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RMS Talks Net Neutrality, Patents, and More
alphadogg writes "According to Richard Stallman, godfather of the free software movement, Facebook is a "monstrous surveillance engine," tech companies working for patent reform aren't going nearly far enough, and parents must lobby their children's schools to keep data private and provide free software alternatives. The free software guru touched on a host of topics in his keynote Saturday at the LibrePlanet conference, a Free Software Foundation gathering at the Scala Center at MIT.
This seems like a new low for slashdot. I mean, I know we all aren't going to read the article or anything, but a link to it should still be there so that we can feel like we read it!
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
From TFS: According to RMS, Facebook is a "monstrous surveillance engine,"
Frankly, I think he's being excessively kind on Facebook there and that's the last thing I would have expected from him!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
yeah. is a bit. here
Here's a transcript: http://libreplanet.org/wiki/GN...
And an article written about the keynote: http://www.networkworld.com/ar...
(Thanks to 2 AC's for pointing these links out.)
The whole event was recorded and streamed, so the keynote video should be available some time soon.
(I can't see any reason why the article summary didn't include the link.)
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Stalman has done a lot, but sometimes his ideas get in the way of actual software. Hurd? after decades still not shipped. gcc? Got out of hand until it got taken over by egcs.
That makes no sense. His idea was to have a 100% free unix. They started working on the hurd. Then Linux came along and it was under an acceptable license, so RMS declared that the problem was solved, GNU had the kernel it wanted and so developing one was no longer a priority.
Likewise ECGS (Experimental GNU Compiler System) was a fork of GCC it proved substantially better, so the FSF abandoned the mainline and adopted the superior fork.
In other words, I think both examples you've given of RMS getting in the way are actually examples of exactly the opposite.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
He has a problem with personal hygiene.
If this was intended to make RMS look bad, it has backfired. It just makes his detractors look like a bunch of schoolyard children who can't come up with a real criticism, but decided they just don't like the guy so he must be bad.
There was free software before him (BSD, etc) and will be free software after him.
RMS did not invent free software. But he was the first to espouse the philosophy of free software, and argue that it was an ethical and moral issue. He also made huge practical contributions. If you run Linux, you are likely using a lot more code written by RMS than by Linus.
Looking at the kerfuffle around LLVM/Clang you can find more of the same attitude from RMS—he doesn't have the ego invested in the work as his detractors claim he does (often without examples cited at all, sometimes as with the grandparent poster with wrong examples cited):
Those aren't the words of someone who places ego above the good of the project or the public. For software freedom seekers, software freedom and defense of software freedom is the goal and good for the public.
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