Slashdot Mirror
When Stallman is Attacked
writes "Linux Tech Daily has an editorial slamming a recent Forbes.com attack piece on Richard Stallman and GPLv3. Loved or hated, do you agree with the author that the piece is FUD and completely unprofessional? Love him or hate him, is this unfair treatment of rms? Does he leave himself open to these kinds of attacks with his behavior?" The problem with the editorial of course is that many of the points made in the original Forbes piece are completely valid and true. So basically you get to choose between the linux zealot, and a writer who is obviously fairly hostile towards Stallman's ideas.
You could be like me and think they are both loud mouthed baffoons.
"Da ist ein Technölüst in mein Unterpanten!"
Did forbes report facts, or make stuff up?
He does not deserve the treatment Forbes gave him. Quotes include:
"a lesser-known programmer-infamously more obstinate and far more eccentric than Torvalds-wields a startling amount of control as this revolution's resident enforcer"
"He and a band of anarchist acolytes long have waged war on the commercial software industry"
"A cantankerous and finger-wagging freewheeler, Stallman won't comment on any of this because he was upset by a previous story written by this writer."
"in some ways he is downright bizarre. He is corpulent and slovenly, with long, scraggly hair, strands of which he has been known to pluck out and toss into a bowl of soup he is eating."
"Stallman engages in what he calls "rhinophytophilia"-"nasal sex" (also his term) with flowers"
"His site also boasts a recording of him singing-a capella and badly-his own anthem to free software."
"He hasn't hacked much new code in a decade or more."
"Stallman labors mightily to control how others think, speak and act, arguing, in Orwellian doublespeak, that his rules are necessary for people to be "free.""
"Long ago Stallman was a gifted programmer."
"Most major tech vendors declined comment rather than risk tangling with Stallman's enforcers, such as his sidekick and attorney, Columbia Law School professor Eben Moglen."
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
I know this is Slashdot, but do we really need a thread engaging in metadebate about an article? Why not spend time discussing and proving (or refuting) the points made in TFA. Even if TFA is using ad hominem attacks, just point them out and move on -- we really don't need "talk radio" on Slashdot, getting all frothed up about who is the bigger doo-doo head.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Anyone who believes anything written in Forbes is either an elitist or some sort of incredible moron.
Richard Stallman disagress with random Forbes magazine pundit. What a revelation.
Stallman is not the most socially gifted, err, person. However, he is correct in his views on software and society. Moreover, he is absolutely correct to take the issue as seriously as he does.
For some reason many geeks like to attack what other geeks find popular to stand out and appear "different" or "superior". For example, in discussions of Linux one geek will stand out and write something anti-Linux (maybe pro-BSD) and get modded +5 Insightful. Same with anti-Apple, pro-Microsoft etc. However once in a while this gets completely un-productive. For example, when a girl starts posting naked pictures of herself on a message board. Reasonable persons write nice comments. Then comes the geek and writes "damn you're ugly". Thank you fucking much for spoiling it for everybody. Now no girl will post naked pictures of themselves. It's the same thing with attacking RMS. He is working for us, and you better damn appreciate it. Attacking RMS is like telling a girl she's ugly when she posts naked pictures of herself on a message board. Completely unproductive.
...
Oh damn, I put "naked" and "RMS" in the same sentence.
Crow T. Trollbot
By reading the article you can tell there is an obvious dislike for RMS there. When is the last time you saw someone from Forbes saying this about anyone else? IMO they basically made him out to be "hippie scum". Any person not knowing who he is will get that impression of the article. I think it is poor journalism on Forbes part. IMO there certainly were some valid points in terms of his actions but commenting on appearance and eating habits is just a low blow. Eccentricities aside he has done a great deal for the free software movement. It shows that forbes (or at least the article author) is more intrested in judging on the GQ level of a person rather than IQ. If I were a reporter in this case I would certainly refrain from personal eccentricities and focus on the accomplishments and proffessional failings of that person. This person injected way too much personal opinion into the article. Recently I am no big fan of RMS becuase of the GPLv3 DRM issues but he has done alot and is doing alot outside of that and should at least be recoginized for those things.
