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.

Comments

You don't have to choose...

[TechnoLust]

You could be like me and think they are both loud mouthed baffoons.

Overstatement vs. Zelotry

[Cr0w T. Trollbot]

A few points:

1. The language of the Forbes piece is indeed injudicious. Anytime you see someone pile on adjectives like this, you're looking at either a bad writer, or someone with an axe to grind.
2. That said, Pope Stallman is indeed an unyielding zelot when it comes to The One and True GPL Path, and many of the points the Forbes article rasies are valid.
3. As usual, the counter-attack against the article displays the usual marks of Stallmanist zelotry whne it comes to Attacks on the Glorious Leader.
4. However, the whole Forbes article, as well as Stallman's defenders, are irrelevant, since Linus has stated that he isn't going to place Linux under GPL, and few outside Stallman's hardcore Free Software Acolytes are going to use GPL3 as it stands now.

Crow T. Trollbot

Re:True of false?

[smittyoneeach]

"He hasn't hacked much new code in a decade or more."

This, at least, represents a questionable assertion.
A glance at http://news.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel indicates that the gentleman stays fully engaged in emacs development, though one could contend that he does more managing than hacking, I suppose.
One could probably derive a text metric based on the number of gratuitous negative adjectives used in a piece against a target.
Past a certain limit, the author is wasting the reader's time.
This Forbes author broad-jumped past that limit, and deserves to be ignored.

Logical Fallacies R Us.

[Llywelyn]

"""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?

I frequently disagree with Richard Stallman

[brennanw]

... 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.

Forbes inaccuracies

[crush]

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.

Re:True of false?

[Alphager]

Ok, explain me: How does DRM allow the user more freedom?

Re:Isn't RMS irrelevant already?

[Belial6]

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 don't understand the hostility

[Darren Hiebert]

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.

Re:True of false?

[Omnifarious]

I consider the GPLv2 to be less free than the BSD license in precisely the same way as living in a country with a constitution and laws is less free than living in a country without them. Which of those two countries would you rather live in? I know which I'd rather live in. The GPL is a statement of the rules under which we are all free.

And the GPLv3's insistence that I be able to replace the GPL code in my Tivo with my own versions seems to me like a restriction much along the same lines. Whether this is an encroachment on freedom that the GPL should be concerned with is open to debate. But that restricting my ability to do this is an encroachment on my freedom is not open to debate.

Re:True of false?

[h00pla]

The fact that Lyons put so many of these anecdotes into the piece made me dismiss it as an ad hominem attack on Stallman and nothing more. I personally disagree with some of what Stallman says (and agree with other stuff) but if you write an article which pretends to explain why Stallman may be hurting Linux adoption, then write about what he's doing that hurts Linux. Don't write about how he eats soup with his own hair in it.

That's like writing a piece to call into question Bush's handling of the Iraq war by starting by pointing out that he farts around the less experienced White House aides. It's apparently true, but that isn't the best way to back up your anti-war position.