Richard Stallman's Dissenting View of Steve Jobs

Garabito writes "Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, has posted his not-so-fond memories of Steve Jobs on his personal site, saying, 'As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone." Nobody deserves to have to die — not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing.' His statement has spurred reaction from the community; some even asking to the Free Software movement to find a new voice."

Comments

Stallman and FOSS

[tech4]

It's interesting that persons promoting freedom want to restrict what other people do. This is also why I like BSD license more than GPL. It is truly free software license, while GPL tries to restrict what people can do with software and code. On top of that they don't seem to understand that usability and UI's matter A LOT. Face it, interfaces and user experience has always been horrible with FOSS software. Ubuntu has tried to fix that with Linux, but it's still far from Mac OSX or even Windows. Even I hate that interface. This is why companies have actual persons working solely on interfaces, user experience and usability - it's an important thing. With FOSS software the author just throwns in together quickly, with some menu items or buttons sometimes just as a placeholder that do nothing!

I'm not exactly fan of Apple, but Richard Stallman has no merits to basically say he's glad Steve Jobs is dead. Apart from the fact that it is completely stupid thing to say, he just seems jealous that people like Jobs' products and ideas better. The fact is, apart from the a few geeks, people in the real world really don't care about his views or what he is trying to promote.

When people, even some geeks, think about Apple's products they just think they can go to a store and buy a device that will work straight away and is guaranteed to have some quality. They don't want to mess around with the system. Running only free software really does not concern them and never will. It would be good if Stallman and other FOSS fanatics understood that and stop acting like jerks, because that will only have negative effect on their image.

Seriously, what was he thinking? Now people will think of Linux geeks as those lunatics who are happy to see people die.

Re:Stallman and FOSS

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah if you don't have the intelligence to actually comprehend what he is saying maybe you should just keep quiet?

Re:Stallman and FOSS

[tech4]

Yes, because protecting the devices from malware and bad apps by only allowing purchases via app store is equivalent to slavery.

Re:Stallman and FOSS

[clifyt]

Some of us tried the freedom and realized it got us no where.

I was a unix enthusiast for 20 years. I set up a BSD box on a 486 and then later a linux one. I still run a business off of 4 linux boxes I had colocated somewhere, now they are emulated in the cloud...probably everywhere. At the time, it gave me all the tools I wanted...20 years later...those same tools are pretty much exactly where they were when I started.

I was a FOSS enthusiast for years. I got sick of dealing with the personalities when I'd make a package simpler to use, I'd get shit on for doing so...my background is in psychology, and its not hard to pare these things down to something that the average person can use -- while still giving the same power to the nerds. I got kicked out of one project for making a wrapper app that allowed non-nerds to use it. I regularly released software as public domain -- because I felt the freedom of the person with the software should be more important that telling them what they needed to do with it after it was out of my hands. I got crapped on by several people in the community when I did this...one of my projects ended up forking with people acting like I was an asshole -- and I fully agreed with them forking it. It wasn't my project any more, so they could do what they wanted...however, I was still treated like crap by these people that could only see past their own zealotry.

All in all, the Stallman view of freedom is slavery IMHO. I can't stand his perspective. It is too absolute and demanding.

As for Apple, I don't really like the walled garden idea...but when I see whats on the other side of the walled garden, I don't complain too much. I have jailbroken my apps, only to find that the jailbroken apps that were supposed to be currated by others are completely shitty, they 'leak' info to servers oversea, they waste battery, and screw with the stability of the system...there are two jailbroken apps I use and have paid for...one I know does shitty things, but I use it because it is useful for me. The other? Makes life simpler and gets around some of the things the phone company thinks I should pay for. Maybe I should...

Either way, the Apple way seems to be far better than the alternatives -- even if I disagree with a lot of this in principle.

Re:Stallman and FOSS

[Hijacked Public]

He would no doubt describe my choosing an Apple product over...well I can't think of any real FOSS smartphones that exist...as sleepwalking. That is a tenent of people like Stallman, they always think they know what I need better than I do.

Re:Thank god

[tech4]

I didn't know Steve Jobs was Buddhist. That seriously improves his image a lot, as Buddhism is the only religion that can be taken seriously and isn't about judging and killing other people in the name of some imaginary person. Buddha himself has lived and told people to think things with their own brains instead of following some stupid book.