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Stallman Attacked by Ninjas
vivIsel writes "When RMS took the stage to address the Yale Political Union, Yale's venerable parliamentary debate society, it was already an unusual speech: instead of the jacket and tie customary there, he sported a T shirt, and no shoes. But then he was attacked by ninjas. Apparently some students took it into their head to duplicate an XKCD webcomic before a live audience — luckily, though, Stallman didn't resort to violence. Instead, he delivered an excellent speech about DRM."
Too bad he doesn't care about his cause enough to project an aura of professionalism and courtesy. There are certain expectations when you're a GUEST speaker in a professional setting, an academic setting.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
No, his purpose is to make it so all software has its source code available for modification. That's what he's here for. Think what you like of the guy, he's never veered from that purpose.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
If you ever go to the link pointed out (I know, we are in /., and RTFS is for weaklings only) ...
Instead, he delivered an excellent speech about DRM
you'll find a beautiful Minutes of the Debate in WORD.
Richard, your message was lost !
If he didn't have the annoying tendency to be right all the damn time, I think I might care about his footwear.
sic transit gloria mundi
Because the minutes of the debate are in .DOC format.
One would think that any assembly styling themselves as being open-minded and advocating open debate would be above something as petty as a dress code.
Dress codes anywhere but where the dressing is essential to the event is pointless. How is a uniform going to inspire creative thought? If what matters is what people have on their minds, why care about what they have on their bodies?
"You're infinitely more insightful than me, but you aren't wearing the special clothes, so you can't join my discussion group."
Sounds like something straight out of an elementary school playground.
Good thing he's not selling anything.
Bot Assisted Blogging
Considering how much more successful than yours his career has undoubtably been, without having had to conform to arbitrary standards of professionalism, I think it's safe to say that denouncing his work because of what he wears constitutes an almost criminal ineptitude on your part.
he is selling ideals. much more dangerous then anything you exchange money for....
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Therein lies another insight into the self-effacing brilliance of RMS. He doesn't need a suit. He's proved his worth by making his vision work, not by using the usual tricks of the trade and flim-flamming with long words, suits and "presence". Actually, that last he has in spades but it's a natural thing, not a put-on to cover up cluelessness. Whilst I don't fully agree with all of his ideals, I can't help admiring the man for his principles and ability to make things work against all odds.
It's just another part of his character: "Here I am, as asked. I'm not going to lie to you or try to make my ideals look appealing. I won't dress up the message or myself to try to divert your attention from the downsides of the issue. I'll just tell it like it is." He's 100% consistent in this and it's one of the reasons people respect the man. In my opinion this does more to help the movement than hinder it.
As for XKCD, how long until some misguided lawyer (yes, Thompson, I'm looking at you) starts to spout off about webcomics encouraging ninja attacks?
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
The flip side of the coin - if you wear a suit, lots of engineers won't trust you. And why should they? You're telling them you hope they'll respect you because of what you wear, instead of what you say.
He's just trying to make a point. And I think he makes a great one with DRM.
Keep in mind, Stallman comes from a generational philosophy that , following Wittgenstein, notes that words have the ability to confuse, so precise language ensures your being understood. (Wittgenstein famously argued that all problems in philosophy are problems of language. Ambiguous language makes logical problems where in reality none exist. I think he backed away from the strong form of that position later on however.)
Stallman, DOESNT argue for opening up source for the utility of it, he argues for what he believes is the freedom dividend of it. Consequently, he'd like people to keep talking about freedom, and not be so distracted by the marketing.
I personally think that this tactic hasn't helped his cause an awful lot, but I certainly understand why he does it.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Seems like by not dressing as other people do he's just adding more nonsense to the mix. Instead of delivering his message by speaking he's causing other people to focus on what he's wearing; generating controversy or trying to give himself a "look", instead of just giving a speech he's giving everyone other things to focus on.
e.g. Here we are, talking about his stupid dress choice, and not about his speech. If he just dressed like everyone else we would be talking about what he said, not how he dressed, but he's taking away from what he said by dressing inappropriately.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
E.g., if I created a little piece of software and dumped it into the public domain, and someone picked it up, made a slight improved version, and marketed it widely, it might eventually take over, to the point where people forgot about its origin. (Which the 'improved' version's author might not even need to disclose.) Or something could happen by random chance to knock that one source for the original version offline. From that point on, users would have lost the freedom to look at the original version.
