Richard Stallman Calls Open Source Movement 'Amoral', Criticizes Apple And Microsoft For 'Censoring' App Installation (newleftreview.org)

Richard Stallman recently gave a 9,000-word interview in which he first reminisces about his early days at MIT's AI Lab where he "found something worth being loyal to" -- and then assesses how things have played out. Open source is an amoral, depoliticized substitute for the free-software movement... [I]t's not the name of a philosophy -- it refers to the software, but not to the users. You'll find lots of cautious, timid organizations that do things that are useful, but they don't dare say: users deserve freedom. Like Creative Commons, which does useful, practical work -- namely, preparing licences that respect the freedom to share. But Creative Commons doesn't say that users are entitled to the freedom to share; it doesn't say that it's wrong to deny people the freedom to share. It doesn't actively uphold that principle.

Of course, it's much easier to be a supporter of open source, because it doesn't commit you to anything. You could spend ten minutes a week doing things that help advance open source, or just say you're a supporter -- and you're not a hypocrite, because you can't violate your principles if you haven't stated any. What's significant is that, in their attempt to separate our software from our ideas, they've reduced our ability to win people over by showing what those ideas have achieved...

For a long time, Microsoft was the main enemy of users' freedom, and then, for the past ten years or so, it's been Apple. When the first iThings came out, around 2007, it was a tremendous advance in contempt for users' freedom because it imposed censorship of applications -- you could only install programs approved by Apple. Ironically, Apple has retreated from that a little bit. If a program is written in Swift, you can now install it yourself from source code. So, Apple computers are no longer 100 per cent jails. The tablets too. A jail is a computer in which installation of applications is censored. So Apple introduced the first jail computer with the iPhone. Then Microsoft started making computers that are jails, and now Apple has, you might say, opened a window into the jail -- but not the main door.
Stallman cites free-software alternatives to Skype like Linphone, Ekiga, and xJitsi, and also says he's In favor of projects like GNU social, a free software microblogging server, and the distributed social networking service Diaspora. "I know they're useful for other people, but it wouldn't fit my lifestyle. I just use email." In fact, he calls mobile computing one of the three main setbacks of the free-software movement. "[P]hones and tablets, designed from the ground up to be non-free. The apps, which tend now to be non-free malware. And the Intel management engine, and more generally the low-level software, which we can't replace, because things just won't allow us to do so....

"[P]eople in the software field can't avoid the issue of free versus proprietary software, freedom-respecting versus freedom-trampling software. We have a responsibility, if we're doing things in the software field, to do it in a way that is ethical. I don't know whether we will ever succeed in liberating everyone, but it's clearly the right direction in which to push."

Comments

He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

... to freedom lovers.

Re:He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ew. Why would you fuck freedom?

Re: He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

She danced right after Mercedes

Re:He only makes sense...

[unixisc]

I almost never agree w/ rms, but I've finally found something where I can. The demand that Apple and Microsoft (and for that matter, Google) stop censoring what apps can be installed. I'm not aware about Microsoft censoring anything, since traditional applications can still be installed on Windows 10, but Apple and Google - their respective app stores are the only way to install things. So when they shut out apps like Gab, they are picking their own favored winners & losers

Re:He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes! The ONLY thing Apple and Google should be doing for their "app store" approval process is to make sure the app is not malware, i.e. won't infect/compromise your system.

If it's safe to install, the user should be allowed to install it without any other "permission" necessary.

Re: He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, there are a few alternatives to the Play store on Android and can still install apps from "unknown sources".

Not possible on iOS, however.

Re: He only makes sense...

[nasch]

You can install apps on Android in other ways ranging from alternative app stores to downloading apk files from a web site.

Re:He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know we live in a world of over the top hyperbole but he tries to make it sound like freedom in open source software is another Civil Rights movement. And there is already an unlimited amount of freedom in the open source world. If you do not like or want to use proprietary software you can always use open source to create a replacement. But that isn't happening is it? Want to know why MS became so dominate? Nobody beside Apple even tried to compete with MS in the OS space. MS didn't come into the world a multi-billion dollar behemoth. They were vulnerable for the first 10 years of their existence but nobody tried to compete. The most popular applications used on the MS-DOS and to some extent on Windows 3.x were not MS products. WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, Dbase, and the Borland C++ development suites. In every case the owners of these applications sold everything to MS and ran away with the money. And who can forget the clusterfuck once known as Netscape. The geniuses behind the Netscape browser had 90% of the browser market and lost it due to bad management in both the business and technology decisions. And it took 10+ years for Netscape to get re-branded into Firefox.

Re: He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Os/2

Re:He only makes sense...

[andydread]

this is not a Google issue. You've always been able to install apps outside the play store on google Android devices. This is about APPLE not Google.

Re:He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows since at least Windows 7 includes the Output Protection Manager precisely to protect the system from the user accessing "protected" content to be HDCP compliant. This is in the same sort of bullshit that is locked boot loaders on Android (which Secure Boot for Windows is only forced on ARM, AFAIK), but obviously not to the same degree of blocking "rooting" the system. Having said that, Android allows you to install outside the app store so it's not as bad as you imply.

I'd call out Android a lot more than Apple or Microsoft, though. Android is based on Linux and a lot of devices have binary blobs which already is probably illegal. Few phone companies seem to actual give source to the various GPL software they use. Android is a perfect example of TiVo-ization and why a push towards GPLv3 for the Linux kernel would have been wise, no matter how difficult. Instead we have a clusterfuck that is Android where Google is basically begging phone makers to issue security updates and some people seem to think having a standard open Android OS that runs on all phones is impossible*.

Meanwhile, Apple and Microsoft never pretended to be champions of anything but their own bottom line, the users be fucked if it advantages them.

* The WAN show of LTT argues it'd take more than $500,000 to support security updates on a model of a phone, yet that's honestly insane. Phone models shouldn't have separate wholly separate development budgets. Hell, phone companies shouldn't have wholly separate OS development budgets. That's the whole reason for having an "open" OS.

Re:He only makes sense...

[GameboyRMH]

You're also free to install applications from outside the official app store on Android. You can sideload Gab client .apks all day long.

Re:He only makes sense...

[fbobraga]

Makes sense to me (as a freedom lover) :P

Re: He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

You picked a hell of a time to complain about your ability to get better access to Gab.

So Apple's trying to marginalize white supremacists? I'm ok with that.

Re:He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just because most people don't understand what proprietary means. We wouldn't have had internet without open standards and free software. His arguments against Open Source isn't new either, he's very very precise and stable, unlike the bootlickin' "freedom haters".

His opinions where formed when facing proprietary software that wouldn't allow him to do what he wanted to do, much like the walled gardens and gilded cages of today, though without all the wins we've had for 30 years+.

Re: He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure at least one white supremacist has used Linux. Should we ban Linux from the Internet?

Re:He only makes sense...

[pegdhcp]

On the principle I agree with your (but not RMS') position with some "but" items... *) It is possible to install any software on Apple computers, that is written for MacOs. Limitations apply only to phones, which you can bypass with great and increasing difficulty *) Similarly it is not encouraged to install uncontrolled by Google (or producer) software on android phones, but with several, some very legally supported by producers, methods any software also can be installed in Androids. *) The point most IT people missing is that phone users mostly do not have any at all technical knowledge for both evaluating the security of and managing installation of 3rd party software. I personally support limitation of software installation on phones, not a-la Apple but a-la Google, as the unlimited installation options would lead catastrophic results. Both RMS and his minions have never been able to understand most users are (well, sorry but) utter imbeciles regarding software and computer management. You can barely trust them to use an idiot proof UI, that is all. If you remember, one of the most common arguments of team RMS was everybpdy was in need of accessing the source code of their programs. No sir they are not, you cannot trust a user with source code more than you can trust a driver to calibrate and maintain a car engine...

Re:He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

He doesn't make sense to anyone and demonstrates a child-like understanding of people and the world.

A couple of things. 1) Morality is completely subjective. 2) Go take a shower, you smell bad.

Re:He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can sideload Gab client .apks all day long.

But would you want to? I think you'd end up feeling, say, unclean afterwards?

Re: He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

You heard it hear folks. Linux is a racist OS.

Re:He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple and Google - their respective app stores are the only way to install things.

Not any more for Google from the looks of it.

Re:He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Common carrier is a concept that only applies to telephones.

For everything else the political stage plays a part - PayPal routinely shuts out organizations from pay systems if they don't agree with them, or some really mad people with pitchforks turn up. The app vendors will similarly block software that competes with their own, and there's nothing you can do about it. In Apple's case they usually take the really good software, make a cheap imitation of it, then block everyone they stole the ideas from in the store.

We used to have anti-trust law to handle things like this but seeing as the law is deprecated in this post-arbitration world we should just retire all the judges and move on. There ain't no law anymore.

Re:He only makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

The "gilded cages" idea is pretty silly, the "walled garden" makes a lot more sense. You're free to come and go as you please, there's nothing to stop you from using both iOS and Android if you're that way inclined for example and people know that which is why they're so dismissive of people who try to reframe reality and desperately try to come with an analog to "slavery".

He's right

[phantomfive]

People typically criticize Stallman based on style, because they can't touch him based on substance.

Re: He's right

[phantomfive]

There is no moral absolutism one can ascribe to.

And then you went off the deep end. No one claimed there was moral absolutism.

We can agree on some basic principles

Oh wow! And then you contradict yourself. So what is it, can we agree on some basic principles or not?

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter. It's far, far too late.

In less than 40 years from now, government will be global and authoritarian. Every minute detail about everyone every second of every day will be meticulously analyzed by powerful AIs for any deviations from accepted thought and behavior. Individual rights will no longer exist. People will be genetically bred and educated so as to lack the ability to even conceive of individual liberty or resisting authority.

Humanity is entering a Great Dark Age which it may never recover from.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

By claiming that all software should be free, that is absolutism. So you/re wrong.

How about people are free to make decisions as they see fit. Give your software away or sell it. Your choice.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you and I agree on some principles doesn't mean someone else will agree on those same principles.

Re:He's right

[Anrego]

It's not really about right or wrong, it's about pragmatism.

