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Wired on RMS
mr.fish writes "wired news has an interview/story with
Richard Stallman about how he thinks Linus shouldnt be
getting all the glory he does." There's actually several
interesting bits in there- Good article.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
OK, maybe I'm just misinterpretting things, but it seems that RMS is complaining about the loss of a right that he gave away a long time ago. By putting all the GNU stuff under GPL he gave away rights such as determining the name of later products that uses his code. He can't decide not to let Linux use GNU stuff, because he gave up those rights (if he ever had them to begin with).
While he can whine as much as he wants to, he should look at this as a lesson. Control of naming is something he gives away in his pursuit for freedom.
What a lame idea...
I'll stick to calling it Linux, because that is what it is.
Time to start porting those BSD distros' tools
to Linux, perhaps? I was toying with doing that
for their libc, after the glibc-2.1 saga...
S.
Linux has no code in common with Minix, AFAIK. It was originally developed in Minix, but the compiler was gcc from the beginning, and I suspect the assembler may have been gas, as well. So the GNU project certainly helped Linux get started.
Since the Open Group would sue the pants off anyone who marketed Linux as Linux Unix or something similar, I can see why it is not done.
Doesn't *BSD use a BSD userland? Sure, they use gcc, but the rest of the tools are non-GNU, I think. I haven't used *BSD, though, so I might be wrong.
I say RMS rocks.
Without his fierce, uncompromising idealism, the entire free software
movement would be much diluted, and would possibly not exist at all.
I respect this sort of a lion; agree or disagree, there is nothing
wishy-washy about him.
And as far as the half-assed comments about RMS needing to get a
life; he's GOT one. One with a very intense focus, that placid sheep
will never understand.
So if it's not GNU, that makes it proprietary?
Geeeez... I have to speak up here. Did you ever read Steven Levy's great book 'Hackers'?
Read about RMS participating with entire groups of people in the MIT computer lab, sharing an unusual intimacy much like people on a shared mission?
Read about how the LISP machine wars broke up the computer lab, and the precursor to free software (because nobody had considered there was another way to _be_) got _destroyed_ by the purchase of all the hackers at MIT, who were put under nondisclosure agreements and made to not share code and ideas?
Read about how the MIT computer lab, once a place of idea sharing and enthusiasm, was rendered _empty_ and dead?
Read about how RMS was driven to _tears_ even years later by the anguish of this loss?
Read about how he, singlehandedly, with nothing left for him but vengeance, reverse engineered the work of an entire _team_ of brilliant hackers? And implemented everything in original, novel ways to avoid any risk of IP violation- all by himself matching the work of a _group_ of _brilliant_ programmers formerly of MIT themselves?
And finally, as the LISP star passed, sought to find a productive way to contribute to society- but never ever risk the destruction of the community he loved- which he was forced to watch happen once already, due solely to proprietary software forcing hackers to not talk about their work and ideas?
I'm sorry, but I'm incredibly offended by this portrayal of RMS as a unfeeling robot. You seem to have no _idea_ who you're talking about, or any notion of what he went through to make him such a zealot. He shared his life in the most deep, committed, almost loverlike way with a group of other hackers- and this was torn from him by the LISP machine fiasco, and he would go around at the time saying his _wife_ had died and showing every evidence of it- only this 'wife' was the community of hackers he remembered!
He already has found himself as lonely as can be imagined- over the LISP machine issue, over proprietary software killing the communication and community he loved. How dare you condemn him for a heartlessness that does not apply to him?
I'm sorry, this post really bothered me. Please consider the background of the person and his value system and what he has loved passionately in the past before making snap judgements about his personality.
Several things:
1) You are correct in saying that Linus wrote the original Linux kernel, but he did not write the current (2.x.x) kernels. He has a significant percentage of the kernel code, but he himself estimates that much less than half the kernel code is his. Alan Cox probably has nearly as much code as Linus, if not more, yet he gets much less recognition than Linus does.
2) the GNU/Linux OS is not the same thing as the Linux kernel. That would be like saying that the name of Windows is "Win32" or that the name of OS/X is "Mach"
3) The Linux kernel was heavily influenced by Minix. However, most of the rest of the OS had already been written by the GNU project. The kernel was just the last needed piece of the OS (Since the "real" GNU kernel, HURD, is taking much much longer than envisoned).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
you fail to mention that egcs is not some sort of new compiler built from scratch. It, too, owes much to the FSF for developing the gcc compiler it is based on.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
A minor point: Steve Wozniak is the real architect of Apple's success. Jobs succeeded in largely killing the company by insisting on abandoning the ][ series and going through with fiascos such as the Apple /// and Apple Lisa.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Yes, he was instrumental in the original marketing of the Apple ][, but after that he pretty much succeeded in throwing away Apple's dominance. The Macintosh was more successful than the /// or the Lisa, but not nearly as successful as the ][. He should've stuck with the ][ line, as the Apple ][gs, which was barely supported or advertised at all, was a quite powerful machine for its time, and had the advantage of being backwards-compatible with all that ][ software everybody had. Intel knows the value of backwards compatibility, but apparently Jobs did not.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Posted by Charles Bronson:
What a putz. I don't believe any of that crap he spews about not wanting kids. That seems like an easy way of explaining why he's like 40 and has probably never had a date in his life. I mean, would you want someone as abrasive as Richard Stallman as your husband or dad? Perish the thought! Then again, maybe it's best that RMS doesn't procreate. Maybe he's jealous of Linus' wife and kids.
Posted by !ErrorBookmarkNotDefined:
I vote for Mega-RMS. He fights with recursion,
making him a team. The group always wins over
individuals. RMS Kung-Fu is Better.
-----------------------------
Computers are useless. They can only give answers.
Posted by patg:
It's not like Linus is the one asking for the fame. Who's to say what people should or shouldn't think?
Why can't we just be happy that Linux is where it is and let it be at that? Every week there's some article of this sort. It's really tiring.
I don't care about the politics. I just want everything to work well, and do my daily tasks without being annoyed.
The rest is seems to be ego-inspired political nit-picky trivialities.
Posted by D3V17X:
What the coward want's to say is that he is a (wanabe) H4XQ3R and X is for sissies.
Richard should know that _anything_ he says about Linus which is
not completely and totally complimentary will be rebroadcast as
whining. Here's a clue Rick; don't waste what credibility you
have by lamenting Linus's good fortune. Share in it and build
upon it.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
1) maybe Alan Cox doesnt care?
2) !
3) I 2nd this. and wait for the utils coded in perl.
did he ever mention the kernel he developed emacs on?
The Founding Fathers of the U.S. were all well-heeled gentlemen . Many of them owned slaves; many of them were rapists, their acts conveniently sheltered under the purview of "property rights". Many of them took particular glee in fucking over the original inhabitants of the land. Yet somehow these men still get well-deserved credit (even from me) for nation-building.
If we're going to judge RMS by his appearance and belief system and by whether or not he "plays well with others", we're in pretty sad shape. Linus birthed the kernel, but the kernel itself isn't the soul of Linux, X/Linux, GNU/Linux, or RedHat Linux. Whose idea was it to invent the GPL, under which Linux has made all this progress. Who wrote gcc and emacs? Credit where credit is due. Call Linux what you want - call it Bob, for all I care - but this gratuitous bullshit RMS-bashing has got to stop. It's bad for our karma :)
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=8^
Ask any sole proprietor about the responsibility; ask any full-time painter, sculptor, writer, musician...