Think of how hard it can be to find very old versions of common software projects (or old/first editions of a book) -- sometimes they're nearly impossible to find, because they're buried in references to newer versions. Newer versions tend to subsume the old. (And this ignores the rather obvious case where a party making use of some public domain code might try intentionally to expunge the original from public sources, to protect their proprietized version.)
You can't simply assume that once information is made available, it will always be available. If not maintained and copied and actively disseminated, information dies; it fades away, for a myriad of reasons. The GPL prevents this from happening by making sure that the freedom in the original version is carried forward to all downstream variants and copies.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
He's not "dressing lazy"; IIRC he simply does not own a suit. He does not believe in wasting wealth on non-essential items; this enables him to live on a relatively small income while spending most of his time pursuing the ideals he cares about. In my opinion, this attitude is much more noble than your "Hey, there's a guy with a cheap wardrobe! What a disrespectful jerk!" attitude. Expecting someone to waste hundreds of dollars to dress up like a penguin (insert Linux joke here) just to show that they "respect" you is extremely childish. Respect is a quality of interaction between people--material goods have no inherent 'respect'.
And don't try to hide behind social custom. Just because some people are (by common custom) materialistic, elitist assholes doesn't mean you have to be too.
And its that exact attitude which projects the smelly hippy feel about Open-Sourcerers. It is a sign of respect to conform to this one little request of the hosts.
While the medium does not affect the message it affects the impact. Not conforming to a dress code, that I'm sure they informed him about makes him just seem rude. Can you honestly say that you are just as receptive to someone who is rude as to somebody who is polite, and listens to you?
Yes, lazy is the point...
He's spending his time and effort on things that do matter ie his talk, and doing the bare minimum on things that don't matter (ie clothes).
Suits and ties are uncomfortable...
The shoes that go with them are uncomfortable and bad for your feet
Such clothes are overpriced and a horrendous waste of money
Not only that, but dressing in a suit and tie strongly suggests you need to try and use your appearance to give some credibility to what your saying because it can't stand on it's own.
How you dress usually has no effect on your ability to complete a task, and as such you should be evaluated based on that. Obviously there are some tasks where what you wear actually has an impact, like diving.
As for "impoliteness" and "disrespect" there is nothing impolite or disrespectful about wearing a tshirt and shorts, not unless the tshirt sports an insulting slogan anyway. The idea that you need to wear particular clothes to show respect is completely contrived and totally ridiculous. It is purely down to conditioning and sheep-like herd behavior... People don't know *why* its supposed to be polite to wear a suit, they just think that it is because thats what they've been told. It's a meme that does more harm than good.
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He let it all free ;)
It's the new open! You are allowed to use it aslong as you share!
The point is, he's not getting all worked up about ridiculous things like what people wear...
You may be blindly following a herd of sheep who believe (but don`t know why) that wearing a suit and tie makes you respectable... And your therefore willing to sacrifice comfort, practicality and money to conform to that ridiculous expectation.
RMS on the other hand will wear what he finds comfortable, because he isn't willing to sacrifice anything for a ridiculous social meme.
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Sure, ditch the suit and tie. After all, it's not like Steve Jobs wears them to special events. But why go barefoot? The guy probably wears shoes outside his home, so why take them off to get on stage and deliver a speech to respected academics?
Respectable/serious attire are necessary not to convince your audience that you are right, but to convince them that you are "normal" by everybody else's standards. It's a big part of the fight right now.. to show that crippled, proprietary code is not the norm and that it is possible to have a system based on free - or at least open - code in the "real world". To show that it's not an outrageous idea. And it doesn't help when your leaders are barefoot lunatics who dislike shampoo and don't cut their hair.
