Slashdot Mirror
Ask Richard Stallman Anything
Richard Stallman (RMS) founded the GNU Project in 1984, the Free Software Foundation in 1985, and remains one of the most important and outspoken advocates for software freedom. RMS now spends much of his time fighting excessive extension of copyright laws, digital rights management, and software patents. He's agreed to answer your questions about GNU/Linux, free software, and anything else you like, but please limit yourself to one question per post.
What does RMS and other Slashdot readers think about Microsoft's recent offerings to come closer to open source model? Microsoft has Codeplex for open source code and they have made vivid and vast improvements to the Linux kernel and software stack. Is it good that open source is now working closer with Microsoft than ever before?
Seriously, did you eat your toe cheese on stage?
Your monkish lifestyle would leave most people who work in software screaming for a Lear Jet and you have stated "I've always lived cheaply ... like a student, basically. And I like that, because it means that money is not telling me what to do." Growing up in the United States, I have been served the koolaid of Capitalism several times and I have been taught that the inherent competition and struggle for money in all aspects of our lives make us the greatest country ever. I've read a lot of your comments on intellectual property reform and I can't help but feel that it just isn't compatible with capitalism. Have you ever had problems rectifying your stance on intellectual property with capitalism? Do you see any problems at all with no copyright or patent laws inside a capitalistic society?
I feel like you have this admirable and altruistic quality where money isn't the ultimate driving force and when you speak to people who base their entire lives around money, there's a fundamental disconnect that is overlooked.
My work here is dung.
What does RMS think about the current situation with open source software where most people think open source just means free? They hardly care about the philosophical aspect of free software but just want something that's free.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl_1OybdteY
Do you remember attending this hacker's convention? What was it like interacting with all of those notable guys back in the early days?
A problem with software and operating systems is what I call the "aggregation problem," which is that what we have now is an aggregate of past solutions to problems that may no longer exist. The stuff piles up, increasing complexity and decreasing the uniformity and effectiveness of the interface. At what point do software projects call for a top-down redesign? How can free software do this where industry cannot?
Interviews with you comprised a big percentage of the documentary Revolution OS.
If it were to be remade today, and the financial aspects ignored, what do you think would be different? If you were producing such a documentary today, what would you focus on?
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Do you not find it a little hypocritical that you support free software, as it allows all the well known benefits like people collaborating, adding features, fixing bugs, using your code in unexpected ways, and producing generally awesome stuff; but, at the same time support deliberately breaking software designs (e.g. that of gcc), and making it hard to integrate them, edit them, and use them as a third party[1]?
Doesn't that make gcc just as bad as closed source software, as you're going out of your way to make it difficult to do all the great things that free and open software allows?
[1] http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gcc.devel/59296
What can we do to incentivize hardware manufacturers to be less "evil"? I have an iPhone, and Apple has screwed me over; this is my story: http://www.anderson-net.com/~nathan/apple-broke-my-phone (also see http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/23/apples-stick-in-the-mud-routine-is-getting-old). I know, I know...you can say "I told you so" if you want to.
As a customer of theirs, I'm sure I'm well in the minority in terms of how I use my devices, and as long as most of their customers have no problem with how they do business and they continue to rake in money hand-over-fist, Apple losing me as a customer is a mere drop in the bucket for them. If the loss of my money and goodwill as a prior customer is not enough, and other people continue to desire and to buy their products, how can we communicate to companies like Apple that the "open" way is a better way, and do so in a language they can understand and respond to?
-- Nathan
That is the sorry reality of the bazaar Raymond praised in his book: a pile of old festering hacks, endlessly copied and pasted by a clueless generation of IT "professionals" who wouldn't recognize sound IT architecture if you hit them over the head with it. It is hard to believe today, but under this embarrassing mess lies the ruins of the beautiful cathedral of Unix, deservedly famous for its simplicity of design, its economy of features, and its elegance of execution. (Sic transit gloria mundi, etc.)
Does Kamp have a point? How do you refute his example and his drawn conclusion from it? Have you issued a rebuttal yet?
My work here is dung.
What's your opinion regarding the level of freedom provided by various Android devices? In particular, Google's Nexus line, CyanogenMod, and other devices that have been rooted and/or unlocked to varying degrees.
What free software project is using a license that doesn't actually match with it's mission - or hinders free software in other ways? In other words, if you could *magically* switch the license of one project - which would you choose and why?
Examples: Move Mesa to GPLv3, Move Linux from GPLv2 to v3, Make andriod GPLv3, GCC - from GPLv3 to Apache.