To me, his vision is too much of a good thing. When I saw his interview on "Revolution OS", I was shocked by his analogy about software sharing and freedom compared with what children are taught in elementary school regarding bringing snacks into the classroom. We are not ten anymore! Almost everything taught at that age is meant to build conformity, complacency, and fear of authority. While I agree that sharing ideas is a good thing, he slams everyone that doesn't feel as he does. At the same time, he wants to be sure that GNU is recognized for being responsible for Linux and free software in general, much like Al Gore wants to claim resposibility for building the Internet.
In a nutshell: RMS is a sharp guy, but probably not someone you would want to be around for long. He has no delivery tact for his opinions, and is as close-minded to outside influence as any religious zealot.
Click here or here.
"""So basically you get to choose between the linux zealot, and a writer who is obviously fairly hostile towards Stallman's ideas.""""
Logical Fallacy: Drawing the Line, also called False Dilemma.
Is it too much to ask that the *editors* refrain from using these?
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
... when it comes to how he chooses to preserve the fruits of the revolution he created, but this is a hit-piece. It is possible to respect the man and disagree with his methods.
There *are* problems with GPLv3, in my opinion, and it's possible that GPLv3 contradicts some of Richard Stallman's "freedom of use" ideology, but there's no way it is going to "endanger Linux" because -- and I'm not entirely sure why the press doesn't get this -- GPL V3 DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY REPLACE GPL V2. This isn't a EULA, it can't be udpated and replaced at any time at the whim of Richard Stallman, the license you get when you get free software is the license you get, and that's that. If the person who created the software decides that the next version will be GPLv3, you are free to fork the old one and develop it yourself.
Honestly, 90% of the media who covers the technology beat are the biggest pack of crybabies in the world. I'm pretty sure the reason so many of them hate Free Software is because they like being in a position where companies give them comp versions of software to play with. In the free software world, that's the only kind of software there is.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
The Linux Tech Daily editorial makes good points. If fails to mention one of the startling inaccuracies in the Forbes piece: namely that they claim that RMS argues they should be giving it all away. This is one of the oldest slurs in the book (it has to be deliberate at this stage so I won't dignify it by calling it a mistake). There's nothing to stop you making money selling Free Software, you just can't stop people reading, modifying, distributing and selling the code you sold to them. They don't HAVE to do any of the above but they can if they want.
What a garbage Forbes article. It reads like a piece written for a red-top tabloid.
As regards the characterization of RMS as "extremist", I agree with him and thus see him as reasonable and everyone else as clinging onto their own unreasonable extremism, especially those people that run around trying to convert people to being a Moderate.
He's either right or wrong. Stop putting silly monkey labels on people and deal with the issues: does the ability of manufacturers to sell hardware with non-modifiable (GPL'ed) software on them defeat the intention of the GPL? If so then if you don't like GPL3 how do you propose to stop this? If you don't object then why are you using Free or OpenSource software at all? Go use VxWorks, QNX or WinCE.
The forbes article was a hack piece. Unfree NVIDIA driver blobs in linux, DRM nobody asked for in both major OSs, consumer "fair use" being reduced at every turn.. I'll take an ugly, uncompromising freedom fighter over corperate fascism any day.
Linus is free to release his kernel under any terms he sees fit to, but the GNU folks are also not compelled to "port" to Linux .
Ya know, those people who thought the earth wasn't the center of the universe when everyone else clearly knew it was. they were Zealouts.
... what's it gonna take. From the very first day we have been "warned" that our zealot IP attitude is going to ruin Linux and open source, well more bullshit. One of these days they're going to realise that they need us more than we need them, and that they're the followers while people like RMS are the leaders.
