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Interview: Ask Richard Stallman What You Will
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. He now spends much of his time fighting excessive extension of copyright laws, digital restrictions management, and software patents. RMS has agreed to answer your questions about GNU/Linux, how GNU relates to Linux the kernel, free software, why he disagrees with the idea of open source, and other issues of public concern. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.
I'm playing spot the shill on this story. Bonus points for who paid them.
Why are these interviews always for some dude trying to sell his latest crappy software? Yet another way Dice has ruined slashdot.
I've been trying to switch for a long time, but gNewSense has never worked for me. Are there any distributions you can recommend?
Why don't you write an erotic novel featuring yourself?
Inbetween Google, Apple, Samsung, NSA, GCHQ, ... can we still make it?
What do your feet nibbles taste like?
And what do you think of people who question your personal disgusting hygiene?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ
in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp?
What are your views on the recent NSA activities and how do you think it will change free software & the internet?
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
What did you eat off of your foot in this video?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Who, who, who!?
What is your opinion on cryptocurrencies?
Okay, just kidding... but my question is this: How do you see the FSF remaining relevant 10 years hence - in other words, what is the FSF doing to keep from being obviated by the evolution of technology at large?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
How close are we to obtaining a truly free phone given that MWC 2014 has shown us a once proprietary Nokia running Android and do you have any further ideas as to how we can finally free the hardware firmware and what would be timescale until we see a truly free smartphone?
What are your thoughts on the gpl'ing of plan9 recently? What affect do you think this could have the gnu/linux ecosystem?
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Can the GPL version 4 become the 'Good Public License'? One which forbids use of the software for weapon systems and invading privacy? A committee by the FSF could for example determine what is 'evil' enough to prohibit its use.
Do you think that's a good idea?
Jasper Internet
How much changed since November 2012?
http://interviews.slashdot.org/story/12/11/28/049240/ask-richard-stallman-anything
I read a little on your website about your take on technology that uses non-free software. Do you still not own a cell phone? If not, I'd love to hear your perspective on life without one these days, where its just assumed that people own one.
As a follow-up, where exactly do you draw the line concerning openness of source and whether or not you use software. For example, do you toast bread in a toaster that runs proprietary code? Obviously we're talking about different things here, but I'm curious to know at what point you say "no thanks!" when it comes to locked down technology.
fuck beta!!!
If you truly want free and open software, not "open source", then why not do away with the GPL? That license is a primary reason that many companies, and many developers, want nothing to do with anything 'open'; the terms of the GPL greatly restrict what you can do with the software. So why continue with GPL?
Do you think it's necessary, or even a good idea? Do you own any?
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
How do you view Facebook's internet.org initiative? In my opinion, it's even worse than DRM, because today I can opt out of DRM content. What if someday internet access that doesn't pass through Facebook become so expensive I can't afford it? How can we fight to keep the internet away from such corporate control?
Dear RMS, I for one am very interested in what your view is concerning the future of GNOME and specifically GTK. In the past there were concerns over licensing between GTK and Qt and there seems to be a rise in uptake of Qt. My question is whether you see there being a future in GTK and should developers consider moving their projects to Qt?
Which site would you recommend for grown-up adults who used to visit Slashdot and who want to talk about computers, GNU/Linux and technology?
In the recent Clang thread, you seemed to say quality of software either isn't important to you, or at least is less important than the software being free software.
As someone who writes software for a living, this seemed like a "jump the shark" moment. (But maybe you jumped this particular shark long ago.)
Does it do your moment a disservice to say things like to, and also to have software that isn't of the up-most quality?
How many times have you been attacked by ninjas?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Please share your vision for where you would like to see GNU/Hurd, and GNU software over the next 25 years, and what people would be doing with it.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Hurd ever being relevant?
Fedora has non-free firmware thus it is not completely free.
In my experience; it is far easier to obtain; install and work with Free Software than with Free Hardware. I asked you about this in person 2 years back; but you brushed it aside saying hardware is not trivial to copy.
Recent events have proved me right; I feel. We simply do not have access to Freedom Hardware at low cost - even the Raspberry Pi has proprietary components in its hardware.
Why can't the FSF pool resources; license technology from ARM Holdings; and build a truly Free Tablet, Free Cellphone and Free PC running Free GNU/Linux instead of the pseudo-free Android? I am sure the community will pay any money to buy truly free Hardware from the FHF.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I've had issues with my built-in wireless and I know this is a big issue in the community. My system shipped with an intel card and it doesn't work with free software. I was told this is due to digital restrictions. So when I tried to replace it there were digital restrictions that prevented me from doing so. My laptop is a Lenovo. Are there any USB wifi adapters you can recommend that might work? The two I've bought in local stores haven't worked. I did look up adapters in h-node that supposedly worked, but did not. I think h-node is not that reliable.
Why do you encourage people to call you with the telephone instead of using Skype? Both rely on proprietary software.
What do you foresee happening to GNU in the next 20, 50, and 100 years?
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
Hi, Richard!
In the debian-cloud list, we had a long discussion about wordings, which I also think is very important. It stroke me that you felt cloud was in essence non-free, and that you wanted everyone to stop using the word "cloud" which you (rightly) thought was too vague. But since there is also private IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), I do think we may have fully free cloud systems.
I never knew if I was able to convince you that a completely free IaaS software was very important to keep our freedom, and would like to know what is your current feeling about it.
Mr. Stallman, do you ever play computer games (video games)?
If so, which ones?
A frequent argument on Slashdot centers on the flexibility granted by the BSD license vs. the restrictions of the GPLv3, especially with regards to CLAs. Both sides have good arguments for their way of doing things and both sides also have excellent counterpoints about ways each license can be misused. Is free software truly free if copyright has to be invoked to enforce it?
I live a modest life, how ever I do need to pay the bills. For the most part I make my living doing stuff against the ideals of the GPL.
Here is why.
1. I am not charismatic enough to gain peoples attention, so I will not make a living off of speeches and publications.
2. The software I write tends to fill a small niche, so it will not gain mass popularity outside that niche. So my products won't make a good resume item. And the owners of the niche mostly will not donate to my efforts, if they can get it for free. As well wouldn't be distributed on most systems.
3. The software I write tends to be user friendly and intuitive to use. So consulting off the product or service isn't a good way either.
4. The ease of Internet Download makes shipping of media seem barbaric.
Now I would love to make all my stuff open source, however I do need to live, and I prefer if possible not to live off of government handouts. I am a software developer by heart and nature, doing it as a hobby would be a waste of my talents.
So how would a 100% GPL developer operate in a small business settings?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
What do you think? Does it look nice? Would you use it? Do you support those of us who gate its guts?
How do you reach people whose salaries depend on them remaining unreachable?
http://neo900.org/
Would you maybe want to own one? Why?
They seem to go different way than FSF does with "Respects Your Privacy" program - instead of modifying the modem to either be free or act "as a circuit", which both may be not feasible given their limited resources, they seem to go with the "sandboxing" way - giving the user a way to control and monitor what does the modem do. They want to achive the same result, but with different way than proposed by FSF. What is your take on that?
And if not hero, then perhaps mildly inspiring personage (real or otherwise)?
for me what you really did in the software field is like what Katniss and Peeta did to end the fight in the hunger games by writing free software. but I feel now you are not active as before. so can you tell me why??
I appreciate what you have done. I understand your ideology and wish you the best.
Thank you.
What is the future of GTK given the issues we currently face with GTK3. Is Qt the future of the GNU/Linux desktop?
https://talky.io/ AFAICT is a fully free software video chat system. Have you used it? Would you recommend it to others?
It uses http://simplewebrtc.com/.
Dear RMS,
Many users have fallen victim to spying software such as facebook, and have willingly or unwittingly surrendered their privacy rights to corporations which sell their information.
Can Free Software salvage this situation and make the Internet a more private, a more free place for the common user? And what must we do about it?
Regards,
--exa--
What are your opinions on medium- to short-distance wireless communication in its various forms, i.e., cellular carriers, WiFi, Bluetooth? Issues could include privacy, protocols, access to source, etc.
Not a question for RMS, but a question about /. interviews. What happened to the one with Limor Fried, aka LadyAda of AdaFruit? Questions were asked but no response ever posted.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Dear Sir,
I recently read that there might be new legislation making it illegal to "unlock" a telephony-capable device (PDA/Smarphone/etc.).
What is your opinion on obstructing effective and efficient use of technology?
RMS
I am trying to use GNU code to put in my product where I will patent and trademark it and then charge A LOT of money in return. My hope is to poison some open standards so they can use my other standard which I will have free, but all closed sourced instead in my evil plot. From there a new EULA will be introduced where upon a certain metric of time after my standard takes over the free one, I will have IP rights over anything on their computers.
I feel the need to dominate others and would love nothing more than to have my users sell all their children into slavery for my master vision of a new world order. I need to do this to feel better about myself since I am all jealous of my friends who have actual jobs and lives. I have an army of master robots on hand and plan to take the whole world hostage unless they bow to me and sign an EULA saying they only have the right to pursue their lives as their lives are a copy and not a real one. I own the real one just like Windows where you only have a copy. MS has the real one etc.
