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Interviews: RMS Answers Your Questions
The Free Software Foundation will be celebrating its 30th anniversary on Oct. 3rd. Recently, you had a chance to ask its founder Richard Stallman about GNU/Linux, free software, and other issues of public concern. Below you'll find his answers to your questions. Learn more about how you can join the FSF here, and help fight the good fight.
Companies Selling Actually Free Software?
by eldavojohn
I found your piece on selling free software to be pretty logical on paper. However, has it ever worked in the wild? Can you name companies or revenues that currently operate on this idea (and I'm not talking about services or support of the software)? I simply can't come up with a widely used monetized piece of software licensed under the GNU GPL whereby the original software was sold at a single price and shipped with the source code -- free for the original purchaser to distribute by the license's clauses. Can you list any revenue generation from that? I must admit I'm not exactly enamored with paying for free software (as in your definition of free) before it's written yet I cannot think of any other way this would fairly compensate the developer.
RMS: I have to exert all my self control to respond civilly after seeing the word "monetize". Implicit in that word is the idea that you want to turn everything into money. The only point in writing a program is to turn it into money. Feh!
I don't object to making money in an ethical way. I don't object to raising money ethically to work on free software. But when you talk in terms of "monetizing", your thoughts have become twisted in a direction that will lead you to be a parasite.
Simply selling copies of free software was an effective way to raise money when I wrote that article, and remained so through the early 90s. As you've noted, that isn't usually the case.
But we have effective ethical ways of funding free software development. For instance, selling support to commercial users, selling exceptions, developing solutions for clients' internal use, and crowdfunding. Simply asking satisfied users for donations works for some developers.
How do you feel about web applications?
by bigsexyjoe
I know you don't like Software as a Service. However, there are some web applications that really only work as a web application. Slashdot is an example of this. Do you feel that creators of web applications should be obliged to make their source code available? Also, if I am employed as web application developer, am I a bad person?
RMS: That's not quite correct. What I reject is somewhat different: Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS). This means a service that does a job that you could do by running a program in your own computer.
The two concepts overlap only partly. I don't think I disapprove of _all_ the things you'd call "Software as a Service", because not all of them are SaaSS.
I don't like to use the term "web application" because it is designed to ignore a distinction I consider crucial, between the software in the server and the software in the client. Even if they are designed to work together, they raise totally different ethical issues.
To avoid confusing them, I insist on talking separately about "services" and "client programs". Of course, I reject a non-free client program like any other non-free program.
As for the server software that implements a service, that doesn't directly affect me as a user of the service. I don't even need to know whether it's done with software or by humans. For your sake, though, if you use software in your server, I hope it is free-libre so that it respects your freedom and you have control over your own server.
Slashdot is a web service. In the past, one could access it with a free web browser -- no special client software was needed. Maybe that is still true -- I don't know. Many web servers send programs to run in the user's browser, generally in the form of Javascript code. Most of these programs are proprietary, and I use LibreJS to prevent those from running in my computer. That means there are services that won't work for me. I value my freedom too much to run their non-free software.
If Slashdot sends Javascript code to the user, it should make sure that code carries a free license and (if minimized or otherwise transformed) a pointer to the real source code.
However, I am not happy about automatically running a program sent to my browser by a server even if it carries a free license. For users to maintain a modified version of that software is inconvenient even if it is authorized. Thus, I'd rather not run substantial Javascript code. If I am going to run a program on my computer, I want to install it the same way I install Emacs, GNOME or LibreOffice.
As always, I don't want to talk about "web applications". We must keep web services and client programs separate.
Ethical treatment of your users calls for making all your client-side software (including Javascript) free.
I don't think web services are wrong _in general_, but they raise various ethical issues. For instance, you shouldn't collect any data about your users, or remember what they do on the site, unless the essence of the service consists of remembering this data. A secondary "social" (I'd rather call it "antisocial") functionality does not justify imposing surveillance on users who want only the principal functionality.
Do not try to excuse adding a brick to the wall of massive surveillance.
Re: On the matter of smartphones
by Anonymous Coward
How do we take smart phones out of the control of corporations and back into user's control? There's GNU/Linux for computers which gives the users freedoms, but there's no equivalent for smart phones yet. I see this as a serious problem because people are largely abandoning computers and laptops to move toward smart phones and tablets. So my question is: How to make a smartphone that truly has the user's interest at heart? (Not trying to sell them apps, spy and track on them, restrict them to a walled garden, etc.)
RMS: There are phones on which you can run Replicant, the free version of Android. Some peripherals don't work, but you can do calls and texts.
Portable phones have another problem: the radio modem processor which talks with the phone network always runs proprietary software, written for a secret processor. Nowadays it checks signatures, so that software is tivoized; Even if we had free replacement software, the processor would refuse to run it.
Even worse, that proprietary program has a universal back door, so it can be altered by commands sent by radio. In most phone models, the modem processor can take control of the main processor and replace its software. Thus, even if you have installed Replicant, the phone company and others have the power to remotely overwrite it with something nasty.
The usual "something nasty" is software that listens all the time and transmits all the speech it hears.
By designing the phone carefully, it is possible to prevent the modem processor from sabotaging the main processor or from accessing the microphone. Unfortunately, we know of no such phone model that can use its peripherals without non-free drivers.
There is another problem that we can never fix, because it is inherent in the way the cellular network works. The phone sends signals all the time it is turned on (except in airplane mode), and the phone network uses those signals to determine where the phone is located. That system records where the phone has been.
In other words, every portable phone is a tracking device.
I know of a possible fix for that: build a one-way pager into the phone. Then you can keep the phone in "airplane mode" (no tracking) nearly all the time, and tell people that they should page you when they have something to say to you. When you are paged, you can decide when it is safe to connect to the phone radio network and reveal your location -- presumably when you are in a place that is not sensitive.
The future of private and free tech?
by Anonymous Coward
My biggest concern in this day and age is the dumbing down and commercialization of computing. What used to be open, interoperable programs has now turned into ad based, proprietary apps. We've gone from having something like Pidgin being able to run all instant messaging clients ad free to now having to download a separate app for every messenger, for example (no one uses the older ones anymore, or they've been shut down). Also, free standards like email have been falling out of favor due to corporate pushes to lock down users into walled gardens like Facebook. Of course there's always the option of not using these proprietary apps, but it really hinders your social life. Also, programs (now called "apps") are designed to milk the users for money, rather than to benefit the users, as you know is the case with things like " defective by design" DRM.
Is there any way computing can truly become free and user centric again, or do you think it's truly a lost cause? If so, how can we do it without losing connection with the rest of the world who will not give up their FB/WhatsApp/Kik (and don't answer their phone or emails anymore)?
RMS: Please don't associate me with advocacy of something "open". I have never used that term.
I disagree with “open source”, of course. However, before that term was coined in 1998, the term "open software" was used to mean something else. It meant that users could choose from various components that could interoperate. I think that's the term this question refers to.
Unix was referred to as "open software", in that sense. However, although Unix was "open", it was not free software or even close to it. Being "open" meant that the user had (in theory) a choice between various proprietary programs -- but that's not freedom, that's only having the chance to choose your master. Being "open" was insufficient because what we need is "free". That's why I needed to write a free operating system, the GNU operating system, to replace Unix.
That's why "GNU" stands for "GNU's Not Unix".
The first step in opposing these evil tendencies is to refuse, firmly and persistently, to yield to them. No matter what anyone else does, I will never be a used of Facebook. I will never use those messenger cr...apps because they are non-free software; not to mention that I won't use the non-free platforms they run on.
If that means there are some people I can't talk with, I will live with that. I might want to talk with them, but not badly enough to surrender my freedom to do it.
Your question presents the issue as an all-or-nothing binary choice, total victory or total defeat. But that's not how it is.
It's a shame that they use those, but we don't need them to _stop_ using those things just in order for us to talk with them. It's enough for them to resume using email and phone calls.
You could send these people a card, once in a while, saying "I'd still like to be friends with you, if you'd like to talk by email or a phone call. I won't be used by Facebook or run WhatsApp. I can't talk with you that way, but that's nothing personal. I'd like to see you some day."