And those people who believed that religion and government should be chosen by individuals and not kings, they were zealots also.
And those people who wanted to kill slavery and the US plantation system and go up against the big business plantations, they were also zealots.
And those black people who wanted to use the same bathrooms, and sit at the front of the bus. They were zealots too.
Well FUCK. The copyright cartell trys to treat information exactly like it's a property right when it's clearly not, and then force massive government regulations down our throat to fence off every bit of it, and then those of us who try to secure our right to share information freely in the information age - we're called the zealots? God fuckin dammit
Oh No!!!! Big companies want to have their cake and eat it too. Well too bad for them. The Whinery tour is over. Either honor the license or don't use the software. Nobody cares which choice you make. It's a choice. As far as I know, RMS isn't going into corporations with a bazooka and forcing anyone to use GPL'd software. There's always MS Vista and expensive proprietary OS's out there. Apparently, it's perfectly OK to say "If you don't like the DRM don't buy the music," but somehow "If you don't like the GPL(v whatever) don't download the distro" is evil. Maybe it's because the latter is a perceived obstacle to profiting from the generousity of others???
I've watched Stallman in several interviews (techtv, etc.), read his stuff, etc. From my novice pov, most notably, I remember his presence in Revolution OS. Torvalds had just finished speaking, was remaining on stage, and Stallman gets up to give a rambling "talk" about open sournce. The gist of what Stallman was trying to say, to me, was, "I made open source! Not Linus! It was mine! I wanted herd to be the kernel! Rosebud!..."
While he rambled, Torvalds played with his kids who had ran up on-stage. While having fun as a father in front of all, in seeming bliss with his children, Stallman continued to ramble in an obvious, "me! me!"
I can empathize with Stallman. I work in a large corporation and have had ideas, projects, code stolen by others, presented as theirs and/or subtley been pushed aside by someone with an agenda I didn't see coming, or wasn't prepared for. But you have to learn to adapt, give, agree, comply and, yes, work with others.
Stallman strikes me as a very bright, visionary guy who simply doesn't play well with others....
Torvalds handles the whole affair with poise....
Perhaps the best description of Stallman now is the man of yesterday wondering about, rambling "rosebud...."
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Since that time it appears that the real world operates on a different set of rules than RMS's "Free no matter what" and reality be damned.
Actually, I think Stallman's changed more than the notion of free software. He's gone from "Source code should be free to anyone" to "Source code should be free to anyone who agrees with my politics." Right now, "politics" means DRM. But once that can of worms opens, it might be tough to close.
I hear that regularly, and every time it sounds like the old "Nobody needs more than X amount of memory" line.
RMS started his crusade because he had a comercial product with broken code. The company would not fix the code, and the company had taken actions that would prevent Stallman from fixing the code himself.
The GPL was designed to allow developers to create code that would not be used in a manner that prevented people from making their own repairs. Yes, some companies have found ways to get around that purpose without violating the letter of the license. Ok, Stallman didn't just scream and yell about these companies intentionally trying to get around the license they agreed to. No, he went out and started making a newer revised version of his license that closed the holes that the license crackers found.
No, RMS is no less relevent today than he was when the GPL 1 was first written. Do you think that any closed source company thought that the GPL would even be a ping on the radar? Yes, RMS might be odd, but in this age of always trying to find a middle ground, there is an obvious need for an extreamist on the side of right, because without people like him, the middle ground would be closed everything.
I really don't understand the hostility and vilification directed toward Stallman. He is simply a man with ideals who tries to persuade others of the merit of his ideas (something we all do). I have read many of his articles and interviews and he speaks only with calm deliberation and conviction. He goes further than most of us in "living the life", so to speak, by offering freely his work and time to the cause he espouses, which has benefitted us all tremendously. One can take or leave what he offers. Nothing Stallman has done has ever harmed anyone or deprived them of anything they might otherwise enjoy. There are numerous other individuals who have tried to destroy, undermine, or deprive us of things we enjoy, but towards whom no one directs similar hostility and vilification.