My question is which editor should I use to perform this? Vi or Emacs?
Thank you,
Sincerely,
Patrick Bateman
http://saveie6.com/
Could you imagine that you'll get active in the area of plant breeding? You could create new species of e.g. potatoes (out of "public domain potatoes") and allow people to create new ones of those only if they are willing to make them available under a "free license", thus bringing the concept of "share-alike" to plant breeding.
You could call it OTL = OpenTuber License
You are an idol on 4chan's technology board, /g/, including an iconographic picture of you in that board's sticky. At one point you've even addressed us, or at least some common misconceptions circulated on 4chan (http://stallman.org/to-4chan.html).
Do you read 4chan at all? How did we come to your attention? Are you okay with your demigod status there?
Do you have any advice for keeping a positive attitude in this screwed-up world of government surveillance, software patents, and DRM?
-chris
How do you feel about the current popularity of beards, and what can I do to make sure my own beard style is not incorporated into a proprietary system?
we must like ours? http://www.geoengineeringwatch... so we can keep us cool? stay safe dude
I'd jsut lkie to icnrjetet for a mneomt. Waht y'roue rifeernrg to as Lunix, is in fcat, GNU/Lunix, or as Iv'e retlecny tkaen to cinllag it, GNU puls Lniux. Luinx is not an oatipnerg ssyetm utno iltesf, but raethr ahnteor fere cneomopnt of a fluly ftcnoiunnig GNU ssytem mdae uuesfl by the GNU celbiors, slhel utiiletis and vtial sseytm ctonenomps crniopmsig a flul OS as dniefed by POISX.
Mnay cmotuepr uress run a mioifedd vseiorn of the GNU steysm eevry day, wotiuht rleiazing it. Torhugh a pluiacer trun of eevnts, the visoern of GNU wichh is wieldy uesd tdoay is otfen caleld Lniux, and mnay of its uress are not arwae taht it is bialcalsy the GNU stseym, dopelveed by the GNU Pojrcet.
Trehe ralely is a Luinx, and teshe pleope are unisg it, but it is jsut a prat of the seystm tehy use. Lniux is the knreel: the paorrgm in the sestym taht aacltoles the mec'naihs reucresos to the otehr prormags taht you run. The krneel is an esineatsl prat of an oetirpang sestym, but usslees by iesltf; it can olny fotcnuin in the cxontet of a cmotlpee oatprneig ssytem. Luinx is nlmlraoy uesd in cioonmtbian wtih the GNU onpieatrg stesym: the wolhe sestym is baasiclly GNU wtih Liunx adedd, or GNU/Lnuix. All the so-caelld Lniux disotibriutns are ralely dbtotirniusis of GNU/Liunx.
"digital rights management" should read "digital restrictions management". I don't need software to manage my rights.
Isn't it time to let this go? Fair or not, 'Linux' has won even if only because it's a more marketable name. Isn't encouraging community infighting over this distracting from many far more important free software issues?
Let me just state up front, I think the new versions of the GPL are becoming exactly what the GPL was originally used to protect agains, another intrusive EULA, restricting usage because someone doesn't like that usage. I personally use BSD style licensing, because I create for others to use, and I am not concerned with how they use it. My source is open, free, to use as you (end user / repackager / thief) see fit. By keeping my source pure, at my point, forks become the one-offs that are abandoned, while mine remains (i've already seen this). I truly believe that what goes around, comes around.
My question is, when does "free" stop being free? My reading of the GPL3 is such that it is placing restrictions on use, simply because of how it is being used, not because of anything else. Using GPL 2, or better yet, BSD, one is not restricting its use, and isn't that better for everyone? Restricting use, is not "free" in my definition of "free".
On the other hand, I admire your zealotry. People like you(and me??) drive the conversations we need to have, even if we disagree.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Why not perhaps a more majestic creature?
There is a recent trend (as in ever since the smartphones came out, Mac/PC/Linux has been doing sandboxing/jails before then, but never to this extent) where it's now incredibly difficult to use third party libraries as external shared libraries because the sandbox prevents access to them, making them just huge wastes of code if 100% of the functionality isn't used. What changes could be made to a future GPL to allow developers to use statically compiled parts of free software without destroying it's purpose of the GPL?
(Like IMO, many free software libraries are referenced in a credits/licences file that is accessible from inside the software, but that is not the same as sharing the source code to the software.)
Let him ask US questions
Hi Richard, Reading about Unix, and the development of the Free Software movement, I learnt that nowdays:
a) GNU-linux distros use the linux kernel.
b) BSD distros, Darwin and comercial derivatives from Darwin use the Unix kernel given to some Univiersities some time ago.
So my question is:
Why the owners of the UNIX operating system never made open source the Unix original kernel?
So today we are forced to emulate Unix using other kernels.
regards Hector. hecalvar@yahoo.com
I don't care if he is the founder of modern civilization. His holier-than-thou, my wayor the highway attitude leaves with me with a bad taste. I have little respect for the man.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
What do you think about /. Beta?
In the aftermath (well we're still in the middle of all this...) of the current whistle-blower cases (Snowden et al.) many people related to them have been detained/questioned/.. by various agencies especially at airports. Have you yourself experienced more scrutiny towards your person this past year, have you ever been the subject/victim of questionable interaction with agencies in general, and how did you tackle these events?
I believe you're in favour of much-reduced copyright terms - a few years rather than the endless decades of today.
If copyright were reduced to, say, five years, then the vast majority of GNU code would become public-domain - copyleft depending on copyright as it does, this would mean anyone could create a closed-source fork of, say, emacs. How do you feel about that?
So.. it has come to this
I remember when compiz was new, demos of it running effectively on 7 year old machines.
Recently I replaced the had drive in an old laptop with an SSD despite meeting the minimal requirements for Mint KDE I had many problems installing.
I kept running into out of memory problems when the LiveCD used the ramdisk it created. Finally I created a VM on which I installed a basic copy of the distro, I then rsynced the files to the old laptop drive. There I tweaked a few thing installed grub, made the drive bootable. Then I booted from a USB dock installed ubiquity on the old drive and installed Mint to the SSD. This seems like a very exhausting process to go through to install Linux.
In doing this I see a lot of defects in linux: growing memory requirements, drowing disk space requirements, inefficient sytems. In this sense Linux and free software seems to be becoming Windowized. Good archotectural decisions are been forsook for the sake of expediency, even to the point of exposing the systems to malware writers. Is this a concern for you?
How about relating how OS have failed to the point where users are running virtual machines. (We all know restricted software makes this worse, but it is not exclusively their fault.)
GNU/Hurd does not seem like so much overhead today given the huge amount of waste a VM creates. Perhaps GNU/Hurd is better suited to address where things have been progressing?
Multics doesn't seem so "bloated" anymore either.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
There is an entire generation of people out there for whom mobile apps, mostly on iOS and Android, are the way in which they do their computing. The more successful apps are usually very well-designed with incredible user interfaces, an area where free software has not achieved much success, and sold at very low prices and, in many cases, also monetized through stolen personal data.
It appears to me that the GNU project is mostly ignoring this important area - I am aware of Replicant and F-Droid but these are well behind their proprietary counterparts at the moment. What should we do? Ignore mobile and hope it goes away, try to get onboard with Replicant and F-Droid, try to bring in a new generation of free software developers that is native to the mobile environment, or avoid the mobile "ecosystem" completely and try to work on the hardware side and try to make free hardware that is not inherently trackable/centralized and then run free software on top of that instead?
In this day and age, where social media are ubiquitous, don't you think that governments need to catch up?
Why don't you create an open-source set of tools that allows governments to start dialogues with their citizens, and allows concerned citizens to make their voices louder?
To be more concrete, I'm thinking of one or more of the following:
1. An _official_ moderated forum to host political discussions.
2. Moderation of issues/comments on this forum should be hierarchical and based on a fair voting scheme, such that no unjustified censoring can take place.
3. Online polls, created by citizens or MCs, could provide valuable insight.
4. Governments could require their MCs to spend at least X hours per week answering questions.
Of course, once installed in Congress, you could use this software to have your favorite issues (software freedom, etc.) more broadly addressed :)
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
...A major problem is the proliferation of formats for ebooks. First, an author/publisher needs to produce multiple versions of the same thing. Second, will anything be readable in the future? In this case, "future" may just be ten years hence. I actually wrote to NIST suggesting that there should be a standard ebook format. I got a polite reply from the NIST director saying that "it's not our job." The US standards agency saying that standards making is not its job? LOL!
You mean I'm not free to dump my used motor oil down the drain?
Most software projects are behind schedule and many are cancelled, so that portion is not a GPL issue but a software engineering issue.
The idea of freedom is that you cannot infringe upon others. If someone chooses to participate in a GLP'd project then they have that freedom to choose.