Then either they get back to you or they don't.
On the matter of privacy
by GeekWithAKnife
In your opinion, how can a government strike a fair balance between privacy and snooping powers? Given that the government needs to be able to spy on potentially dangerous people and groups and such desires have grown legs, wings and multiple heads over the years...
RMS: Over the past 20 years, digital technology has been used to implement a tremendous increase in surveillance. Most citizens of the US live under far more surveillance than the citizens of the Soviet Union knew.
As a result, the balance between privacy and investigation is totally skewed. It's not just a little off, it is wildly wrong, so much that it threatens democracy. Democracy depends on whistleblowers to tell the public what the government is doing, so if surveillance is enough for the government to find and imprison whistleblowers, democracy is directly threatened.
We need to redesign digital systems so that they do not accumulate dossiers about people other than court-designated suspects. Read here for more arguments, plus suggestions about how to do this.
We should also praise Edward Snowden vigorously on every pertinent occasion. The US political class -- which mostly tolerates or promotes oppressive surveillance -- condemns him and continues to demonize him. It's up to us to oppose that.
This is why I lead "three cheers for Edward Snowden" when I talk about surveillance in my speeches.
The next big thing
by laffer1
What do you see as the next big issue coming up with software licensing that isn't addressed with the existing GPL and AGPL licenses?
RMS: I don't know of any. GPL version 3 seems to be what we need; there is no flaw or problem that would require another license.
People have suggested making a "Lesser Affero GPL", and I agree it might be a good thing -- it would take the form of an exception added to the Affero GPL -- but the first step is to figure out what it ought to _do_. What uses should it permit that the existing Affero GPL does not?
I am interested in getting suggestions about this from developers that have real software they might want to release under such a license.
Microsoft's Contributions to Free Software
by jrnvk
It seems like Microsoft is starting to contribute more to free products. What's your take on them joining the community, given their rather different approach in historical times?
RMS: Microsoft's most important software continues to be proprietary, and malware too. In fact, Windows 10 is even nastier malware than Windows 8 was.
This is an enormous wrong, and we can't excuse Microsoft for this just because it develops some free programs also.
What are your views on console gaming?
by Kethinov
It's long been possible to run entirely free software on a PC, but the world of game consoles has been a proprietary hellscape for many years. In recent years there's been an attempt to open it up in some very modest ways, mainly through the proliferation of Android "microconsoles" and other Android-based set top boxes. Do you find these new developments to be a step in the right direction and are you worried as I am that they're not catching on very well?
RMS: Alas, I know nothing about them. Since you say "open it up", and "open" is not the same thing as "free", I can't tell from your question whether those projects do, or can, lead to a community based on free games.
What I can say is that I wouldn't run a non-free game any more than I'd run a non-free operating system or a non-free compiler or a non-free messaging program.
Teaching about Free Software in CS courses
by daveagp
I teach CS at a university, often including introductory courses. Regarding free software, what message(s) is/are the most vital to communicate to people who are writing computer programs for the first time?
RMS: Here's the message I would give:
If you become skilled at programming, you will come to notice how non-free programs, denying you the source code, restrict and oppress you. But non-free software is prevalent only because the users tolerate it. As recognition of its injustice spreads, we will be able to put an end to it.
I have chosen free software for this class because I value my freedom and I refuse to give it up. Also because I don't want to be responsible for leading you to surrender your freedom.
Please read this for more about this issue.
Then I'd prepare to spend the next class session discussing that reading.
GFDL?
by ISayWeOnlyToBePolite
The Gnu Free Documentation License (GFDL) has not been embraced with nearly as much love as the GPL and numerous issues have been raised:
by eldavojohn
I found your piece on selling free software to be pretty logical on paper. However, has it ever worked in the wild? Can you name companies or revenues that currently operate on this idea (and I'm not talking about services or support of the software)? I simply can't come up with a widely used monetized piece of software licensed under the GNU GPL whereby the original software was sold at a single price and shipped with the source code -- free for the original purchaser to distribute by the license's clauses. Can you list any revenue generation from that? I must admit I'm not exactly enamored with paying for free software (as in your definition of free) before it's written yet I cannot think of any other way this would fairly compensate the developer.
RMS: I have to exert all my self control to respond civilly after seeing the word "monetize". Implicit in that word is the idea that you want to turn everything into money. The only point in writing a program is to turn it into money. Feh!
I don't object to making money in an ethical way. I don't object to raising money ethically to work on free software. But when you talk in terms of "monetizing", your thoughts have become twisted in a direction that will lead you to be a parasite.
Simply selling copies of free software was an effective way to raise money when I wrote that article, and remained so through the early 90s. As you've noted, that isn't usually the case.
But we have effective ethical ways of funding free software development. For instance, selling support to commercial users, selling exceptions, developing solutions for clients' internal use, and crowdfunding. Simply asking satisfied users for donations works for some developers.
How do you feel about web applications?
by bigsexyjoe
I know you don't like Software as a Service. However, there are some web applications that really only work as a web application. Slashdot is an example of this. Do you feel that creators of web applications should be obliged to make their source code available? Also, if I am employed as web application developer, am I a bad person?
RMS: That's not quite correct. What I reject is somewhat different: Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS). This means a service that does a job that you could do by running a program in your own computer.
The two concepts overlap only partly. I don't think I disapprove of _all_ the things you'd call "Software as a Service", because not all of them are SaaSS.
I don't like to use the term "web application" because it is designed to ignore a distinction I consider crucial, between the software in the server and the software in the client. Even if they are designed to work together, they raise totally different ethical issues.
To avoid confusing them, I insist on talking separately about "services" and "client programs". Of course, I reject a non-free client program like any other non-free program.
As for the server software that implements a service, that doesn't directly affect me as a user of the service. I don't even need to know whether it's done with software or by humans. For your sake, though, if you use software in your server, I hope it is free-libre so that it respects your freedom and you have control over your own server.
Slashdot is a web service. In the past, one could access it with a free web browser -- no special client software was needed. Maybe that is still true -- I don't know. Many web servers send programs to run in the user's browser, generally in the form of Javascript code. Most of these programs are proprietary, and I use LibreJS to prevent those from running in my computer. That means there are services that won't work for me. I value my freedom too much to run their non-free software.
If Slashdot sends Javascript code to the user, it should make sure that code carries a free license and (if minimized or otherwise transformed) a pointer to the real source code.
However, I am not happy about automatically running a program sent to my browser by a server even if it carries a free license. For users to maintain a modified version of that software is inconvenient even if it is authorized. Thus, I'd rather not run substantial Javascript code. If I am going to run a program on my computer, I want to install it the same way I install Emacs, GNOME or LibreOffice.
As always, I don't want to talk about "web applications". We must keep web services and client programs separate.
Ethical treatment of your users calls for making all your client-side software (including Javascript) free.
I don't think web services are wrong _in general_, but they raise various ethical issues. For instance, you shouldn't collect any data about your users, or remember what they do on the site, unless the essence of the service consists of remembering this data. A secondary "social" (I'd rather call it "antisocial") functionality does not justify imposing surveillance on users who want only the principal functionality.
Do not try to excuse adding a brick to the wall of massive surveillance.
Re: On the matter of smartphones
by Anonymous Coward
How do we take smart phones out of the control of corporations and back into user's control? There's GNU/Linux for computers which gives the users freedoms, but there's no equivalent for smart phones yet. I see this as a serious problem because people are largely abandoning computers and laptops to move toward smart phones and tablets. So my question is: How to make a smartphone that truly has the user's interest at heart? (Not trying to sell them apps, spy and track on them, restrict them to a walled garden, etc.)
RMS: There are phones on which you can run Replicant, the free version of Android. Some peripherals don't work, but you can do calls and texts.
Portable phones have another problem: the radio modem processor which talks with the phone network always runs proprietary software, written for a secret processor. Nowadays it checks signatures, so that software is tivoized; Even if we had free replacement software, the processor would refuse to run it.
Even worse, that proprietary program has a universal back door, so it can be altered by commands sent by radio. In most phone models, the modem processor can take control of the main processor and replace its software. Thus, even if you have installed Replicant, the phone company and others have the power to remotely overwrite it with something nasty.