It's easy to stand up and rattle on about how everything is evil, but people still need things to work. The real world is about compromise and choosing your battles. Hard core idealists serve a purpose, but they don't tend to drive effective change very often, and tend to be regarded (often correctly) as lunatics.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

... So you/re wrong.

Before reading your post, I thought I had seen all possible misspellings of your/you're/etc., but I was indeed wrong :)

Re:He's right

[Dutch Gun]

Well, some childish folks do, I suppose, but that's nothing new or unique with polarizing figures. Some people like me simply disagree with his fundamental philosophy, while still respecting his opinion and what he and his contemporaries did for the state of computing decades ago. It seems like these days he's more advocate and software philosopher. I think he's definitely worth listening to, even if you don't necessarily agree with all the points he makes, because if nothing else, what he says often makes you think about how things are and how they could be better.

One problem is that his philosophy simply brushes aside any arguments one might have that inconveniently points out situations in which free software is not a practical solution. Let's take videogames, for example. No one has really figured out how to combine a popular consumer-goods-type product like that with the philosophy of free software. The common advice when asked how to make a living writing free software of "provide a service for hire to support your product" only works with some very narrow types of products, and never really with consumer-level products. So, essentially, videogames simply don't exist in Stallman's universe.

I do consider myself a proponent of "open source", but not necessarily "free software" as defined by Stallman. I use the MIT license, not GPL, because I feel that works better for the open source libraries I've released. I don't mind if people use them in open or closed source products. That's none of my concern. But I've made a contribution that other people can make use of if they choose.

Good article, btw.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop spoilering Black Mirror.

Re: He's right

[mschwanke97402]

... So you/re wrong.

Before reading your post, I thought I had seen all possible misspellings of your/you're/etc., but I was indeed wrong :)

If you can’t argue the merits then argue the typos.

Re:He's right

[sg_oneill]

The thing is, RMS has a habit of coming across unhinged on a topic, and then a few years later you realise he was dead right about it.

When I first read the "Right to read" thing, I thought it was nuts.

Then my damn Kindle died and I had to figure out how to get the books into another format. Well thanks to the DMCA it turns out I have to break the law to do that. But worse than that, a student who needs access to library journals now finds themselves in a situation of breaking the law vs DRM infested journal articles. The 'right to read' was 100% correct in its predictions. Well other than the "Tycho rebelion" or whatever it was, hey its Sci-Fi.

I could go on, but the point is, for all his faults, he's usually right about a lot more things than its often comfortable to admit.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

He is right in his comparison of open source vs free software, as far as his movement is concerned.

The lack of politics and pointless punditry over access to the source is one of the best features of open source software. I just want to share my work and have a look at other people's.

GNU has gone as far as making their software architecturally worse to discourage use they're uncomfortable with but which was (potentially) permitted by the license (have a look at the story behind Clang).

Re:He's right

[sg_oneill]

Stallman is a deontologist, of sorts. By that I mean he subscribes to an ethical stance that basically asserts that certain things are moral or immoral, regardless of circumstance. Its a position normally associated with the philosopher Kant, who basically asserts that morals should be rooted in logic, not experience. So for instance Murder is wrong, because we ourselves would not want to be murdered (as being murdered denies us the ability to do other things and therefore it is illogical to want), and thus since an ethical code that only applies to one person is illogical (because something good can not be something bad, and thus good for me and bad for you contradicts), murder is always wrong, regardless of circumstance.

So I'd argue that RMS is a deontologist and that the right to source code comes from a 'perfect duty' (in Kants sense) to the truth. Because you should not lie to people, neither should your code, and thus providing the source allows another person to know the 'truth' of the software they run. And because we're talking deontology, we also have a right to assume that the other will behave the same way.

Now does that mean he's *correct*. Well not necessarily. Deontological positions are flawed in many respects. There might be circumstances where murder makes sense (You find out someone is going to kill you, and you realise the hitman is being protected by the police. You might just have to kill the hitman preemptively) or a lie makes sense (Someone asks where your wife works so they can go and murder her.) and perhaps there are times when non-free software might make a lot of sense.

But I'd argue that at the very least, RMS is right more often than he's now.

Re:He's right

[sg_oneill]

But I'd argue that at the very least, RMS is right more often than he's now.

Gah, Slashdot, when are you going to enter the modern age and let me fix typos.

"right more often than he's not" is what I mean there.

Slow down cowboy!

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but we get Soma and Orgy Porgy, so we've got that going for us.

Re:He's right

[apoc.famine]

I put in a suggestion years ago that they require a confirmation screen that allows you to proofread your submission before you commit it, but that doesn't seem to have been implemented. Well, at least based on posts like this one....

Something something horse to water, drinking, something.

Re:He's right

[Anrego]

While I'll definitely agree that a lot of his predictions come true, I feel like many of them arn't exactly revolutionary nor surprising. A lot of us see the way things are playing out and are going to play out in the future.. but simply screaming about it does nothing.

Whether we like to admit it or not, a lot of technology (particularly hardware and infrastructure) often needs big business and government really driving it. What we are seeing is huge ongoing improvements in technology that is bringing real benefits to society and life in general, but shackled with encumberments imposed by the interests paying for it. It's genuinely incredible to consider the capability the average person has with a basic PC and internet connection, but there is no free lunch.

Re: He's right

[Zero__Kelvin]

I am dealing serious when I say that I appreciate Stallman's contributions, but I'm equally serious when I say I can't imagine anyone wants to touch him.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't mutually exclusive. He can be right about some things and still be unhinged.

Also, much of what he says is opinion, and by definition cannot be right or wrong.

Re:He's right

[unixisc]

Sure they can!!! There have been very legitimate criticisms of all his jihads against all sorts of things - from 'Open Source' to non-GNU licenses. On this site, his stance on TiVo have been heavily criticized, as has been his demand that software should not have owners, and that programmers should do their coding on a voluntary basis, and seek to pay their bills some other way.

The criticism of his style - from his hygene to his habits - are just icing on the cake.

Re: He's right

[phantomfive]

Agreement does not make right or wrong, true or false. Gravity will still work the way it does, no matter how many people agree otherwise.

Re:He's right

[101percent]

Individual liberty and Freedom did not hardly exist for the entirety of human civilization. Things are far too complicated do fall into your prediction. We can look at the Industrial Revolution. Obviously there are books on this, but things progressed from kids working in coal mines to the 8 hour work day. People are becoming more informed on things like AI. And powerful people on all sides are starting to realize we can't have a select few just people spying on other people. Genetically bred humans in the near future is complete bullshit. That will be a huge debate that will take a century even if we have the technology. Just look at abortion. We aren't doomed.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who worked helpdesk during the early days of DRM, it was a nightmare. All kind of weird rules. Have things changed? I don't really participate but people seem to complain less.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Even as a FSF member I could care less about DRM-free propreitary games. Games are an creative experience you are taking part in. They aren't a way to control the way I do my computing. I don't see the point in taking away games from people who enjoy them. I do see the point of the message the FSF spreads and the dangers of allowing your computer to be completely in control of someone else. Stallman's message has always appealed to me and I hope it lasts and continues to adapt.

Re:He's right

[tepples]

Slashdot's script-driven D2 inline comment form forces a preview before submission. Only its script-free D1 comment form, which appears when JavaScript is turned off or when the user opens "Reply to This" in a new tab or window, allows submitting a comment that has not been previewed.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

often needs big business and government really driving it.

yeah kind of like how linux took over despite the fact that Apple IBM Microsoft HP Oracle all tried to kill it

yeah kind of like how ogg vorbis became a default standard

you are looney toones

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that the way politics has been done for some time already? People ice skating on the surface of the lake of concepts, screaming at each other of their attire of the day.

Re: He's right

[phantomfive]

The criticisms you mention are not typical, and even then rarely address his actual arguments. The argument in favor of tivoization for example usually boils down to "yeah it may bad for society but I want my software to have more installs."

Re: He's right

[phantomfive]

Worth mentioning that in recent years he has learned how to talk in a way that doesn't sound unhinged.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you say that the open source as meant here is about building community and collaborations, while free software is about ensuring freedom optionally limited to the realm of software? Freedomware could be a term to describe a collection or a unit of freedom preserving pursuits, in software, hardware, in technology in general and even in the fields of politics, publishing, science and law.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with what you wrote, but I think this part is really important:

I think he's definitely worth listening to, even if you don't necessarily agree with all the points he makes, because if nothing else, what he says often makes you think about how things are and how they could be better.

I feel as if most people today don't even try to do this. It's as if they believe that if they listen then they have to agree, so they refuse to listen.

I try to make it a point to always listen to people that I don't agree with, to try to understand their position and why they think and believe what they think. It really help you grow as a person and increase your understanding.

All in all, well said!

Re:He's right

[Megol]

Really, can't say I remember anything other than philosophy. The most important problem for me is that he doesn't seem to understand that computers are tools for the common people and that having something that works is infinitely better than something that is "free" but useless.

He is a fanatic with some good points. For an example of the first look at his thoughts on Linux, oh, I mean GNU/Linux.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, RMS has a habit of coming across unhinged on a topic, and then a few years later you realise he was dead right about it.

When I first read the "Right to read" thing, I thought it was nuts.

Then my damn Kindle died and I had to figure out how to get the books into another format. Well thanks to the DMCA it turns out I have to break the law to do that. But worse than that, a student who needs access to library journals now finds themselves in a situation of breaking the law vs DRM infested journal articles. The 'right to read' was 100% correct in its predictions. Well other than the "Tycho rebelion" or whatever it was, hey its Sci-Fi.

I could go on, but the point is, for all his faults, he's usually right about a lot more things than its often comfortable to admit.

And how exactly would the cessation of existence of Open Source software help you with your problem?

Re:He's right

[serviscope_minor]

but simply screaming about it does nothing.

How on earth is that relevant to anything. You don't like what RMS has to say so you dismiss his well thought out carefully worded essays and his work setting up the FSF and GPL as "simply screaming".