Why does the game community not understand the benefits of Free and Open Source software [0], even though they've probably read the source code to various titles from id Software [1]?
[0] https://twitter.com/therealcli...
[1] https://github.com/id-Software
Why only software? (or hardware) Why not building architecture, art design, books, the complete design of say your car or an airplane? Isn't that the same? Wouldn't "society" benefit in similar ways if EVERY SINGLE PRODUCT made by man was open for everyone to copy and modify as they wanted?
Where does this not just turn into flat out socialism? Now, I'm not a knee-jerk "socialism is bad" type... but I don't think it's naturally better or 'more ethical'.
You might say "we've never seen quite my kind of socialism", but EVERYONE says that about their perfect form of society.
Why not everything? Why just the fruits of my labor, as a software developer?
As far as I can tell, you're essentially demanding that I 'take one for the team'... calling me unethical if I don't.
You forgot the rhinos :D
Dear RMS,
First of all, thank for your contributions to the world of software and agreeing on making that interview.
In the world of software, I am often under the impression that the "proprietary" world develop the game-changers and that the free software follows. Because of that lag, free software appears to always be in position where it has to adapt to the world around it, which diverts lots of efforts or causes lots of frustration. The only parts where free software appears to pioneer is the infrastructure kind of software. Do you have a similar impression? What are your suggestion to try to bring free software to a leadership position?
Erik
Wait, wait....are we talking about Stallman or Jobs?
While I agree with your mission and am a fan of the work you have done, I can't help but feel you've managed to shoot yourself in the foot with how you've handled your beliefs. I recently commented about how I felt your insistence of free software purity has made it so your organization was unable to appropriately evolve with the technological environment. GNU/Hurd is a failure. I see Apple and Microsoft trying their damnedest to bring us back into the walled garden world of proprietary UNIX, without the benefits of UNIX. I see Unity, I see Metro, I see the app store commercialization of the package manager, I see you calling LLVM a tragedy. What I don't see is you and your organization having done the footwork necessary to make it so we have a choice. Those of us who value our computing freedom, I feel, have been let down by the lack of a reasonable solution from GNU. My assertion is that in 2014, the GNU Free Software Foundation has failed to provide us an 'out' from proprietary computing platforms.
My question is thus: What do you feel can be done to allow yourself and the Free Software Foundation to move forward and solve this problem of failure?
Automobile user interfaces have become increasingly complex and de-standardized as computerization reaches into the driver's seat. The major vendors don't seem to care about possible legal liabilities of designing inherently dangerous UIs.
Google has enticed Honda, GM and Audi to join the Open Automotive Alliance, but that project seems more oriented towards selling android and nVidia products than providing an objectively better car OS.
Do you see a future where a real Free (or at least Open Source) car operating system is a reality, or do you think the car makers will just continue to create unsafe and unstandardized vehicle UIs indefinitely?
Have you ever thought of changing your name?
For example to Egon?
(what, you said "any question" ...)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
what, Mr RMS, in your office/home is your preferred OS and software collection? (And yes, I'm waiting for the down votes.)
Todd: I hope it proves as delicious as the farmers that grew them
Currently many articles in academia are locked in proprietary journals whose access costs restrict readership unnecessarily (and immorally). The tradition in academia is that one should cite original sources, even those bound in proprietary journals, with the consequence that as an author following this practice one is enabling this unethical situation. What do you think of the idea of creating a new paradigm in which a new class of articles only allows citations to sources that are free? In this way authors who wished their work to be cited would have to take responsability for where they published it and the world could begin to move out of the current Dark Ages in which advances in technology have rendered traditional practices no longer ethical.
How do you feel about the Slashdot Beta?
Toejam
Condiment, topping or main ingredient?
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Can you specify exactly what arms reach means?
GPLv2 and the FAQ leave it woefully unexplained.
Hi, I heard you are charging money when people want to take a picture with you. Is that true? And why?
Given that compilers are something that very few programmers can realistically work on, why is your objection to LLVM so strong?
Its licensing also means that the GNU compiler projects can use whatever advancements LLVM makes freely.
One could say that Linux has gained popularity but many of the distros do not follow your idea of free software. Since 1984 when you began, do you feel the free software movement has gained or losing fans and supporters?
Sent from my TARDIS
His opinions on those things are a lot more insightful and a lot less emotion-driven than most people's half-baked, freedom-hating opinions.
Thank you Dave Raggett
How do you find systemd/linux? Systemd's success could decrease relevance of Hurd, as systemd is Linux only.
:wq
He's trying to enforce his Utopian dream via laws with which he disagrees. Copyright tells people who they can/can't copy information, yet he uses those laws to make sure people can't continue to copy information. It just seems so contradictory and idealistic.
and when we are already there, favorite version of Windows?
Would you support a license model (called X for discussion purposes) that is a "best of both worlds" mixture? The conditions would look something like:
"Any software (the Product) built using code licensed under X (the Library) must release part of its own code, which may consist of improvements to the Library, original parts of the Product, or any combination of the two, under license X; furthermore, the total `value` or `usefulness` of the improvements/new code which are release under X must match, if not exceed, the `value` or `usefulness` of the Library to the Product. If the entire `value` of the Product is not sufficient in this regard, the Product must be released entirely under license X."
Basically, it perpetuates the creation of free software.
You are best known for working on software that is horrifically difficult to use, like emacs. As one of the great unwashed with an abysmal short term memory, If you wanted to make gnu/linux become more popular among the uneducated you could make a point of including menus or signposts (like how pico or mp, minimum profit text editor is designed). Will you give me your word that you try and show compassion to those like myself?
Ignoring preference of open source license for a minute, the open source landscape has lots of software to satisfy a wide range of users.
What piece of software is still sorely missing from the open source landscape that isn't yet being seriously attempted by any project?
Short version; what open source projects still need to be started?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
What would you say is the most important single area of software (e.g. web servers, operating systems, games, etc) to focus on bringing free software to, in order to further the overall movement?
Captcha: ascender
What wine would you suggest to pair with toe cheese?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Were you born a natural dick or did something happen to you as a kid to make you one?
Peter H. Salus, in his book `The Daemon, the GNU and the Penguin' quotes Thomas Bushnell (the initial Hurd architect) as saying:
In hindsight, do you regret that decision, or are you happy about Linux being the usual kernel in GNU systems (and the subsequent misnaming)?
Windows users:
Internet Explorer is obsolete. Please upgrade to Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
Mr. Stallman. I would like to release software which I have written for others to benefit from. However I am worried that some will use it in ways that I would consider immoral, like killing innocent civilians or advertising cigarettes. Is there way to craft a license that would realistically work to prevent my software from being used in such a way? We put a lot of work and made many personal sacrifices to produce the software. We would love others to benefit from it, but don't want it to be used for evil. It's a serious question to me and I would love your feedback and insight into this problem. Can we craft a license that could help us with this problem? Why or why not?
Kiddie fucking, child porn and fucking apes and dolphins. That's insightful?
What is...?
Do you object to the use of the term 'Free/Open Source Software' (FOSS)?
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Caldera open sourced Ancient Unices 12 years ago: http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Ca...
Windows users:
Internet Explorer is obsolete. Please upgrade to Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
Dear RMS, Assange was quoted as saying 'banish all Stallmanist thought' while developing for NetBSD, yet according to your website, you remain one of his defenders. Do you not find that a little ironic? Good sportsmanship!
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
You claim to be this morally upstanding guy who "fights the man" and lives a "bohemian lifestyle". Why are you of such a large physical dimension (fat)?
portfolio
What is your opinion on Telegram? Do you think FOSS will finally invade social networking?
What do you think about Slashdot's Beta?
You argue that it is unethical for someone to distribute software in a way that limits any one of the 4 freedoms to users.
If you had the option, would you make it illegal to do so?
In other words, if you had the option would you make it so that software developers were forced by law to use a free software license? or would you leave the option to the developers and try to convince them (without coercion) that it is the right thing to do?
What do you think of The Open Edge Content Delivery Network as a concept?
http://www.toecdn.org/
I've often thought the term "Free Software" was a classic bait-and-switch. When most people first hear that they think of no-cost software and are attracted to that. Then, as they learn more about it they get told, "No, it's really about freedom - *that's* the important part of what were doing."
The popularization of this misleading term has caused a lot of confusion, leading to other terms to clarify various similar or different categories of software, including "libre software", "freeware", and even "open source".
Do you now regret having originally chosen the term "Free Software" for the confusion it has caused? Or, do you think that your bait-and-switch tactic has been instrumental in the success of your movement, thereby making whatever confusion resulting from this term worthwhile?
In your view, which is more important; supporting/contributing to "free" software or NOT supporting/contributing to proprietary software?
As a followup, if the best tool for the job is proprietary and the "free" alternatives have no chance of meeting the needs(at least in the given time constraints) do you support people pirating the proprietary tool to avoid providing funding to the company?