To have a crusade is not to take responsibility. I don't care how many kids he has. I don't care if he has a wife or a house. But the FSF apparently does charge an awful lot for the CD's it presses. And the printed documentation is really cheesy (consisting of, mostly, copies of the manifesto and so on). That isn't really responsible.
The prices are ridiculous, but that's economics: why are many college textbooks relatively expensive? They don't have the luxury of a mass audience to recover the costs.
Many, many people have contributed to emacs and gcc. It isn't just his puppy (although he may well have written the originals by himself).
But isn't that the point of the (his) GPL and (his notion of) "sharing the software"?
OTOH, if I didn't have to work all day, I could write some pretty neat stuff too...
I don't know RMS' itinerary, but I suspect he's worked hard in the past, continues to do so, and will in the future. I ask you what I asked the previous troll: Who the fuck are you? Since when is coding and crusading not work, or a responsibility? And top of all that, he's put his ass on the line every day, risking (and receiving) public ridicule for the severity (and content) of his stances, and for the unconventionality of them. It's really quite easy to shrink from such a grand undertaking - 99.9% of us have chosen such shrinkage. RMS has not, it seems, backed down at all from his original vision. The man has willfully chosen a very bumpy and quixotic Road Less Traveled; he deserves respect for that, not ridicule. Some of the people (like RMS) who receive MacArthur Fellowships are people who've pretty much had to sweat blood to receive recognition for their work, because often that work doesn't conform to the Mo' Money ethos that unfortunately grips the society.
I'm not asking you to agree with him - I myself am typing this on a non-Free browser, with - on my desktop - a non-Free RealPlayer and apps using a non-Free Qt (...but at least I wrote 'em on emacs and compiled with gcc); I would rather just give money to the FSF than couch it in the jacked-up prices for its hard-copy materials. I would just like an end to these very silly potshots, especially the ones from misguided ACs.
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=8^
RMS in some ways needs to get a life. Just saying its a Freedom/Liberties issue is not going to win the day. For those of us in the *REAL WORLD* we have things we have to get done. Applications that need to be written etc. And while I would rather use free software to do it, I will use whatever I need to to get the job done.
A lot of you guys just don't get it. This isn't a Idealism vs. Realism issue, this is a simple, unadulterated human nature issue.
Some people are in it for the money. Some, are in it for the fame. Some are in it for the morality. Some are in it for the experiece. I'm sure that if I thought about it I could find a BILLION other reasons that seperate people are involved in using, writing, and advocating free software.
I think people should really stop looking at RMS as a person. RMS is not a person in a lot of ways. He's honest, he's still interested in contributing to a goal where he's been spit on, laughed at, ignored, and detested, among other thigns.
No self respecting human being would ever do that. They just don't have the balls, tolerance, or patience to do such a thing. And the funny thing is, is that 90% of you don't even notice it.
RMS should be to Free Software what John Carmack is to 3d gaming. Simple. But that's not how it happens. John Carmack is loaded, RMS is not interested in money. John Carmack goes to macworld, acts like an asshole and cuts down the mac vigorously in front of them, and he gets applauded, whereas if RMS went to COMDEX and did the same thing, you wouldn't be hearing good things about it.
Just being free will not convince people to use things. Being better AND free will. But you have to have a better product first.
Remember that when you type "make", "gcc", "bash", "gas", "gdb", "emacs", "cp", "mv", "ls", "less".... Do I really need to say anything more?
-Erik-
If this is the core of the argument then the honor and the glory goes to ANSI and two people named
Brian Kernighan and Dennis Richie who produced (and allowed the distribution?) of a sharable
protocol for the generation of good operating system code.
The creation of that standard means that if GCC had not existed there would have been another C
compiler, and that there is no need to have a single compiler cover all platforms.
There have been thousands of contributors to the community codebase that linux feeds from and
contributes to. Any suggestion that RMS was the sole origin of the pool is simply ridiculous.
In fact lets have a moment for the silent members of GNU and FSF who may have contributed a byte or
two.
Didn't Stallman do almost all of his GNU project work on non-free operating systems? Seems to me, that to achieve his goal, instead of starting with toggling in a bootstrap loader, he took the shortcut of using non-free OSes to build his compiler, and of course copied ideas people came up with in proprietary software. Moreover, I'm sure many of the contributors to open source software had the opportunity and resources to assist open source from working on proprietary stuff. Now, having gotten to where he/GNU is by using those shortcuts, he condemns all of us who would achieve our goals working with non-free software.
So to achieve his goals, it was ok to take shortcuts; yet it's not OK for the rest of us to do so. Sorry, I don't buy it.
Open source/free software is a great idea in and of itself. You don't need to condemn proprietary software to believe this.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Most Important? Thats a value judgement my friend, not a fact. If we took your advice, and just started cranking out kids without any thought for the fact that an infinite number of people can not live on a finite planet, we will surely all perish. Such a myopic view of the world you have. Our natural resources are not infinite and a such, no matter how much you want it to be true, the planet Earth can not support an ever increasing population.
--
Python
Python
No. You just can't do basic math. 67+3=70. 70+30=100. See?
This kind of thing is why Wired Magazine is nothing but a pile of shit. I've never really understood what people see in this rag. 90% of the material seems to have lifted straight from the pages of STAR or Weekly World News. Doubt it? Glance though them and honestly say you can tell the difference bettween Wired and the other mentioned. You can't.
The problem is that RMS *REALLY* needs to tell his supporters *TO SHUT THE HELL UP* once and for all. They are the ones who are *REALLY* making him look bad. The Wired article is a perfect example of this. I really have to wonder if the "not having kids" statement is what RMS meant to say, or was it something the person writting the article thought RMS was saying.
I think that there is just lots of plain ole jealousy here, and that is about it. RMS is mad that Linus managed to do what he has never been able to: get a working kernel. Even though started before Linux, HURD still amounts to nothing. I think the reason that Linus suceeded where he failed is because heading a huge project to design a kernel requires you work with PEOPLE. I remember the one time I met RMS, he didn't even look up from his computer with a group of people standing there in front of him, wanting to ask a question about the books he was selling. Linus, on the other hand, can actually communicate with people, and thus he was able to coordinate the momumental task of creating the Kernel which required the help of lots of people that listen to you, and you listen to them. RMS should stop whining and start to take a look at his own shortcommings and wonder WHY he failed at creating the kernel. He gets plenty of attention, and I think that everyone understands his contribution and is grateful for it. I think what everyone is not grateful for is the bad name he gives the Free Software movement everytime he shoots his mouth off about how he should get the credit, yadda yadda.
Richard, if you ever read this, PLEASE stop making yourself and us look like a fool by doing this constantly. Don't ruin the monumental and greatly appreciated accomplishments you have done by going down in history as the mad man who goes nuts cause he doesn't get enough press.
If Luke gets all the credit for slaying the evil Darth Gates using the tools you gave him, you should be happy that it was accomplished. The movement is MORE IMPORTANT than you, more important than Linus. You should keep that in mind and realise that it is OK if it is not you personally that wields the sword that brings him down.
