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Stallman Crashes Talk, Fights 'War On Sharing'
schliz writes "Free software activist Richard Stallman has called for the end of the 'war on sharing' at the World Computer Congress in Brisbane, Australia. He criticized surveillance, censorship, restrictive data formats, and software-as-a-service in a keynote presentation, and asserted that digital society had to be 'free' in order to be a benefit, and not an attack. Earlier in the conference, Stallman had briefly interrupted a European Patent Office presentation with a placard that said: 'Don't get caught in software patent thickets.' He told journalists that the Patent Office was 'here to campaign in favor of software patents in Australia,' arguing that 'there's no problem that requires a solution with anything like software patents.'"
I don't even know where to begin explaining how stupid that sentence is.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
He doesn't have balls. The only reason that no one throws him out is they don't want to have his stench and fleas to get stuck on them.
Really? Not accepting anything other than complete access to source code (which I disagree with), complete freedom to redistribute (which I disagree with) and complete freedom to modify (which you could say I disagree with because it requires both prior freedoms) isn't an extreme view? What would be the extreme view here then?
You mean other than hijacking the language? like trying to take the word "free" and change it to /sung to the tune of Bobby McGee/ "Freedom's just another word, for us telling you what to do..." ala GPL? Since many here at /. seem to be logical creatures, lets see if we can start our OWN revolution here and once and for all drive a stake through RMS's language hijack...BSD is a "free license", and GPL is a "share and share alike" license or "sharing license" for short, okay? Free means free to do as I please NOT free to do as I'm told, that's not free.
Although why anybody still listens to the guy is beyond me. He started out pretty sensible, with his paper on the right to read and the notion of making sure code was shared so for instance hardware wouldn't be obsolete just because the vendor wanted to sell you something new, but then the guy seemed to take a hard right turn into seriously overboard with his demands for "GNU-Linux" and rewriting the GPL just to attack a company that pissed him off. And of course by doing so stuck a nice fracture into the GPL, as Linus won't make the kernel GPL V3, some programs are likewise sticking with GPL V2, thus giving ammo to those that talk of "GPL infection" because frankly it is a PITA to find out exactly what is GPL V2 and what is GPL V3 anymore.
Then, at least for me, the final proof that the man had gone batshit was this video. I mean WTF? He is on stage waiting for the Q&A after a lecture no less, and then just decides to have himself some toe cheese? If anybody else in the free world had done this on camera they would have never been taken serious about anything again, and rightly so. But RMS gets a free pass because...what? He's just wacky that way? I'm sorry folks, but while the man started out with great ideas like PETA and "sea kittens" he passed sensible on the road to extreme about 20 miles back.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Making a profit by selling a product is one thing. Using patents to cut everyone else out of the market, giving yourself a monopoly and thus pricing as high as you like is another.
I wouldn't care if they were doing this just with toothbrushes, but when they are doing it with things like medicines it becomes serious.
So basically, you position is:
They can sell things for a profit, as long as I can legally copy everything they do. Let them pay for all the billions in R&D, I'll come along and copy the results, and do it for less.
Oh, and I don't care for certain things, but for other certain things I do. Basically, I haven no principles - I only care about what personally affects or offends me.