Mr. Stallman. Is it it true that you have had several ribs removed so that you may more easily eat your own toejam?
rms, I recently read you were interested in developments for anonymized digital currency. Currency in its current form is the primary rational for restricting the sharing of information. All currencies I am aware of are based on the currency being scarce, which encourages artificial scarcity of information. Have you seen any attempts at creating digital currencies that are not scarce, but reflect value based on usage and distribution? Search engine tracks ratings of websites. Users get more individual value out of certain information. Perhaps this is all just a pipe dream, but philosophically speaking, what do you think about creating a better carrot as opposed to relying on sticks like the law?
The Gnu Free Documentation Licence (GFDL) has not been embraced with nearly as much love as the GPL and numerous issues have been raised:
*Non compability with GPL (both ways).
*Non-freeness (as deemed by Debian) of invariant sections.
*Cumersomeness of having to print the full licence when distributing physical printouts.
Etc.
Wikipedia for example does not accept contributions licenced under the GFDL only.
What do you see as a way forward in adressing the issues raised regarding the GFDL?
Mine grows with some bald spots & I want to obtain neckbeard status.
On this topic, what's his take on the Blackphone? Or even more open, Replicant, would a cellphone running Replicant be something suitable for him, or is he waiting for something else?
If, as you say, "Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement." in your article: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software, why do you advocate not using the term 'open source', particularly if it is being used in a technical/development methodology context only?
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Sure, why not? Most people just have a knee-jerk reaction against these things because they're irrational and despise individual liberties. At this point, I do not believe that you're any different, which leads me to question why you're on Slashdot.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I have always wondered about the large logical disconnect in the copyleft argument. My understanding is that the GNU GPL has always been touted as "Guaranteeing Your Freedom(TM)", yet there are blog posts explaining that the purpose of the GPL is to force others to provide their software under GPL terms.
My issue is thus: How do you reconcile that "Freedom" means "Forcing everyone to give everyone else free access to the products of their labor"? I feel that the overreaching goals, as expressed, are for "Free Software" to gain such a critical mass that it is impossible to provide "Software" without a prohibitive amount of effort, unless you provide that software under the specific licensing terms everyone else has forced upon you. In other words: the final goal is that I may not provide my software as a closed-source, licensed, non-GPL binary unless I write an entire operating system and supporting libraries, as all supporting libraries are GPL and force me to GPL my code or not produce code at all.
Is that not the opposite of freedom? That is, are you not technically free to write your own Microsoft Windows, since Microsoft will not give it to you; and in the same way, in the ideal GNU world, you are technically free to write your own Readline and LIBC and Libgtk and QT and audio libraries and small linker bits and compiler tool chain, since using any of the existing means using GPL software and releasing your software under GPL in turn?
Support my political activism on Patreon.
This question does not address technology, or copyright, or licensing.
In 2000, I had the pleasure of hosting you to deliver a talk on the "Do's and Don'ts" of using free software in commercial products at Teradyne, in Deerfield, IL. Over lunch we had the opportunity to discuss social issues and politely disagreed about whether medical care should be socialized.
Given the current administration's efforts regarding the Affordable Care Act, do you think it is a move in the right direction, or not?"
Hey bro, do you even lift?
Hi Mr. Stallman.
I'm a yound aspiring hacker that wants to get into free software. Which projects do you see most interesting for someone like me to work on?
Are you also going to ask him what color is the sky?
I've often heard it levied that some of the FSF's goals are a bit out of touch, and it's often been speculated that one of the root causes may be inexperience with the modern computer interface. Reading over even how you search for web pages, the pipeline is very unix but it would be nearly entirely alien to a modern computer user.
Do you think there is any value in trying to switch paradigms for a while?
(please disregard any loaded language that may have slipped through, i'm tired, but this question has been eating at the back of my head for a while)
At the institution where I currently work, AIT / Austrian Institute of Technology, in 2013 I started ( believe it or not ) the first fully-FOSS project in the 45+ year history of the institute: ubicity, a social media aggregator. Although senior management applauded the initiative in the beginning, and although the thing was nothing short of a sheer success, fear crept up soon after: people did not know how to deal with it, especially not the many elder guys ( "elder" here meaning: "close to retirement and not willing to learn anymore" ). Result: in spite of resounding success, my contract got terminated. I do not mourn about it, having found a very nice contract through which I can further develop ubicity.
Question: have you seen this pattern before, and how do you interpret it ?
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Are MIT-like licenses hurting more than helping the free software movement? While I agree that GPL is better for the end user, the existence of MIT-like licenses did increase the adoption of open source software by a large amount. But the way that some big players in the field play with open source licenses discuss me (like android and its closed-source ASOP).
The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) is a strongly copylefted Free Software license which uses the word "prohibit" for multiple things. I'd hardly think an organization would put such language in their license if they objected to the use of the words as you think they do.
For example, Section 2 of the GNU GPL version 3 does what it can to clearly prohibits proprietarization: (emphasis mine)
This prohibition is a good thing because proprietary software subjugates the user to the developer's control; that's why proprietary software is developed and distributed. Proprietary software is often malware and thus a mechanism for spying on the user, removing programs the user wants to keep installed, and more anti-freedom activities that deny users complete control over their computer. This all happens to any user regardless of how skilled they are with computing, or how willing they are to take advantage of their software freedom.
Section 3 of the GNU GPL version 3 prevents conveyers from exercising legal power to forbid circumvention of technical measures:
Section 7c of the GNU GPL version 3 "prohibits" misrepresenting material from upstream conveyed copies ("Prohibiting misrepresentation of the origin of that material, or requiring that modified versions of such material be marked in reasonable ways as different from the original version").
Section 11 of the GNU GPL version 3 includes a prohibition to make sure certain patents don't lock users out of exercising the freedoms the license grants.
The details matter: To understand what's going on you have to understand what is being forbidden and prohibited, why these allowances and restrictions are necessary, which users are affected, and how and then evaluate if those causes and remedies are right and proper.
Digital Citizen
GNU/Linux or GNU+Linux?
The FSF's comments on the Hacktivismo Enhanced-Source Software License Agreement (HESSLA) are informative here. HESSLA:
This issue apparently comes up often enough and is important enough where the FSF has published an essay on why programs must not limit the freedom to run them which is also linked to the aforementioned HESSLA commentary.
Considering the FSF's document pointed to above dates back multiple years, I'd say RMS has long answered your question.
Digital Citizen
If I were to publish my own software using a license that was like the GPL v3 except for a clause that said "This software may not be used by the military, the police or by any paramilitary or intelligence organisation, including the NSA", would that be a bad thing? If so, how and why?
(The subject line is just a joke. I'm a vegetarian and climate activist in real life and have been called "tree-hugging hippie" on more than one occasion.)
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
...in a communist country where the entire populace is deprived of basic human rights and people are tortured by the government at will?
Can you help me find a girlfriend?
If you were made ruler of the entire earth, what would be top on your list of things to change?
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
You (RMS) have said on numerous occasions that you don't use a cell phone because of privacy issues - that it can be used as a tracking device and underhandedly, for spying on its user.
What do you think of the "security-oriented" Blackphone? Secure enough for RMS?
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Why not Zoidberg?
http://feministsoftwarefoundat...
What changes do you see becoming important or necessary in the GPL, if any? What future evolution of the GPL do you anticipate occurring, beyond v3?
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
No, the GNU GPL focuses on the rights of the user. Developers and distributors (now "conveyors" in GPLv3) are restricted from exercising powers governments grant them in favor of letting users exercise their rights granted under the GPL (including section 3 aptly named "Protecting Users' Legal Rights From Anti-Circumvention Law", exercising patent powers as described in section 11, and various freedoms and responsibilites for conveying copies in sections 4 through 6).
Perhaps you are confusing the free software movement with the younger open source movement which does frame the issues it addresses in terms of a developmental methodology. The two movements aren't the same and the two movements don't always agree—sometimes reaching radically different results like when faced with powerful, reliable proprietary software.
Stallman has long stated that it is unethical to hold power over the user, and that proprietary (nonfree) software (no matter its purpose) subjugates the user to the developer's control. The free software definition itself says " The nonfree program controls the users, and the developer controls the program; this makes the program an instrument of unjust power.". As we learn of ever increasing uses of this power (many stories carried on /., the ongoing NSA scandal) we learn that software freedom is more important than ever before. Looking at these issues simply as a developmental methodology (throwing out ethical consideration as the open source movement is designed to do) simply won't fix the problem. There are other related issues involved as well, and Stallman has addressed them for years in talks. I recommend any of his talks about "A Free Digital Society". He is, as usual, way ahead of the corporate press and their repeaters on /. regarding these issues.
Digital Citizen
Fucking children is not about personal liberties.
Sure it is. Whether rape occurred should be determined on an individual basis. The problem is that you're so emotional, irrational, and relying on "protect the children" instincts that you can't see that this is not how our justice system works in a grand majority of other cases. Not really a surprise.
Again, the real question is, what are you "for the children" people doing on Slashdot?