The usual "something nasty" is software that listens all the time and transmits all the speech it hears.
By designing the phone carefully, it is possible to prevent the modem processor from sabotaging the main processor or from accessing the microphone. Unfortunately, we know of no such phone model that can use its peripherals without non-free drivers.
There is another problem that we can never fix, because it is inherent in the way the cellular network works. The phone sends signals all the time it is turned on (except in airplane mode), and the phone network uses those signals to determine where the phone is located. That system records where the phone has been.
In other words, every portable phone is a tracking device.
I know of a possible fix for that: build a one-way pager into the phone. Then you can keep the phone in "airplane mode" (no tracking) nearly all the time, and tell people that they should page you when they have something to say to you. When you are paged, you can decide when it is safe to connect to the phone radio network and reveal your location -- presumably when you are in a place that is not sensitive.
The future of private and free tech?
by Anonymous Coward
My biggest concern in this day and age is the dumbing down and commercialization of computing. What used to be open, interoperable programs has now turned into ad based, proprietary apps. We've gone from having something like Pidgin being able to run all instant messaging clients ad free to now having to download a separate app for every messenger, for example (no one uses the older ones anymore, or they've been shut down). Also, free standards like email have been falling out of favor due to corporate pushes to lock down users into walled gardens like Facebook. Of course there's always the option of not using these proprietary apps, but it really hinders your social life. Also, programs (now called "apps") are designed to milk the users for money, rather than to benefit the users, as you know is the case with things like " defective by design" DRM.
Is there any way computing can truly become free and user centric again, or do you think it's truly a lost cause? If so, how can we do it without losing connection with the rest of the world who will not give up their FB/WhatsApp/Kik (and don't answer their phone or emails anymore)?
RMS: Please don't associate me with advocacy of something "open". I have never used that term.
I disagree with “open source”, of course. However, before that term was coined in 1998, the term "open software" was used to mean something else. It meant that users could choose from various components that could interoperate. I think that's the term this question refers to.
Unix was referred to as "open software", in that sense. However, although Unix was "open", it was not free software or even close to it. Being "open" meant that the user had (in theory) a choice between various proprietary programs -- but that's not freedom, that's only having the chance to choose your master. Being "open" was insufficient because what we need is "free". That's why I needed to write a free operating system, the GNU operating system, to replace Unix.
That's why "GNU" stands for "GNU's Not Unix".
The first step in opposing these evil tendencies is to refuse, firmly and persistently, to yield to them. No matter what anyone else does, I will never be a used of Facebook. I will never use those messenger cr...apps because they are non-free software; not to mention that I won't use the non-free platforms they run on.
If that means there are some people I can't talk with, I will live with that. I might want to talk with them, but not badly enough to surrender my freedom to do it.
Your question presents the issue as an all-or-nothing binary choice, total victory or total defeat. But that's not how it is.
It's a shame that they use those, but we don't need them to _stop_ using those things just in order for us to talk with them. It's enough for them to resume using email and phone calls.
You could send these people a card, once in a while, saying "I'd still like to be friends with you, if you'd like to talk by email or a phone call. I won't be used by Facebook or run WhatsApp. I can't talk with you that way, but that's nothing personal. I'd like to see you some day."
Then either they get back to you or they don't.
On the matter of privacy
by GeekWithAKnife
In your opinion, how can a government strike a fair balance between privacy and snooping powers? Given that the government needs to be able to spy on potentially dangerous people and groups and such desires have grown legs, wings and multiple heads over the years...
RMS: Over the past 20 years, digital technology has been used to implement a tremendous increase in surveillance. Most citizens of the US live under far more surveillance than the citizens of the Soviet Union knew.
As a result, the balance between privacy and investigation is totally skewed. It's not just a little off, it is wildly wrong, so much that it threatens democracy. Democracy depends on whistleblowers to tell the public what the government is doing, so if surveillance is enough for the government to find and imprison whistleblowers, democracy is directly threatened.
We need to redesign digital systems so that they do not accumulate dossiers about people other than court-designated suspects. Read here for more arguments, plus suggestions about how to do this.
We should also praise Edward Snowden vigorously on every pertinent occasion. The US political class -- which mostly tolerates or promotes oppressive surveillance -- condemns him and continues to demonize him. It's up to us to oppose that.
This is why I lead "three cheers for Edward Snowden" when I talk about surveillance in my speeches.
The next big thing
by laffer1
What do you see as the next big issue coming up with software licensing that isn't addressed with the existing GPL and AGPL licenses?
RMS: I don't know of any. GPL version 3 seems to be what we need; there is no flaw or problem that would require another license.
People have suggested making a "Lesser Affero GPL", and I agree it might be a good thing -- it would take the form of an exception added to the Affero GPL -- but the first step is to figure out what it ought to _do_. What uses should it permit that the existing Affero GPL does not?
I am interested in getting suggestions about this from developers that have real software they might want to release under such a license.
Microsoft's Contributions to Free Software
by jrnvk
It seems like Microsoft is starting to contribute more to free products. What's your take on them joining the community, given their rather different approach in historical times?
RMS: Microsoft's most important software continues to be proprietary, and malware too. In fact, Windows 10 is even nastier malware than Windows 8 was.
This is an enormous wrong, and we can't excuse Microsoft for this just because it develops some free programs also.
What are your views on console gaming?
by Kethinov
It's long been possible to run entirely free software on a PC, but the world of game consoles has been a proprietary hellscape for many years. In recent years there's been an attempt to open it up in some very modest ways, mainly through the proliferation of Android "microconsoles" and other Android-based set top boxes. Do you find these new developments to be a step in the right direction and are you worried as I am that they're not catching on very well?
RMS: Alas, I know nothing about them. Since you say "open it up", and "open" is not the same thing as "free", I can't tell from your question whether those projects do, or can, lead to a community based on free games.
What I can say is that I wouldn't run a non-free game any more than I'd run a non-free operating system or a non-free compiler or a non-free messaging program.
Teaching about Free Software in CS courses
by daveagp
I teach CS at a university, often including introductory courses. Regarding free software, what message(s) is/are the most vital to communicate to people who are writing computer programs for the first time?
RMS: Here's the message I would give:
If you become skilled at programming, you will come to notice how non-free programs, denying you the source code, restrict and oppress you. But non-free software is prevalent only because the users tolerate it. As recognition of its injustice spreads, we will be able to put an end to it.
I have chosen free software for this class because I value my freedom and I refuse to give it up. Also because I don't want to be responsible for leading you to surrender your freedom.
Please read this for more about this issue.
Then I'd prepare to spend the next class session discussing that reading.
GFDL?
by ISayWeOnlyToBePolite
The Gnu Free Documentation License (GFDL) has not been embraced with nearly as much love as the GPL and numerous issues have been raised:
- Non compatibility with GPL (both ways).
- Non-freeness (as deemed by Debian) of invariant sections.
- Cumbersomeness of having to print the full license when distributing physical printouts.
Wikipedia for example does not accept contributions licensed under the GFDL only. What do you see as a way forward in addressing the issues raised regarding the GFDL?
RMS: That is a fact.
- Two different copyleft licenses, each with different requirements, can't help being incompatible. Thus, CC-SA is incompatible with the GNU GPL also. The only way to avoid that is if one presents the other as an option, as some other free licenses permit relicensing under the GPL.
- You'll have to talk with the Debian people about that. I am not responsible for their views.
- The GNU GPL has the same requirement: every copy of the work must
_come with_ a copy of the license. I adopted that criterion so that
works won't get separated from their license.
Under today's insane copyright law, a copyright can last for more than a century. We can expect Disney to try to buy a 20-year increase soon, as it did in 1998. If you live 40 more years, works that you write today will still be copyrighted in 2125, unless we have defeated the copyright industry by then.
We have convenient ways for a work to refer to a license, and I expect they will still work 5 years from now, but we can't count on them to function in a hundred years. In 10 or 20 years, the World Wide Web could be wiped out by the cr...apps that most mobile operating systems promote. Or, considering a much smaller change, the US government might confiscate the domain gnu.org for posting forbidden dissident material such as this.