RMS in some ways needs to get a life. Just saying its a Freedom/Liberties issue is not going to win the day. For those of us in the *REAL WORLD* we have things we have to get done. Applications that need to be written etc. And while I would rather use free software to do it, I will use whatever I need to to get the job done.
Just being free will not convince people to use things. Being better AND free will. But you have to have a better product first.
--Zachary Kessin
Erlang Developer and podcaster
We have RMS to thank for lots and lots of important software, for initiating the GNU project and basically inventing and propagating the concept of Free Software. Then again, we have Mr Torvalds to thank for putting together a kernel, making the whole system usable to ppl on i386 style computers. Linux, the kernel that is, may not be as clever and modern in its monolithic design as Hurd was meant to be (IMHO ofcourse), but still it has evolved into a really nice, usable and portable kernel. Without it GNU software wouldnt have become nearly as popular as it is today.
Personaly I dont care much who gets the credit for anything, not even for any software I write myself; the important thing is that the software is written and is free. And that the ideas of Free Software are propagated, just like RMS says in the article. If the GNU project continues to evolve and grow as well as it has so far, be it using Linux of Hurd, you'll have your name in the history book someday RMS, be sure.
Linux did, AFAIK, not come out of Minix at all, it was written by Torvalds from scratch all by himself. Tannenbaum (the Minix-dude) didn't like Linux at all, there is an infamous mailinglist discussion about Linux between Tannenbaum and Torvalds where Tannenbaum says Linux is obsolete in its monolithic design (somewhat true IMHO, altho microkernel archs havn't exactly turned out as well as everyone thought) and that Torvalds would have gotten a really bad grade if he were Tannenbaums student. Torvalds replyed pointing out many of the braindamages of Minix.
Linux, while written from scratch by Torvalds, was written with the GNU system in mind; the GNU software wasn't ported to Linux, Linux was written to run GNU software. And ofcourse, Linux is a piece of GNU software itself.
While the kernel is an essential part of the system, its not the only such. The write the kernel you need a compiler, a shell, good tools for filehandling, a neato editor etc etc, this was what the GNU project aimed to write first before the kernel was written. Then there was Linux, started shortly before Hurd was started (the Hurd folks didnt know of Linux when they started it AFAIK). Linux caught on more quickly and got more developers than Hurd. And here we are. What you identify as a "Linux" system, is really a GNU system, with a linux kernel. Unless you are a kernel hacker, you cant tell a Linux system from any other system with the same userspace software from any other system with a POSIX compliant kernel.
You are ofcourse correct.
Ever heard of POSIX?
If you replace Linux with any other POSIX compliant kernel, you defenetly couldnt tell the difference if you were a moronic user, you might tell if you were a failry advanced programmer (wich you most likely arn't since you're such a fscking idiot) and were using any nonstandard calls, ioctls, stuff in kmem/proc etc specific to Linux.
If you replace the GNU tools you will have potentially much different system. You could probably set up an entirely BSD/Linux distribution, this wouldn't THAT much, but basically, you can add any kind of shell and utilities on top of the kernel. A hypothetical alien civilization using telepathy comunicate could use the Linux kernel in an OS. Humans would probably not be able to understand such a system, much less use it.
Any OS distribution using a Linux kernel should have the name "Linux" in there, just to emphasize that the Linux kernel actually is in there. This is of less relevance. The name "GNU" should be in there to if it uses the GNU tools. This will tell the user what environment he will be presented with, and what software he can expect to find. This is of much more relevance.
The idiot comment was perhaps unecessary, but defenetly not uncalled for.
;)
Its hard to say this more clearly than I've done so far. I'll give it one last go at explaining how things are. Take your time, read the previous posts again and then read this thru.
Its the GNU _system_ part thats important. Most "Linux" distributions are GNU systems, that is, they use mostly all parts of the GNU projects os except for the kernel, instead they use Linux. Thats just fine. Since its a GNU system with a Linux kernel it should be called GNU/Linux. IF someone was to put together a system using the Linux kerenel but WITHOUT the GNU software (that is, without the sofware that is part of the GNU _system_, that is, software officially made part of the gnu _project_), they might call it whatever. Stallman has no claims on renaming Linux - the kernel. That is what Linux is. GNU/Linux denotes a GNU system using a Linux kernel. The interview with RMS was not realy on the naming of the system, but on who gets the fame. RMS is not so sad that Torvalds is getting most of the press, but because Torvalds is not propagating the concept of Free Software enough. (IMHO he does, just by so sucessfully spreading his kernel, but it *would* be nice if he'd mension Free Software a bit more often.)
True, the kernel is the heart of the system. But what kernel that is is of less importance. The GNU system runs on POSIX compliant kernels.
Imagine a man with a transgenic heart transplanted from a pig(not too far away); would you call him a pig? (not that I'd call him Human/Pig
Its not trivial, and Torvalds and all the other Linux developers sure put in a great effort. The kernel internals are just not verry visible to the user, be it an normal or advanced user. Linux is POSIX compliant, that is it has the same system calls, filesystem structure, and device interface as most other Unices and Unixlike systems. And thats what the user/programmer sees most of the time. If you were to replace Linux for any other POSIX compliant kernel most ppl wouldnt notice the difference. If you were to replace all the userspace tools and programs however, the difference would be substantial.
Why HURD hasnt gotten further I dont know. It was based on the MACH microkernel and should have had a head start. The sucess of Linux made it somewhat unecessary, and Linux has always drawn more developers. Im perfectly happy with the Linux kernel. However, with all this RMS, FSF, and GNU bashing lately I feel the importance of HURD growing again, just to get away from it all. The Linux community isn't what it used to be. I'd like to run a GNU only system.
This is ofcourse true.
Bur replacing the userspace software with exact eqvialents (clones) is a far more complex matter than replacing the kernel with any other POSIX compliant kernel. The system as a whole (wich is what we're discussing) is far more userspace software than kernel, period. Still the kernel deserves to be emphasized - therefore its GNU/Linux.
I hope you don't mean to imply that it is "responsible" to pollute the world with ever more suckers. If only more people would devote their lives to some mission instead of just selling away 40 years of their lives to corporations and/or popping out kids left and right.
--
If you love children and you long to have them, then having them won't be "one of the greatest self-sacrifices". You want to have kids for the same reason other people want to have pets: to satisfy your own emotional needs.
Now, if you, like me, hated kids, then having children would amount to a self-sacrifice.
--
- gcc
- gdb
- emacs
- command reimplementations (cp, sh..)
- surely a lot of other things (shells, etc.)
He wrote gcc, gdb, emacs and make. The utilities, bash and the C library were written by the FSF, but not by him personally. However, by far the most important thing he created is the GPL. A wonderful legal hack.--
It clearly is. Proprietary software licenses prohibit learning, improving, sharing and helping others. Free code does not. Learning, improving, sharing and helping are good things, therefore free code is more ethical.
For that matter, it's worth pointing out that the GPL actually restricts my freedom! I cannot do just anything with GPL-ed code.
That's right. You are not free to restrict other people's freedom. That is a basic tenet of all civilized definitions of freedom. Unless you go with Thomas Hobbes, who defined "Freedom means I can do whatever I want".