That's such an immense misrepresentation.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Genetically bred humans don't have to require genetic technology. We did that to dogs millennia ago. Although, human generations are quite longer. Assuming you have enough power to get away with this, you may speed it up and create a borderline subspecies of humans in a century or too, have 12-year-old boys impregnating 10-year-old girls (the old fashion way or not)

And powerful people on all sides are starting to realize we can't have a select few just people spying on other people

Oh, but this has been done. You create a one party state, then have roughly 10% of the population as Party members (then higher ranking Party members, then elites). Well, this may work if you have enough power to set up military checkpoints and forbid travel without authorization to the general population. This is how the DPRK started I guess...
They're changing too, now they're going to have a cell phone or smartphone for every party member!

Re: He's right

[samkass]

One might also ask the question why all those platforms and advances happened in the commercial world and not the Free Software world? Why wasnâ(TM)t the mass market smartphone a Free Software development? Why is âoecommercialâ even seen as the opposite of âoefreeâ? RMS has a cause and thatâ(TM)s great, but he has not presented a system which advances mankind. Until he can articulate how an industry can be sustained and the pace of innovation retained, itâ(TM)s just a hobby. Itâ(TM)s nice to have hobbies.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, RMS has a habit of coming across unhinged on a topic, and then a few years later you realise he was dead right about it.

No. He tends to take things too far and go for only one possible solution when there are many.

You don't need open source, what you need is well documented file formats and network protocols.
If you have those you can write compatible software that may or may not be open source depending on what you like.

Re:He's right

[Kjella]

By that I mean he subscribes to an ethical stance that basically asserts that certain things are moral or immoral, regardless of circumstance.

Yes, RMS wants the world to be perfect and perfect is the enemy of good. If the world is using 100% "immoral" software and I had an idea to use 95% open source and 5% closed source he'd tell me that my idea was still immoral and that it should be 100% or I should walk away. It doesn't matter if it's better than what was before. It doesn't matter if 95% puts food on the table and going 100% would make me homeless. It's the same on the user side, you never have any other obligations or priorities that would make getting shit done more important than using morally sound software. And you can't waste a few minutes playing Angry Birds without the source code, it's not enough until you join him in the ivory tower of 100% purity.

It's like watching one of those eco-hippies with the carbon footprint of a mouse, I mean they're not bad people. But when being environmentally friendly becomes your one moral imperative that the rest of your life revolves around it's just too much for 99.9% of us. Like if you can't get to work without a car the answer is to move or quit your job. Whether you like steaks or not, being a vegetarian is more eco-friendly so quit eating meat. Stop going places because airplanes are carbon monsters, go camping in the woods. I mean most of us don't want to be polluting, wasteful eco-swines we usually look to be a bit greener but when you go over the top you end up pretty much alone in your lifestyle. I don't think the 0.1% save the world through their moral purity.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

...Kjella's words...

The consistent stance of RMS, practical or not, targeting "perfection" or not, serves as an extreme at one end, aiming to counter-balance the extremes at other ends.

The result is that discussion happens, as exemplified by your post and many others, as is so very often the case whenever there is any mention of RMS.

This is a good thing, hence RMS is useful, regardless of what you may otherwise think about him.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Stallman seems to be claiming that there is some absolute behavior or license that free software must use. Unless your software follows his rules it isn't free software. That's a problem because the idea of free isn't especially well defined like many other things. While he defines his idea of free software, it's not a universal concept that he can lay claim to. Criticizing open source because it doesn't follow his idea of free is basically the same as claiming "those people" are heretics because they believe in transubstantiation instead of transignification like we "true Catholics" do.

As for ethics, you and I might agree that murder is wrong. Then you have to ask, what about assisted suicide? You say there is consent. I ask about war which doesn't have consent. So while we agree about the basic idea, we have to work out all the corner cases that don't neatly fit into our beliefs. We might get to unjustified killing is wrong but that's a long way from murder is wrong. Can you see why absolutism is a problem? The world isn't black and white.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

The common advice when asked how to make a living writing free software of "provide a service for hire to support your product" only works with some very narrow types of products, and never really with consumer-level products.

Even for other types of product it may not work unless there are companies prepared to pay you for expertise, customisation, or new features. In some senses making a product that is too easy to use, too well documented and too feature complete may be a business model error.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Note to you:

The scifi dystopian rack is *not* a reference center.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard this rhetoric my whole life. I'm sorry to be blunt, but this is the rhetoric of cowards. This is simply the rhetoric of a lazy person who has no dream for a better life for the progenity and even less will to do the work. This "oh well, it's a compromise" crap is part and parcel with our feminized society. Used to be military age men would at least take some accountability for the direction of there society. I hope a lifetime on easy compromise is worth it when you wake up and your ancestors are slaves in the land your people controlled.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Fish. "There" should have been "their".

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of us see the way things are playing out and are going to play out in the future.. but simply screaming about it does nothing.

So, back in 1991 you saw that Linux was the future in phones? Or that we'd even be having battles over the software on vendor censorship just as RMS predicted? Do you think him "screaming" those predictions had no impact on people choosing to act differently and has delayed or stopped abuse? Do you think it's done nothing to motivate people now to keep fighting to try to reverse the very clearly spelled out abuse? It's like you believe we should just dismiss Orwell and 1984 because he had the gall to spell out a form of dystopia that in part is playing out. You prefer blindness to the reality of it all?

How about you stop accepting so much bullshit "pragmatism" and push back as much as you can when you can instead of gleefully boot-stomping "ideology" while bitching about the canaries in the coal mine because you just can't stand the "screaming" of birds.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who vehemently disagree with RMS usually boil down to "why is he so strange; he should just be normal like me." These are the Animal Farm pigs happily dancing with their trivial trinkets while the slave society is being built around them. And it's built with spftware, but these people are too ignorant to see. They celebrate their ignorance perhaps even (using more veiled language of course). RMS has always been right. We've all taken the easy lives, and it was just so we could be fattened for the slaughter. We should have listened to RMS a long time ago.

Re:He's right

[Type44Q]

Stallman is eminently logical; it should be clear to anyone with half a brain that the entire reason he embarked on his "moral quest" was because he could look ahead and see where we were headed.

The position he's taken is based on logic and practicality rather than idealogy; it just might require deeper thinking [than most people are capable of] to realize that.

Re: He's right

[phantomfive]

Stallman is saying stuff that you don't understand because you've never read it. To begin with freedom is well defined in this context, and most of your post, while logical, is so ignorant that even the best logic would lead to trash. Educate yourself before posting again.

Re: He's right

[phantomfive]

In the past Stallman has said it's reasonable to make a game closed source for a time, and then open source it after a year or so when the popularity runs out.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, not arguing, I simply found the typo amusing. I'm kind of with the guy who made the typo; Stallman is a nutter.

Re:He's right

[fbobraga]

but simply screaming about it does nothing.

With a huge audience, yes it does something...

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Even as a FSF member I could care less about DRM-free propreitary games. Games are an creative experience you are taking part in. They aren't a way to control the way I do my computing. I don't see the point in taking away games from people who enjoy them. I do see the point of the message the FSF spreads and the dangers of allowing your computer to be completely in control of someone else. Stallman's message has always appealed to me and I hope it lasts and continues to adapt.

How many people keep a copy of Windows around solely for the purpose of gaming? This increases MS revenue and marketshare which directly supports everything they do, some of which seek to control the computing of non-gamers. When a large number of people do this it has a substantial effect.

In other words, there are network effects to be considered because it's not a two-entity closed system (game company and gamer).

Re:He's right

[drinkypoo]

No one has really figured out how to combine a popular consumer-goods-type product like that with the philosophy of free software.

There have been several games where a game engine is Open Source or even Free Software but the assets are not. That is exactly how to combine a popular consumer-goods-type product like that with the philosophy of free software.

So, essentially, videogames simply don't exist in Stallman's universe.

No, they don't exist in your universe. In our universe, this is already a solved problem.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been following him for quite a while and I rarely see cases where he is right. Typically it's just his followers claiming he is right without evidence because they blindly follow him.

The right to read thing is often held up as a pro-RMS example, but it's complete BS for two reasons: 1. Most people still use printed books. 2. It's trivial to use any ebook manager to just copy books to another device. I use a Kindle and I can backup and read books on my PC. The idea that the kindle dying or being updated to lock me out is pure FUD.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

The major problem, though, is who is number two in this movement? Who is his replacement? He seems like the only spokesman for the entire free software movement. At least open source has several people gunning for it, largely because open source is a way for corporations to get free labor when developing products, so there's an incentive to pay people to be spokesmen in that industry. RS isn't getting any younger. Will the movement die with him?

Re:He's right

[iggymanz]

No, they criticize him for being an ivory tower idealist clueless about the real world. And they're right. No one is going to hire Stallman to make a functioning OS kernel for the real world, his HURD floundered for 35 years and it's still useless as ever.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent reply that avoids any actual argument.

Stallman says free software is amoral and it isn't free unless it follows his philosophy of free software. I submit again there isn't an absolute freedom especially when it comes to software. The free software movement consists of more than whatever license Stallman thinks is acceptable. He doesn't get to define free software for others because there is no absolutism. He doesn't like open source because it isn't free enough but some would argue it is. That's why there is no one definition of free that everyone has to use. Some argue GPL is even more restrictive than some licenses because it forces you to agree to certain things. It is actually less free but perhaps more moral (whatever that would mean).

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

You are too far gone, you've drunken too much koolaid. Good luck on your future endeavors. Stay blind.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless your GTAV.

That games been #1 on steam for 5 years.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

You're

Re:He's right

[epine]

People typically criticize Stallman based on style, because they can't touch him based on substance.

Because getting the style wrong (especially at epic Stallman scale) actually matters, and ultimately contaminates the substance, too.

But you win. Your quaint, absolute division of style and substance is the freedom-fighter Exacto knife Stallman imports into every moral domain.

Steve Jobs: reality distortion field, reified.

Richard Stallman: nuance suppression field, reified.

On the high bluffs of Mt Rushmore, Extremistan, carved out of the same rock, despite one glaring difference.

MacOs: Lickable.

Emacs: Unlickable.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

"The right to read" may have been spot-on concerning the Kindle. Fortunately, the kindle is not the only way to read stuff. Not even the only way electronically.