Keeping a copy of the license with the work is the only way we can make sure people several decades from now will see what how are allowed to use it.
I was disappointed when Wikipedia decided to change to CC-SA as its
primary license, but given that it has done so, I can't criticize this
policy.
I know of one way [of addressing the issues raised regarding the GFDL]: release your documentation under the GFDL.
Thanks for the update, glad to know he's still crazier than a rat trapped in a tin shithouse.
Money is a medium of communication; it's how disparate peoples with disparate needs organize themselves into cooperation—without even realizing it—in order to come up with complex solutions to very complex problems in a way that [hopefully] everyone is satisfied.
To monetize something means to integrate it into this Great Discussion about how to solve the world's conundrums.
There are so many problems in the libre software sector, because Stallman never realized the need to monetize his ideas; we'd have all been better off if Stallman had created a viable hardware business, because the problem—one that Stallman never appreciated—is the lack of well documented, open hardware that anyone can program.
I'm concerned that the issue of systemd wasn't addressed properly by these questions and their answers. Systemd is having a huge impact on the FSF, the GNU project, on Linux, and on the entire open source ecosystem.
Regardless of what you may personally think about systemd, it has clearly been the most divisive force affecting the entire GNU/Linux community ever. We've seen it cause irreparable harm to the Debian project, as well as causing many problems for many people (the huge number of bug reports and mailing list postings begging for help confirm this). Some long time GNU/Linux users have been forced to find alternatives, including the BSDs. Since pretty much all of the major Linux distros now use systemd, even switching distros isn't an option. These people have to leave the GNU/Linux ecosystem altogether.
The FSF should be shitting its pants about what systemd is doing to Linux, to the relevancy of the GNU software, and to the open source movement as a whole. Systemd has shown itself to be on the leading edge of driving Linux users away from GPL/LGPL/AGPL software over to software that's released under the BSD and MIT licenses.
What we're seeing is that a lot of former GNU/Linux users are now using one or more of the BSDs, using lots of non-GPLed software, and absolutely loving every aspect of it. They're getting OSes that are respect and embrace the UNIX philosophy, which in turn makes them extremely reliable and trustworthy. They're getting software that's better than the GNU alternatives in many ways (like LLVM/Clang versus GCC). They're coming to realize that maybe the GPL family of licenses isn't so good after all, and that maybe promoting more freedom, rather than ideology, actually does result in better software. They're starting to use software written for the sake of providing good software to meet real-world needs, rather than using software that was written to fulfill a philosophical agenda.
The GNU project and the FSF won't escape the harm that systemd is bringing to the entire Linux ecosystem. So it's very surprising that they haven't addressed the issue sooner, especially in a semi-prominent interview with a highly tech-focused audience like this one is.
"RMS: That's not quite correct. What I reject is somewhat different: Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS). This means a service that does a job that you could do by running a program in your own computer."
See subject: Says it ALL from my perspective (especially in a world CHOCK FULL of massively buggy or tracking/surveilling online "web APPS")...
Why?
Judas Priest said it while I was in highschool, the best:
"Up here in space
I'm looking down on you.
My lasers trace
Everything you do.
You think you've private lives
Think nothing of the kind.
There is no true escape
I'm watching all the time.
I'm made of metal
My circuits gleam.
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean.
I'm elected electric spy
I'm protected electric eye.
Always in focus
You can't feel my stare.
I zoom into you
You don't know I'm there.
I take a pride in probing all your secret moves
My tearless retina takes pictures that can prove.
Electric eye, in the sky
Feel my stare, always there
There 's nothing you can do about it.
Develop and expose
I feed upon your every thought
And so my power grows.
Protected. Detective. Electric eye."
* FROM -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
(I hated doing "web apps" while I worked for others, & for the reasons noted here already by myself, & yes, Mr. Stallman too... I look @ them as Linus Torvalds does - they don't hold my interest & are INFERIOR on many levels!)
APK
P.S.=> Note the BOLD part above? LMAO - The "app, APPS for apps, apps" guy is going to LOVE this one, lol... apk
30 years? I thought Linux was only 25 years old.
The word implies no such thing, and you know it.
Strawman arguments are lies.
GCC and the GNU tool set were (and still are) all undoubtedly well worth the consequence of having to read this rubbish.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Sentiment? It's because open source threatens people's cushy jobs (real or imagined) so they run out in force to flame RMS, Free Software, GNU, etc any chance they get.
tldr hater's gonna hate.
Keep up the great work, rms ...you're kicking all the right ass!!
Reading what Stallman has to say is always annoying and appalling. Annoying because he isn't very polite to people he's talking to, and he's always demanding folks take actions almost nobody is going to take in order to stave off a future dystopia. Appalling because you realize that all his previous predictions of future dystopia have come true.
It's too bad he didn't deign to answer the first question.
Also, he seems to have weird ideas that individuals are pure-hearted saints, and corporations are inherently evil and malicious. His smart-phone answer, which seems to indicate he thinks no person would ever, knowingly or accidently, do anything to impact the public cell network, should they be able to write their own radio drivers, but outright states that the corporations will install evil software on users's phones as a matter of course, is the most blatant.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
What we're seeing is that a lot of former GNU/Linux users are now using one or more of the BSDs
Citation needed.
Why he could never really get support for the Hurd?
I'm shocked.*
*Not really shocked.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Would the phone as a pager idea really work? The towers would broadcast messages, and if your device matched the message, you would get a notification to connect to the network? Could you get 1-way text messages this way? If this were implemented on the cell networks, could I read all the broadcast or text messages in my local area by modifying my radio?
He would have kicked yours for using the phrase "open source."
Regarding the first question I don't think you can really sell free software and make big money on it.
With free software the amount of copies people can make, install, download, etc... can be thought of as infinite as there is no limit per the GNU GPL. If you take the supply and demand model of markets the supply line can be thought of as moving infinitely to the right. Since supply is infinite demand doesn't matter and the whole thing breaks down. You may be able to get someone to pay for what they can get for free on the internet but most people are not going to pay for it.
It's because open source threatens people's cushy jobs
ITYM "free software".
See subject: Yet /. "just loves" him (as far as 'polite' etc. - he's just forthright & honest about his views).
* I respect him myself - & I see your point(s) on the "dystopia" part - I think, personally, that "little revolutions" YOU start yourself, WITH YOURSELF & FOR YOURSELF, is how good ideas others notice take hold... doing it, yourself (then, after a good "testing trial run", possibly spreading those out to others, yes, for FREE!).
APK
P.S.=> I find them BOTH (RMS & LT) pleasingly refreshing in a world full of "politically correct" deceitful self-serving twits & weasels actually... apk
systemd is licensed under a GNU license. If you don't like it, use something else. I don't think Stallman gives a shit about the anti systemd whining. He is promoting a license philosophy, not dictating which designs are worthy and which aren't.
Free Software is a free market. Redhat sees more benefit in using systemd than in using sysvinit. So do many other vendors. As long as they release under GPL, Stallman doesn't care. If you want something else, GO MAKE SOMETHING ELSE. Your whining is not going to do shit.
Wait what, isn't the whole thing about open source that other people do stuff for you?
Can you point out how Systemd runs counter to the philosophies that the FSF puts forward?
It's free-as-in-speech software published under and FSF approved license. You're free to modify it for your own use. (And free to redistribute your changes under the term of said license) You're free to use it or not use it.
More distributions are choosing it because they feel it's a better solution. Some are not. You're not forced to use it.
Stop trying to put your square peg in to to this discussion's round hole.
I was looking Thru, expecting to see this as the #2 or #3 topic... but nothing. Who made this list. If anything DOES threaten diversity and endanger many fundamental aspects of FSF... I've not seen it. Lets get our house in order, even if it requires formal forking of things thought unforkable.
Because it is under the GPL, and that seems to be good enough for him.
Never mind that it barrels on in a way that is only beneficial for a small group in the long run, the ones that are poised to sell support packages to cover the tangled mess. The rest are up shit creek.
No, it is about you making stuff for other peoples. eg; sharing what you make.
but boy does he sounds like a lunatic.
