thread), Eben Moglen says "there is no other copyright license in the world that is so strongly identified with the achievements, and the philosophy, of a single public figure".
Digital Citizen
Patriots Unite!! Our fearless, selfless, demigod, true American HERO, has granted those hedonistic job-stealer's an interview.. This was no ordinary news piece, but a call to arms... The GPLv3 is not a license, it's the 21st century version of Paul Revere's Lantern... RMS gave us this coded message.. er, ah.. interview, to let us know that the time draws near..
NOW! Fellow FSF Patriots, dawn your hand-crafted, aluminum battle helmets.. For the stealth RFID mind control satellites are powering up as we speak (Which are rumored to be controlled with.. Gasp!! OSS Software that has had the GPL...REMOVED!!!) General Kofi Annan has been briefed and has notified the Illuminati and Skulls & Bones.
Harden those Apache installs, remove those Flash plugins that you swore you'd never use, and get ready... Our leader needs us..
Mod me down if you must... It only shows us where your loyalties lie.
How should he have better conveyed that the question was unimportant and how should he have better conveyed why it was unimportant?
Most people already know how to make money and they do it without programming computers. People already know that not every activity they take on needs to make them money. When computing was young, people in computing made money by selling their expertise just like plumbers, mechanics, electricians, and carpenters do (just to name a few expert professions). I can see how you would think his answer was a dodge if you are under the impression that indeed all of your computer-related work must make money. And if you think that's so, it's your job to come up with ways to make that happen. It isn't someone else's job to come up with a business plan for you.
Digital Citizen
I was at a talk that he gave at our college. He was quite irritated by people referring to GNU as Linux, and made the distinction very clear. He did get rather irritated with people, and he did have to ask the crowd (completely uninformed students for the most part) to keep quiet.
The fact is that RMS is loaded, and he hangs out with other such people (you know the kind.... they come up with a concept, hype it to venture capitalists, run the company into the ground or simply never produce a product, but they walk away with millions), and he is completely and totally out of touch with those of us poor souls that (God forbid!) have to WORK in order to earn money and pay our bills. Not all of us can be a blowhard that gets paid for spouting nonsense like "First of all there are many people who don't have to make money. " He sounds like a smug, pretentious asshole to me.
A lot of people are paid to create software - custom software for some particular customer's needs. For me, the act of writing of software is the process of creating wealth, not the act of selling it. Enough companies make their living just producing code rather than licensing the same code over to a million customers.
Now, when I create something out of nothing, I expect to be paid. But that doesn't go against any Free Software concept to be remunerated for work, but it does go against a few of mine if you merely sell licenses instead of the work done. Proprietary firms do exactly that, they sell you the use of some code, but not the code itself. And RMS might be a hardliner, but we need those in moderation too - because otherwise the rational people among us will accept compromises which might be harmful in the long run ... (yes, I'm talking about ESR).
In short, with free software, you get what you pay for and sometimes a few developers whom you didn't pay for.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
as you may or may not be aware, the UN are evil. They openly admit they want the UN to be a one-world government and that they want to destroy the sovereignty of any existing nation. Richard Stallman is a hero for protesting against UN evil
Explain me this: if they want to destroy the sovereignty of any nation how come that the UN strongly opposed the US invasion of both Iraq and Afghanistan and are still officially against the occupation of both countries? If you call that evil then your whole tyrade suddenly starts to fit into a most peculiar spot don't you agree?
So Stallman is now a hero because he's against an organisation who strongly opposes countries who illegaly occupy other nations under false accusations? I think you should lay down the crackpipe now, you've had enough. Not even Stallman is that stupid.
Stallman? I thought it was STALIN !! He's pinko-commie to the core!!