Which one do you agree with:
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I respect RMS for the contributions he has done, but that as far as my respect go. I don't know the man, but from what I've seen and hear, I cannot but conclude that he is a social inept. He claims that Linus stamped the name Linux w/o acknowledging previous work. Bullshit. Linus made the kernel and named it Linux. People used Linux, add stuff around it, but kept using the kernel name. As far as I can f*cking see, there is no legal aggreement that binds one to name a product GNU-something just because one uses the GNU tools. Not even MS has gone that far. Imagine if we had to call my work VFP Premium Module or VC++ Word Processor or VJ++ homework 1. Whenever I hear Stallman demanding Linux to be called GNU Linux, I think of Hitler. If he were to give me one of his bashing lectures because I called Linux "Linux", I would most likely give him the beating of his life. What the f*ck, if I want to call red green, I do so and that's the end of the story.
I believe Linus has given more than enough honor to Stallman and the GNU "cause" by making the Linux kernel GPL. If I were to develop a program using the GNU tools, I would sure as hell not name it GNU-something. Hell no! For that kind of constrain on my rights of expression, I may just as well bend over to MS.
RMS is just a cry-baby. "Momma, Momma, nobody pay attention to me. Everybody look at the other kid, Linus, but nobody look at me." He doesn't need to be in the press to be acknowledged. If he does good deed not for the sake of fraternity but for glory and fame, then the hell with him. Most of us Linux users know who RMS is and appreciate the work he does. But I'm using the GNU tools because someone out there created a damn good kernel to run them. I use the GNU tools because I'm running Linux. GNU tools were used to create Linux, that I grant. However, it is Linux who make GNU tools ready to run for most of us.
One thing for certain is that Linus has never "cried baby" to be acknowledge. For that he deserves my respect. RMS, listen, behave like a grown-up human once and for all. If you really, really, really want a GNU-OS to bare your cherised GNU name, then forget about Linux and write a kernel yourself. And a finger to those who want to force me to call Linux GNU-Linux and crap like that.
Since when did "not having kids" mean someone showed a lack of responsibility?
worldmobilenet.com -- World Prepaid Wireless Internet plans
Yes - apparently it is just you...
67
+30
+ 3
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100 !!!
Stunning.
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
Something for you to read.
t ml
:-).
/mill
http://catalog.com/hopkins/text/rms-vs-doctor.h
I find the seahorse reference hilarious
Why do you think he dissatisfied with his life? If he thinks having children is of little importance then that doesn't have to be founded on dissatisfaction.
/mill
I rather have a monetary poor life with someone I love than alone with all Gates' money. I am not dissatisfied because I think all that money is of little value to me, am I?
If they had not developed the tools, someone else would have.
But they did.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Actually, I believe I saw proposals to create GNU/Solaris and GNU/FreeBSD systems.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
IIRC, XFree was officially declared to be part of GNU. Could someone corroborate that (or tell me I'm a complete idiot..this being /., that'll happen anyway though.. :-) )
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
I cant tell you how disgusted I am at the CONTINUING backstabbing within the community, the seeming LACK OF TOLERANCE, and general disdain for those who arent the leaders of the day (especially those who held the title yesterday).
Regardless of personality flaws, which I would bet we all share pretty equally, RMS has done a GREAT deal for the movement... shit, who cares if he doesnt own his own equipment, that to me is pretty straight inline with his stated philosophies, and no matter how counter-culture he is, WHY THE HELL cant we accept that.
Do you people REALLY care about him not wanting children, not wanting to work, not wanting to even own his own machine? The answer is NO!, strenuously... the chief concern here seems to be to kick him while hes down.
Id say the most important part of the GPL is its efforts to maintain proper credits for work done, not to control payment of licensing terms (or lack thereof), and I think, out of everyone, RMS and GNU seems to be the only crew we're willing to publicly deny that proper credit to...
I also absolutely BELIEVE that informed people primarly do not use the term "GNU/Linux" because it IS too damn awkward...
Give the man some credit, he had these ideas when most of us, Linus included, were eating dirt in the sandbox in kindergarten.
When we loook back in a few years, I believe we will see the ultimate loss of men like RMS and Bruce Perens from the flock as one of the turning points, and I dont think itll appear as the right turn...
Linus, save me from your followers.
Binary Boy
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-- Derek Bok,
So should we also look over jim Gettys, and not provide him proper community admiration, even WHEN WE KNOW BETTER?
Come on, its not like we havent ALL known ALL along that RMS is GNU, theres no excuse in anonmity because there never was any, the real reason is bitterness and plain, outright betrayal.
Binary Boy
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-- Derek Bok,
Why dont you go screw yourself, maybe then YOULL have kids Mr Bronson.
But really, what fucking business is it of ANY of us whether he wants to have kids or not, how and when, why and with whom... WTF does that have to do with his obviously underappreciated, yet highly significant, contributions to the "Linux" world?
Just looking through todays posts I think we have ENOUGH unwanted children just on SlashDot, let alone on the streets...
Binary Boy
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-- Derek Bok,
Well, I certainly read the whole thread, I just take offense to anyone attempting to LIMIT the respect and recognition of the Gettys and Stallmans of the world rather than supporting their hopes for it... I see nothing negative about RMS, and would certainly, equally, support Gettys if he felt a need to emphasize his lack of acknoqledgement... i think these people have all done a great service to us and deserve hero-worship from ever one of us.
Binary Boy
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-- Derek Bok,
Actually I completely agree with you... Im always happy to have a good discussion on the meaning of this movement, occassionally I just get fed up with the distasteful, and downright hypocritical, personal attacks.
I apologize for my own lack of tolerance, I only wish we could resist the infighting that will probably be the chief detractor, in the long-term, of the OSS and Linux movements.
Binary Boy
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-- Derek Bok,
I think Ill agree with you, as we certainly cannot force admiration of any particular object on the psyches of those who dont already admire said object.
However, admiration aside, I think there is a valid point to be made in that, while we are primarily a grassroots, user-fed community, there exists a small group of leaders without whom none of this would be possible... I think even limiting RMS' recognition to his contribution of the GNU portions of Linux is rather short-sighted, as he has also been one of the most vocal advocates of the very system we have built for much longer than it has formally existed.
I dont think we should start calling Linux GNU/Linux (and GOD, never GNUlix), its too late for that... but as this platform grows in size, the collective consciousness here becomes less aware of its roots, and less aware of its "debt" to people like RMS, and thats a shame. Maybe something as simple as a system of honors and awards is due.
Binary Boy
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-- Derek Bok,
This will probably be my shortest post of the day:
Well said!
Binary Boy
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-- Derek Bok,
I'm a Unix system administrator, and the first
thing I've always done with a new Unix system
is to install all the GNU stuff - gcc, of course,
but also the other utilities.
But I've just replaced my Digital Unix server
with a GNU/Linux box, where I didn't have to
worry about this!
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
There is also a lot of 'software' created during life (such as memories and knowledge) that makes up the one that call yourself me. So genes is not enough.
But I do hope and think that by the time I'm getting old there is a way to preserve that information (like freezing in some smart way) and later run it (me) on an artificial brain in the body of my choice.