Get a device where you aren't forced into a subscription model, where they can't disable your stuff from some central location. I.e. your ebooks are files that you have control over. I have my books on a reMarkable reader. I don't use their cloud solution - because it is optional. If the thing breaks, copies of the files are still on my pc. Avoiding the cloud uses a solution that some would find cumbersome or kludgy. But this can be improved by writing better software. Installing better software is an option, because the device is not locked down. Apparently, they found the easiest way to comply with the GPL, was to include sshd and a root password.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

One problem is that his philosophy simply brushes aside any arguments one might have that inconveniently points out situations in which free software is not a practical solution. Let's take videogames, for example. No one has really figured out how to combine a popular consumer-goods-type product like that with the philosophy of free software.

Wrong, I think. There are great open-source games - such as openTTD. (And first person shooters and whatnot.) Consumers like videogames. Consumers don't need fast obsolescence and new "titles" every month - it is the proprietary game industry that wants that. Videogames is an area where free software works fine. You don't see those games in "stores" - precisely because they are not sold. They are being downloaded though - and played. You may have to search to find them, for free software doesn't usually advertise.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

because the Macistosh looks like a candy

Re:He's right

[SvnLyrBrto]

Unhinged and correct are not mutually exclusive.

I'm not about to deny RMS's accomplishments. And he has a pretty good track record about being correct. But he is a very poor spokesman for his movement; at least to anyone outside the hard-core nerd herd. Hell, I count myself as being fairly hard-core nerdly. But I wouldn't want to have a conversation with, or be in the same room as, him. Being right isn't enough. You also have to effectively communicate and persuade not just your niche, but the general public at large, if you seriously want to gain traction at scale. And RMS's fanaticism, behavior, and odious personal habits detract from that and reinforce some serious negative stereotypes.

Re: He's right

[phantomfive]

Yeah Donald Trump proved that style can win over substance. And yet Donald Trump is still a lying sleezebag. Winning isn't everything.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there is some complexity to the issue does not imply the world is not black or white merely that classifying things is difficult.

Re: He's right

[phantomfive]

Me, how much software did you write 35 years ago that is still in use by millions of people today? (Hint: not as much as Stallman). And you're a jerk, yet for some reason people still hire you.

Re: He's right

[phantomfive]

If you actually wanted to make a rebuttal you should have researched how Stillman defines "free" in this context.

Re:He's right

[JThundley]

Full disclosure: I'm a big gamer and I do play proprietary games on Windows.

His philosophy brushing aside your argument that it's hard for game devs to make money selling Free software games is a feature, not a bug. His goal is for software *users* to have total control and freedom over the software that they choose to run. If a proprietary game studio shutters for whatever reason, that's a good thing thing in his eyes because that means there's one less group of people out there trying to restrict the freedom of software users.

Just because doing the right thing is hard doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

Re: He's right

[unixisc]

The argument in favor of TiVoization is that Tivo is not violating the original GNU 2 license by putting locked code on the flash devices of a set top box. Yeah, while GNU's 4 freedoms may call for the freedom to modify code on one's devices, the practical realities of TiVo recognize that if that company allowed customers to freely swap boot ROM, they could end up pilfering content, and make media companies blacklist TiVo boxes. RMS refused to see things from TiVo's POV, and like the good Trotskyist that he is, he decided to write a new version of the license that would prevent another TiVo from providing GPL 3 licensed software on a locked medium. Forcing such a company to choose b/w either GPL 3 or going along w/ media copyrights.

Re:He's right

[exomondo]

People typically criticize Stallman based on style, because they can't touch him based on substance.

Well he's certainly right that mobile devices have been designed from the ground up to be non-free but really the proliferation of such devices is because nobody designed one from the ground up to be free. Apple and Google got there first, innovated and took the market, there's no reason FOSS couldn't have innovated with a free solution. Of course the precursors to the modern smartphone came from RIM and Microsoft, again no FOSS innovation there.

It's not particularly dissimilar to the desktop market either, how many desktop systems are there that are free from the ground up?

If you don't innovate and think ahead with market-disrupting ideas then you'll be relegated to an also-ran complaining about how other people are creating things in ways you don't like.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

How about you stop accepting so much bullshit "pragmatism" and push back as much as you can when you can instead of gleefully boot-stomping "ideology" while bitching about the canaries in the coal mine because you just can't stand the "screaming" of birds.

It's easy to just whine and complain about things and just say "i told you so" but it's a lot harder to actually do something about it. To innovate and create new things takes real effort, where is the top to bottom FOSS solution for desktop PCs? smartphones? tablets? augmented reality? virtual reality? wearables like fitness trackers? For the categories in which they do exist they are all rubbish because FOSS demonstrably cannot innovate. Products these days are built with pieces licensed in various different ways: different types of non-free licenses, different types of open source licenses and even copyleft licenses. More power to you if you can build products top to bottom on one fixed ideology but the fact is you can't (or at least haven't yet) so stop whining about how nobody has done and actually do something.

Those who can't do, complain. That is exactly what you're doing, unwilling or unable to make a difference yourself you're trying to pass the buck to people who point out that all you're doing is whining.

Linux itself won't be GPLv3 and it isn't even GPLv2, free software advocates cling to it but it has a very explicit exception to the GPLv2 which prevents that license from infecting programs that link to the kernel for syscall purposes. Despite this the FSF compromised their ideals and latched on to Linux for exactly the reasons I've stated: innovating (in this case building a kernel) is hard and it's easier to just let somebody else do it and then complain about their decisions later. We all know why they didn't build HURD and the chickens of that poor decision are coming home to roost.

Re:He's right

[exomondo]

Yes, RMS wants the world to be perfect and perfect is the enemy of good. If the world is using 100% "immoral" software and I had an idea to use 95% open source and 5% closed source he'd tell me that my idea was still immoral and that it should be 100% or I should walk away. It doesn't matter if it's better than what was before. It doesn't matter if 95% puts food on the table and going 100% would make me homeless.

That's why the decision to adopt Linux is so strange. Instead of pursuing a kernel with copyright assignment to the FSF (to allow for re-licensing) that required derivative works (linking programs) to be "free" they chose and continue to advocate for one based on a "tit-for-tat" contribution strategy including an explicit licensing clause overriding the GPL that allows non-free software to interoperate.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux itself won't be GPLv3 and it isn't even GPLv2, free software advocates cling to it but it has a very explicit exception to the GPLv2 which prevents that license from infecting programs that link to the kernel for syscall purposes.

This is misleading - the Linux kernel itself is under GPL2 with no modifications.

The 'syscall exception' just specifies that user-space programs using normal Linux syscalls are NOT derivative works, and therefore not subject to the terms of the GPL. It doesn't modify the GPL at all, and says nothing about linking (which is what FSF claims makes kernel modules 'derivative works').

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux itself won't be GPLv3 and it isn't even GPLv2, free software advocates cling to it but it has a very explicit exception to the GPLv2 which prevents that license from infecting programs that link to the kernel for syscall purposes.

This is misleading - the Linux kernel itself is under GPL2 with no modifications.

But with exceptions as clearly stated here.

The 'syscall exception' just specifies that user-space programs using normal Linux syscalls are NOT derivative works, and therefore not subject to the terms of the GPL.

Yes and the reason for this is because if the license were GPLv2, without this exception, then user space programs making syscalls would be considered derived works and subject to the terms of the GPLv2 as well.

If I licensed a program under GPLv2 and put in an exception for all the distribution clauses would you still consider it to be a GPLv2-licensed program? No reasonable person would.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not because user space programs would be considered derived works (aka being 'infected' by GPL) but because the header files must be included to make proprietary non-GPL'd programs that run under Linux ... so they can't be strictly GPL.

The User-space API (UAPI) header files, which describe the interface of user-space programs to the kernel are a special case. According to the note in the kernel COPYING file, the syscall interface is a clear boundary, which does not extend the GPL requirements to any software which uses it to communicate with the kernel. Because the UAPI headers must be includable into any source files which create an executable running on the Linux kernel, the exception must be documented by a special license expression.

Re: He's right

[astrofurter]

There's no preview on mobile.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not because user space programs would be considered derived works (aka being 'infected' by GPL)

Wrong. The exception is very clear on this:

NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".

The reason for this exception is prevent userland applications that make syscalls to the kernel from being considered derived works.

but because the header files must be included to make proprietary non-GPL'd programs that run under Linux ... so they can't be strictly GPL.

And if those header files were strictly GPL without this exception then the applications in which they were included would be subject to the GPL and hence considered derived works, if that weren't the case then you wouldn't need this exception at all.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

But Linux, as a computer operating system kernel, has vastly more usage than Windows so when these "network effects" arguments are put out it seems strange that Linux's own exploitation of network effects is ignored. The problem is that despite hundreds of attempts the FOSS community can't build a decent desktop operating system (or mobile one for that matter). Google managed to use Linux to create a decent mobile OS and succeeded where the FOSS community failed, they are even doing a hell of a lot better with ChromeOS than all the hundreds of other Linux distributions combined.

The upshot is that the FOSS community sucks at building consumer products so you can complain all you like that companies create closed products but what's the alternative? Well the alternative is what the FOSS community builds and in terms of consumer products that is either: nothing or something really shit that is playing catchup.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Your choice to run certain software is not slavery you fuckwit.

Re: He's right

[phantomfive]

I don't know if that's really true. Android started open from the ground up, anyway

Re:He's right

[strikethree]

The thing is, RMS has a habit of coming across unhinged on a topic, and then a few years later you realise he was dead right about it.

Richard Stallman disgusts me.

Then, I realized that he is merely a mirror to the folks at Microsoft and Apple, and they disgust me. They disgust me even more than RMS does because RMS is merely a reaction to the original disgusting thing: Turning software from a tool towards using computers into a tool towards gathering money.

I want software freedom. Microsoft wants to take it away so that they can gather resources (money). Richard wants to take it away so that all software everywhere gives freedom to the end users. Both positions are disgusting.

We have machines that allow us to express ideas and concepts freely. The tool used to express these ideas is called "software". Attempting to control creators or users is evil.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to tip your fedora.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a subtle but crucial distinction, and you're not the only one to miss it.