I'm sorry, but anyone who wants to see free software flourish should make sure to steer clear from that guy.
Like I said, his ideas and ideals are great, and I'm OK with most of them, but the way he responds to questions make him look like a leader trying to enroll us into his sect.
He has a serious image problem, and sadly it's bad for the free software movement.
Try it! Library of Babel
Indeed it is true. We were betrayed. Coincidentally, I was interview maybe 1 or 2 years before the general public went ape shit crazy about systemd by a huge firm in the hotels/hostels business, and they were quite adamant they had Linux, but needed fresh blood to go full FreeBSD. At the time, I did not get it actually, silly me.
My main question is about libre computing. The alternatives are either refurbished obsolete hardware, expensive or a sham at the moment.
I hate it when my imaginary jobs are threatened.
I love RMS because he is basically Rorscach from Watchmen, only about software. With all the positive and negative that implies.
Why can't free/open/etc software produce anything anyone wants to use? How can Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, etc keep making software people want to use, while free software blows chunks because it's terrible? The most usable software in the open world is stuff like Firefox, which is being ruined and destroyed and turned into a mess, or GNOME which is a disaster. Other than that, you get weird fringe software like the user interface disaster known as GIMP. Why can't the open world come up with something better?
It is great to read RMS q&a's. He is always crystal clear and to the point. The older I get the more I appreciate just how far ahead of the curve he was in the 70's and 80's and just how far ahead of the curve he still remains.
Looking at the rest of the responses in this thread, for the most part, is evidence that we are doomed once he is gone.
Not a single rational and well thought out response in any of the threads.
If you become skilled at programming, you will come to notice how non-free programs, denying you the source code, restrict and oppress you.
What bollocks.
The last piece of productivity software I bought was Affinity Photo. I bought it because I prefer it to Photoshop or Gimp and it cost only forty bucks. Bargain. When bought it, I knew it was closed-source. I haven't been sold something under the impression that it was something else. Even if it was open-source, I wouldn't have the time to change it if it didn't do what I wanted. Closed or open, I'd still e-mail the developers for feature requests and bugs. For those reasons, I'm not restricted. I don't feel very "oppressed" either .
The only situation in which I can see myself being "restricted" by closed-source software is if I didn't trust the company, and the product was poorly supported. I have experienced this over the last year and my solution was to roll my own alternative. I am free to do that and the presence of bad commercial shit does not take away my freedoms.
soylentnews.org
Please don't associate me with advocacy of something "open". I have never used that term.[emphasis added]
I disagree with “open source”, of course. However, before that term was coined in 1998, the term "open software" was used to mean something else. It meant that users could choose from various components that could interoperate. I think that's the term this question refers to.
Unix was referred to as "open software", in that sense. However, although Unix was "open", it was not free software or even close to it. Being "open" meant that the user had (in theory) a choice between various proprietary programs -- but that's not freedom, that's only having the chance to choose your master. Being "open" was insufficient because what we need is "free". That's why I needed to write a free operating system, the GNU operating system, to replace Unix.
In other words, the AC you're responding to is correct both in the sense of what RMS would say and in the sense that writing your own alternative to systemd is the ethical choice if you don't like systemd.
Note that what is ethical is not the same as what is easy. Thank you, RMS, for being consistent and ethical!
I stopped reading when I noticed him responding emotionally to the first question, rather than actually answering it.
@T.E.D.: "Reading what Stallman has to say is always annoying and appalling. Annoying because he isn't very polite to people he's talking to, and he's always demanding folks take actions almost nobody is going to take in order to stave off a future dystopia. Appalling because you realize that all his previous predictions of future dystopia have come true." link
..
Won't address the issues attack the man instead
A vocal minority on Slashdot is hardly "the general public".
Indeed it is true.
Based on what evidence? A couple of Slashdot anecdotes != evidence.
This interview highlights exactly why I can't take RMS or the FSF seriously. He's rude, he's out of touch and his arguments make no sense. In pretty much every response he is insulting and demanding people redefine their terms to suit his warped world view.
People keep claiming he was right about this or that, but seriously, a stopped clock is right twice a day. He's wrong about more things than he gets right. Why does anyone listen to this nut?
The "problem" with systemd seems mostly manufactured. Given it's covered by the LGPLv2, I suspect RMS's only concern would be that it isn't under the GPLv3.
Everything you write seems to be unsupported assertions, attempting to drive to a pre-determined conclusion.
I often see claims like this, but they don't make any sense at all. Why would a corporation basically shit themselves and attempt to rip out infrastructure because of systemd? I have yet to hear anything that doesn't sound like reactionary whining, and most companies don't operate in a reactionary "OMG FUCK YOU POTTERING I KEEL YUO" manner.
...that his politics need a shower just as badly as he does. The world would be better off if he stepped in front of traffic and let nature take its course.
I have to exert all my self control to respond civilly after seeing the word "monetize". Implicit in that word is the idea that you want to turn everything into money. The only point in writing a program is to turn it into money. Feh!
Strawman alert. The person is asking about how to converts one thing, free software, into money so he can pay the bills. RMS comes up with this bogus argument of "turning everything into money".
I'm not impressed.
Why are there multiple people claiming RMS didn't answer the first question??
He did answer it.
RMS said that people where selling physical media until the 1990s. That is a clear example of selling free software for a fee.
Clearly a number of posters to Slashdot are more delusional than RMS.
LOL! Year of the Linux Desktop indeed...this year will be our year! :P
> [RMS]: Most citizens of the US live under far more surveillance than
> the citizens of the Soviet Union knew.
Technically of course he is right. In Soviet times there was no Internet, no cellular network and no technical means to process all this data. So it is obvious that now the governments have more means to spy on citizens. But staying just on technical merits you could have said that "most citizens of the US live now under far more surveillance than the citizens of the Regan era US knew".
The guy is just wrong. I live in Poland which was Soviet sattelite state (quite autonomous since it managed to free itself from Soviet grip). I remember my father talking about his workplace in communist times. Once on his job he joked about the shape of glasses the general Jaruzelski wore - he said he was a welder (since the glasses looked like welders). He said that in company of three other people in his workplace. Yet the next day he was called before party member who reprimended him. And this is not some unusual story - the truth about communist states is that about 10% of people around you were state agents reporting to security service (by will giving them benefits or forced to be f.e. blackmailed).
And that is how totalitarian surveillance works - it uses people not machines. People who spy on you will always be better than any technology (unless the technology gets somehow intelligent which isn't happening in a few decades).
I respect RMS but in this case he is really wrong.
The "problem" with systemd seems mostly manufactured.
Sysvinit is backed by a company worth billions of dollars. They're paying us to oppress the poor systemd, made by one guy and with no corporate backing. You really got us.
If that means there are some people I can't talk with, I will live with that. I might want to talk with them, but not badly enough to surrender my freedom to do it.
RMS doesn't understand that he doesn't have to surrender his freedom to use Facebook or other non-free messaging mechanisms. In fact, if he used them, he would have more freedom, not less. The more messaging choices you have, the more freedom of choice you have. Facebook does not "lock you in"; you can use Facebook messaging at the same time as you use e-mail or any other form of messaging. It's all about choices. Sure, Facebook messaging is proprietary, but who cares? You don't give up any freedom when you use it. You can even download an archive of all your stuff at any time.