Be careful doing what others expect of you. It's habit forming.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
You wrote:
> E.g., if I created a little piece of software and dumped it into the public domain, and someone picked it up, made a slight improved version, and marketed it widely, it might eventually take over, to the point where people forgot about its origin. (Which the 'improved' version's author might not even need to disclose.) Or something could happen by random chance to knock that one source for the original version offline. From that point on, users would have lost the freedom to look at the original version.
We nearly saw this with Samba! When Novell and Microsoft made their patent deal, Jeremy Allison (one of the core Samba maintainers) worked for Novell. They could have proprietized Samba on a patent basis, after their years of competition with it. Fortunately, Jeremy immediately resigned, with a quite publicized note that the new patent deal violates the GPL on software from Novell. But it could have been extremely nasty if Samba wound up with uncontested and unpublicized Microsoft patents embedded in it.
Bush went to Yale...
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
If he didn't have the annoying tendency to be right all the damn time, I think I might care about his footwear.
You may not, but you'll be surprised how odd certain other people (with power nonetheless) may see his behavior.
It's the world we live in. If you're sexy, you have a better chance at becoming the president of the USA.
I'm not saying Stallman should be sexy, but if he'll be pulling off such tricks, many people who could make a difference will just see him for the hippy he is and dismiss what he has to say and his entire movement.
I, at least, have to do presentations here and there to be moving my business, and realize that if you want people to figure out your message, you don't want to distract them with your odd persona, and follow basic etiquette, unless your odd persona is part of your product. And I'm not sure being barefooted is requirement for being against DRM.
Alternately, he is undoing a system that sets too much store by clothing and labels by showing people that a hugely influential and intelligent person can get where they are and change things without having to conform to other people's expectations. In that, he is trying to bring about another social change he believes is for the better. And I agree with him. Confusing the cost of someone's clothing with the value of what they're saying is a problem in our society.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Either he is a retard, or he is mimicking one.
If you'd ever met him, you'd know neither is true. So much for your "respect", huh?
It's just a matter of common respect for your audience. Yeah, you can dress like a jackass, but all that says is either 1) you don't give a fuck about the people you are speaking to or 2) you are, on purpose, dressing like a fool in order to be somehow "outrageous".
When it comes to "common respect", I thought "not cursing like a sailor" carries even more weight than what kind of shirt you wear.
But anyway, why should I listen to anything you have to say? You're naked.
*sigh*
Where are my mod points when I need them?
The points you make are very valid... But, since I can't mod you up, I might as well inject my opinion while I'm at it. The people who are interested in what he has to say aren't the ones in suits. The people he can speak to most directly, and who he'll have the biggest sway with, are people who most likely would show up to work in the same attire.
I don't mean that to be pejorative, of course. I think MBA-having, suit wearing asskissers are just slightly more evolved than lawyers, and slightly below pond scum...
Unfortunately, until we reach the point where intelligence is more important in business than how you look and who you know (not to mention the lack of morality or compassion, which I think is assumed), those suits are exactly the people we need to be impressing.
Impress, infiltrate, overthrow.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Exactly. In my opinion, the clothes are irrelevant and basically a filter: if you are the sort of person that will judge Stallman by his clothes, then the wisdom he has to offer is lightyears beyond your reach. It is better that you just dismiss it rather than polluting the discussion.
"If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated." - Voltaire
Likewise, you make valid points about how much upper management in big business is largely informed by who you know and emulating the powerful. However, I (politely) disagree that the following is a workable strategy:
Leaving aside that there are many very nice and sincere people who simply like to wear suits and plenty of incompetents who wear combats and t-shirts, those who breaking suit prejudice amongst those who hold it cannot realistically be achieved by first conforming to the prejudice. The only workable approach is to demonstrate value whilst not conforming. To do otherwise is to sign over the value one possesses to the cause of suit-prejudice, i.e. if someone who contributes as much to free software as Richard Stallman is commonly seen wearing an expensive suit and dazzlingly coiffured hair, it simply goes to reinforce the idea that suit=competence. If he does not, his value contributes to the idea that not-wearing-suit can also equal competence. Someone who wore a suit for twenty years to become CEO and then suddenly started turning up in beach shorts and sandles, would not be seen as "overthrowing" anything. People don't work like that, no more than the Pope could suddenly reveal he's a muslim infiltrator and declare that Catholicism is now a branch of Sunnism. If you want to overcome prejudice, then the first rule is to stand by what you are.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I assume this, because it is the implication of the statement. And even if it was okayed beforehand It gives him an overall unprofessional air.