Linux can't be distributed under anything other than the modified GPL license that it is distributed under. Red Hat is a Linux distribution. I may not fully understand what you're saying, but I don't see Red Hat forking its own distribution any time soon (though you might argue that Fedora is such a fork.)
The only legitimate "end run" around the GPL -- the only one that I know of, anyway -- is to customize it and not distribute it. This is what companies like Google and Amazon do. In that case, they have already forked Linux, and any further development (in order to get their special pieces to do what they want) is their responsibility to begin with.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
I don't understand your logic.
If "the real world operates on a different set of rules than RMS's 'Free no matter what'", then why was RMS *ever* relevant? In the 1980s, when RMS was first developing the GPL and the GNU tools, was reality different? How could he have ever had any impact if he was totally out of touch with how reality?
Did Stallman's contribution *change* the reality since the 1980s? If so, are you suggesting that the man whose *ideas* changed reality would have nothing more to say about the situation today, and should just sit down and shut up? He once changed reality, but somehow since then he became out of touch?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
I think we do not need to argue about the fact that that article is moronic. Lyons fails to attack the idea, so instead he attacks the messenger in a most pathetic way. He also distorts many things in a way that make RMS look like an overzealous lunatic to the uninitiated in a sad and again pathetic attempt to discredit the ideas he stands for.
As far as the accusation of overzealousness from within the slashdot populace goes, my opinion is this: RMS has ideals that he fights for. 'Ideal' means "A conception of something in its absolute perfection" - not something you will ever achieve in reality. BUT reality is oft derived from ideals that pull it one way or another. The stronger an ideal, the stronger it's potential pulling power. If you start out with an ideal of "I want some freedom... maybe", you're just not going to get very far. If you want results, you have to have vision.
Translation for geeks:
Well, if you're going to make a point why not make it so that no one misses it?
-- Delenn, Babylon 5 episode "The Paragon of Animals"
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Regardless if you are with or against Richard Stallman the Forbes article is just VERY bad journalism. I would rather call it flamebait than an article.
i.e. suggest that he's radical (outside the mainstream) because he sticks with his principles. And implying that he's a hypocrity because he encourages freedom but nevertheless has ideas about what people ought to do.
"He seems to think that his way is the only way"
He thinks his way is the right way. You think your way is the right way.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Stallman was never about that. He was always, and continues to be, about "the user should have absolute control over the tools he uses." Source code freedom is required for this, but it is a means to an end, not the end itself.
Once you realize this, you'll see that Stallman's anti-DRM stance is entirely consistent with what his goal has always been, and that the GPL v.3 has exactly the same purpose as the GPL v.2.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Because the only "freedom" that a developer could want that a user doesn't already have (according to the GPL) would be the "freedom" to restrict others, and that's not actually a freedom. You've heard the saying "your freedom ends where my rights begin," right? This is exactly the same principle -- taken to an extreme, complaining that developers should be "free" to use DRM is analogous to saying that people should be "free" to own slaves.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Ah yes, there's another reason to hate RMS.
The owls are not what they seem
Why not?!
Because developers are a strict subset of users. If all users have freedom, then developers automatically have freedom. Therefore, there's no reason to specifically focus on freedom for developers. Developers who would like to have freedom that users do not are the problem that the FSF was created to fix (or at least provide an alternative to).