Thank you Dave Raggett
Do you see more interest in open hardware now that large corporations have been shown to secretly cooperate with mass surveillance? Do you think that projects like Fairphone and Qubes OS will lead to a trend of pushing openness down through the software stack and into the hardware?
What is your attitude toward copyright assignment practice in Free Software world. Copyright assignment was considered as bad aspect in recent upstart vs systemd debate. Is it so? It makes simpler to change license of project to non-free. Is it a treat to freedom of software?
I know that some FSF projects (like GCC) use copyright assignment for FSF. Can it happen that 100 years later the management of FSF will change license of FSF projects to proprietary?
How do you feel about so accurately predicting the future in your Right to Read story ?
I'm guessing you got a lot of pussy in the 70s and maybe even into the early 80s. Do you still get a lot of snatch? More than Eric Raymond? I know they said only one question per post, but have you and ESR ever double-teamed a chick? RMS + ESR = Messr. Coincidence?
Well I think for child porn the other side of it is that having the pictures is criminalized even if they can't prove you did the act, know the person that did, that it wasn't consenting, that you were aware at the time of download that it was going to be someone underage you got or just that "young girls" means to you first year university students. The actual criminal assault | guilty mind part of the case isn't proven just the position of evidence that someone somewhere might have done something naughty (assuming it is illegal where they did it) is enough. Very few other areas of the legal system are so clearly thought crimes.
What can we (those who share ideals of GNU) do to boost adoption of Free Software. What can hinder the adoption of Free Software and what is the biggest threat to Free Software?
Stallman has said in numerous talks that he doesn't own a cell phone because not only due to lack of respect for his software freedom but also because they are (more properly identified as) trackers. He rightly objects to handing over data to track his location, as is part of a cell phone's normal operation. As with so many of these issues, his precience in looking out for his own privacy predates the headlines—Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept report that the NSA has been using SIM cards (commonly used with cell phones) tracking data to target drone attacks: "What's more, he adds, the NSA often locates drone targets by analyzing the activity of a SIM card, rather than the actual content of the calls. Based on his experience, he has come to believe that the drone program amounts to little more than death by unreliable metadata.".
As for "openness of source", you'd do well to read the summary /. provided on this story and the links contained therein. One of those links pointed you to a long-published article about how Stallman is not a spokesperson for "open source" and he has pointed out significant differences between his older movement—the free software movement—and the younger open source movement which focuses on development methodology (and is therefore willing to install and recommend nonfree software). That newer essay updates an older essay which has been published in print as well as online.
Stallman has also long pointed out that code in unchangeable hardware (code in ROM, for example) is equivalent to hardware in that the user and the developer are facing the same hurdles to modify that code. So I'd imagine that a toaster with code in ROM would be a candidate toaster for him to own. But so many devices these days have updateable code. If the code can be changed the user and developer might not be on an equal footing with regards to who is allowed to change that code (free software grants you the freedoms nonfree software does not grant). Thus this more common occurrence raises all the issues he's been talking about, writing/publishing software for, and organizing against for decades.
Digital Citizen
I imagine the FSF doesn't have the resources to manufacture and distribute their own hardware, and it is still true that hardware is manufactured not copied. But perhaps you were not aware that the FSF runs the "Respects Your Freedom" campaign which currently endorses the Gluglug X60 laptop computer since December 18th, 2013 along with a 3D printer and a couple of wireless adapters one can connect to a computer via USB.
Digital Citizen
Don't you think slashdot beta is a complete crap and soylentnews.org is a way to go?
Do the questions have to be open ended ?
Fucking children is not about personal liberties.
Just to be clear, we're talking about _underage_ children now, right? I mean over here it's perfectly legal to have sex with a child as long as he or she is at least 15 years old.
techies are abrasive. i am abrasive. you are abrasive. but it just doesn't work for the head of the FSF to be abrasive to the point of rudeness. will you please step aside and let someone who isn't afraid to play nice take the helm, or at least handle the PR-type functions of your position? a LOT more good could be done this way.
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
remember that 'conversation' prof.? you helped me out,, thanks
Slashdot only allows......
What's your opinion about GitHub and that more and more free software development is moving there?
I am currently studying a degree in Computer Science, at a UK university, which is more like a Microsoft training course. I have thought about forming a Free Software Society at my university to help spread the philosophy and values of free software, and to promote the use of GNU/Linux. However, when I speak to my fellow students they don't understand or are not familiar with these ideas, and they don't seem to care, and instead value short term convienience over freedom. How can I best promote free software in my university and to my fellow students and friends, especially those who seem oblivious to the ideas of freedom, both in software and society?
P.S. I currently only use free software on my own computers (Trisquel & gNewSense), but I am forced to submit my code as a Visual Studio solution, which I do after I have implemented on my own machines.
It has become increasingly difficult to purchase any general computing hardware that does not rely on proprietary software. Even if one installs a Free OS with 100% Free drivers, there is likely to be proprietary firmware all over the place: keyboard controller, network card, usb controller, video card, etc. -- that the OS doesn't have control over and the end user doesn't know about. To the best of my knowledge, there is no easy way to discover, verify, and manage these firmwares over time. And yet, there they are, just waiting to be exploited.
Do you know anyone who is working on this problem? How can we trust our computers when we have no idea what is lurking under the hood? Why isn't there a GNU Firmware tool that can ferret these things out and at least checksum them so that we can know if they've been tampered with, and/or replace them with Free editions?
What distribution do you use, and why?
I write Free Software (GPLv3), and also open source software (Apache license) that implements various web services.
The servers where I deploy the software run vanilla Debian with no non-free packages. As a responsible developer and web host, I make all of the source code available to my customers and others.
The question is, how can my customers know that the code on my servers was actually built from the source code that I publish? Short of telling them to build it themselves on their own server, is there any way to guarantee that when they log into one of my web applications, they are using the same code that I have published?
I was intrigued on using a Chomebook for the first time that Google had managed to do something like this -- it wouldn't boot unless the kernel (and presumably all other software) was signed by Google. Do you know of any toolchains that would allow us to apply this to servers, and also make the signature and verification process transparent to end users of a service? Otherwise, how can we possibly trust any online service provider?
Well, I honestly don't care. But he is not "trying to sell his latest crappy software".
The .eh domain is reserved for Western Sahara. Unfortunately, Western Sahara is a non-self governing territory according to the United Nations. It is partly occupied by domainholders of .MA, Morocco. And they don't want to share. What can we do to liberate .EH?
Looking back now, would you have liked to have focused more on the HURD before the Linux kernel was released so you were more likely to create a complete GNU OS?
There are some confusions in what you're asking. It isn't Stallman or the FSF's job to supply anyone with a business model. It's the FSF's job to lay out the ethical argument to defend their case that nonfree software is unjust and that we all deserve software freedom. Put differently, and not to equate nonfree software with slavery (slavery is more oppressive than nonfree software), but ethical arguments against slavery don't have an obligation to provide alternative labor sources to exploit. Ethical arguments against slavery have to lay out why people should be treated with human dignity as equals and not as slaves. With that, there are some approaches you should consider:
Stallman is not going to address your reference to "open source" in the way you expect because he is not a representative of the open source movement, nor has he ever been. Perhaps you would have done well to read the summary /. provided on this story and the links contained therein. One of those links pointed you to a long-published article about how Stallman is not a spokesperson for "open source" and he has pointed out significant differences between his older movement—the free software movement—and the younger open source movement which focuses on development methodology (and is therefore willing to install and recommend nonfree software). That newer essay updates an older essay which has been published in print as well as online.
Also, developing and distributing free software doesn't always mean publishing GNU GPL-covered programs. There are lots of other free software licenses from which to choose depending on the details of the program and one's goals in distributing the program.
Digital Citizen
Our computers are build by people who lives in a dictatorship, can't organize themselves to get safer work conditions, the right to talk, meet the people they want, and have no time to simply live their life.
What's the value of our freedom with computer when people are deprived of it to build the hardware we are using ?
You hear that sound over your head? It means you missed the joke.
I think a good speaker's charisma is a distracting issue; to frame the value of a good speaker in terms of charisma is to not spend time focusing on the veracity and importance of the message that speaker has to convey. Charisma is too often used to hide a hideous message; metaphorically candy-coating anti-social messages. Charismsa is also used by the lazy listener: why bother parsing what the speaker actually says when one can get away with superficially evaluating charisma in a 5-second sound bite?
It's easy to get around this distraction by reading a transcript of what the speaker has to say instead of hearing or watching their performance. Reading their books or papers is also very informative because that medium affords a writer the time to consider what they want to say, a luxury one doesn't have answering questions in realtime.
Digital Citizen
Your little group has helped turn the software industry from one where passionate experts develop good software, to one where the software is slammed together using the cheapest and stupidest people possible so that services can be sold to make it actually work. How can you sleep at night knowing that your group promotes this mentality, and has done more damage to hard working professionals than anyone else?