His cause is too important to trivialise by making himself look unprofessional and rude, even if he is trying to make a point by it. It's simple etiquette to dress formal for a formal occasion.
Believe it or not, that's exactly the point the parent is trying to make. If you're going to talk to an audience of scientific engineers, then dressing in a suit puts the audience on edge because their uniform is casual. If you're talking to an audience of suits, then a T-shirt is going to put them on edge.
We're all adult enough to set those biases aside, but if you're really interested in communicating with your audience, then it's in the interest of your message if you speak the language of the audience and follow (or at least don't offend) the social customs of the audience.
That's actually a well styled fallacy of origin, "he didn't wear shoes". I would say that if people are lame enough to dismiss the speech just for that they deserve to be controlled by the big corporations, f*cked from behind by DRM...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
After 100+ comments, discussing ONLY the merits of RMS presentation attire, truly, the messenger has been shot. Does the importance of presentation make more sense now?
When's the last time anyone bought a life insurance policy from a guy dressed up like a graveyard digger? We can all battle against conformance, yes. But overcoming the inherit biological prejudices of the mind in matters of perception is losing the war entirely. I don't' think it is respect, nor even appreciation. Maybe just common sense. Which seems to be lost on most brilliant minds, like RMS.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
The target audience being intelligent people.
RMS is right in wearing or not wearing whatever he wants. His message is the same one whether he wears a suit or is barefoot.
If you sincerely think that eccentricity is bad for free software publicity, then you should try to become an activist yourself and project whatever image you want. If you think free software advocates should wear a suit, then wear one yourself and go speaking at people about freedom.
RMS is a teacher: He is trying to teach you that you must value your freedom. RMS is not a superstar or celebrity. There is no reason why he should care about clothing. He just came and visited you in simple practical clothing to help you understand some issues about freedom. If people think it's better to look at his clothing instead of listening to what he has to say, then I am afraid society is still in the dark ages.
I personally see no reason why he should wear a suit, a tie, or shoes. T-Shirt and no shoes look perfectly reasonable to me.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Even in criminal organizations, like for instance Enron and the Mafia, where the suit plays a primary role in pecking order, my kids would not have the opportunity that other have. There is no suit in the world that you could put on one of my kids that would allow him or her to steal as much money or terrorize a state like the Enron people did.
The opportunity costs we impose on ourselves are primarily due to the fact that we trust a person in a suit no matter how much evidence says that we should not trust that particular person. The corollary is that we do not trust people who do not look the way we wish them to, no matter the evidence that says we should.
I wouldn't say it is quality if clothing that shows respect as much as kind of clothing. If a speaker had on a $200 t-shirt of the highest quality I would still feel he wasn't concerned with respect. I had a professor that wore a suit to every class he taught, and explained he did so for the same reason he wears a suit when meeting with the University President: to show respect to those who he is addressing. I don't think it matters if it is a K-Mart, Armani, or custom tailored, as much as it matters that you showed effort to dress up. I wonder if people would think his choice in attire would be appropriate for a wedding or a funeral.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
That professor's "respect" could just as easily be written as that professor's "fawning" or "showing off". he does it for HIS benefit, not theirs. If it makes him listen to the dean or teach the students better to wear a suit, then good for him, but to pretend he does it for them is to pretend he knows what they want or respect. That may be the case for the dean, but students are too varied to make a blanket case. You could just as easily say what his wearing of a suit is intended to show disprespect for those students who would rather he dressed casually, or those students who would rather he spent the time it takes to dress in a suit on preparing for class or grading homework. His suit is for himself, not for the students.