I feel sorry for Richard Stallman. I'm also fairly confident he'd assure me that wasn't necessary. Having listened to his speeches and read/watched his interviews, I can honestly say I admire the crazy bastard for his firm, unwavering dorm room politics. He believes what he believes and he'll carry those beliefs for the rest of his days. It's rare you see that in a person. I remember being (almost) just like him--at least in the way he takes his beliefs to an insane extreme (not owning a cell phone, not using social media, and of basically limiting himself to command line technology that was dated in the late 90's). I've never surrendered those things per se, but there was a time when I refused to watch the evil, corporate-owned movies that Hollywood spat out. A time when I wouldn't even sip a Coca Cola lest that putrid commercialism somehow infect me. After a few years of living my life that way, though, I realized I wasn't living my life at all. As a human being who eats, sleeps, shits, and is going to inevitably die someday, I realized I had to chill the fuck out. So what if I wanted to watch a dumb movie and sip a Coke? Which gets me back to RMS. There's a lot of really cool technology out there these days, even if it is made by those greedy bastards. Just the other day I was visiting my dear sweet mum. She heard me ask my Nexus 6 something via "OK Google," and her mind was blown. I had thought nothing of it at first, but ya know what? It really is pretty cool what we can do these days. Smartphones, streaming services, wi fi everywhere, cloud storage. All these things have dangers and we must be careful, but to banish them outright is such a shame. Mr. Stallman is keeping himself in a virtual cave, waiting for a day when like-minded individuals organize themselves to create HIS perfect vision of how software should be. I admire his determination, and if he's willing to make these sacrifices under the belief that he's protecting freedoms or actually making a difference, good for him. It's a good cause, but it's going to be a very, very long wait. And, whether he thinks I should or not, I still feel sorry for him.
Richard Stallman has been around a long, long time. He's seen the like of systemd before, and he knows what's going to happen.
Seriously, systemd isn't the first huge change to come down the pipe in computing. We've had several. He's witnessed the near death of LISP. He's witnessed the decline of the minicomputer and rise of the micro. He's seen "empires" (software and hardware company wise) rise and fall. He's seen UNIX rise to dominate the server room (IIRC, he's no fan of UNIX). He's seen non-free software dominate the desktop since the very inception of the desktop.
In other words, he's seen a lot of changes to stuff he actually cares about, and seen the aftermath.
I highly doubt he cares that much about the popularity of systemd vs. init. It's software - free software at that - and bugs get fixed, or you move to something else.
Yeesh, you anti-systemd people must not have been around for the ELF or glibc changeovers. It's no different. The world moves on.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
If you become skilled at programming, you will come to notice how non-free programs, denying you the source code, restrict and oppress you.
What a crock of shite. I am skilled at programming, and I am *far* better off (meaning happier and productive) using a closed-source program like Photoshop than I am using free image-editing software like the GIMP. Although I may be restricted in what I may do with Photoshop (i.e., not modify it), I am in *no way* oppressed by it. Same goes for something like Audacity. Audacity is pretty good, but commercial software is miles better than it. Luckily, I have a choice. I do not even remotely feel restricted or oppressed. I have never wanted to modify a large software program. Most developers write shite code, from what I've seen of FOSS.
I was around for those changes and many others.
Systemd is far more fundamental than those.
But hey, the proof is in the pudding. I spent two days trying systemd. I could not get it working properly. (This was with Debian, my favorite linux distro of all time.) Machines that couldn't mount an NFS point just booted to the rescue prompt. Networking didn't work. Many other issues. The whole thing just made me look at systemd as something that really has not been tested enough to have been distributed like wildfire. We can debate about the merits of a large overlord init+kitchen_sink system (and I think you can guess how I feel about that), but regardless, it is not ready yet. init is so tested and well-understood that, when compared with something like systemd, administrators and developers (and normal joe users too!) have a very good reason to hesitate.
If systemd has the potential to further commercialize the linux world (certifications, certified distributions, enterprise support contracts, etc), at the expense of the rest of the linux world then I think it is something we could use an RMS comment about.
I doubt your claim that systemd is more fundamental than the C library change, but perhaps we have different ideas on what makes something fundamental.
I don't really see it as any different. Yes, it's untested. Yes, it combines many different aspects of the base system into one thing. No, I'm not particularly fond of that, but hey, I liked libc5 just fine too. Remember all the software corner cases that wouldn't work with glibc? Or, if you were like me and used Slackware, the extreme pain in the ass a lot of software was to compile for libc5 after everyone else switched to glibc? The difference between now and then is that Linux is taken seriously now and has a larger user base.
systemd certainly has upgrade issues. I wouldn't attempt to upgrade to it; both systems I'm running it on have had fresh installs. The one system I have that doesn't have systemd (an older Kubuntu box) will also be reinstalled instead of upgraded (to something other than Kubuntu. The last release has been nothing but trouble for me.)
Whether or not it's ready for the mass deployment we've seen is up to debate. I actually agree with you; I don't think it is. I have personally only experienced minor issues with it, but I know there are a lot more issues than there should be for something as vital as the init system. But if you believe in the free software methodology - which RMS does - you know that bugs get fixed. systemd will not always be the turd it is now.
What I don't see is how systemd enhances the commercialization of the Linux world. It mostly benefits the distros and package maintainers, from what I can see - init scripts are simpler. Perhaps it would be easier for a commercial firm to package non-free software for Linux, but it's also easier to package free software for Linux.
I also don't see, having read a decent amount of his stuff, how certifications, certified distributions (unless you mean the whole UEFI boot thing, which doesn't have anything to do with systemd), or enterprise support contracts would offend RMS. RMS doesn't like proprietary software; he doesn't seem to have a problem with people making money off free software. In fact, in the first question, he states
selling support to commercial users, selling exceptions, developing solutions for clients' internal use, and crowdfunding
as being ethical.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
This post is offtopic, and probably a troll.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
most companies don't operate in a reactionary "OMG FUCK YOU POTTERING I KEEL YUO" manner
Of course. That's because most companies are still on RHEL6. Give them time.
lucm, indeed.
More distributions are choosing it because they feel it's a better solution.
Wrong. More distributions are choosing it because more distributions are choosing it. This is a textbook case of an emperor having no clothes and whistleblowers being vilified for their rude way to denounce it.
Now if YOU think that systemd is a better solution, why don't you enlighten us? Of course you won't, because systemd is not an improvement, it's a fork for the sake of forking, so like everyone who defends it your point is that "that many distributions can't be wrong".
Collective stupidity is a real thing. Look at the subprime crisis in 2008. How the fuck could anyone with a high school education ever believe that putting thousands of C- borrowers together could give an A+ pool? The same madness and lack of critical thinking is now rampant in IT.
systemd is a terrible system, hard to figure out, hard to debug, and extremely unreliable. It doesn't matter how many distros ship with it. It's a piece of garbage and shame on anyone who supports it just because other people support it.
lucm, indeed.
If systemd has the potential to further commercialize the linux world (certifications, certified distributions, enterprise support contracts, etc), at the expense of the rest of the linux world then I think it is something we could use an RMS comment about.
Amen to that. Anyone who deals on a regular basis with RHN subcriptions can see how this kind of design is in line with Red Hat's approach. It's linux with a kill switch.
lucm, indeed.
Your incompetence is not a reliable indicator of systemd's quality.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
If you can't get standard modern software running after two days, that probably means you're not an expert and shouldn't talk about that thing.
I've been maintaining systems since the 90s, and it is something new, yes. I have to look things up in the manual again, yes. But Sys V was always crap. We always knew it was crap. But the other stuff was worse. Until systemd. So now people that understand these things, and get to make important decisions about them like what to run in a distro, are switching to systemd. Because something finally had the correct architecture.
We know you hate, we're just not worried about that.
I wrote a lot of stuff, but the basic idea is that ... oh fuck it, you're not going to bother to understand why the person who started the sort of psychoacoustic research that led to the vast compression of MP3's, just as one example, do not deserve to be compensated in any way.
The field of psycoacoustics has been going since 1860. Most academic fields are the same in that essentially what looks like a large, major advance from the outside is actually an accumulation of previous ideas with an idea who's time has come. Of all those probably thousand people who have contributed to psychoacoustics over the years a few managed to take their tiny advances and get paid for them without a penny being given to any of the other contributors.
Not only that but the contributors still alive are specifically prevented from being compensated by the patents. So in fact your demands that one person/group be compensated in fact prevent what you claim to be in favour of for all the other contributors.
We can work around patents, I get it. But to deny that to the current developers of cutting edge software?
Let's take another example from a recent Nobel prize. The one on super resolution microscopy. Well, surely anyone getting a Nobel is bound to deserve a patent for their work, right? Except one of the techniques (PALM/fPALM/STORM) was in fact invented by three groups simultaneously and independently of which only one got a Nobel. I think only two out of three managed to get a patent.