How do you see GCC progressing in the future? Several things you argued against (converting to C++, allowing non-GPLed code access to the internals of gcc) are occurring, and gcc is getting major competition from the BSD-licensed clang and LLVM.
When passing this question on to Mr. Stallman, try replacing "open source" with "free software". He prefers the term "free software", despite that the Debian Free Software Guidelines are nearly identical to the OSI Open Source Definition.
So since 2009, when FSF's essay on Microsoft got a major update, is it good that free software communities have begun to work closer with Microsoft than ever before?
Shouldn't we push more for Open Specifications vs Open Source Code.
If a hardware manufacturer just releases the specification we could create a program to interface with it. If say Microsoft was fully open about its Office Document Specification we could program a 100% compatible system for it.
Having access to Source Code has limited appeal to me. Everyone codes differently and as software gets older it will undoubtedly get to a point where it needs a fresh rewrite. If you release the specs then it allows the freedom of a new system to be made without all the legacy code that most people are afraid to touch.
The argument if the program is Open Source then it is Open Spec, isn't a good one. For example I had to maintain some FORTRAN Code. Then I needed to parse a data file the program made. I had the source... However the Data File wouldn't read when I recompiled the code on a different system. As the Datafile dumped the endianness of the memory into the file. In order for me to parse the file I had to get access to the specification of the original hardware to show me the difference in endianness of the old system with the new one.
Writing code is easy. Remaking code is easy too. Knowing the specification of the program now that is hard. So if there was a bigger push to Open Specification vs Open Source Code, I feel we would have far more software freedom in the world.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This is my first of two questions about free software business models.
Several kinds of software have historically depended on the business model of restricting distribution. One is video games. Video games consist of far more than a computer program; they also consist of so-called "assets", such as textures, meshes, maps, audio, and other kinds of non-program works for which you don't want people using the term "content". In a world where all software is distributed under a free software license, how would the development of new video games be financed? The model of selling support, which Red Hat has successfully applied to business software, might work for massively multiplayer online games but wouldn't work so well for anything else because a single-player game doesn't need much support after the sale once it's running.
If you are looking to donate to the FSF, you can do so through dreamhost until december and they will donate 4x the donation.
Previous post about it: http://bryanquigley.com/converting/dreamhost-customer-free-software-foundation-supporter
You're a fan of science fiction and speak Spanish and French. Do you know of any good Spanish and French sci-fi that English speakers should look into? The field seems to be dominated by English writers and I've been making an effort to reach out to foreign authors and looking for translations. And if you don't know of any, who are your current favorite sci-fi authors? Any unknown sleepers that you've found that people should read?
I just read "Roadside Picnic" and it was so good, I was surprised I had not heard of it until recently.
My work here is dung.
It has been very nearly 30 years since the founding of the GNU Foundation. In all that time, what is your biggest regret?
Do you like Japanese imports?
A lot of these questions are answered on the philosophy section of his page.
Basically, RMS derives everything from the four freedoms: the freedom (0) to run the program, (1) to study and change the program in source code form, (2) to redistribute exact copies, and (3) to distribute modified versions. If you accept those freedoms, it makes sense to avoid the BSD licenses, because they allow middle-men to deprive end-users of some of these rights. Of course, not everyone thinks those freedoms are important.
Secondly, monetizing is actually easier under the GPL. If that is your goal, you can follow the example of this guy, or QT, or MySQL, and dual-license your code. Those who are willing to preserve the freedoms can have it for free. Those who aren't, can pay. I can't think of any BSD products that have been able to make money like this (maybe there are some).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
And just because I couldn't help but feed the troll...
Nothing about the GPL keps you from monetizing *your* code, it only keeps you from monetizing *my* code in a manner that doesn't benefit me as well. If you want to monetize my code, pay up. The price is that you release your own modifications on the same (or more generous) terms. If you don't like those terms you're welcome to contact me directly to negotiate others.
As for games - it's called content. Just because you have to release the source (aka "the engine") doesn't mean you have to release the art/music/maps/etc (aka "the game")
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Although GNU and the FSF's views are often thought to be exactly the same as yours, they are not. GNU and the FSF are many other people and although they overall have the same aims, individuals associated to each organisation may deviate slightly from your views.
The FSF right now is pretty indepenent from you. John Sullivan is actively leading it, but there are other very public members of the FSF. It has become independent from you, even if you're still the president of the FSF. Unlike its beginnings, the FSF is also no longer primarily concerned with creating free software, but rather it is now involved in campaigning for free software. Social activists mostly aligned with your views have replaced the hacker majority in the FSF.