(I (was (expecting more) (brackets (in (that transcript)))))
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
now, if he was giving a talk at your college, wasn't he there to Inform the Uninformed? Wasn't he there to spread the word? To bring those not in the know, up to speed? Seems like he was instead acting like everyone should have already known everything he was going to say. The reputation I see surrounding him is one of elitism and snobbishness. He might have once been great at what he did, but he doesn't appear to be very good at what he is doing now... giving talks and interviews.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
I noticed that when asked about how people can create a buiness model around Free software, he dodges the question by asking another question. His response was that software can be created out of the goodness of your heart and not for profit. I understand that point, but then I should also have the Freedom to also work for a proprietary software company so I can support my family without him picketing or protesting that the software is defective by design. You can't have it both ways Dick. There are a lot of Free Software programmers that work at Starbucks. Is that what he proposes. It's easy to be idealistic about money when you get paid to be idealistic. Hey Richard, how do you get paid? Off the backs who whom? Who paid for your trip to India? I love Free software and contribute when I can. However, don't blast those who have made programming their profession without providing an alternative.
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
Ah, the power of non free propaganda. People's heads are so filled with stuff that is at odds with their own experience. They might as well have asked, "How do I make money with a computer?" Of the bazillions of ways to do that, only one of them is the non free way and very few people really make money that way. Really, ask yourself, do you or anyone you know make most of their money writting non free code? Why is it that so many people feel the need to support a model so few people are involved with? That's the power of non free propaganda. It needs to be addressed by knocking down the assumptions that support the conclusions best expressed here: If you don't give me money, your computer will be useless. Most of the missconceptions the public has about software have been created to support that demonstrably false conclusion. Let's look at the particular question.
What kind of an economic model does an entrepreneur look at when he starts out with free software? is vague and hard to answer. What exactly does that mean? At best, they are asking for a laundry list of ways to make money with free software. There are as many ways to answer that question as there are ways to make money with a computer. The only difference between free software and non free is user freedom. You get all the tools you need for the job without cost and you can do anything you want with them. The only way you can't make money with free software is to take someone else`s work and make use it to deny the end user of their rights. The only reason people ask that question is because they are bombarded with FUD that says you can't make a living with free software and that the free software models will one day collapse because of that. After 20 years of GNU growth and mainstream acceptance, you would think that question would go away. It's important to understand that free software is not dependent on any economic model so it is here to stay.
Your statement,
I wonder why RMS is so opposed to economic acceptance. It seems that he believes F/OSS's noble goals will be corrupted if Linux gains momentum in the corporate world, but don't we have the GPL to prevent just that? Ultimately, corporate support will help secure the foundation of F/OSS -- I'm thinking of IBM and Sun, and the corporate support behind OpenBSD and FreeBSD
is equally vague and missleading. While free software is about freedom and not about making money, there is no hostility to commercial activity or corporate involvement. A FSF newsletter a while back was positively glowing over the way free software has been adopted by embedded developers. It's pretty obvious from this that free software can be commercial software and that no one has a grudge against that.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What exactly are you God people talking to when you pray.
Can you logically convince yourself that you are using some kind of telepathic communication with some entity that has a telepathic connection with every human on earth and desires that everyone talk to him/her/it and say nice things?
Never really checked out the TorrentChannel before. Here's a gem:
_ alien_agenda
New World Order and the Alien Agenda -
http://torrentchannel.com/new_world_order_and_the
Pi Ran Out
>> Stallman has never suggested that software developers should not be paid.
> Is that so? "The programmers writing non-free software? They are doing something antisocial. They should get some other job. [- Stallman]"
Stallman is not against making money for writing software. As I said elsewhere in this topic, he would probably support e.g. FLOSS developers getting paid by governments. What he is against is non-free software. So, it follows that he is against getting paid for making non-free software. He is also against paying money for non-free software, using non-free software, teaching people how to use non-free software... you get the point.
If he thinks others should be limited in their choices by what he believes to be morally acceptable (like - horror! - working for a proprietary software company), I'd like to see how he behaves if all his sources of money were taken away and he was tossed out on the street and had to fend for himself in some rundown neighborhood where the locals would listen to his ranting and think he was just another homeless psychotic released from the loony bin.
It's easy to pontificate about how others should earn a living to support your family when you have no worries at all in that regard.
Ever hear the phrase "wackademic"? That's RMS.
OK, his ideas about free software are definitely a great positive contribution to humanity. But he's still nuttier than a fruit cake and totally disconnected from reality.
Of course, his contributions to free software are probably the result of his zealotry...
say the same thing?
.. in stone tablets?