As it is now, GNU project can only be described as a huge success. My computer runs a completely free operating system, from the kernel to the desktop environment. It's all compiled with GCC (free) and edited with Emacs (free and awesome). With all of those components in place... Is there a big, new project in the pipeline for GNU? A free social network - GNUbook, Gnitter, GNUedIn?
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
Which programs do you use on a daily basis?
"How can you be so delusional that you think you are still relevant in 2014?"
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Greetings Mr Stallman. What is your typical weekend like? What sort of things excite your interest... do you surf the net (what topics do you enjoy), maybe you like to sleep in late like me, or perhaps you watch TV, what constructive things do you do with your spare time? Have you got a list of favourite things to share? It would be interesting to know more about RMS.
Some things are wrong even if they are legal.
I don't know about "Internet.org" specifically but as for using anything tied to Facebook, Instagram, and similar services: Try watching any of his recent talks, from the most recent talks to the talks dating back about a year or three. He tells you right at the top of the talk what he thinks of Facebook, Instagram, and the like—he dares to call them by their proper name: surveillance engines—and he asks users to not participate by not uploading copies of his talks and photos with him to these services. You can also read his personal website on Facebook detailing many reasons to avoid Facebook. I imagine any other service that works similarly ("Google+", for example) will receive a comparable critique.
It seems unlikely to me that any program started by these organizations will be anything other than come-ons to lose one's privacy to these data collection companies.
There are free software web browser add-ons you can install on your free software web browser: Priv3, NoScript, and various cookie editors/filters which will help you deal with the monitoring various services use when you get an offer to be tracked with a "like" button or similar thing. There's more work to be done on this ground, to be sure, but this is a good start.
Digital Citizen
You were working in AI laboratory on MIT.
Do you still follow progress on this subject?
What are freedom respecting AI projects that we should be aware of?
Richard, what do you think of Ubuntu's new "unified" "intellectual property policy", which started out as a trademark policy and has now become a Free Software blight ?
I've ranted about it at http://rodent.za.net/because-ubuntu/ because I think Canonical and their lawyers are being dicks.
Regard,
Roelf.
Sorry, but there's no need to guess what he'd say because he has published his thoughts on this long ago. Perhaps his position has changed, but if it had changed I'd expect an update to the aforementioned article at its current location, not an announcement of anything new on /..
He also proposes a reasonable fix:
I can only guess neither you nor the original poster tried looking up keywords in a search engine (like "stallman copyright pirate party") to find the article. Also, perhaps neither of you understand that Stallman is not a member of the open source movement nor has he ever been. Thus it is not his interest to frame this issue in terms of a "closed source" anything (to use the original questioner's words). Stallman explains his position on the difference between his movement, the free software movement, and the younger proprietary-friendly open source movement in a pair of articles which have been published for many years (older article, newer article) and in just about every talk I've ever heard him give. In fact, the intro to this /. story pointed you to one of these articles.
Digital Citizen
While LibreOffice could have stayed with the LGPL of moved to full GPL, they chose MPL.
Is this a valid alternative for free software that have to compete with less restrictive open-source alternatives or yet another source of disappointment?
RMS isn't in this for popularity, he's pushing to get society to respect user's software freedom because that's what's ethical. Besides, relative to ethical observations and considered ethical thought, systemd is a minor technical change. Software changes come along from time to time and will continue to do so even replacing systemd. For all we know GNU/Hurd will offer something comparably suitable for everyday use.
Digital Citizen
That is a true statement. But it does not apply here, and it is wrong only in your own imagination. Fortunately, cretins like you don't have much power to screw up the world's countries any more than they already are, all so you can make laws that enforce your precious little morals.
Why isn't the F/OSS world updating its technology?
F/OSS reminds me of the Soviet Union, and its old copies of western equipment. Unix was invented in the early 70s. In the 80s, effort was put into creating copies of the unix kernel and userland. Technology has continued to advance, but the unix Desktop stays muddled in the past. X11 is inferior to the newer graphics systems in Windows, or OS X. Sound and scanners still have problems. Visual Studio left vi and emacs behind decades ago in features. Printers have become more sophisticated, but F/OSS printing is stuck in the 1980s.... For everyday use, I prefer to use Windows 7. Microsoft programmers and system architects take care of the details and many different architectures I don't care about.
The only contemporary mention (Josephus) of Yeshua ben Yosef is known to be falsified. Nazareth probably didn't exist then. Arguments for the existence of such a man rely on the "principle of embarrassment", that is, that certain aspects of the narrative would be embarrassing to the early church and so are more likely to be factual. No unbiased person could uphold such a thing as evidence, and this is the only field of knowledge where it might be admitted as an argument.
I can only wonder what you must believe if that is what you call "ample evidence".
What are your feelings on Slashdot Beta?
Two questions... Why is QBASIC still the most fun piece of software on my computer? And when can X11 die?
Spent All My Mod Points
I had the option between OBSD vs. Linux for a commercial project and the Linux kernel gave me options that OBSD's didn't so I started using Linux as my first Unix-like OS. That was my first exposure to GNU tools. Do you ever attribute GNU tools' success partly to the Linux kernel's success as opposed to your outspoken opinion that GNU tools are primarily what boosted Linux adoption?
Do you see crowd funding as a means to economically provide for the development of Free Software and even Free Hardware?
Have any small projects grown to a critical mass where only a few funding rounds bootstrapped them into having a sustainable Libre/Free product?
Were you born this disgusting and lame or did you have to work for it?
The world is moving further and further towards a closed, locked-down technological society rather than the open, free one you envisioned. People prefer to communicate using Facebook rather than email, people overwhelmingly prefer walled-gardens and app stores compared to fully open systems. Microsoft is still dominant on the desktop and still have their fingers in pies of every domain. GNU/Linux is getting more popular but at the expense of the traditional values people used it for (e.g. it's gaining attention due to things like Steam, a DRM, vendor-locked app store, which traditionally would be considered unconscionable to see on Linux, must less accepted). People consider you a hippie from the past, assuming people should stick to a 70's style of computer use and forgo the benefits of modern technology and physically portability.
How the heck do you remain positive, focused and hopeful despite all the push-back against what you've campaigned for? How do you continue despite the fact there's too much money and lobbying and lack of people giving a shit for there to be any chance of reaching a point where you can finally say "I've won"?
With the push by certain companies to dump gcc in favor of a non-GPL compiler. Do you see gcc losing relevancy in the modern world?
You make it sound as if technical difficulty in changing BIOS software is the issue, and I'm not sure if you realize that is not so. Software freedom has to do with an ethically based argument about giving permission to legally inspect, share, and modify published software (and, ideally, securing those freedoms to make sure nobody takes them away later). With BIOS code, as with any proprietary software, the distinction is not technical capability. The distinction centers on who is legally allowed to do what.
BIOSes prior to the arrival of Coreboot weren't all "impossible to change". BIOS distributors demonstrated that by making BIOS changes and distributing new proprietary BIOS software packages. Users were offered proprietary binaries that they could run—an ordinary installer program that allows non-technical users to easily install a new BIOS on the system.
But users were not given a copy of BIOS source code, users were not given permission to distribute the BIOS, and users were not given permission to modify the BIOS software. These users were subjugated to the BIOS developer's rule so long as they ran that BIOS code: users had no freedom to help themselves or their community. Coreboot changes this because Coreboot respects a user's software freedom, but the difference here is one of licensing. With Coreboot any user willing to learn what Coreboot does may inspect, share, and modify Coreboot; freedoms those same users don't have with a proprietary BIOS.
Digital Citizen
A child is a child because they are incapable of making choices for themselves.
Any adult having sex with a child should be locked up and the key thrown away.
Id Software did not issue that cease and desist, ZeniMax did.
They're the same company.
Mozilla enforces it's copyright over Firefox, that doesn't mean Firefox isn't FOSS.
Except that the assets that the game program reads, namely the textures, maps, audio, and event scripts, never become free under Id's policy.
Do you think all software should stick to the idea of free software? Do you think free software would gain more success if they are applied to certain bussiness models and let the free market decide? Like android, which is quite successful as open source?
A child is a child because they are incapable of making choices for themselves.
That is simply incorrect. Children make choices for themselves all the time, and they also make mistakes. Likewise, adults do the same. Adults have sex with people and then later regret, and sometimes severely. Most adults are only a little bit less shortsighted than children, and yet they're allowed to have sex.
But the bottom line is this: In each individual case, the prosecution should have to prove that rape took place. We should revise our nonsensical consent laws and such, as well. This is all mainly caused by irrational "for the children" people like you who spew forth circular arguments and then make moral judgements and pretend as if their morals should be enforced through the law.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I'm not sure what post of Stallman's you're referring to because you linked to nothing and quoted nothing. Your statement is without a clear basis in anything he said, and therefore seems specious. I'll assume you're referring to his post on the GCC mailing list in which he says:
So when you follow up with:
you seem to have no serious issue to raise, just name-calling. What part of what he said to the GCC list convinces you that Stallman "seemed to say quality of software [...] isn't important" as if that was to be a seriously considered alternative? For many years, GNU programs have been known as considerably powerful, GCC being one of them. Given the totality of what Stallman has been saying since 1984 it seems so much more reasonable to conclude that Stallman believes software freedom is more important than technical superiority that I suspect you're trolling.