GNU has no such clear independence. You have the final say on aything that happens in GNU, such as for example usinng bzr as a DVCS for Emacs, a choice of dubious tactical advantage that has generated much discontent. You have nevertheless vetoed any dissent on this topic. Your health is apparently deteriorating, and I hesitate to think what will become of GNU when you die.
Is there any clear path for the future governance of GNU you in the same way that the FSF has done this?
During a Q&A Session a while back you were asked about people and movements near and dear to your heart and you said "I admire Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, even though I criticize some of the things that they did." I love World War II history and I also find myself in a love-hate situation with Churchill. Could you go into further detail about what specifics lead you to single out these two over leaders like Lincoln, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin or even historical figures who have enabled information itself like Turing, Shannon, etc?
My work here is dung.
GNU is supposed to be a free operating system as well as a group of people working towards building this OS. To a casual observer, however, GNU does not appear very active. Some of the most prominent and supposedly GNU packages, such as Gimp, Gnome, GTK+, and R are mostly GNU in name only. The hackers working on these projects have very little interaction with other hackers working on GNU projects and they very frequently espouse views contrary to GNU's philosophical aims. Thus to an outside observer, GNU does not appear to be a cohesive group of people working towards a common goal. Many GNU mailing lists being private further the public perception that GNU is not even actively producing software anymore.
What can be done to remedy this situation? How can we strengthen GNU, make it reach out again to the people it's supposed to be freeing?
I agree with you that the source code is not a complete specification of a program's behavior by itself, but the source code combined with the target platform's ABI is closer to complete. To get around this endianness problem when running the program, you could emulate the original target platform. To get around it when porting the program to a new machine, you could run the program's unit test suite in parallel on the emulated and native systems and then add explicit handling of these implicit assumptions, such as htonl() for endianness, wherever the test results do not match. This way, the source code itself becomes a more complete specification.
(insert my standard question for all tech type people)
Give me your best hack. Specifically something YOU did personally not hire / grad student.
Hardware, software only (yes yes the GPL is cool but I'm looking for code or schematic or at least a description of something made out of source or solder)
I can't put words in your mouth but the ideal answer would be something like "I'm particularly proud of the O(n) memory garbage collection routine in emacs implemented around '89 and how it worked was very roughly ..." or "I really like my homemade fully automatic automotive relay based routing system for my OH scale model railroad sorting yard" or "I built my own legal limit ham radio amplifier" almost certainly a different topic of course, but something of this form of answer.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
allots (2783683) and quartersa (2783685) are both astroturfing accounts, posting the minute the story goes live. Usually there's only one of them by story, but they have no shame :)
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
IIRC at least once, some lin... er... GNU/Linux distro packagers modified some referral codes kept in the source of a program, overriding the upstream authors' choice, which would deprive them from the donations of the modified package.
This seems technically compatible with the freedom allowed by GPL, what do you think of such a practice, anyway?
Ciao!
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Albeit slowly, the hurd kernel seems to come to something at a steady pace. Can we begin to expect a release of the GNU operating system as you envisioned it at the begining?
What ever happened with the stolen bag and laptop? Did you get something back? Did you LOSE data (that is, was something not backed up)? Are you mad with the organizers / country that hosted the event?
I don't have a sig.
...you're asking this to the main author of GNU Emacs, that has been in development for more than 35 years and is right now in version 24, right?
Favorite type of parrot?
Mr. Stallman the free software movement have as its name implies focused on free software. But there's a lot of other areas where the same principles can apply. For example literature, music and movies are in a similar field. But interesting areas could also include things like electronics and hardware design, or even medicine. What's your opinions on a free software-like movement surrounding areas like those?
It's well known that not everybody shares the same enthusiasm for open software, and sometimes this enthusiasm borders on a religious fervor that alienates people by being confrontational and borders on "my free software philosophy is right and yours is wrong".
This can cause people to start tuning out the entire viewpoint and stop listening -- it certainly has for me.
So, why should we care? And why must software be open to your standards?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
There are two kinds of people, those who use proprietary software but are ignorant of the freedoms they give up as a result and those who willfully forego those freedoms in exchange for the convenience. I count myself in the latter camp. In some ways I feel badly about it but in other ways it seems impractical. I don't want to spend large chunks of time battling configuration problems and bugs or miss out on all the wildly cool proprietary software that's available. I simply don't have your kind of monkish-like fortitude to use only free software.
What do you say to someone like me?