It's not using kernel syscalls that would make your user-space program a derivative work: it's using the provided interface headers. You can always write your own and be free of any licensing issues.

And the only reason this exception is even necessary is because the work in question is a kernel. It's the nature of a kernel to provide functionality through system calls. It's utterly irrelevant with other software under GPL.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, RMS wants the world to be perfect and perfect is the enemy of good. If the world is using 100% "immoral" software and I had an idea to use 95% open source and 5% closed source he'd tell me that my idea was still immoral and that it should be 100% or I should walk away.

Are you sure he said you should walk away? And then even if he did (though he didn't), would you really do it? Go with the 95% instead and think about whether or not that works for you, not RMS.

Thing is, if you had gone 90% (or worse: 5%) instead of 95%, you might be unhappier but not understand what was going wrong. Well, probably not you, but there are a lot of people who really do see shiny manacles and think "ooh, shiny!" When you're attuned to spotting manacles, you still might decide to put them on 5% of the time (because your wife wants you to) but at least RMS has presented things in a way where you're always conscious of the danger.

I guess what I'm saying is: think about how RMS has helped to inform you. Anyone who spends a lot of time maintaining software has had unpleasant experiences with dependencies. Anyone who has been running machines for decades, probably has been "orphaned" a few times. But RMS casts the issue in a way where it's simpler to understand and much faster/easier to spot some of the most harmful dependencies. Am I free to maintain this thing, or not? Most dangers and fuckups come down to lack of freedom and amazingly, I'm not sure that's common knowledge yet, among laymen.

I basically can't buy (and by "buy" I usually mean use/accept, even if gratis, these days) any tech product without first asking "what am I getting locked into? What control am I giving up? Who benefits instead of the user?" These sound like common sense questions, but younger me in the 1980s (and even the 1990s!) wasn't asking that, and I'm in an office full of people right now, where most people don't. I'll give RMS some credit for that. He's a good guy. Let him show an ideal to strive for, and in situations where that doesn't work for you, that's ok. You'll still be getting assraped a lot less than most schmucks.

Re: He's right

[exomondo]

I don't know if that's really true. Android started open from the ground up, anyway

No, some bits of the Android operating system were open but no device that you ran it on was open and by the time you had customized the OS (with relevant drivers and such) in order to actually run it on hardware it was not open.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not using kernel syscalls that would make your user-space program a derivative work: it's using the provided interface headers.

Wrong. Read the exception, it is *not* about interface headers it is explicitly about excepting programs making syscalls to the kernel from the restrictions of the GPL (i.e. that they not be considered a derived work) whether by using the supplied interface headers or writing your own.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously didn't read the documentation on the exception.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously didn't read the documentation on the exception.

It is not straight GPLv2, it includes an exception that makes its license different to the GPLv2. If the GPLv2 were appropriate for the kernel then it wouldnt have an explicit exception.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

We should have listened to RMS a long time ago.

Why? Nothing has ever stopped you from developing or supporting free software/hardware projects. The problem is that pretty much anything consumer-facing from FOSS is rubbish. The reality is that thanks to government mandates it's easier than ever to extract your raw viewable data from platforms like Facebook and Apple in order to archive it or to switch to a different platform so I'm not sure what you're complaining about.

What is it you need to do that you can't do?

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

But there's no value in being right if you can't implement it because it's utterly impractical. It's all well and good but it doesn't translate into anything of substance, I'm all for his ideas but the fact is that after 30 years it still hasn't even been delivered from bottom to top on the desktop...much less the smartphone, tablet, wearable, AR, VR, etc, etc...

You can make all manner of excuses for that but the evidence of monumental shitfights in the FOSS community over the most trivial of components and the rampant NIH syndrome makes it pretty clear why no big picture solution has been delivered those various categories listed above. Not even as a slow follower to the corporations that deliver proprietary, closed solutions.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, RMS wants the world to be perfect and perfect is the enemy of good. If the world is using 100% "immoral" software and I had an idea to use 95% open source and 5% closed source he'd tell me that my idea was still immoral and that it should be 100% or I should walk away. It doesn't matter if it's better than what was before. It doesn't matter if 95% puts food on the table and going 100% would make me homeless.

That's why the decision to adopt Linux is so strange. Instead of pursuing a kernel with copyright assignment to the FSF (to allow for re-licensing) that required derivative works (linking programs) to be "free" they chose and continue to advocate for one based on a "tit-for-tat" contribution strategy including an explicit licensing clause overriding the GPL that allows non-free software to interoperate.

Well, if you try to develop your own kernel for decades and don't come far, you'll grab the next best thing, slap "GNU/" in front of it, and the faithful will praise you.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

> Stop going places because airplanes are carbon monsters, go camping in the woods

Um. I know a very well-to-do doctor (MD) who will not fly for pleasure (she flies for weddings and funerals) and who kayaks and bikes and camps because they're the moral recreations she enjoys enough to want to spend days at them.

So... yeah.

She talks about her co-workers, some of whom fly at least monthly. Some of whom own *multiple* boats. Many of these people earn >200k/y and are going deeper into debt in their excess.

It's less about being the morally pure 0.1% and trying to live within our means, as a species, while some individuals insist on a 100x burn rate.

Choosing one or two feel-good improvements is dandy, but not acceptable - just less reprehensible. Unfortunately most people are too financially poor or to morally bankrupt to live without shitting on the world at large.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect. JS off, opened 'reply to this' in new tab. I see preview, no submit.

(one click later) Now I've previewed and the submit button is here. Still no JS.

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah Donald Trump proved that style can win over substance. And yet Donald Trump is still a lying sleezebag. Winning isn't everything.

Errm, how can you win on style when you act like Stallman?

Re: He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if that's really true. Android started open from the ground up, anyway

Bwahaha.

Re:He's right

[tepples]

I know the experience differs for journals and submissions, which require a preview even with JS off. It may also differ between anonymous visitors and logged-in users, and that might be what you're seeing.

Re:He's right

[urusan]

Let's take videogames, for example. No one has really figured out how to combine a popular consumer-goods-type product like that with the philosophy of free software. The common advice when asked how to make a living writing free software of "provide a service for hire to support your product" only works with some very narrow types of products, and never really with consumer-level products. So, essentially, videogames simply don't exist in Stallman's universe.

Why not use a Kickstarter or Patreon style funding model?

I know it's harder to extract money out of consumers after you're done building the project, but perhaps extracting the maximum profit out of consumers shouldn't be the point.

Re:He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

It IS straight GPL; if you read the license itself, there are no modifications.

What the syscall exception does is specify WHAT the license applies to, and in fact is unnecessary but included so that if there's any gray area, there is no question if it were to be challenged in court: user-space programs using the kernel APIs are NOT derivative works.

That's all it says; the terms of the license are irrelevant because they do not apply to these programs.

Crazy old man yells at cloud.

[Kenja]

My mind went full Simpsons when reading this.

Re: Crazy old man yells at cloud.

[Cmdln Daco]

Enjoy your cartoons, then.

Re: Crazy old man yells at cloud.

[Stormwatch]

The Simpsons hasn't been enjoyable since the late 90s.

Re:Crazy old man yells at cloud.

[EvilSS]

Dude, don't get him started on Cloud...

Re: Crazy old man yells at cloud.

[Cmdln Daco]

Yet somehow enough people enjoy watching them that they're commercially viable, and continue to be produced and maintain a broadcast slot.

I agree about the decline in quality of the program.

But a lot of people still enjoy the show.

Careful with that righteousness

[Kohath]

If you consider any and all different choices than yours to be "amoral", that's a vice.

Re:Careful with that righteousness

[Anonymous Coward]

He called it amoral, not immoral. He's not saying open source evil; he just saying it doesn't care one way or another about your rights.

Re:Careful with that righteousness

[Kohath]

That's his opinion. Others may say that open source is moral but the value system isn't precisely equivalent to Stallman's. Stallman is effectively claiming that his value system is the one and only.

Re:Careful with that righteousness

[Gavagai80]

Open source is explicitly amoral, and nobody who knows what they're talking about says otherwise. Open source was designed precisely to strip the moralizing out of free software. Because there are many, many people and companies who find free software useful as a strategy for many things but don't share Stallman's belief that it's a moral issue.

Re:Careful with that righteousness

[serviscope_minor]

Amoral is not the same as immoral. The GPL is the way it is because RMS is taking a moral stance on software. Using a permissive license is in his view amoral because it is taking no moral stance. It's not in his view immoral (against his morals).

Re:Careful with that righteousness

[Anonymous Coward]

If you consider any and all different choices than yours to be "amoral", that's a vice.

And that's only your opinion, of course.

Re:Careful with that righteousness

[squiggleslash]

The entire point of the Open Source movement's founding was to build a movement that would create Free Software that didn't have an ideology associated with it beyond "This is the way that the highest quality software can be built." You might argue that that is a moral point of view, but you'd then have to assert that, say, Agile project management or Managed Code (eg JVM, CIL) are moral movements too. They aren't, at least not in the traditional sense.

Free Software (whose baggage the OSI was formed to leave behind) was based on the central principle that nobody has the right to hide from you knowledge, or prevent you from using that knowledge. You have to admit that's an entirely different moral ballpark compared to "we can make better software if more people can contribute to it."

Re:Careful with that righteousness

[ClickOnThis]

No matter what process you use, if all you're trying to do is create high-quality software, then that is an amoral position, because it is indifferent to morality.

However, if you're trying to create free software in the sense that RMS means (free as in freedom) then that is a moral position. It means you want the software you create to include certain freedoms that others have when they use your software, and that persist no matter what others do to that software.

Creating high-quality software and creating free (as in freedom) software are not incompatible goals.

Falsely conflating proprietary with malicious

[Anonymous Coward]

Open source software could easily disregard both privacy and freedom.

Software with readable but all rights reserved source code is sufficient to safeguard privacy, and MIT or BSD licensed software offers greater freedom than what Stallman peddles.

Re: Falsely conflating proprietary with malicious

[Anonymous Coward]

You are not using the same definition of freedom. Stallman talks about freedom for users as a right. You talk about freedom for vendors (not necessarily even the authors) to choose to inflict restrictions on users. In this sense, he's absolutely right, open source is amoral.