Code quality is an achievement won with hard work, to be sure, but the fight for securing software freedom has historically taken considerable time in addition to any technical improvements needed. When people's attention is diverted away from ethics, the community suffers. This is true in every field of endeavor, software development is no exception. As the open source movement was designed to not talk about how people treat each other (1, 2), we need a careful and thorough rejection of the notion that programmers can afford to ply their talents without regard for how helping proprietors hurts our community. The free software movement gives us that ethics-based critique and it also gives us practical software with which to further improve our community.
Digital Citizen
What you're looking for is UEFI secure boot.
Seriously, what box are you living in?
--BitZtream
Why is non-GPL code prohibited from linking to GPLed code? Linking (i.e. using) does not restrict the freedom of the GPLed code. People who accidentally link their non-GPL code to GPL code risk converting their (often proprietary) code to GPL.
In summary, all types of free software (like BSD) and commercial software should be able to link to GPLed code without affecting their license. They should also be able to redistribute the GPL code provided it is used as-is and not modified (or the modifications published).
Why are you such a giant fucking prick? No one cares about your fat beard GNU shit. FUCK YOU.
"When did you last bath?"
"Why do you still live in your mother's basement?"
How do you feel about software projects where the authors pretend that the source code is free software, but never releases any of their updates to the code base?
For example Slashcode, the code running Slashdot, claims to be free software using the GPL version 2 and the Slashcode FAQ says that the version running on Slashdot is within a week of the version available on CVS, but not only did they apparently forget to update the FAQ when they switched to git in 2009, you'll also get an error, if you try to clone their git repository.
I know that the GPL can't be used to force the authors of Slashcode to release the updated version of the source code, so my question isn't from a legal standpoint, but more from a moral standpoint. How do you feel about the lack of updates to the public release of the Slashcode source?
Thing you appeared to eat off your foot in that famous youtube video of you?
I'm sorry, but you're wrong by the simple fact that most people would see you as a sicko, not me. The reason there are laws governing when a person is considered an adult are precisely because children are not capable of making serious choices for themselves, or would you equally apply your batshit insane logic to allowing children to purchase guns and sign up for the military?
... last have a bath?
Dear Dr. Stallman,
I am wondering if the rift between Debian GNU/Linux and the GFDL could ever be healed. For example, the Emacs documentation (GFDL) is deemed to be outside the bounds of the Debian Social Contract.
This leads one to have to enable the non-free repositories in order to install the Emacs documentation, unless one has to resort to compiling from source.
What steps must Debian take in order to come into compliance with the FSF? Would the FSF modify the GFDL to remove the objections of the Debian community? I wish that the FSF could come to complete terms with a community who actually acknowledges their lineage.
Thanks,
An Anonymous FSF Associate Member
I'm sorry, but you're wrong by the simple fact that most people would see you as a sicko, not me.
Appeal to popularity. Nice try, but it's a fallacy.
And as usual, you people assume (most of the time, incorrectly) that anyone who questions your stupid logic must be a pedophile. I defend people's right to mountain climb, but I'm not a mountain climber. I defend gay marriage, but I'm not gay. I may question your "for the children" nonsense, but I myself am not interested in children.
The reason there are laws governing when a person is considered an adult are precisely because children are not capable of making serious choices for themselves
Strange, because many adults don't seem to be able to do that either! If you're going to argue that people should be forbidden from making choices because they may make mistakes, then you should go all the way. Just admit that you're a freedom-hating authoritarian and be done with it.
or would you equally apply your batshit insane logic to allowing children to purchase guns and sign up for the military?
I don't really care what they do.
Thank you Dave Raggett
All other professionals work to protect their profession and careers. Lawyers have the bar that you have to join. Doctors need licensing and board accreditation. Musicians have the RIAA. Most professionals have lobbying groups fighting in their best interest. But engineers...not only do we shun unions and standardized licensing, but we go that extra special step to give away our services for free and turn it into a moral crusade. So my question is, with so many unemployed and underemployed engineers, how do we grow quality jobs in our industry? Do we all get jobs at universities and make money off speeches?
What are your thoughts about the applicability of the 'four freedoms' to non-software contexts?
For example, someone in an impoverished country could be handed an apple. This apple is like proprietary software - one has no idea what malware it contains until it is eaten (executed). It would be amazing if a person could independently verify the contents of this binary.
Another example; there are regulations surrounding a person's ability to modify and understand their own non-software property. My car did not come with source code or schematics, and even if it did i would not have the ability to rebuild parts of it (c.f. GPLv2/GPLv3 tivoization distinction).
With some thought, there are many cases in the modern world where a person is restricted by inessential complexity. I think there would be a lot of benefit to society in general if the 'four freedoms' concepts could be extended past the reach of software.
Can you describe the best hardware you have ever owned or used?
What is your take on video games, any form of digital recreation actually?
Given the complexity of modern CPUs and the widespread use of updatable microcode to hide bugs in, how do you think the open source world will be able to deal with this and remain competitive on performance? Actually, that goes for hardware in general - unless we can trust the firmware in our devices, we're screwed irrespective of OS. Given the average person can't just spin up their own hardware manufacturing plant (and even if there is documentation for driver development, firmware is typically closed), how do you propose we solve this problem?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Have you ever played Candy Crush ?
Society's laws are decided upon by elected representatives of the masses. If you don't like it, petition for change and get public support. Or leave. I doubt you'll find much public support for legalizing pedophilia.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
What, exactly, is your point? To point out the obvious? To point out that, even in our republic, we're still subject to the tyranny of the majority? I'm already aware.
Rather than me leaving, I wonder why all these people live in a country that's supposed to be "the land of the free and the home of the brave" to begin with?
Thank you Dave Raggett
Is the glacial pace of the GNU operating system disappointing to you? Is actually completing this OS a priority for you personally or the FSF movement at large? Thanks for all the good work you do.
My point is that if you want to live in a society and make use of its support structure (currency, public services, etc.) then you ned to abide by its rules. Whether you agree with them or not. Just because you think pedophilia is OK, does not mean that you are free to prey on other's children who do not think it is OK.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
My point is that if you want to live in a society and make use of its support structure (currency, public services, etc.) then you ned to abide by its rules.
There is something called "civil disobedience," so at the very least, this is not always true. Me? I recommend that people not be mindless drones.
Just because you think pedophilia is OK, does not mean that you are free to prey on other's children who do not think it is OK.
First, the sort of thing I'm talking about has nothing to do with preying on anyone. Second, just because they think it's not okay doesn't mean that it's wrong for someone to do it.
For example, I encourage people to treat copyright law as if it doesn't exist. It is unjust, and to me, might as well be nonexistent.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Mr. Stallman, The open software movement is proposed as an endeavor to save humanity from constantly reinventing the wheel. How close or far is the reality from the ideal? The entire open source community cannot be composed entirely of altruists. I imagine the community is primarily composed of programmers who wish to retain their source code and skill set if they change employers. If the open source community were to make the transition to a "technological singularity" what are the major and minor roadblocks you see in transitioning toward this endeavor?
"I am a software developer by heart and nature, doing it as a hobby would be a waste of my talents."
Nop! do it with balance! One that make ur living and bring food to ur house and the other u share!
Do you have any concerns about the way that systemd has been assimilating many formerly independent packages--does this work against software freedom?
Reading Sanjoy Mahajan's Street-Fighting Mathematics, he references a paper you published with Sussman about constraint propagation, the paper being about computer-aided circuit analysis. Do you still work on AI-ish topics like that? Or is it FSF-turtles all the way down?
Libre software is used in many embedded devices, however there are very few devices that do not also use proprietary software seperately on the same device.
Manufacturers will often embrace Libre software, then extend it with own essential proprietary binaries, making the whole non-free and difficult for the community to liberate.
How would you feel about a GPL like licence that didnt not tolerate distribution alongside prioprietary code (no mere agregation) ?
You know you can email RMS at rms@fsf.org and he will always answer granted your email was serious.
RMS Intercourse
Why parrots?
I disagree with the idea of Free Software as Open Source is truly Free! More Free than Free Software!
Indeed, why should your (or lister's) opinion be foisted on any other, just because you say so?
Mr Stallman,
Do you have some projects unknown to the public that you would really like to gave birth to ?
We all know about GNU, is there something else you didn't had time to start or to finish that we are unaware of and that would really please you to see completed ?
This is one question, paraphrased.
It's interesting that in places where they have a problem with teenage pregnancy the only thing that fixes it is education. Preaching or trying to control children so strictly they can't have sex with each other is like trying to herd cats. If you give them the facts to make an informed decision and access to contraception they prove themselves able to act responsibly.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
He more often than not will respond in a serious manner.