To an audience in Bangalore, no less. WTF?
>;K
>;k
the conclusion that RMS is evil,
Parent is a sad, tired anti-RMS troll. One of RMS's discarded love-slave-toys, after a fit of petulance (like the one displayed above), RMS dumped him, since then, he's had these outbusrts of jealous rage whenever someone mentions Richard's name.
Please, if you have mod points, mod him down. Its better for him not to have his RMS fantasies modded up.
...admit it, and STFU.
What's interesting is that many (probably a strong majority) of people who develop free software developed their skills (and their bank accounts) building proprietary software for big, evil corporations. And much GPL software has been (and continues to be) donated or financially supported by these companies. And much GPL software is modelled on successful proprietary software (e.g., UNIX and Linux).
Thus free software has benefited greatly from proprietary software, and of course vice versa.
I much prefer Linus T's view, which appears to be that free and proprietary software complement, rather than conflict with, each other. At any rate, people should be able to take any approach they wish. That's my definition of freedom.
Perhaps demi-gods, but not Gods. In response to this and other posts, yes we thank Linus and Stallman for their many contributions, but who and where would they be if not for the efforts of Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Doug McIlroy, and J. F. Ossanna at Bell Labs?
Temper your hero worship with some perspective...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Stallman, pointing out the trap: "To jump from, this person is not rich and therefore has to work, to this person can't write free software because he is not paid to write it, is an error."
SpacePunk, ignoring Stallman and falling into the trap: "Yes, people can make free software. No, people cannot make a living if that is all they do."
Stallman never said "THAT IS ALL THEY DO". He has never said that. He never will.
They're not large - they're just big-boned.
My biggest complaint against Stallman's crusade against non-free software is that all software is free. If you don't like the price, don't buy it. If you don't like the EULA's, don't use it. Freedom exists in the freedom of choice. A lot of software is there to make our lives so much easier, but we don't need it!
As for the freedom to be able to tinker with the code, the vast majority of people don't want to nor care to know how to. They want something to work and if doesn't, they will gladly pay someone to fix it. The people who do want to tinker with the code, like myself, do so with the Linux distros.
Don't misunderstand, I think the movement itself is great b/c it gives a lot of more opportunities to review and revise apps that we use, not to mention cost-effective opportunities away from the great M$ empire. I think it's great for me and other people who are interested in it but I donn't mind at all making money off of developing software and hope that I can for the duration of my career. I don't like exploiting people but I like being paid for something that I actually enjoy doing. I like offering them a product that could save them more money and being the cash incentive to develop something useful to others.
The comment does not distinguish commercial versus proprietary software business and so is completely pointless, i.e., mod to zero!
Perhaps it would better said that he chooses to ignore the real world and that his utopian goals are, well, anti-social. Yes, it would all be bery nice if we could live in a world free of responsibilities and simply pursue our hobbies. Work at Starbucks and write free software on the side. The real world is more complex. Support a family of 4 (well) as a Barista? I think not. Perhaps all books should be free as well...
Don't get me wrong, I like Stallman, but he needs to grow up and move out of his mother's basement.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Do you think RMS even cares enough about the question to even want to "dodge it"?
How does near indifference equate to opposition? If anything he has repeatedly addressed economic acceptance of FS. If you bothered doing the most basic of web searches on the matter, you would have found one of many instances where he discusses how to earn a living with free software, e.g., http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html.
I totally agree. I commented about this earlier after reading the article. However after reading what someone else posted: http://kerneltrap.org/node/4484. I really get the fact that Stallman is perfectly happy with me not working in CS or programming if I need to make money from coding software. The above link needs to be spread around the net like wildfire. It goes to show how out of touch he really is. I have no intention of digging ditches the rest of my life. We all can't make money on the "lecture circuit" like you can Dick!
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
To me it seems like RMS totally dodged the question. What is "...there are many people who don't have to make money" supposed to mean in this context? I'm sure there are people that don't have to make money, but most people do have to make money, and I wonder why RMS is so opposed to economic acceptance.