Re: Falsely conflating proprietary with malicious

[Anonymous Coward]

Restrictions are not freedom, no matter what kind of restrictions they are or what motives are behind them.

If GPL software is so wonderful, why can't it out-compete either proprietary licensed software or permissively licensed software on a level playing field?

Re: Falsely conflating proprietary with malicious

[Anonymous Coward]

Restrictions are not freedom, no matter what kind of restrictions they are or what motives are behind them.

It seems paradoxical, but as the GPL2 Preamble says:

"To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights."

Practically speaking, the only restriction is that you are not allowed to deny others the same rights you got when you received the software. So "freedom" equates to "equal rights for everyone" where nobody has an unfair advantage denied to everyone else.

Re: Falsely conflating proprietary with malicious

[Anonymous Coward]

There is only a few cases where the freedom is necessary. Most of the time, for most users, it's a freedom they will happily give up.

Stallman wanted to port a printer driver to a new OS in the 1980s, but found that he couldn't find the source code. Instead of beating the printer with a bat like in Office Space, he started GNU and free software movement.

Re:Falsely conflating proprietary with malicious

[tepples]

Software with readable but all rights reserved source code is sufficient to safeguard privacy

How much "Software with readable but all rights reserved source code" executes on a typical end user computing device, compared to the amount of software whose source code is a trade secret?

Re: Falsely conflating proprietary with malicious

[Anonymous Coward]

There is only a few cases where the freedom is necessary. Most of the time, for most users, it's a freedom they will happily give up.

I don't disagree, but the reason we don't aim for this low bar is because of the consequences of doing so. Can you imagine the same thing applied to society?

Re: Falsely conflating proprietary with malicious

[Anonymous Coward]

What RS proposes is not freedom but a social compact--essentially a moral duty to others. It's a restriction imposed on individuals to protect everyone. You are socially obligated to not kill others barring limited circumstances. I don't kill you. You don't kill me, etc. It's a prearrangement among citizens. It's not freedom, however. RS doesn't want to use terms like social compact because he'll lose rhetorical battles with people calling him a commie. He should be more honest, but at this point he's not going to change.

pretty much, the original iThing had no apps

[johnjones]

Crazy old man yells at cloud.... and spreads misinformation about how things work...

Re: pretty much, the original iThing had no apps

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not a Free Software guy, but Stallmanâ(TM)s representation is rather accurate of how it worked out.

Re:pretty much, the original iThing had no apps

[fahrbot-bot]

Crazy old man yells at cloud....

Or, at least, sends email about it -- IN ALL CAPS.

Amoral but not immoral.

[Gravis Zero]

Open source is amoral meaning that it shows no concern about whether behavior is morally right or wrong. However, this doesn't mean it's immoral (conflicting with morals). What this does is provides people with the source code and the choice of acting morally. This is real freedom for the recipient of the source code. The "free-software movement" removes this choice from the recipient of the source code by obligating them to act a certain way.

I'm just a guy that likes to write code that does something nice for people. I can only speak for myself but whether people want to use my code morally or not really my interest so I don't try to make it my business.

Do note that GPL'd tools are used as a basis for the most insidious and invasive systems devised (e.g. Facebook).

Re:Amoral but not immoral.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not AGPL or LGPL

Re:Amoral but not immoral.

[Anonymous Coward]

"so I don't try to make it my business." But aren't you just disregarding your responsibility as a developer there? "code that does something nice for people" is a moral stance - your justification for deviating is not that.

Re:Amoral but not immoral.

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyleft was never the purpose. It was only a means to an end. Even Eben Moglen has a speech where he says enforcing copyleft is not always the best approach. And Bradley Kuhn has said this. And BSD has operated outside this model for decades.

Re:Amoral but not immoral.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're confusing aesthetics with morality. A moral stance would be to choose 'what is nice for people'.

Choosing an aesthetic stance is one in which any supposed morality is a projection (yours) onto the creator (programmer). The aesthetic stance is not reflected outwards, and morality about end result ends at the ego, again not in the projection of the ego.

You can call this a moralistic justification all day long, but morality and aesthetics are two vastly different things..

Re:Amoral but not immoral.

[drinkypoo]

What this does is provides people with the source code and the choice of acting morally. This is real freedom for the recipient of the source code.

Right. That's who Open Source licenses are designed to benefit, the recipient of the source code.

The "free-software movement" removes this choice from the recipient of the source code by obligating them to act a certain way.

Right. That's because Free Software licenses are designed to benefit the user, i.e. the recipient of the binary code. It is necessary to place some restrictions on the rights of the recipients of the source code to provide the maximum benefit to all of the recipients of the binary code.

I'm just a guy that likes to write code that does something nice for people.

That's too bad. I only like to do nice things for people who do nice things, because those are the people making a better world, and I want to live in a better world.

Re:Amoral but not immoral.

[Gravis Zero]

I only like to do nice things for people who do nice things, because those are the people making a better world

That's a great oversimplification of reality. Obligating people to distribute source code changes does nothing to guarantee they are doing something positive for the world. Remember, Facebook is built atop of a Linux environment. Aside from that, a license doesn't even mean people will live up to their obligation as there are many GPL violators.

Re:Amoral but not immoral.

[exomondo]

That's too bad. I only like to do nice things for people who do nice things, because those are the people making a better world, and I want to live in a better world.

Given that the users and contributors to the Linux kernel include the likes of Microsoft, Facebook and Google I take it you don't make a habit of contributing (or advocating for contributing) to it.

Stallman can afford to take this stand

[Elfich47]

Stallman can afford to take this stand because he understands what is involved in programming; the ins, the outs, the nitty gritty.
br> My mom doesn't have the time, energy, inclination to learn how to program or maintain a home spooled build or double check the source code of every app she uses. She just wants it to work. And apple, for all of the complaints about the walled garden provides products that just work.

For comparison look at Android. Android has a much more open applications market. Also look at the Android current scandal involving hundreds of applications, ad fraud and millions of dollars. The casual user doesn't have the time to figure out if a particular app is also a time bomb, bitcoin miner, ad fraud machine or something else.

Yes, apple keeps things locked down with so tight it squeaks. But it also limits malevolent actors from stealing from innocent people. People trust that apps in the apple app store are not malicious. And that is the trade off: Safe Apps that aren't malicious instead of the android wild wild west.

Re:Stallman can afford to take this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

People could also just not install apps willy-nilly like a hooker sucking dick during Fleet Week.

In the "old days" of BBSs people knew better than to just run random software they downloaded, now people take it for granted that they should be able to install apps risk-free. Why is that the case? If you don't trust the publisher of the software then you shouldn't install it.

If people were less accepting of dumb apps then web sites would work better on mobile. Even reddit now, on every fucking page, has a giant pop-up asking me to install their dumb app so they can track me better and serve more ads. No fucking thank you.

Re:Stallman can afford to take this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

When Apple censored a game called "Ultimate General: Gettysburg" for using the confederate flag, it proved that there is much more to the trade off than you described.

Re:Stallman can afford to take this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

People could also just not install apps willy-nilly like a hooker sucking dick during Fleet Week.

you can pretend that humans will behave differently than they do, but you're just kidding yourself. kind of like how you are too stupid to understand that humans are too stupid to change

Re: Stallman can afford to take this stand

[gnasher719]

When was the last time Stallman has done any programming?

Re:Stallman can afford to take this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

Google letting Android's app market go to shit is all on them, not their software philosophy.

You're incorrectly saying that an "open market" is the same thing as "open source". Android's store is mostly poorly vetted proprietary (closed) applications. Android's people take no responsibility for what you use from their store. I have no idea how Apple works, but from what people say, they do vet their apps more than Android does.

You want better curation of these markets for privacy/security's sake, regardless of the open/proprietary license of the apps themselves.

Re:Stallman can afford to take this stand

[drinkypoo]

People trust that apps in the apple app store are not malicious.

That trust is misplaced.

And that is the trade off: Safe Apps that aren't malicious instead of the android wild wild west.

But we have established that the apps on the app store aren't safe. Therefore the tradeoff is freedom for nothing.

Re: Stallman can afford to take this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

What was the last thing Bill gates coded?

Re:Stallman can afford to take this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

RMS needs to consider that I didn't buy the phone to run apps. I have very few apps. Almost all of them link to some service I already pay a lot of money for. I am not using "open source" to check my 401k balance or read the WSJ. All I care about is that I get a secure, narrow use case met reliably. I cannot escape the cell tower or the WiFi access point; the phone is never "free." it's a damned tracker. Most of the time, that's ok. When it's not, Michael Faraday has me covered (pun intended).

Re: Stallman can afford to take this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

DONKEY.BAS?

Re:Stallman can afford to take this stand

[Anonymous Coward]

You're living in a US bubble.

Android-based phones do "just work". It's only in the US that this is perceived not to be the case.

Now, there are definitely crappy Android apps; there are bugs; mis-features - what have you. But usability is not a problem, which is what makes smartphones so ubiquitous.

Apple has better marketing in the US, for the most part.

guh

[fyngyrz]

So, Apple computers are no longer 100 per cent jails.

"Apple computers" != "iThings", Richard.

Re:guh

[Anonymous Coward]

May as well be. They dropped the "Computer" company title way back. Tim cook has said ios and ithings are the future. And their products reflect that. It's coming. Apple is a consumer company that have their hands in all types of things.

Hi, Richard!

[93 Escort Wagon]

How’s the Hurd coming along?

Re:Hi, Richard!

[Anonymous Coward]

He plans to release it any decade now, possibly before the next century.

Re:Hi, Richard!

[Anonymous Coward]

Works great as long as you don't need USB, sound or multi-core support.

Re:Hi, Richard!