4chan.org/g/ (or, according to him, a place filled with inane comments) does it all the time.
Thank you for your polite comment, but no I'm not looking for UEFI secure boot -- or at least, not JUST that.
With UEFI secure boot, the OS loader is signed, and that's a great start. But not necessarily the kernel, or OS drivers, or any other software.
So let's rephrase the questions: do you know of any Free Software toolchains that would allow developers to sign whole server OS configurations, and also make the signature and verification process transparent to end users of the server?
I am sorry to know that you suffer for such an impairment.-Ignacio Agulló
We can control the software in our machines, choosing what we install and also rewriting the content of flash memories. But what about the software in remote machines? I mean web services such as the website from the Free Software Foundation, or backup services such as SpiderOak. We only get to see the output of it. We may be told it's free software, we may be shown the source, but the fact is that the service is unauditable to us. We are left to rely on trust exclusively, and trust isn't security.
Sure it is. Have you ever heard of the term "might makes right"? Well it's true, no matter how much childish whining you do. If you don't like the conduct of society, feel free to purchase an island in the middle of nowhere and start your own child molesting country.
Let's admit it, in 2014 restricting usage of software in weapon systems is another way of saying: "I want new enemies".
It is wrong, but true. I think GPL is not about weapon usage, it's about software, basic freedom, and the combination of both.
It's up to us humans if we are 'evil' or 'good', involving a software licence into this just seems wrong to me.
The FSF has achieved some significant successes, the GPL3 license is quite popular, and the idea of "free software" has its many fans. However, the only notable evangelists of the cause of "software freedom" seem to be you and Eben Moglen. After you two are gone, the licenses and the software will remain. But what will become of the movement without evangelists? Are you two making any efforts to hatch any replacements for yourselves?
Have you ever heard of the term "might makes right"?
Have you ever heard the term "bandwagon fallacy"?
You're just a "protect the children" loser with no capability of making logical arguments.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I like the concept of copyleft a lot. I'm just curious if there are any particular cases where copyleft has been used in a creative way that really stand out for you. What are a few of the coolest non-software uses of copyleft that you have seen?
In the article - Why "Open Source" misses the point of Free Software. I noticed that a vocabulary word was used "tyrants" which described devices that came with executable but only one special company has the power to modify them. Is there a list of these vocab words somewhere ? like a free software cheat-sheet.
I bought a Yeelong (as above) after a five year long search on ebay, using the saved search option. I would like to Upload the Hware details to www.h-node.org , as it is the last netbook left in that category that is undetailed. Is that desirable ? Please contact me at my hub. happy hacking..
Realizing most nerds are men, do you ever have she-nerds (or, why not? he-nerds) throw themselves at you? Has anybody met you after a talk and invited you up to their hotel room? Do ever get fan mail offering wild sex or proposing marriage?
anyone? I don't see it.
I have known about Richard Stallman for a long time and have seen some recent interviews down by Russia TV, whose interest is suspect, given that at least one interviewer did his utmost to twist what Stallman was saying.
I have always felt that Stallman's views are a little doctrinaire including the distinction between the kernel being totally free and the applications not being totally free. The way I understand it, the hook non-free tools have on users who install them is convenience, if not market share, but that is the hook any main market player has on consumers of any products. So, people are more than willing to sacrifice freedom, as in total control of their systems, to non-free convenience. It is not simply that closed standards are supported by non-free software, but that lots of content uses non-free standards and in some cases that is to the advantage of the content owner. It would be interesting to hear what Stallman thinks of efforts to enforce ownership on content.
I ascribe to the theory that ownership has to be enforced, that the reason why copyright protection is a losing battle in digital media is that it is predicated on the expense of making copies, which digital technology has made practically zero, and so the enforcement of property rights is at best a game of picking low hanging fruit, not stopping it. These are two distinct problems, content producers have reasons to pick closed standards, but in the face of any real ability to enforce ownership and against the possibility that they may see the advantage to publish in an free standard for wide desemination of samples of their work, if not all of them. "Free" is not the same as "Open". An open standard might just be a published API that uses a non-free core, for which a licensing fee had to be paid or at least the owner does not publish the source for.
So, this raises an interesting idea, to the extant that so-called open-source programs are undocumented or poorly documented are they free or not? Yes, you can get at the source and read it and if you are smart you can figure out what it does. If there are no documents, or they are poorly written, as is often the case, then if there are no useful comments in the source, is having the source really any different than if the code were not free?
serious question for anybody that has read his views about Zionism and Israel.
Hello mister Stallman, I really appreciate the rules that you have set up for free software, notably by the GPL, that enable us to enjoy the use of non-proprietary software everyday. My question is about what I think is an emerging new dimension in software power, impact on society, and licencing. Concerning the recent acquisition of the very secretive artificial intelligence company Deepmind by Google, I read that DeepMind required that Google create a joint Google / DeepMind ethics board as a condition of the deal, which would create rules for what Google could do with the technology. It seems to me that most artificial intelligence software today (Siri, Cyc, Watson, DeepMind, ...) are proprietary software, even if they massively use free resources like Wikipedia.
Do you feel concerned by the ethics of possible artificial intelligence software usage?
Given the possible dangers of this kind of software (see Kurzweil's Singularity) and the fear it inspires to most people (see most of the science fiction literature - except Asimov), do you feel the need for a new kind of licencing for this kind of software?
(Sorry for my mistakes in English, I'm not a native speaker)
What open source deodorant would you recommend? Or are you a shining example of why there is a gap in the market?
Ah, about that...recipes aren't eligible for copyright protection.
Sorry... that wouldn't work, would it?
Argumentum ad ignorantiam.
You're also, as the other poster noted, confused about the difference between gratis and libre. There is nothing in the GPL that says you can't make money off of it. Red Hat makes millions selling open-source software. Similarly, many people earn substantial sums by selling recipe books.
Aside: Your analogies suck. Your whole argument is pretty bad, really. If you can't avoid making logical errors in writing three short paragraphs, how much value can your code have?
Let's continue picking this apart. Your hypothetical kid next door is engaging in competitive behavior, commonly held to be a good thing. It more efficiently allocates resources, ya? And if we're going to continue thinking about this in economic terms, increased competition drives the price of some good towards the marginal cost to produce that good. The cost to produce n+1 units of software is nonzero but almost immeasurably low. You may feel that that your software is worth a certain amount, but market forces rarely take personal feelings into account; the world does not owe you a living. Selling software is by that standard a sucker's game.
But if you happen to be in that market, you are not going to be working from the bare metal, using your own syntactic structures. Accomplishing any non-trivial programming task requires using and building on the work of many others. If I have been able to code more than others, it is because I have grep'ed the code of giants. We can hold up gcc as being a essential tool for many people for many years. How novel is your code, compared to that which has been given freely? And what good is that novelty if it will be lost to the bit bucket in a handful of years?
Using the free work of others to create a closed-source product is somewhat immoral, but the real harm is to the poor bastard who gets stuck with a printer that he can only use with one OS. Or the end-user who can't export his recipes out of the proprietary software that he's been using to manage them. As a developer you exercise a great deal of power of your end-users, and it is almost inevitable that this will become to some degree abusive. The one-sided power balance inherent to closed source software practically guarantees abuse, especially when the number of users is large.
Novel or unique parts of a program, lol.
I've read through this thread, and I've read through the previous Stallman interview ( http://interviews.slashdot.org... ), but I fail to find any of his answers. Am I just plain stupid (bait!) or are the answers posted somewhere else? Does he answer under a slashdot ID or as AC?
I'm guessing that, of the two, one can't easily avoid being spied on either way. So there's no need to take on the unethical, user-subjugating proprietary software of Skype as well. But the software involved in a traditional phone call isn't under the user's control and doesn't require the caller to take on nonfree software. There's no need to restrict our consideration to just these two options, however. As Skype is perceived as a viable alternative to the traditional phone call, Skype shows us that a free software program that respects our privacy could supplant Skype. What we need is an easily-used totally free software calling program that can encrypt calls at the ends of the call so even if the call data is recorded it can't easily be decrypted for a very long time. It would be even better if there was some way of masking the parties involved the call as well so the data describing the call is unclear as well.
Digital Citizen
I'd like to read what you have to say about free software programs for nonfree operating systems. Do you find that free software programs for nonfree operating systems help migrate users to freedom, reinforce a user's dependency on nonfree operating systems, or something else?
Digital Citizen
What is your favorite food for breakfast?
The automotive industry blatantly has no regard for security https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqe6S6m73Zw
and the attack surface continues to grow linking your very vulnerable personal devices to your very critical control systems
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9246695/The_next_wave_of_cars_may_use_Ethernet
If I am to purchase a vehicle I should have ownership and control over all hardware included in the vehicle. And the firmware which runs on it that comes from the OEM is far from acceptable. It seems like open source would help solve the afore mentioned issues but this is a difficult problem since each system differs so much across make/model.
How do you think we can get open firmware and software deployed in the automotive industry?