RMS sacrificed much in his life and what that means to me that there is hope that I will not have to put up with NT and other strange things at work that do not always work. Learn from his experiences and you might know how much of an impact his contributions have made. I would hate to think of a world where all of technology was locked up in NDA's.
by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 06, @04:52
Well, we have RMS to thank for this bit of FUD to hurt the Free Software Movement. Thanks Stalin!
Wrong. If you want to be working for the communist good, let Mr. Gates continue his path and you will be working for his good. After all, he innovated the internet, the computer, and many of those other things on the Microsoft Time Line. You are the one spreading FUD.
There is nothing wrong having personal freedoms. There is something wrong with having your life tightly controlled and that you must pay a high tax for everything that can be commoditized. RMS asks for nothing but freedom.
Microsoft must keep those stock prices in a certain direction. Its like buying into an obese dinosour trying to devour everything in sight. One of these days, its going to come crashing down in a spectacular display of flatulence because it cannot stay up.
And no doubt that is why he is so bitter about not being internationally acclaimed.
That may be your perception. He may be setting a precedent for getting recognition. How would you like to write a set of utilities and have some large corporation come along and mask what you wrote with a different brand? That can be useful, but can be misleading.
I cant tell you how disgusted I am at the CONTINUING backstabbing within the community, the seeming LACK OF TOLERANCE, and general disdain for those who arent the leaders of the day (especially those who held the title yesterday).
Calm down. This is healthy discussion and is good for you. There is a need for topics like this to be brought up so we may understand the importance of free software. That is why it was brought up again. No blood is being drawn here and most people do not get hurt feelings, but learn and gain from this forum. Even though a lot of strong opinionated discussion what free software really means, it is quite educational. It is a good topic, not something to hurt one another with.
Richard Stallman, on the other hand, is quite abraisive, rude, and thoughtless as to other people.
People who feel threatened by the concept of free software often spread this image about RMS. As for being rude and thoughtless, I would say that he has a straight vision. RMS will not sell out to other people. He is a quickdraw when it comes to correcting people. Believe it or not there are some people who are not offended by such ways of communication and use it to escalate the debate to new hights. Leaders do not break down to logic and accept what is pushed at them are strong. He has vision and is not afraid to share it.
My take on RMS asserting authorship is that he is trying to maintain some kind of balance on who did what. Nothing wrong with that. This is where all these debates about what free software means to people come from too. RMS is doing a good job bringing these issues into awareness.
Where did this come from? What does sex have to do with free software? Why do some people have to inject Freudian into every discussion? Is this another one of Godwin's thread relevancy calculations?
Sex has not been programmed into the kernel yet, so you can move along now. Nothing to see here.
Umm - most mainstream American's believe that when you do work (like, say, writing a program), you deserve to be paid for it. And that the harder people work, the more money they deserve. And some odd concepts like you should be forced to pay for the things that you get to use. Mainstream America is capitalist. Mainstream academia is much more leftist. It is no coincidence that RMS is from MIT and Boston.
Hey, I get paid for something else quite well. I'm a hardware type of guy and I like seeing good quality software to make things turn. Its when I see crap operating systems do unfunny things like dump a blue screen or changing data values that I start getting pissed off. Because I work for someone else, I am forced to watch large powerful and high speed manufacturing machines churn tons of scrap almost daily because of junk software.
I have learned that the software model of secrecy and NDA's is not working very well. GNU offers a freedom synonymous with the ideals this country was claimed to be based upon. If I was working with GNU software, there would be an option to refer the problem to someone who could look at the code and fix it. Freedom of peer review.
GNU software can save many landfills from filling up. Would you trust your business to some operating system made in Redmond?
People who fail to grant RMS the respect that he deserves are the people who miss the point of freed software.
RMS gave Linus and the rest of us the freedom we enjoy today to use/modify/distribute our software with the GNU GPL.
The GPL is most significant achievement in the history of software because it makes possible the cooperative development that will eventually change the world. Mark my words.
Freedom has greater value than bill gates stock.
With all this talk of who wrote what percentage of the code, be it the kernel, compiler, tools, shell, whatever, I think something important is being overlooked. Namely, that in every cultural movement, a central leader/figurehead/idealog needs to be looked to as the nucleus. People have the need to be able to point to someone and say "this is what it's all about".
Think about it. The Civil Rights movement had people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Womens' Sufferage had leaders along the lines of Susan B. Anthony. Apple computer, the leader of a more relevant movement, had Steve Jobs, who was described as, "When I didn't know what charisma was, I met Steve Jobs, and then I knew." (Of course, he's also been described as obnoxious, but anyone who's heard him speak cannot question his charisma, charm, and leadership abilities.)
Linus Torvaldis is the perfect candidate. The romantic fairy-tale of a college guy single-handedly hacking out his own stable OS because he wanted a UNIX variant catches the imagination. It also so happens that this is almost, kinda true. So much the better. He's also a great guy who has a family, a steady job, and nice, laid-back, happy attitude. He's a hacker the average man on the street can relate to.
Richard Stallman, on the other hand, is quite abraisive, rude, and thoughtless as to other people. He's "on a mission" so he says, and he obviously never lets anyone forget the mission from God he's on. He's a zealot, not an idealist. The people to be most feared are those who see no shades of gray, who confuse fanaticism with conviction. I think the "real world, gotta get stuff done" arguments which have been raised here are more than valid. Most people *use* computers, they don't design/develop them or their software. As the bard Billy Joel sang in his song Angry Young Man, "I believe I've passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage, I found that just surviving was a noble fight. I once believed in causes too, I had my pointless point-of-view, and life went on no mater who was wrong or right."
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for free software, but I think that open-source may be more realistic a model, where businesses can make a buck or two. Let's not forget we live in a capitalistic society, not a communistic one. The Soviets tried communism, and it lead the people over there on a "seventy-year road to nowhere" as they say in the former Soviet Union.
Quite true, and I was completely aware of all of that. It should be pointed out, however, that without Jobs, the Apple ][ would never have come into existance. He was the driving force behind the creation of Apple computer. He desigened the excellent look (for 1970's style) of the casing, and was the visionary who thought that PCs could be sold in shopping malls (think back to what the days were like in the computerless 1970s). It was also his management style, both driven, focused, and frustrating to those under his rule, which provided the Macintosh. Arguably, without Steve Jobs, the PC revolution would have taken much longer, and possibly not been as sensational as it was.
Yeah, X Window should get some glory!
gcc could run on top of DOS or commercial UNIX. I'm sure Bill Gates and Scott McNealy, would thanks RMS. Without an alternative OS, the "free software movement" couldn't go anywhere.
You can't measure software by size!
If size matter, X Window is bigger. It's not even GPL, so RMS can't claim any credit!
X is under MIT license, NOT GPL. RMS can't change that.
Well, jolly old RMS gets my recognition, for what it's worth.
Anyone with half a clue knows what GNU is and what Linux is. RMS shouldn't feel so bitter, because there are those out there who recognise him and are grateful.
The mass media and the Great Unwashed are traditionally good at taking a name, word, phrase or buzzword and applying it to a different meaning, and brainwashing the masses.
I fully intend to live long enough to be a cantankerous old git with a walking stick and an attitude, ranting at the young telling them how it used to be in the good old days when RMS freed software and a young chap called Linus Torvalds made an OS kernel that toppled the great evil dictatorship etc., about prejudice...
blah blah blah.
Stallman, your name is already in tablets of stone. In centuries to come you will be remebmbered as the man who had the courage to stand out from the crowd, think differently, and change the course of human civilisation.
You may think these coments are glib and ironic, but they are not.
This is what will happen.
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
I think that the main reason that the prices are so high is that many businesses don't have a policy for donating to a non-profit business (or, more likely, accounting isn't going to donate to a company that doesn't seem like a typical "charity" to the public eye). It's much easier to say to your boss "We need to spend several thousand dollars for this software that we use that works really well." It's essentially a donation.
--
Mark Fassler
fassler at frii dot com
Indeed, if Linus hadn't written Linux, it would be likely that some form of FreeBSD would be the popular free UNIX of choice and GNU tools would be far less used than they are today. People should remember that the FreeBSD movement actually started before there was Linux and "GNU" meant only the common version of Emacs to most UNIX geeks.
If the kernel was such a trivial thing to create, then why wasn't the Hurd finished in a timely fashion? There might be a lot of GNU code in Linux systems, but it is mostly in trivial things like "ls" and "cat". To use the biological example, the kernel isn't the heart (a simple pump), but the brain (the most complicated element of the system)
And I would call a man with a transgenic pig brain a pig.
Well, gcc is certainly more complicated than "ls" but look at the dozens of free compilers for Linux (or UNIX in general). Granted they tend to be for more obscure languages like Modula-2 instead of C, but that's not because C is intrinsically more complicated to write compilers for -- its just that gcc is already there.
RMS and FSF did a lot of good things for Linux, no question. But RMS seems to claim that any system running GNU tools is the GNU system, even if the system is nothing like the system Stallman described in his Manifesto (Whatever happened to that LISP-based Windowing system anyhow?)
Compiler isn't all that matters. The BSD's don't run GNU utilities, except where there is no replacement - i.e. GCC, GDB, and emacs (for the emacs addicts.) Anything GPL'ed they actively try to replace with BSD'ed stuff.
The author of G77, Craig Burley, has talked frequently about how he never would have written a free Fortran compiler under something other than the GPL. When I write proprietary stuff, I expect to get paid for it, he says.
It's nice to say "another compiler would be", but you need authors. Free BSD's still don't have a compiler they consider free (i.e. BSD/X-free style license.) Why is that, if it's so easy to replace the compiler.
Well, as an anonymous coward, letting no one know it was you won't be hard. Sure, I'd like to see it. Might even hack a new front-end (GPL'ed), if it's technically superior.
well, if they put the brain of the pig in the body of the man, what would you get?
It still looks like a man, but its not.. the heart is necessary, but it is not the brain, the brain is where you reside.
Its spelt "L-I-N-U-X", but pronunced as "Free Beer"
>Prophets have always been hated and oft-times
>martyred by the ignorant mob....
Certainly. On the other hand, the 'ignorant mobs' in the world have also thrown out ruthless dictators and tyrants.
Just because someone has, in the public's eye, made an ass of him/herself on a regular basis does not mean that he/she is a martyr. Frankly, Rich's rhetoric is driving people away from free software, not helping it.
I recognize his talents and contributions - they are important. But if they *have* to be linked to his ideals and can't stand by their own merits, then it's no wonder people pass by him in favor of more likable people (ie. Linus). People skills are important, just as much as coding skills.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
What is RMS working on these days? I hear that he takes a notebook with him everywhere, and that he can be seen frantically hacking code in every spare moment he has, but not what he's working on.
I'd like to see a linux distro with a commercial x server and KDE. It should be called New Linux-better, faster and easier to use. Who knows-I think that's what Corel may be working on
---
Commercial X servers are much better. Check out www.xig.com
---
heh maybe it's because you don't have any ideas of your own or maybe you don't appreciate the amount of work, time and money that goes into some ideas. The industrial economy is over. Welcome to the information economy where ideas-not goods- are produced and sold. Linus understands this perfectly-he understands that there is a place for open-source as well as proprietary. That's the rational approach. RMS and MS represent the irrational extremes
---
the Hitler thing is a bit too much but besides that you're basically right. RMS is a fanatic and while he had his 15 minutes of fame, we must move on. Hey, if it wasn't for Bill Gates we would still be using expensive proprietary IBM PC's. That doesn't mean we should go with MS. Same for RMS
---
If Mr. Stallman wants the world to beat a path to his door, he should build a better kernel. I'm not one who likes stories of a future better mousetrap; I need to a mousetrap now. Those M$ rats are big!
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
If he doesn't have the time or financial resources to do a proper job of "that whole parent thang" then he is doing the right thing by remaining childless. Wish more people were as responsible.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
And every time someone new contributes to it their name could be added.
Or maybe as previous contributors added new stuff their name could be bumped up the list relative to the size and/or worth of their overall contribution. Shouldn't be any trouble getting everyone who should have a voice in those relative rankings to agree just whose work gets what rating, or deciding who those who should have that voice should be.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I can't believe you. You are perhaps the most un-idealistic individual I have ever had the misfortune of replying to. The fact that you have replied like 5 or 6 times to this article makes me realize what your trouble is. You're afraid:
I think he will likely find himself very lonely, some day.
Talk about projecting your own personal terrors onto others. Sacrificing one's life for a greater cause is a risky business. Raising a family is a difficult, but safe one. Overcoming human needs and desires for a greater purpose is one of the most admirable traits that one can have. If everyone said "Why change things when I can raise a family - that's just as gratifying," things can and will never change. If you have children simply so that they can have children and so on, what's the point? To make great sacrifices to advance what is right should not be mocked. The fact that you are so adamant about something that doesn't even affect your life (I mean, it's none of your business if RMS dies lonely, and it's not as if there need to be more advocation of childrearing over idealism, it happens enough) makes me think that you're trying to prove to yourself that your life isn't a waste. Well, it will be if you don't start facing facts, and stop being so egocentric. It's attitudes like yours that will keep me from ever living in a utopian society, and that gets me pissed, more than anything else.
Phew.
So you propose that we should all be mavericks and world-beaters because that's just so much cooler, right?
No, I didn't say that. Working together as a team to change the world for everyone is pretty damn cool. What isn't cool is the eventual disintegration of society and the environment because of an overpopulated world of generation after generation of complacent do-nothing family-havers. It would take so little to change the world, but we don't, simply because we tend to gravitate towards what comes naturally to us. Like childrearing.
It's quite easy to sit in the belltower picking people off with your rifle, isn't it? Certainly not as hard as finding someone who understands you and who you understand.
Woah, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Actually, I'm not saying that at all. As you've pointed out, coupling and having children is the natural thing for humans to do, right? The easiest thing. Going against that in pursuit of something bigger than all of us is what's harder.
As far as the relevance of this thread, I would say it is quite minimal.
Actually, I disagree. I would say this topic is the most important one that faces humanity right now. It's the lack of thinking about this kind of stuff that's causing problems. I wouldn't mind so much about people having kids if they just sat down and thought about the ramifications beforehand.
I was only trying to illustrate a possible alternate and less noble explanation of RMS' insistence on being recognized as a prophet.
You mean besides the fact that he's living proof that if you put idealism before nature, one person can defeat even the largest problems? If everyone did as much with their life as RMS has, there would be no problems on earth. We would be living in a perfect society. It's because of complacency and fear that we live in the world we do now.
And you talk about being selfish and egotistical? The way I see it, if you're out to make a lasting contribution to society (and believe it or not, there *are* people out there-I believe RMS is one of them-who want to make a contribution for non-egotistical reasons...), then in sacrificing children/relationships it might just be possible that that person is being far less selfish than he who merely seeks pleasures for himself within his own lifetime.
What's more admirable, striving to have the best life for yourself, or giving up that (perceived, perhaps) better life in order to ensure that tommorrow the world will be a better place?
I'd rather die knowing that I'd made a tenth of the contribution that someone like RMS has, than simply knowing I'd had a good time...
I think the thumb sucking Gnu icon is appropriate. RMS can act like a real crybaby when he wants to.
I propose a 1 step recovery program for his ego:
Step 1: Get over it.
The name Linux as opposed to GNU/Linux is not a way of pushing RMS into the background. Don't put so much into a name.
The publicity around Linus and RMS is different because marketing (intentional or unintentional) does not follow logical rules. A normal looking guy with a wife and two little kids living in California is a more comfortable image for many people to focus on rather than a long haired/bearded eccentric.
If you are running for office RMS, get a political consultant. If you are writing code, quit whining and get on with it.
Your password has expired, please login to change it.
Face it RMS is just a shabby bum he doesn't shave, carries everything he owns in a garbage bag and wants GNU before linux. Blah, blah, blah... he is just wining because he has faced up to the pitiful fact that he has accomplished very little in his life. The fsf was not his effort alone. Now he just wants to meddel in the community and stir up kde flame wars, etc. He wants to do nothing and get all the credit.
:)) So get off the political high horse and face the facts... rms will be swept under the carpet with all the other people who talk alot and do little... and then brag about it.
But of course this is slashdot.org where everyone worships gnome and rms and the comments of the opposing faction are repeatedly deleted (alot like those great commie countries with wonderful views of property rights
Just look at the gnome discussion from a few days back. Every negative post was sytematically deleted... hmmm. Did everyone have such a great response at the nice stable gnome 1.0... even the gnome mailing list was filled with posts about an early release to conincide with RH6 and LinuxWorld. :)
Seems to me that the "ideals" in the OSS community work when people can leverage them to their advantage. For instance, on of the arguments lined at kde by the gnome project was that it was something that could be controled by a comercial company. Well look at what we have now! A desktop that will become the defacto standard just because of the backing from a major linux distributor. And an early release so all the guys at RHDL can make a nice buck of finishing up just in time for the expo and 6.0. Real nice guys! Now is that the linux way? It sounds like something out of Redmond to me!
Meanwhile Miguel champs on about the techinical superiority and stablity of his product, unfortunately he can't hide behind the "it's still in development clause". But after he rides the media hype for awhile people will begin to notice the 522 or so bugs still left in this great stable product and one of the Linux critics will be more than happy to harp on them for months.
Look at kde 1.0 and gnome 1.0 they aren't even close in the completeness department. Hell you can't even change the default icons and mime types visually with gmc or change the default wm (enlightenment) launched from gnome-session (a binary not a script)... what a configurable new enviroment this is
Yeah Geoff I agree. I think that finding what better is, is a part of life.
:-(
Don't ask me to define better in a sentence. Its a lot of stuff. I'll try and shed some light on what I think in this post, but don't expect an answer.
I like free software.
I like music.
I like art.
I like the freedom to learn and better myself.
Hey Geoff. You can't elucidate better in a word, its something we all have to find.
And for most of us its different.
I guess one of the defining aspects of better is realising you can disagree with other people and learn from it.
That's something that most of the people in this forum haven't realised I think.
I like the GPL, it seems to incrementally encourage free software. I don't mind people choosing not to use it now - but I think one day they will because of the ever growing incremental benefits of doing so.
I believe Economics will kill proprietary software in time, that is why the suits are jumping on board.
I think the result will be a better world - economics based on openness. And this isn't communism, because we are still talking about competing. I guess my grandparents meant this when they talked about being a "gentleman" something most people don't do.
That is why I also find privacy important for example. Sure, I value transparency, honesty and something of my own morality (which you probably start to glean from this post) but I think you should have the choice whether to be transparent.
Why should the spooks snoop on communications just meant for friends and lovers? Especially when criminals will always use the strongest encryption, and with key escrow will just hide their encrypted communications in other files - like GIFS or MPEGs for example.
Mostly I want my kids to have the freedom to find what is right, and the chance to find a maturity and depth of thought that they value. This freedom needs a rich cultural background (art, music, film, theatre, literature, you name it) and the chance to paricipate and create themselves (and is this not what free software gives them).
And if this is what RMS is devoting his time - to a culture of sharing, and gift, but with the freedom to use or ignore it - I don't think anyone can slate him. I recently saw ESR speak in London, and I value his words, but he is telling it only one way. RMS's ideas are another, and I think I understand and respect both.
You said "opportunity for what?". That is the point, opportunity is not the opportunity without the choice, so I am not going to state here. I think they just need the opportunity to tread the path they should: a parents role is to lead by example, by giving pointers to the lessons they have learned, not by instruction.
Shakespeare was a genius, because he could illustrate the views of many convincingly. He knew they all had value of their own: that paradigms are just that. Equally, RMS and ESR both have their slant. Both matter. They keep us on their toes as someone said.
Now lets create some stuff goddammit.
BTW: I don't program C++ or anything hardcore. I design and consult for business on software or whatever they want. I do write PERL though (whoops I find PERL hardcore enough for me before anyone flames me with PERL is hardcore! - that's not what I mean), and hopefully if I'm allowed (work?) I'll put some cool stuff in public domain later this year. At least my current contract let me suggest how it will benefit them to do this.
Prophets have always been hated and oft-times martyred by the ignorant mob....
Bah, just don't start any wm and start your apps full-screen. There you are :-)
As you've pointed out, coupling and having children is the natural thing for humans to do, right? The easiest thing.
Sure, coupling is the easiest thing. I don't think that's what he meant; he said it's "certainly not as hard as finding someone who understands you and who you understand." Finding someone like that is rather more difficult than finding someone to have sex with.
Sure, having children isn't that hard, at least for the guy :-). It's raising them properly that is the challenge, and where the reward comes in. Belittling those who put decades into this, I think, is what is really angering a lot of us. If RMS doesn't want to have kids, great, that's his decision. But to trivialize the work and dedication that raising a family takes, and the importance of doing this well, is simply ignorant. The quality of society we will have in the future depends to a much greater extent on how well people raise their children, than on whether everyone thinks RMS is the greatest thing since sliced bread. RMS has done a lot, yes, and sure let's all give him credit for his contributions. But his chosen life's work is certainly not more important than that of others who choose to have a family.