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that

a) Nearly 100% of the userspace that makes your "Linux" system run is part of the GNU project? And, that much of it (enough to bootstrap the first "linux" distributions) was initially written before the Linux kernel was created. [old guy here, I ran Linux + GNU since nearly day one of Slackware, and everything worked really well (replaced SunOS for me; where I was already running a ton of GNU because it was technically superior to the included Sun bits)].

b) RMS was one of the folks who said we don't need the HURD since we have a gpl licensed kernel with Linux now.

c) The HURD has some really neat features, but without the imperative of needing a kernel, it has turned into a research kernel. I wish RMS and others did not have the opinion that the Linux kernel satisfies the requirements for a kernel for the GNU System (every "linux" distribution there is). Maybe replace Mach with L4 or something, but much of the ideas around the HURD are really interesting.

d) If your a BSD guy, that license was influenced by RMS as well. RMS visited Berkeley (multiple times), and tried to convince them to release their (cleaned of ATT copyrighted code) kernel under the GPL. He did not succeed in getting them to use the GPL, but they were swayed enough by his arguments that BSD is not a closed commercial product with rights owned and royalties paid to the Regents of the University of California. And, for a long time, you needed GNU userspace to build BSD kernels.

e) RMS has accomplished more in his lifetime than most of us (almost certainly, you too) can ever hope achieve. Probably most will never achieve even 5% of RMS's life works to date. Like him or not, he deserves respect.

Re:Hi, Richard!

[101percent]

Stagnation doesn't mean failure. Just look at MacOS 9. Apple took a bunch of shit and glued it together after that thing died. Just goes to prove no one just builds something 100% from scratch. Apple is just good at taking credit for it.

Re:Hi, Richard!

[iggymanz]

you mean the GNU project sucked up other successful projects, even the C compiler they made was total shit until another group rebuilt it properly...and then GNU took it back

HURD proves Stallman and company can't manage a medium-sized effort to save their life, let alone a real life kernel.

Stallman is okay for idea guy but actual real world stuff not his forte.

Re:Hi, Richard!

[iggymanz]

in HURD case it does mean failure, 35 years of trying to build something and it's as useless as it ever was.

This summary shows why I support open sour

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary clearly shows why I'm an open source supporter, not a free software supporter. Software is amoral. I've been writing and sharing open code for around 20-some years, I contribute to a lot of different open source projects. I have no interest in the free software movement, or making coding about philosophy or ethics. I'm interested in the technical side and creating solutions - both for myself and others.

Open source advocates are not trying to wrestle away ethics from software, we're simply ignoring nut jobs like Stallman who are trying to politicalize and moralize something unecessarily.

Re:This summary shows why I support open sour

[Jay Maynard]

*dingdingdingding* We have a winner!

This is me, exactly. (Well, I'm not the AC who posted that, but he said exactly how I feel about it.) The computer doesn't care about your morals. Neither do your customers. They just want software that works.

Re: This summary shows why I support open sour

[Anonymous Coward]

Yawn. Fuck your customers and fuck you. You've given up your principles for money, so what. Some of us haven't.

Who wants to side

[AHuxley]

with the big US brands that allowed PRISM deep in their own networks?

Re:Who wants to side

[Anonymous Coward]

None of this matters anyways. Software is pretty much end of life. The future is analog.

Apple wallet

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple locks down phones and fights right to repair because the players see the smartphone becoming your wallet and credit card and that's not gonna work unless repairs are entirely under tight control. It is what it is.

What's the Linux phone landscape like these days? My latest cheap Samsung has unremoveable google functions and I would never type my cc number into it on general principles.

Re:Apple wallet

[b0s0z0ku]

Bullshit -- that would only require a single tamper-resistant IC on the phone, maybe paired with a fingerprint reader. The rest of the device could be completely user-repairable without damaging security. As far as Samsung, their bloatware sucks. Go Motorola -- they're making an effort to be repair-friendly and their Android flavor has a minimum of bloatware. Also: the non-Scamazon versions of their phones officially allow bootloader unlocking.

Re:Apple wallet

[Anonymous Coward]

See if your device is supported by LineageOS. It's generally a much better user experience than Samsung's mess.

Re:Apple wallet

[Anonymous Coward]

Lineage support is really rare on phones. On a cheap Samsung like J series you will probably find an unofficial / amateur build of Lineage OS, but there's never been official support yet.

Re: Apple wallet

[Anonymous Coward]

They have many including S9 and S9+ builds, so I really hope you're kidding. Support seems to be based on popularity amongst developers, which isn't the same thing as cost.

Re:Apple wallet

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple locks down phones and fights right to repair because the players see the smartphone becoming your wallet and credit card and that's not gonna work unless repairs are entirely under tight control.

This "control" does not in any way require closed-source or limitations to what sw you can install.

I do my electronic banking from a linux PC. All the sw is free. The bank's private key is not, and that is sufficient. I can install any sw I like. Of course I won't install a browser that leaks my bank credentials - because that is not in my interest. Don't need a vendor with tight control for that though.

Re: Apple wallet

[Anonymous Coward]

They have many including S9 and S9+ builds, so I really hope you're kidding.

No he's not. Having to buy an expensive phone to get Lineage is stupid, but unavoidable.

Re:Stallman going off the deep is not news

[unixisc]

Maybe he could offer that - Apple & Google stop censoring apps in their respective app store, and in return, he'll take a 24 hr bath, complete w/ soap, shampoo, water ranging from temperature from 100F to 50C. Win win for everybody involved!

I actually read the whole interview.

[Max_W]

Even if I cannot tell that I agree with everything 100%, still it is an interesting article.

It is not hard to install a dual-boot Linux, or to install GIMP parallel to the PhotoShop, etc. And give them a try, at least from time to time.

It would make the commercial soft to work better, when one have a ready alternative. This way I use nowadays mostly GIMP and OpenOffice, not for ideological reasons, but because they have features which I need.

eating toejam is amoral

[Anonymous Coward]

nuff said

Define "compromise your system"

[tepples]

The ONLY thing Apple and Google should be doing for their "app store" approval process is to make sure the app is not malware, i.e. won't infect/compromise your system.

That depends on a precise definition of "compromise your system" on which all parties can agree. If you let Apple define "compromise your system", you end up with the present App Store Review Guidelines, just with an excuse below each line item as to why Apple deems a violation a "compromise" of the iOS experience.

Re:Define "compromise your system"

[Anonymous Coward]

For this purpose, I define "compromise" as wresting control from the user. Of course, Apple already has done this to some degree, so every iDevice is "compromised" if Apple can change the system at will.

Someone defined "security" as the ability to rely on your system to behave in a predictable manner. For certain values of "predictable" this makes sense. If you uninstall an app, your system should go back to the exact same state it was in before you installed it.

Re:Define "compromise your system"

[tepples]

For this purpose, I define "compromise" as wresting control from the user.

Then I imagine all widely commercially available computing systems beyond 8-bit microcontrollers are compromised in some manner. This includes microcode updates, Intel Management Engine, WLAN radio firmware, etc. Would you be willing to define a degree of compromise such that the user can choose the lesser of two evils? Or had you instead intended to apply your definition in an absolute manner, rendering the majority of products unsuitable?

If you uninstall an app, your system should go back to the exact same state it was in before you installed it.

I imagine the user would not consider it "predictable" for the uninstaller to revert all changes to documents that the user made using the app.

Re:Define "compromise your system"

[Anonymous Coward]

> Or had you instead intended to apply your definition in an absolute manner, rendering the majority of products unsuitable?

The key difference is that the user is informed about the control they are choosing to relinquish. When such control is wrested from the user on false pretenses (asking for permission to do one thing, and then doing something other than stated) is what we call a "Trojan horse."

> I imagine the user would not consider it "predictable" for the uninstaller to revert all changes to documents that the user made using the app.

Yeah, typically user data is not considered part of the "system" proper. Do you plan to offer any of your own insights, or do you want to keep splitting hairs?

Re:Define "compromise your system"

[tepples]

The key difference is that the user is informed about the control they are choosing to relinquish.

And I agree that Apple failed to do so, keeping the App Store Review Guidelines behind its paywall, until June 2014.

When such control is wrested from the user on false pretenses (asking for permission to do one thing, and then doing something other than stated) is what we call a "Trojan horse."

In the case of application censorship, is the "one thing" protecting users from applications that might damage the hardware and the "other thing" protecting users from e.g. hate speech, video game emulation, or use of 3D Touch as a drug scale?

GNU-less Linux systems exist

[tepples]

a) Nearly 100% of the userspace that makes your "Linux" system run is part of the GNU project

Not necessarily. Sure, you're running GNU/Linux if you use Debian, Fedora, or any other system built on GNU Coreutils, Bash, glibc, GCC, GTK+, and the like. But a lot of my Xubuntu laptop's RAM is occupied by things like X.Org X11, Xfce panel, Thunar, Mousepad, Firefox, GIMP, and other things that aren't "GNU software" because FSF doesn't own the copyright. GNU exceeds Linux in distributions like these but is by no means the majority. There also exist Linux systems that use little or no GNU software, such as Alpine Linux, Android, OpenWrt, and Starch Linux.

Re:GNU-less Linux systems exist

[101percent]

The argument goes back before all that shit when it was just GNU/Linux.

Re:GNU-less Linux systems exist

[Anonymous Coward]

Errr, did you just say the GNU Image Manipulation Program is not GNU Software?

Re:GNU-less Linux systems exist

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's guhnew crap.

Re: Not sure about that

[gnasher719]

What a rant. Your problem is it just exposes you as an ignorant idiot.

Extension of Steam Greenlight.

[Anonymous Coward]

All that is really needed at this point is annual donations (which some authors are already doing via patreon or similar) or crowdfunding (like Star Citizen). At least one of those proprietary game projects that was crowdfunded is now being released as open source (probably with noncommercial clauses) as a result of the author burning out before completion.

The point being the future of digital software is really in the form of community funding of projects. Investing in public works should be something everyone with excess funds does, but few actually do. If that was done instead the need for post-development recoup of costs would be unnecessary because development and demand could march hand in hand. Already with many 'open source' projects that is the real method of operation.

Newsflash: Stallman still of same opinion

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, Open Source was explicitly started in order to promote Free Software without referring to morals. It is designed to be amoral, and Stallman has been pointing this out (and fighting against that stance) from the start. Him calling Open Source amoral is more or less Open Source's own definition of their principal motivation. Can it be that OP has no clue about the difference between "amoral" and "immoral"?

As usual...