The question Stallman was asked is also a loaded one, it presumes that free software has to answer to and be acceptable to capitalists. It doesn't. He could have just said "selling services instead of selling software" but that puts free software in the position of looking like it needs corporate acceptance to be worthwhile and I don't think it does. Stallman doesn't need to justify free software to entrepreneurs nor make it easy for them to make a living.
People dispute that the renaming was done to advertise gnu, but RMS saw nothing wrong with this - "We think it is proper to give the GNU Project credit for making the free Unix-like system that it set out for a decade ago. But there is a more important reason for friends of GNU to use names like 'Linux-based GNU system' instead of 'Linux system.' This is to help spread the GNU Project's philosophical idea: that there is ethical importance in freeing users to share software and cooperate in improving it"
http://web.archive.org/web/20020703193050/http://w ww.crackmonkey.org/pipermail/crackmonkey/1998q4/00 3006.htm
> I went to shake his hand, being that he's done alot for this community
> of ours. Ugh, and this gets gross, he kisses my hand instead of shaking
> it. Not only that, but he slobbers on it. That called for a bit of
> bleach.
RMS just made himself look bad when he didn't need to...although then again, what else is new?
In one of my last posts on here I talked about how (from what I've seen, anywayz) Red Hat had become profitable...there are a lot of other companies doing what they do, too. Making money with free software is entirely possible...RMS has written about it himself, and even used to do it himself when he was selling Emacs tapes. There's also this, which he could have even mentioned.
It is exasperating...No matter what else he does, the one thing he manages to consistently do is shoot himself in the foot.
There's three types of people; dicks, pussies and arseholes..
As well as the above transcript of a talk with Richard, there is also a transcript online of the talk by Richard at the 4th international GPLv3 conference:
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
Good Point!
Instead of demanding from RSM to invent business models in addition to the many great things he already does, I think we have to use our own creativity to develop business models which do provide a way to make money directly from creating free software.
Just that there is not yet such a business model doesn't mean it that it is impossible. It just has to be invented, such as motors have been invented some day in the past. Before the first motor was invented, many people thought it to be impossible, probably.
Now, inventing business models is a task which requires a completely different skill set than inventing technical things. That's probably the reason why us programers have a hard time inventing them.
And people who are talented in inventing business models have no incentive to invent such a business model. They rather do what's easier, such as either proprietary software or selling services for free software written by others.
So, that's probably the reason why there is no such business model yet.
But I am still optimistic that such a business model is possible and just waits to be invented. Let me explain:
Actually it is a simple fact:
Free open source software delivers much more value to the public than proprietary software does. Among others, the value is enhanced by possibility to modify it, to study the source code, i.e. having a chance to really know what it does, so to be able to make an informed decision whether to use it, etc.
So, since more value is delivered, there must be a way to make at least the amount of money which can be made using the proprietary model.
The problem to be solved is a marketing and a selling problem. In other words, to find a way to convince people to pay for the value they get.
I think this must be possible in some way and I also think it will provide a lot of benefits to the free software movement if we find such a way.
I didn't yet find a complete business model but I am doing something for inventing one: I am intensively studying marketing and sales. (It has a real learning curve, especially for a programer. :-)
So I may come up with some solution someday. And I have a strong motivation to do so, being in my heart a believer in free software but on the other hand earning my money with writing proprietary software, partly with a program which I own. So as soon as I have a business model for free software which I trust, I am going to use it because I'd feel much better then.
I invite everybody to engage in a discussion about this topic in order to gather ideas. Just post a reply here or send me an email.
Maybe I will set up a website for coordinating the efforts of inventing business models for free software.
The current state of my ideas (which are not a complete business model yet) is as follows:
Provide an irresistible offer to the public which is a simple as: You pay me X dollars and I will release this software under the GPL which will provide Y dollars of value to the whole public. With the value Y being much much greater than the price X, of course. That's how the offer becomes irresistible.
(Now there are many variants to this offer. The software may already exist and already offered the proprietary way or the software does not exist yet but will be written as soon as the money arrives.)
This offer has just one essential flaw: The public is an abstract entity which cannot act as such. Only indivduals can act and to some extent organisations can act, but ultimately individuals make organisations to act.
So, the real challenge is to change that offer so that individuals can act upon it while th