Infuriate left and right
It's just a simple mark of respect for the audience, showing that the event is something special that is worth preparing for.. This is why people don't go to weddings, funerals, graduations, etc, in dressing gowns (I know I find dressing gowns more comfortable, but I know the father in law would be a little annoyed)
You could say "omg you sheeple if I want to wear rainbow suspenders to your mom's funeral I will, you moron, because I don't follow arbitrary conventions like "wear black". I'm too cool and ironic to show respect and unity."
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
I thought you wore the suit to show that *you* respected the audience...
Not true. It is, in the end, not a fundamental right,
Ok. Bad news, Good news. First, the bad news. There are no fundamental rights. There is no right to life, happiness, medicine, food, sleep, shelter, or anything. There is not even a right to a planet to live on.
Now for the good news. We get to define our rights as a society. We get to decide that life should be cherished or not. We decide that health care is a right or not. We get to decide how long a copyright lasts or not. We also get to abdicate those choices to those who are willing to put forth the effort to trump our desired rights with their desired rights.
A classic case is medicine. Certain countries have legislatively decided that a certain minimal amount of care is a fundamental right for their citizens. Other countries have decided it is only a right for those whom they feel can not afford it and yet other countries don't seem to think that health care is at all a right.
If we, the people, were as a majority serious enough about copyright and patent problems, they would go away as we would choose that path. As it is a few of us are aware of the serious problems with our current system and the extreme abusiveness many of the users of it. The average person has not been impacted yet or in other ways made aware enough as of yet to think about this before Monday Night Football. That is the way many of the rich and powerful want it. A docile flock of sheep to work and buy. This can be very profitable and easy for those already there. Almost like serfs who think they are free.
I believe that copyright and patents have their place, but the current system is so abusive that the risk of writing potentially conflicting code makes the entry into the market prohibitively expensive (if you are truly managing risk), or highly speculative if you are not. Who knows what legal minefield you might trip over reinventing some obvious software method.
The real answer to most of our problems is for the general electorate to stand up and demand proper actions. It probably will not happen, as the current leadership has enough understanding of how to keep people just pacified enough to maintain the status quo. But, given how much new technology is coming out designed solely to control the masses (not necessarily the belligerent and dangerous ones only), I expect that the current equilibrium will become much more strained as a more unbalanced socio-economic situation develops in the next 20 to 30 years.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
Respect, in the grand scheme of things, is a red herring. You wear clothes in order to get cultural associations. You wouldn't want a doctor performing surgery wearing a suit, no matter how much "respect" it is supposed to show.
Similarly, showing up to a group of engineers wearing a western suit just shows that you're not an engineer. You're an executive and probably have little or no engineering training. You could also show up to a business meeting as an executive wearing the finest suit from the confuscious dynasty, and you'd never land the deal. If you wore a suit to a party thrown by a group of construction workers it might even be considred an offence. It's all about making cultural associations.
Stallman is in ridiculously high demand as a speaker. By showing up he shows that you're more important than the other dozen of speaking engagements available that day. But even if you're not in demand as a speaker, doing your job and doing it well is really all that is required to show respect. It's curteous to try to look nice (and can be enjoyable too), but it is by no means necessary. Frequently, a suit is just used to cover up for incompentence.
The ______ Agenda
It's very funny how people, specially Americans, often show a very shallow comprehension of what "rights" and "liberties" are. Every rigth, whatevere it is about, *implies* restrictions on freedom: it restricts my freedom to do whatever i would do to violate your rights. Right to life means "rigth to be not murdered", eg, a prohibition on me to murder you. This is specially obvious regarding proprerty. Declaring that someone has a "right" to property is EXACTLY the same as saying that that person has the right to restrict the uses of others of whatever she is a proprietor of. So, as a corollary, to defend any right, whatever its nature, we must impose restrictions on other people's freedom. Thinking otherwise is either naive (like thinking that there "natural" rights, or "divine" rights), or wicked: you *say* you believe in peoples right, but you don't take any action tyo make them materially relevant, eg, neglecting the critical freedom-restricting process each right implies.
entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem