Slashdot Mirror
Stallman Attacks Gates, Microsoft, & Charity Foundation
An anonymous reader writes "Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, has an article in the BBC in which he maintains that Gates' departure from Microsoft doesn't mean the end of proprietary software and that the free software community needs to stand strong to undo the damages Bill Gates, Microsoft, and other proprietary software vendors (explicitly naming Apple & Adobe amongst them) have done. And he slips in a claim that the Bill and Melinda Gates charity foundation doesn't really help the poor; it just pretends to while actually subjecting them to greater harm."
Is Stallman so desperate to make Mr. Gates out to be the bad guy that heâ(TM)d sink this low?
I don't see any "low sinking" about it. First of all, the money Gates is so charitably donating, is money he acquired from an illegal monopoly, so it is reasonable to follow where it is going.
Second, there is a good argument to be made that foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are harmful and are mainly entertainment vehicles and tax shelters for the rich.
Third, why shouldn't Stallman comment on this stuff? He started the Free Software Foundation out of social consciousness and civic concern; of course, he would comment on other social issues and may well take action, even if they have nothing to do with software.
And why should Stallman be "desparate"? Free software is doing better than ever before, while Microsoft just keeps failing in everything they do.
The rest of the NeoSmart files contains more bullshit. For example:
Stallman somehow neglects to mention that â" regardless of whether morally acceptable or not â" Microsoft had the legal right to demand payment in exchange for their software.
There is no "neglect" about it. It is not at all clear that Gates had that legal right at the time; in a sense, Gates helped establish that right, to the deteriment of us all, according to Stallman's reading.
I don't agree with what Stallman says, but he is at least consistent and logical. NeoSmart is a bunch of bullshit and FUD.
Is Microsoft getting so desperate that they have to step up their bullshit and FUD machine another notch? I guess it's a good sign.
As someone who doesn't really follow the free software movement, I think he should have focused on promoting the advantages of open-source, rather than bashing those that are free to license their software whichever way they choose.
Gates didn't invent proprietary software, and thousands of other companies do the same thing. It's wrong, no matter who does it.
Utter nonsense - and it reflects badly on the FSF. How exactly are you going to persuade these companies to become more open-source friendly, if all you do is bash them?
Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and the rest, offer you software that gives them power over you. A change in executives or companies is not important. What we need to change is this system. That's what the free software movement is all about. "Free" refers to freedom: we write and publish software that users are free to share and modify.
In other words, "Do as I tell you, or you are a dumb slave"
Don't get me wrong, I love free software, but more than that I enjoy software that just works. If its free, I'll use that first, but Stallman has always seemed to say that, "Freedom is what I say freedom is, and if you don't do what I tell you to do, then you are not free" Give me a break.....
Monstar L
So you propose some sort of tax on free software to pay to the poor? Or, Microsoft keeps charging for Windows but makes it GPL and gives whatever money they get to the poor?
How does your proposal work - specifically, how does the money get to the poor, and from whom?
I'm not a MS fan at all, but given we can all use free software if we choose to and donate money to the poor, unless your plan calls for mandating Microsoft give money to charity, that company has nothing to do with the aims you espouse.
PS - The Gates foundation may only give 'a fraction' of what it 'robs' (how does one rob by soliciting donations, again?) from the rich to the poor, but it is still donating more than you or I ever will, and therefore, has done more good than you or I will likely do in this context.
From the article: "To pay so much attention to Bill Gates' retirement is missing the point. What really matters is not Gates, nor Microsoft, but the unethical system of restrictions that Microsoft, like many other software companies, imposes on its customers."
So you're saying, that it isn't?
Citations. Desperately. Needed.
The point of a charity investing a hunk of its money is so that it can exist beyond its initial contributions. If the charity just blows all of its money, its life will last as long as people contribute to it and die the day that stops. On the other hand, if you dump a shit-ton of money into it, have that money start making a healthy interest rate, and just spend the interest, the charity continues on basically forever with its supply of cash always building, or at least remaining the same.
"Oh be creative! Free software is, as far as the whole of society is concerned, much cheaper than proprietary software, because society only has to pay to solve (the software portion of) a particular problem once. Therefore, if problems are solved using free software instead of proprietary software, society will have a lot of money left over to spend on fixing disease, starvation, etc."
The cost of actual software is very little compared the cost of support, which is still a significant cost when using "free" software.
"When you consider how much money Microsoft drains from various countries' economies, it's easy to see how the money could be put to better use."
If you want someone to blame for starvation and death in various countries around the world, don't blame Microsoft..blame the countries government..they are most likely the problem.
Actually, Foo is simultaneously right and wrong regarding the nature of Free Software.
The reason is that it's not "communist-ic" but it is strongly "libertarian" in philosophy.
That is because licenses such as the GPL only bind developers who voluntarily use Free Software as a starting point for their own efforts, and does not inhibit others who choose not to participate. It does, however, require that those who do participate in the development of the code and direct derivitave works follow the rules and provide their work back to the community. It is actually the license fee to do so.
We tend to view fees as monetary flows from "Party A" to "Party B", but Free Software is more akin to a "barter economy" instead.
Any scheme that is "communist" or "socialist" requires mandatory participation. A "communist-ic" scheme would require that even from-scratch code would immediately become a publicly-owned work.
It is noteworthy that Free Software does allow anyone to republish and distribute copies at any desired price, so long as the source code is made available for no charge or basically "at cost".
It's important to further clarify that sometimes terms become muddy in popular use.
"Communist" and "Socialist" really mean "slave to the commune, with no option whatsoever."
The term "free market" is a market without external pressures of whatever kind used to create artificial barriers to entry or change.
"Libertarian" indicates the individual choice of who each individual chooses to participate with. It is based on voluntary cooperation and participation, not coersion and force, but does recognize defense.
In practice, all these get jumbled together, shaken, stirred, bent, folded, spindled and mutilated until none of them are recognizable.