Do you believe that one person who was working on it deserves to be able to lock others out even though the others also invented the technique completely independently? If you support patents, that is directly what you support.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Because they have tooling for logging, for jail management, for service monitoring etcetc already and suddenly it doesn't work properly anymore.
I don't have any figures, but from the FreeBSD side we see an influx of new users every time Pottering releases something new. The stream of new switchers escaping PulseAudio had just about dried up, but systemd has given a new set.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
For the companies that I've talked to, the issue isn't so much systemd (which does solve real problems), it's the attitude of vendors like RedHat to their customers. People with large deployments don't like core parts changing without consultation and without a migration path carefully laid out in advance. They also don't like seeing stuff pushed before it's fully baked, especially core infrastructure.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Such an incoherent pile of bullshit. Just to answer to one of your half-ramblings:
> so Fraunhofer IIS can just eat a bag of nothing for their contribution
Fraunhofer is heavily funded by state and state institutions; that is, among other things *my* tax euros at work. I want my part of the MP3 patent (to be more precise, quoting their home page, 30 percent comes directly from state money, and the rest 70 percent are "from state institutions and private industry" -- hand-wavy, I know).
There are distros that are avoiding systemd, but they don't seem to be very popular. Considering that, for example, a Debian user could switch to Devuan with minimal fuss there doesn't seem to be a huge migration. A lot of very vocal opposition, sure, but most users seem to be just upgrading their OS and either not noticing or not caring.
You say systemd is unreliable. That's a very specific claim that we can falsify. Do you have some evidence to support it? I don't mean people complaining on random forums, I mean some specific examples of how it is less reliable than the old systems in stable release versions of major distros.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
" I know of a possible fix for that: build a one-way pager into the phone. Then you can keep the phone in "airplane mode" (no tracking) nearly all the time, and tell people that they should page you when they have something to say to you. When you are paged, you can decide when it is safe to connect to the phone radio network and reveal your location -- presumably when you are in a place that is not sensitive."
This is actually a workable suggestion. The trick is to use a portable 3G/4G device. This can come either as a stand-alone model with its own battery pack or as a USB dongle that must be connected to your PC. The main purpose of this device is actually to provide mobile internet access for a device without a built-in 3G/4G connection (but only wifi or a USB port). But these can also be used to send and receive text messages. Google for mobile wifi or "mifi" to see examples.
Every distribution was about to move away from init anyways, it was more of a question to where. Would you prefer upstart?
Because that is really the false proposition here.
Make a fork of systemd and strip it down. Or contribute patches for packages so they are more loosely coupled.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Stuff not working after an upgrade is par for the course. In my experience, upgrading has about 20% chance of hosing your system and dropping you to rescue prompts etc. Nothing new there, and you don't need systemd for that.
I'm no fan of systemd's design approach (too large a project for my tastes), but I must say i didn't even notice I had switched to systemd after upgrading my ubuntu, so to counter your upgrade failure I give completely anecdotal eveidence that it has no problems whatsoever :-).
Did anyone else read this entire missive in Richard's voice?
First off, thank you for your well-written reply.
Here's what I worry about: If we design core linux technologies (i.e., the kernel, kernel modules, udev, init system, etc) such that they cater to companies making money off supporting linux (red hat), then we may also loose something else in the process. (We don't have to, the two aren't mutually exclusive.) It has nothing to do with the existence of closed-source linux software and commercial deployments. It has to do with the overall closure of linux. There are companies that would love to make linux something like MS or Cisco where individuals need a new certificate every year in order to work government software contracts and big corporate installs. Systemd does facilitate that. Besides from being far from ready for the real world, systemd is overly complex. Systemd is a big single point of failure. Systemd has binary logs. Systemd is vastly more difficult to troubleshoot than Sys-V init (and yeah, Sys-V was a convoluted string of shell scripts, but it was pretty easy to follow through and get working). I mean, you've read or experienced these things, this is not really anything earth shattering.
So what I feel, is that the move towards systemd is a move away from the roots of linux. It's away from the days where you could install linux and start an ISP in a garage. It's like the writing is on the wall.
Let me ask you this: If they decided to do away with every single file in /etc and replace it with a binary-format database, editable only with a special program for gnome-3, would you like that? It would be modern. It would be enormous. It might be faster than parsing text files in C. It would require everyone to learn something new. It would begin rather untested and probably be pushed out to every enterprise distro immediately. I mean, how far will can we go from the roots of our success before we are alienated and cause our own demise?
I'm all for a *better* init system. And there are parts of systemd that have some good merits. But it's way too untested, and beginning its linux life with far too many tentacles.
In a time where unix and linux are the dominant (or nearly dominant) operating systems (android, iOS, linux, Mac OS X, embedded products), we must be very careful of the ground we tread.
So that's why I would expect more from RMS. Not on the software architecture, or the quality of the code. But on the philosophy and ecosystem of linux.
Despite your judgment of my non-expert status, I am an expert.
I have learned many new technologies within hours on linux. There is a sort of common "flow" between technologies on linux. Same can be said for FreeBSD and other unix-like systems. I have admin'd basically every version of unix you have ever heard of. Everyting from irix to solaris to a/ux to aix. My first linux install was off floppy disks. I've worked on corporate, university, and government platforms. I've been everything from a kernel device driver developer (atheros wifi drivers) to large cluster admin to net booting macs off a FreeBSD NFS cluster. I'm not new to this at all. Not to say that you were in diapers while I was compiling linux from scratch, but I've been there.
That is why I feel such a distain towards systemd. Yes, I could have dropped everything, read all the documentation, checked out the source code, and probably figured it all out sooner or later. But what a PITA. What I had before worked, and it was easy to maintain. Sure, init scripts lack elegance. So ok, address that. But pushing systemd is not a solution. Systemd basically cost me a lot of productivity. There was no gain, no benefit to my installs. I have a few computers running it. I can't see any advantage other than that they are "up to date" with trendy linux packages. And they boot faster (when they boot fully, that is).
It's not incompetence, I assure you. My inability to get systemd working at my level of standards speaks directly to the level of readiness of the systemd packages, distros, and maintainers.
I suppose every person complaining about systemd might be totally incompetent. Maybe it's only the new kids fresh off the ubuntu express that have issues with it. Perhaps most people that are really smart and analytical like systemd.
Or. maybe it really isn't ready. Maybe it is a big mess. Maybe it was pushed early in distros to sell more certifications and paid support contracts.
I mean, one guy (an AC) replying in this thread was using it without even noticing it. Do you think he really knows what's going on under the hood or is he just another ubuntu desktop user that thinks gnome is his operating system?
And one more thing:
What the heck is "standard modern software"?
How is systemd "standard"? This is brand new. There is nothing standard about it either. It is completely different. People like myself are complaining because it is NOT standard.
And modern? I suppose that's open to interpretation. An apple watch is modern. So is Windows 10. As is OpenCL. What the heck are you trying to say? Because it's modern it is automatically simple to admin? WTF
And who is this "We" you speak of?
Not eating the cake.
And yet the fact that in last year's discussion on the Debian TC multiple people were capable of setting up and testing systemd systems suggests that you are operating under a whole load of Dunning-Kruger.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Well I'll be darn, you've proven it. A bunch of folks at a conference were able to use systemd.
I have several systems running systemd. It's not impossible to use or install. But it is not as robust. It is different. And it did cause me a lot of pain on several production servers. For those of us who work in the field, we know a turd when we see one.
For those of us who depend on support contracts and certifications, such as yourself, I guess it's not as big a deal.
Ah, OK, I see your concern.
Honestly, it's been happening so long I don't even notice it any more. My first alarm was when GNOME started going with binary configs, back around 2000 or so. I'm not sure if they still use them; I stopped really using GNOME about the time they tied themselves so strongly to Metacity and all the polkit changes came through.