[Anonymous Coward]

RMS is right. Too many of his predictions came true. And specifically, he's the reason why we're discussing this at all. He's been doing Free software before anyone else even realized a need for it. Open Source is just the free-riders version: pay no money and don't bother about moral.

It's amoral...GOOD!

[Chas]

Sorry, but I don't want someone dictating to me what I can and cannot do with my own software based on some cockeyed sense of "morality".
Especially since people all tend to be at least MILDLY hypocritical at times.
Also, if I'm putting out my own software in OSS, I don't want to limit the reach of my project with arbitrary "morality clauses".

That kind of shit is pure poison.

Re: It's amoral...GOOD!

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead, you give that power to the big corporations.

That's fine, that is your choice, but know, that power you have has to go somewhere.

Re: It's amoral...GOOD!

[Chas]

I'd like to know how you came to THAT brainstorm of a position...

The slaves just don't want to be free.

[mackul]

That's the problem.

Re: Stallman going off the deep is not news

[Anonymous Coward]

If you cannot answer a much better persons argument, you can just call them names and feel good about yourself. Sad.

Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

For forty years I've put my code into the public domain. Absolutely free. No Gnu general licenses, nothing. If a person wants to republish it (and they have) under their own name, they can. If they want to resell it on Amazon (and they have), they can. It's what freedom means: free in every sense. Irrevocable public domain: who has the gonads to do it?

My work is still being used after decades, some of it is the most widely available code of its kind in the world. I see it cited in scholarly papers, it is embedded in countless apps over the years. It was a seemingly minor contribution which made a large impact in saving work for thousands of developers and orders of magnitude more users. Public domain is the only actually free software.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

I have used the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

I really prefer this method of releasing code; no strings, no questions, just use it.

Re:Not sure about that

[Jay Maynard]

You talk like someone who's never really *used* OS X. It was, and is, a Unix system that anyone can install and administer. That makes it a Very Good Thing, especially compared with the crap that is Windows.

CORRECTION: GIMP is GNU but what else is?

[tepples]

Thank you for the correction. I know FSF deliberately refuses to issue guidance for how much GNU software qualifies a distribution for the "GNU/" name. But is there a definition for whether a particular package is part of GNU or not?

Stallman maybe has to learn to chill.

[Qbertino]

I say maybe, because we all know we need him as society needs the crazy guy living in the mountains warning of how things can go bad.

But while Stallman is right 95% of the time he also needs to get over the fact that for most people - including me - free (as in speech) software and open source software are the same thing. In fact, open source is a more distinct term than "free" and thus much more precise. We all know that if MS offers some "open shared source" bullshit that restricts its users it is not open source, it's fake open source. Every single person I know when talking about FOSS thinks about software that is open source under some OSI certified FOSS license, be it GNU, BSD, MIT or whatnot. For a good society they are all equally valuable. As for douchebags still attempting a malicious lock-in with fake open source: We can call them out and ignore them. FOSS has won. MS knows this and if some manager at MS still thinks he can screw us over and expect us to learn a system that is no other than badly disguised corporate lock-in, then he can go and screw himself, die in a fire and have is software become obsolete technical liability in less than a decade (.Net anyone?).

My 2 eurocents.

Gatekeeping

[Dan East]

What Facebook has taught me is that most people are sheep. Based simply on what people share (absolutely ridiculous things that they believe is true, and don't care one iota about validating or verifying, that any normal person with common sense should know is almost certainly a scam). Do any of you have friends or family members who just kept infecting their computer over and over opening emails or links or believing some popup on a web page that said their computer was infected and they needed to download a tool to clean it? That is the "normal" general population in an online computing environment. They do not care about the technical aspects, only the most superficial functionality the software provides.

My conclusion is that the average person *requires* some gatekeeping and protection against their own lack of interest, lack of effort and lack of motivation to protect themselves. When it comes to platforms / hardware, like iPhone, or Android, or Windows, people gain an impression of that platform by how easily it lets them shoot themselves in the foot. Oh, they won't accept responsibility that they are the problem. Of course not. But if platform Y makes it harder to shoot themselves in the foot than platform X, then they will perceive platform Y as being better. Because it is, from a user experience point of view.

Stallman makes an assumption in his reasoning that everyone is him. And that is flawed. He is atypical, in regards to computing and software.

Finally, I will say that this statement is flat out wrong:

Apple. Ironically, Apple has retreated from that a little bit. If a program is written in Swift, you can now install it yourself from source code.

That has nothing to do with Swift. Since the beginning of 3rd party iOS app development (iOS version 2), you could always install and run any software you compiled on devices that you physically connected to the Mac. That could be in Objective-C or C++ or C, and of course now includes Swift as well. Additionally, XCode has always been free.

Agree about Jails

[Anonymous Coward]

Most phones and tablets are indeed jails. If you dont believe it, just try to do some programming on them. Yes it's possible but if you are a beginner you would just not bother trying to get the tools working. It really needs to be looked at. There should by now be compilers for every language on every phone, but you know, jails.

Of course it is amoral

[allo]

It is amoral and unpolitical.
It is not unmoral.

There is a difference in being neutral and in being negative.

Hypocrisy?

[William Baric]

If open source software is amoral, then why try to impose a moral code of conduct among developers? Criticizing others for their censorship, while at the same using censorship to impose one's morality, is either a lack of self-awareness, or pure hypocrisy.

Re:Hypocrisy?

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't read his communication guidelines.

If you did, you'd know they're not a code of conduct, nor imposed. They're the gentlest suggestions. And F/OSS would do very, very well to live by them.

Also, amoral != immoral.

Why RMS makes it uncomfortable?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to admit that RMS is inconveniently correct about all the things that matter. He's been right about every subversion of our rights, privacy, and even how free markets operate unfreely. Admitting to these things makes everyone uncomfortable. Uncomfortable that he's been right all along. So opposition today to any of his writings or ideas comes with this nagging feeling that in the long run he may be right and we wrong. In a way he's been saving us from ourselves. Admitting this will be hard.

Those who complain about style, manner, decorum, and so on, have nothing else on matters of substance. Those who want to compromise for expediency of a given product, market, instance, or any such excuse deserve neither freedom or courtesy. We are fighting in this for the long haul.

Needs Repeating and Understanding: He. Is. Right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Needs Repeating and Understanding: He. Is. Right.

Re:Stallman going off the deep is not news

[Applehu Akbar]

I'll have you know that when it rains there is often water under his bridge, and from time to time he swims in it.

Re:Not sure about that

[Anonymous Coward]

I am really glad Apple moved to a UNIX (well, BSD) base for their OS, but I'm disappointed with how half-assed their support for the Open Source part of it it.

Yeah, Darwin is open, kind of. Mostly because it's based on Mach/BSD which were not Apple inventions (or even NeXT's), but you can't really compile it yourself and have a working system, not 100% compatible with Apple's anyway.

If they were really committed to Open Source, they would make Darwin functional on all PC hardware, and give you easy ways to install the MacOS frameworks and apps and administer it all yourself.

As it is, my MacBook will freak out if I move the Apple apps anywhere outside of Applications (or into subfolders, where they fail to update) or rename anything they think belongs to them.

At least with classic Mac OS, I could put anything pretty much anywhere I wanted and name it however I wanted, as long as I left the System folder alone.

Two things.

[walllaby]

My decision tree when deciding to use a product or service starts with:

1. 1. Does it provide a good experience?
2. 2. Is it FOSS?

Not the other way around. More often than not, the walled garden provides a much better experience.

Second: the web is an open platform, and with the progress of JavaScript applications, the walled garden mentality has the potential to become moot.

No, he is NOT right.

[brunes69]

RMS is an absolutist that believes that the author or a work should have fewer rights than those who receive the work.

He quite firmly believes that it is immoral for someone who creates a work (a program) should not be allowed to do what they want with that program; that they SHOULD HAVE TO distribute the source code for the work. If RMS had his way, all software would always be mandated to be GPL, and licenses like BSD and MIT would not exist.

I am sorry, but I fundamentally disagree with many of RMS's viewpoints. If I am the one spending all of the blood, sweat, and tears creating a work, then I should be allowed to distribute it however I want.

Re: No, he is NOT right.

[phantomfive]

Please read the second paragraph on this page, especially the last sentence of the paragraph: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy...

Re:No, he is NOT right.

[Anonymous Coward]

If RMS had his way, all software would always be mandated to be GPL, and licenses like BSD and MIT would not exist.

Here is what I think is the key question. If RMS had his way, would he point a loaded gun at your face and insist that your software be GPLed or else you're outta here? Or would he shout to everyone, "don't buy brunes69's unmaintainable software?" I think RMS chooses the latter.

Re: Not sure about that

[Anonymous Coward]

I install applications outside of the application folder all the time. What's stopping you? I've never gotten an error from it.

Stallman

[Anonymous Coward]

Please go to Thailand , stand at the entrance to the royal palace and yet denigrating things about the Thai King.

Then and only then will you understand that different countries have different laws and if you wish to be in, or operate in, those countries you must obey their laws.

No one cares if you are a US citizen, it does not make you a magical being, it does not exempt you from the laws in other countries , it is not a get out of jail free card, US laws, US policy ends at the US boarder.

Re: Not sure about that

[Anonymous Coward]

No, try moving Apple's applications ouside that folder. Apple does not like this.

Re:Stallman going off the deep is not news

[Anonymous Coward]

Water under the bridge indeed.

Although I really do not care what this fossil thinks. Those who treat him like the Lord and Savior of open source need to see a psychiatrist.

Obligatory XKCD reference

[McFortner]

https://xkcd.com/225/

GPL is a virus

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank goodness for BSD license.

Shot his was decades ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Stallman shot his was decades ago because his FSF kept fucking around failed to produce a production ready kernel.

Now he's just kicking back eating his toe-cheese and whining because people are exercising their freedom.

Programmer vs political activist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is he committing source code to long-term viable open source projects; or does he give speeches/training classes for money?

Produce an open source solution, excluding long ago created ones (GCC/linux kernel), which is a viable competitor to an existing commercial software product with widespread use by regular users.

It it's about producing open source software - produce software for regular users and a wide spectrum of operating systems.

Not about speaking for money or paid training for money.