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
There is a provision in the US Copyright Act allowing one to use a small subset of code under fair use. Slashdotters might look at it from the point of view of sampling non-free, closed source into their own code and claim that their sample is so small it must qualify as fair use.
You wrote the GPL so that proprietary companies couldn't lock free code. My question is related to the reverse approach, where a proprietary company "samples" some free code and claims fair use. While you certainly consider this unethical, what protection could you think of to prevent such events? Would you want to prevent such events?
JigJag
"The hallmark of humanity is the ability to move beyond sensory inputs" - Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
What parts of distributions you believe should be called GNU/Linux should be replaced so they are no longer GNU and can be plain Linux, just as you have never insisted *BSD be called GNU/*BSD? The Linux kernel itself is _not_ GNU, and *BSD also uses gcc. Most users make little use of bash or fileutils and many used KDE.
How can we reverse the trend of more and more devices only running code signed by the manufacturer?
That every new PC, which almost invariably comes with Windows 8, will run only Microsoft operating systems by default is very scary. Sure, you can disable that in current versions, but what about the next version?
I personally am dreaming of either quantum computing or a major breakthrough in the hidden subgroup problem to destroy RSA, DSA, and ECDSA, but won't hold my breath...
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
In the marketplace, it seems that consumers generally prefer the convenience of proprietary devices like the iPhone and the Kindle over free alternatives like a GNU/Linux laptop. Freedom does not seem to be winning in the marketplace. Why do you think that is?
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Who, other than yourself and the FSF, do you consider to be effective advocates for software freedom? Please name individuals if you can.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Do you still write code? Anything interesting lately?
Are you married to the beard? It makes you easy to pigeon hole as a cross between Karl Marx and John Brown (read: an intolerant revolutionary).
No: appearance shouldn't affect the message. Yes: it, in fact, does.
kirk or picard?
RMS, I am a PhD student in computing and I have run up against an interesting problem. I consider FOSS to be at the core of my personal philosophy. To me it is not just a pragmatic issue, but an ethical one. Therefore, in my research, I use all FOSS software. Now, the problem arises when trying to justify my use of FOSS to colleagues and supervisors. I have tried to make the case that it is an ethical issue, and have argued the merits of freedom and academia, however, I invariably am told "that's not an academic argument". This is incredibly frustrating and annoying to me as, in academic research, we are constantly being restricted by "research ethics" (e.g. the ethical treatment of subjects, plagiarism, etc.) and I am more than willing to bet that if a researcher objected to a methodology based on "religious principles" they would be excused. But my "open source ethics" dilemma doesn't seem to apply. Any advice? Thanks! tsquar3d
Can you explain why you don't own a cell phone? Can you describe a hypothetical cell phone that you would be willing to own? Do you think such a phone will ever be created?
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Dear mr. Stallman,
Do you think it would be of benefit to lobby for a law to mandate factories putting warning stickers "Warning! this is not a general purpose computing device!" on all computers that are sold to end users that have been tampered with so as to remove the 4 freedoms?
I think the law changes much more slowly than technology, therefore it's probably best to have a protective law in place before manufacturers try to "slowly boil the frog" and force first this new UEFI and later maybe even more onerous locked-down computer devices on us, all the while pretending they are similar or equal in value to the consumer as the regular "general purpose computers" we are used to buying today.
Here in the EU you can only sell chocolate labelled "chocolate" if it fulfils certain quality criteria, e.g. cocoa content, otherwise it should be labelled "cocoa fantasy" (Dutch example: Koetjesreep).
It would be very nice for all of us, not just the nerds, to be able to go to a computer shop and see quickly whether the device we want to buy is a "computer" (i.e. what we call general purpose computers today) or it has a label "fantasy computer", where the fantasy is that you own and control the device you paid for.
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Do you welcome the personal attacks by folks who disagree with your beliefs? I enjoy seeing them, and imagine a smoke filled room of crooks deciding they can't disagree logically with your position, so they'll make fun of your beard instead. In other words, they have decided you won and its all down to PR damage control and delaying tactics at best. I like this. Well it would be nice if they were more civilized, but I'm content with the winning part anyway.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Being a promoter of freedom to share and modify, your opinion that works of opinion and art should *not* be allowed to be modified is particularly interesting, some would say even hypocrite. However, I have little information on your reasons for that position, besides of your opinion that such modifications do not contribute to the benefit of society, as opposed to the modification of educational or utility works, such as software or textbooks. However, the culture of remix and the right to respond point otherwise. Which measures would be required, in your opinion, to ensure that your works of opinion and art were modifiable?
