How Psychology Today Sees Richard Stallman (psychologytoday.com)

After our article about Richard Stallman's new video interview, Slashdot reader silverjacket shared this recent profile from Psychology Today that describes Richard Stallman's quest "to save us from a web of spyware -- and from ourselves." By using proprietary software, Stallman believes, we are forfeiting control of our computers, and thus of our digital lives. In his denunciation of all nonfree software as inherently abusive and unethical, he has alienated many possible allies and followers. But he is not here to make friends. He is here to save us from a software industry he considers predatory in ways we've yet to recognize... for Stallman, moralism is the whole point. If you write or use free software only for practical reasons, you'll stop when it's inconvenient, and freedom will disappear.
Stallman collaborator Eben Moglen -- a law professor at Columbia, as well as the FSF's general counsel -- assesses Stallman's legacy by saying "the idea of copyleft and the proposition that social and political freedom can't happen in a society without technological freedom -- those are his long-term meanings. And humanity will be aware of those meanings for centuries, whatever it does about them." The article also includes quotes from Linus Torvalds and Eric S. Raymond -- along with some great artwork.

In addition to insisting the reporter refer to Linux as "GNU/Linux," Stallman also required that the article describe free software without using the term open source, a phrase he sees as "a way that people who disagree with me try to cause the ethical issues to be forgotten." And he ultimately got Psychology Today to tell its readers that "Nearly all the software on our phones and computers, as well as on other machines, is nonfree or 'proprietary' software and is riddled with spyware and back doors installed by Apple, Google, Microsoft, and the like."

Comments

The reasonable man

[PPH]

... adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

- George Bernard Shaw

RMS is right about *some* things

[sjbe]

Nothing else matters. You can hate the man or feel inconvenienced by what he says. Nothing changes the simple fact that he's right.

I don't hate or love the man. Nothing he does inconveniences me in the least. But he's not "right" about everything. He does have many very valid points, quite a few of which are logically unassailable as far as I can tell. Tools that cannot be modified or improved are a serious hindrance to society. Human society was built on the ability to make, modify, improve, and share tools. The notion that we can write mere instructions for a machine that aren't allowed to be shared with anyone is a very dangerous and stupid idea. Imagine if scientists were prohibited from sharing discoveries and formulas and you get a good idea of the severity of the consequences.

But he also makes the mistake of making it a moral argument in places where it clearly is not. Perhaps worse, he does so in places where a moral argument is unnecessary or even counterproductive. Morals vary from person to person and society to society. This allows people who do not share his moral belief system to dismiss him easily. Much of what RMS argues for can and should be argued from an economic perspective. RMS should explain it to people why it is in their own economic self interest to have free (as in speech) software. It's FAR more likely to be persuasive and the end result is the same - more people using free software. Economic self interest is a much stronger incentive to most people than abstract morals about tools that most people barely understand how to use much less build.

I agree with RMS for the most part but let's take his work and improve on it just like he hopes we will do with code. He's done some good work but it's imperfect and its up to the rest of us to build on it and make it better.

Re:I used to think RMS was mad...

[taiwanjohn]

I wouldn't say he's "mad" but he is very eccentric. I'm glad that Psych. Today delved into that aspect as much as his advocacy, which folks around here are already familiar with. IANA psychologist, but I would diagnose him as OCPD, along with whatever it is that causes him to do weird shit like plucking the tips of his hairs and eating them... in public... at the dinner table... (a scene I witnessed from the next seat, about 15 years ago).

As an OCPDer myself, I can easily see how his moral rigidity wrt software freedom fits the profile. And his skill as a coder is also a good fit. But there's more going on than just OCPD. Although the article doesn't mention any diagnoses, it's a very interesting read, and really illuminates the eccentricities.

Re:I used to think RMS was mad...

[hey!]

Now I try to stay away from Holocaust/WW2 comparisons, because that trivializes crimes against humanity, but I do try to draw lessons from them. And the most important is that ordinary people take their cues from what people around them seem to be OK with. All those war criminals who claimed they were personally appalled by the Final Solution but were just following orders weren't necessarily telling self-serving lies; internally people people are often conflicted, but externally you can count on them to conform.

What makes Stallman irritating is his stubborn non-conformity, even in minor points. He always insists on discussing things on his terms, which is something everyone dislikes when it's turned on them. But his pig-headedness is not a valid reason to dismiss his concerns, particularly where you have concerns yourself and most especially in areas where you have concerns and yet somehow you find yourself going along.

In a society where ordinary people are conforming with madness, it's only the crackpots who are sane.

Re:I used to think RMS was mad...

[drinkypoo]

FreeBSD was only held up because of lawsuits, and it's freer than anything under the GPL.

FreeBSD is an also-ran which will never, ever have the popularity of Linux because of its license. Period, the end. It doesn't matter whether you're a contributor who hates the idea of having his code used against him or a corporation who hates the idea of their competitors taking their work and running with it and not having to give anything back, but the GPL is more attractive to more corporations than the BSD license, period. That's why there are so many more major contributors of both types to Linux than there are to BSD.

You can bitch and whine about all the nefarious shit you would like to do with other people's code all day, but the simple fact is that the GPL is more popular than the BSD license because it preserves freedom for end users instead of for programmers. Since the computers exist to serve the users, and not the programmers, this is the way it should be. In olden times, any software you wrote on an IBM mainframe became the property of IBM. In modern times, IBM is a major contributor to Linux, because of the GPL. You can cry about the future until you are crushed by it, or you can grab onto the other side of the wheel and catch a lift.