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
It may not have much to do with the quality of his ideas or his code, but it does seriously affect their reception. I agree with most of what RMS says, but he does not present his ideas in a convincing way. I would much rather see him take a more behind-the-scenes rôle; have him remind everyone one the inside what the Free Software movement is about, but don't put him near anyone who doesn't already agree with him.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The urge to save humanity is selfish, but doesn't necessarily come from a desire to rule. Me, I just don't want a bunch of desperate, unhappy humans around me. Personal preference, you know. Maybe other people enjoy watching people suffer. Me, not so much.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Stallman is a idealist, they don't really have too much contact with reality.
there is a saying that a idealist rides on the shoulders of a pragmatist/realist. in this case, because stallman's ego is ridding on the people who use linux. the majority of whom just use it because it's the best tool for the job(like me) don't really care about how using binary drivers that i can't see the inside of or signed code that i can't get access too as long as they work and work good violate his idea of freedom. because of this his ego gets inflated and he thinks he actually matters when in reality his idealism turns people off, while there may be people who follow him because they too believe what he believes, they are the minority. for example, debain, they were the only ones to get into a nit fit and fork Firefox because *gasp* they changed the rules on how one should distribute their trademarked image.
It's pathetic that Forbes has begun to publish this tabloid level garbage. It reads worse than a low budget attack ad. The author there, Lyons, has already shown his butt on the SCO case. Someone must have had a lot of leverage at Forbes to get him published again.
I do have some problems with it. Not with RMS writing a license with those DRM restrictions. But with making that be the GPL3. It perhaps could be called the GPL4.
The GPL3 apparently contains a lot of cleanup of the writing, clarifications, and fixes for international use. In particular the text is clarified so that the LGPL is a small "exception" added to the GPL, rather than an entire seperate document. All of these have results identical to the intentions of the GPL2 or are slight relaxations of the requirements. All of this is good and everybody likes it, and I would like to use it.
However it also has this stuff that most people here are calling the "DRM restriction". I actually have reasons to not want it:
First I feel it is bad as it will reduce usage of GPL software in devices. Knowing how the device works is still extremely useful, including knowing the reason why you can't change the software. The GPL forces the company into allowing people to know how the device works. Stallman originally wanted to fix a printer *driver*, not the code in the printer! His attempt to make sure he can change the code in the printer may result in being unable to write the driver again, which is completely counter-productive. Knowing how the device works means you can probably communicate with it and emulate it and make competing products. (yes I know DRM can keep unauthorized things from communicating with it, but the GPL3 does not prevent that type of DRM anyway, as has been pointed out about six thousand times to anti-GPL trolls here).
Second, my own software already contains an exception (to the LGPL), which is intended to make the LGPL work the way I think makes more sense. Basically you are allowed to link the unmodified software with your code and do anything you want with the result, such as sell it as closed-source. However if you *modify* the software, you must release the modifications (and then you can link with the modified version and release that any way you want). The purpose is so that the algorithims and code cannot be "stolen" but can be used by as many people as possible. You can remove the exception in your own version, so you can merge in GPL/LGPL code, though we can't accept any such changes. As far as I can tell, this exception makes the "DRM restriction" nullified, though I guess you can't build the DRM into the derived version of the library, it must be in your program.
Like many people I would very much like to get the cleaned up and internationalized language of the GPL3. However I don't want the DRM stuff, as I disagree with it somewhat, and my exception probably nullifies it, so I don't want to confuse people. Unfortunatly my code says "GPL2 or any later version" and lots of others have contributed to it so I can't change that. So I am stuck, the only way to get the cleaned up language is for it to be in something the FSF calls a "later version of the GPL". So I would really like them to provide this option. This does not mean they have to back off on their DRM stuff. Just put that in a "GPL4" and let people choose. It would be no worse than the current situation where people who don't want the DRM stuff will stay at GPL2. (future changes would have to be called "GPL3.1" and "GPL4.1", etc, with rules that increasing any number is a "later version", so you can change 3.1 to 3.2 or 4.1, but cannot change 4.1 to 3.2 or 3.2 to 4.1).
It also appears, as others have pointed out, that the DRM stuff (and perhaps the Patent stuff) is an "additional restriction" which means you are not allowed to modify code from saying "GPL2 and later" to saying "GPL3 and later". This kind of means the GPL3 can never be enforced unless the code is written from scratch. This could be another reason to make a GPL3 and a DRM-restriction GPL4.