Recently, the drivers for the Raspberry Pi's graphical drivers were released as free software. However, only the part that interfaces with the chip was released, and several blobs (contained within the chip's firmware) are still to be released. Other competitors, like the Cubieboard, claim to have freer drivers, but I am unsure on how much is truly free and how much is proprietary. What is your position on these devices? Do you consider them free enough to use, or will you wait until more of the code is released as free software?
What's your perspective on the role of freedom in the Makerbot revolution? What is needed to ensure the appropriate freedoms are safeguarded in the context of that movement? What differences do you see between freedom in that context and in the software context?
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
Recently I was telling part of the story of my first Arisia, where I ran into you debating a bookseller (I believe it was the guy who runs Pandemonium but, I am not sure on that) http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3240153&cid=41927547
Since then I remembered what the conversation was about, and he was trying to really nail you down on how authors and other content producers would get paid in a post-copyright world. As i remember, by the time I came to the show, you guys were seriously in the weeds with details of how a micropayment system could work to allow people to "tip" the producers of content that they like, in real time as they use it.
That was probably close to a decade ago.... I am curious as to where those debates are going for you now that time and technology have evolved? Is that still a hypothetical rat hole that you go down, or has something else, either implemented or imagined, caught your eye?
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
What mistakes did you make in the fight for free software? Did anything you support backfire and cause more harm than good?
Hello,
People state, quite correctly, that you have worked a lot for freedom. But another thing you're famous for is the beard.
So basically, I look somewhat like a Roman emperor at the moment, and I'm wondering if you can give any tips on how to start looking a bit more respectable. Any general tips for the growth phase? How much work is it when done?
How many centimetres are required for the sudden and unexpected increase in programming ability?
The nmap security scanner's licence is the GPL version 2, along with an opening comment where they give their interpretation. It seems that this interpretation is draconic, and among other things requires programs that parse the output of nmap to be licensed under the GPL or a compatible licence as well. This seems to stand against the Free Software Definition, which among other things specifies that one has "The freedom to run the program, for any purpose".
If we (or the courts) is going to accept nmap's interpretation of the GPL, then we can expect all hell to break lose, because that will mean that the output of such programs such as GCC (the GNU Compiler Collection), GNU awk, GNU sed, and many other GPLed programs of the GNU project or otherwise, must be under a GPL-compatible licence, while in fact, the GNU project approved of using them to build free software and proprietary software that was not.
Do you approve of the nmap interpretation, or do you think nmap are misusing the GPL as a way to apply the free software figleaf to their work, without complying with the spirit of free software?
We have two eyes and ten fingers so we will type five times as much as we read. http://www.shlomifish.org/
Should copyright be abolished?
Some have argued that the GPL needs copyright. They claim that getting rid of copyright would ruin copyleft.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Mr. Stallman, thank you for all the hard work you have done to promote computing freedom. I know that many people consider your views to be excessively dogmatic, but more often than not, your ideas and predictions turn out to be correct. Thank you for steadfastly holding to your principles while most people opt for convenience, as you have made the world a better place.
It appears to me that Apple, of all companies, has ironically played the biggest role in ending the use of DRM in the music download industry. As I see it, the music companies were so afraid of Apple's rise in market share that they decided to sell everything DRM-free rather than let Apple control the distribution channel with its FairPlay scheme. As a result, it is now the norm that music tracks purchased online are unencrypted and carry at most a watermark.
I acknowledge that Apple is horribly hostile to computing freedom in so many ways. It's therefore ironic that their dominance with the iTunes Music Store has led to the end of DRM in the music download industry, purely through capitalistic means and without preaching or legislation. My question, then, is this: Could it be possible to promote computing freedom by gaming the market (playing companies off each other) rather than preaching on a soapbox?
Pirate Parties have recently started to become a considerable political force in northern Europe. Do you support them? Could you suggest a better name for them? What advice would you have for their political strategy?
Good or bad?
Specifically with regard to automated and robotic replacements for human labor (now down to about $15,000 per year for a robot that can work for 3 shifts), do you think it's reasonable to presume a crisis of the capitalist model due to nearly complete automation?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Serious question here. You've been warning people about the need to protect and preserve essential freedoms from being lost for literally decades now to very little avail. Your stories intended to be glimpses into a bad future where we no longer have the four freedoms are becoming more and more prophetic seeming by the day. And yet, there is very little change to prevent the dystopia you warned of from coming to pass.
How do you handle the frustration, anger, disappointment and personal attacks?
Also, thank you for seeing the need and establishing the GPL and GNU to fight for our future freedoms!
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!