It's not like the whole idea of binary or user-unreadable config files is new. While technically sendmail.cf can be created by hand, very few people actually understand how to do it - they use m4. GNOME's old WM, sawmill/sawfish, used a homemade LISP for configuration - how many people actually know LISP? There are dozens of subtle differences in the config files in /etc - I'm pretty good at 'em, but only because I've spent a lot of time perusing man pages and figuring stuff out by trail and error (dhcpd.conf, pppd's configuration files (so glad I don't have to deal with that crap anymore), pam.conf, etc.). Try getting polkit working flawlessly on FVWM (or any non-DE window manager) if your distribution hasn't set it up - it's a nightmare. Different distros use different utilities, and then there's the other UNIXen to keep track of if you find yourself dealing with them.
Let's face it; the days where you could understand every part of a Linux box are long gone. What's different here is that it's the base system (and thus, servers) that's being affected, rather than desktop systems.
I've got an RHCE book (Red Hat Certified Engineer, in case they changed the name of the certification since then), published in 2000, and over 700 pages long. And Red Hat from 2000 was a lot simpler than Red Hat now, or any modern general-purpose distribution, for that matter. The simple fact is that companies such as Red Hat have been making money off Linux all along - they don't need things like systemd. The certification dance isn't because Linux is hard, but because somewhere along the line, companies and recruiters have been made to think those certifications have value. The same can be said for support; it's not a desire by sysadmins for commercial support, but companies; they belive it has value, and they are willing to pay for it. systemd has no effect on that.
I remember when RHCE first came out. They created it due to demand, both from sysadmins and companies; I don't think Red Hat came up with the idea themselves, although it's obvious it's a money maker for them. Companies see value in certifications as being able to weed out potential prospects; sysadmins see value in certifications as putting them ahead of other job applicants. I looked into it, bought the book and read a good chunk of it, but my aversion to RPM hell decided the issue for me; I never took the test for it.
Troubleshooting Linux will still be easier than troubleshooting a black box like Windows, systemd or no. While most sysadmins can't understand the source code well enough to understand its internal processes, some can, and the information they glean will join the collective knowledge available on the internet. Most sysadmins I know (including myself, when I was one) build their knowledge as they go. They'll learn systemd as they run into problems with it, using the resources at hand. The internet is great for that these days; no more crawling around on IRC or finding mailing lists just to ask a question, which may or may not be answered.
And hey, you can still pass 'init=/bin/sh' as a kernel parameter if systemd really screws the pooch and you can't boot. It's not like I haven't had to do that on occasion with init.
I'll give you the point on SysV init being traditional; however, its actual implementation is not. The helper scripts used with the different distributions are different; an init script for Red Hat isn't the same as an init script for Debian, and especially not the same as Slackware. You have to learn how an init script works for the distribution you're using. You've compiled server software and writte
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
I don't know of anyone who has any problems that require systemd, despite my decades in every part of the computing industry, but I'm willing to believe they exist. But you're right that the real problem, in the view of industry, is that we're having this shoved down our throats in the same arrogant, tone-deaf way that Red Hat stuffed the tg3 driver up our asses, and the same way that the entire Linux distribution ecosystem forced grub onto us. If you're going to charge more money than Microsoft (and yes they do! Microsoft is totally willing to compete on price) then stop making us do your dev work to fix this half-baked shit.
My submitted question was ignored again; we may never know the secret behind his foot fungus-eating habit.
It is "standard" because most distros have adopted it. That is also part of why they are adopting it; standardization has benefits. Is it new that it is standard equipment? Yes. Doesn't stop it from being the new standard thing.
In fact, haters even latch onto the standardization that has been achieved to claim it is being "forced" on them. If indeed it isn't standard, that seems to be a problem for the haters more than anybody else. If it is only "standard" in the various distros I use, it would still be true for me even if you disagree that it is broadly true.
If you want to quibble even over the word "modern," my advice is to just not use it, and instead of hating it, just admit "it isn't for me and I don't understand the aesthetic choices." The same as if you look at a work of art and want to quibble over if it is suitably "modern" for fans of it to describe it as such.
As for the "we," I'll let you find an English major to explain that one. But I do stand by it.
It is nice to see someone prove themselves that they are an idiot. Saves me the effort.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Open source doesn't threaten people's cushy jobs. At this point, if you're in the industry, it's practically a given that any code you write will use some open source library or another. And many people actually work on and ship F/OSS products, while getting paid for that.
Stallman, though, doesn't care about open source - indeed. he hates the term with a passion. What he wants is "free software", which basically translates to copyleft. Now I don't know many people who feel threatened by copyleft - again, it has been quite successfully commercialized in the few niches where it has been successful (e.g. for operating systems, Android). But overall it's losing momentum: the vast majority of open source code these days is released under non-copyleft licenses like BSD, MIT and Apache, many of them produced by for-profit corporations. Try to think of any new major open source project that appeared in the past 5 years that is licensed under GPL, and that is widely known. The only thing I can think off is systemd (ha!). Meanwhile, corporate-sponsored non-copyleft OSS is actually squeezing established copyleft products out - just look at gcc vs clang.
So no, I doubt anyone is really feeling threatened. It's just that RMS is so obviously loony every time he opens his mouth that it's hard to not remark on it.
I've decided after several years that Free software needs to be recognized as a way of life, rather than a means to an end. Buddhism for example is very different than Christianity. Buddhists won't be find knocking on your door trying to sell their brand of salvation. Buddhism at it's core is a set of philosophical tenets and or processes that are at the very least a bit nihilistic if not very much so. For some people it is a religion, and there are many different flavors of Buddhism, but in general if not completely all the way around, it is not the type of religion or philosophy that promotes the advertisement of itself to others, much less the act of imposing itself on others. Anyone who does so and calls them selves a Buddhist, probably isn't one. And so after many years of trying to bring others over to free software alternatives to proprietary solutions, I've come to not so much give, as realize I was going about things the wrong way. Freedom itself allows for the choice to choose not to be free. Free software isn't about competing with proprietary software or even open source software. For me, the most essential and necessary and probably the only thing really needed to be done to improve Free Software is understand what it actually is. Free software does not ask you to compete with Microsoft or Apple or anyone. Free software doesn't ask anything of anyone. Free software does only one thing; it promises the user complete freedom in whatever the contextual boundaries of it's particular existential circumstance reside; be it a GPL licensed piece of code, a program, an operating system, or a fully functional computer. For me Free Software is a continual process. A never ending vigilance against the tyranny of those who seek to benefit themselves through my ignorance, willful or otherwise, at my expense. I used to get really frustrated that a lot of my friends refused to use free software because proprietary solutions were more convenient and status-quo, but more and more I have begun to release any and all frustration, tension, and stress associated with the obstacles and hindrances of Free Software. I choose to use Free Software because I enjoy the freedom it provides with me. I desire for others to enjoy the same freedoms I do, but this is erroneous. Free Software is a philosophy, and an idea, that when put into practice increases the size of a growing pool of freedom. Ultimately it is other's choice if that is what they desire or not, if that is what is right for them or not in a particular situation. For me I have renounced the path of trying to spread free software and compete or out do proprietary software. That is not the aim of Free Software. Users and developers of Free Software should NEVER use or produce Free Software with the goal of competing in anyway with non-free software. Users and producers of Free Software should do so because they derive happiness in the pursuit of their freedom to live their computational lives as they see fit. To use and create Free Software is enough. And if the day comes some one asks what that desktop environment on my laptop is and wants to learn more, all I have to do is point them in the right direction, the rest is up to them, in that, it is their choice! That is Free Software to me, and what Richard Stallman has committed his life to, is the preservation of a philosophy and way of life in the world of computing.
I respect "Mr. T." for his accomplishments & yes, his direct way of doing things as far as his feelings being honestly let out - I personally MUCH prefer a man of that nature/character to "other kinds" (snide weasels, liars, etc.).
* I've never had a reason to think he's a jerk... not even when he cuts down some of his colleagues (sometimes, it's necessary I suppose).
APK
P.S.=> And, "There ya are"... apk
Indeed it is true.
Based on what evidence? A couple of Slashdot anecdotes != evidence.
I'm surprised you find that claim controversial. Anyone who has enough experience to have developed a taste for init systems can trivially switch to another OS. If they're upset enough about a change to start bitching about it publicly, it is highly likely they'll do something.
Myself, I abandoned my preferred distro of 10 years over it. Systemd is a big deal.