What isn't cool is the eventual disintegration of society and the environment because of an overpopulated world of generation after generation of complacent do-nothing family-havers
And since when does having a family imply being a complacent do-nothing? There are lots of people out there making valuble contributions to society, through whatever their field of expertise is, and also through raising the next generation to continue the work in the future. The two are not mutually exclusive.
It would take so little to change the world, but we don't, simply because we tend to gravitate towards what comes naturally to us. Like childrearing
So if we all stop having children, in order to "change the world", what do we accomplish? We eliminate the species from the universe. Sure, it changes the world, but what the hell is the point if there's nobody left to enjoy it?
You mean besides the fact that he's living proof that if you put idealism before nature, one person can defeat even the largest problems? If everyone did as much with their life as RMS has, there would be no problems on earth. We would be living in a perfect society.
Why do you think that idealism is opposite to nature? Having a family could very well be true to one's ideals; idealism does not imply becoming a loner. If we all followed the sort of idealism RMS has humanity would cease to exist in a few decades. Then what have we gained? Nothing. We wouldn't have a perfect society. We'd have no society. No problems on earth? I doubt it, not that it would matter since there would be nobody left to solve any that did appear.
And since when has RMS defeated "the largest problems"? Has he eliminated hatred? Created world peace? Found a cure to a deadly disease? Secured an end to oppression around the globe? No. He's dedicated himself to telling everyone that software should be free. And created a lot of great software along the way. But this hardly qualifies as defeating one of the world's greatest problems. Let's try to keep things in perspective.
Diety of my choice, eh?
I'll take Thor! He's cool with that hammer and stuff...
Hmmmm... "Oh for Thor's sake!"
Not too catchy but I like it.
.
Can you say slow and buggy?
Why do you think most people replace them with gnu utilities?
.
So basically you're insulted that anyone could think breeding isn't the most important thing they can ever do.
"Breeding" is the most important thing humans do - that's not opinion, that's biology. Anyone who thinks that accomplishing some goal is more important that sharing intimacy with another person (I'm talking about love here, not sex) has got a lot of growing up to do.
RMS sacrificed much in his life
And no doubt that is why he is so bitter about not being internationally acclaimed. It sounds as though he is starting to realize the futility of material gain. In his case the material is attention, not money, as it is with most people but RMS is every bit as misguided as those mid-80's stockbroker stereotype folk.
1) First of all, despite Linus's wild popularity, RMS has probably contributed more to Linux than he has. For instance, how far would Linux get without emacs, gcc, and all the GNU utils?
And where would GNU be without the Linux kernel? is Hurd at 0.0.1 yet?
I don't have emacs installed on my computer and as far as the utils are concerned it's not the utilities I like about Unix, but the sparse, conceptually simple kernel.
No kidding about the man pages:
This man page is not kept up to date except when volun-
teers want to maintain it. If you find a discrepancy
between the man page and the software, please check the
Info file, which is the authoritative documentation.
If we find that the things in this man page that are out
of date cause significant confusion or complaints, we will
stop distributing the man page. The alternative, updating
the man page when we update the Info file, is impossible
because the rest of the work of maintaining GNU CC leaves
us no time for that. The GNU project regards man pages as
obsolete and should not let them take time away from other
things.
Gee, thanks for telling me that man pages are obsolete, RMS. Is that why I enjoy using them so much? This is every bit as stupid as Microsoft telling us that Unix is obsolete - I don't care it it fits somebody's idea of what obsolete is, I like it.
... I code in C/B/BCPL/CPL/von Neumann/Assembly/early work by Babbage
... Bill Gates is a business genius. I don't like him either.
Because you must have noticed the paraenthetical statement "note I'm talking about love here, not sex." The fact that he is too busy to have kids and that he's never been in a relationship with another human being in his life seems to illustrate a lack of neccesity on his part to share his life with anyone else. I think he will likely find himself very lonely, some day.
I'm not talking so much about RMS' reluctance to have children as his complete lack of ineterest in having any form of personal relationship with anyone. My "narrow view" of the world takes into account that humans are, by nature, social creatures and anyone who would be perfectly content with locking themselves away and spending their life doing one thing is surely a person who feels extremely alienated.
And yes, I am a computer hobbiest and have been for quite a while. However, I also realize that there is much more to life.
All of this is quite secondary to the issue at hand, however. RMS feels he (personally) should be recognized for his contribution to Linux and free UniX in general. He is not the only (or even the largest) contributer to Unix. Ritchie is the man that it all comes back to, but Linux is caled Linux, not Unix/Linux (for reasons other than the copyright issues).
How would you like to write a set of utilities and have some large corporation come along and mask what you wrote with a different brand?
Of course I would be bitter about that. However, if I wrote it and gave it away for free and called it Free Software and put it under a free license I could expect any less to happen and I would be willing to live with the anonymity, content in teh knowledge that I had createx something that people around the world enjoy using. Ever heard of Jim Gettys? Use X?
On one hand I appreciate his humour and conviction. On the other hand I can only feel pity for someone so dissatisfied with his life that he needs to belittle people who have everything he lacks.
It depends where you expect to find the most satisfaction. Some (like our mutual friend, here) might look for it through works that they hope will bring them the respect and acclaim of the world. This will undoubtly bring on a certain amount of bitterness when the thankless world doesn't give you what you feel you've earned. I would tend to look for contentment by sharing my life with one other person and possibly having children. That seems a fairly guaranteed way of feeling appreciated. I'm no Marco Polo but hey...
So you propose that we should all be mavericks and world-beaters because that's just so much cooler, right? You're most certainly a slave to capitalist consumerism. Why do you feel so pushed into changing the world? Possibly because it is so much easier than making your life better.
It's quite easy to sit in the belltower picking people off with your rifle, isn't it? Certainly not as hard as finding someone who understands you and who you understand.
As far as the relevance of this thread, I would say it is quite minimal. I was only trying to illustrate a possible alternate and less noble explanation of RMS' insistence on being recognized as a prophet.
It certainly wouldn't be getting recognized there, either. And can you name a single "other" system that runs entirely GNU utilities? Certainly none that are sold under non-GPL licenses (ie, all of them). Most admins do add gcc to new systems, but that's about it.
Interesting juxta-position. This is horribly off-topic, but does intimacy require having children?(!)
Not at all. I was also referring to the fact that RMS is and always has been single which is likely why he sees no need to have children.
And what does this really have to do with free/open-source software?
Not a thing. I just like having the last word.
Why do you think he dissatisfied with his life?
Because he is not just content to not have children - he feels the need to belittle those who do have children and express a series of arguments of why having children is so bad. Like the whole "Free Software" thing he can't understand why anyone would think differently than him.
And I mentioned as much in my post. Thank you for reiterating me so clearly. So why not Ritchie/Linux or von Neumann/Linux or Babbage/Linux? Why not AlanCox/Linux? Why not The Regents of The University of California/Linux?
You do use X, though - right?
He certainly has a talent for dirty tricks and publicity though.
That's not a certain kind of genius? It may not be nice, but his business savvy is brilliant. It's unfortunate he can get his company to produce anything approaching good software, though.
No, I didn't say that. Working together as a team to change the world for everyone is pretty damn cool. What isn't cool is the eventual disintegration of society and the environment because of an overpopulated world of generation after generation of complacent do-nothing family-havers.
I think the rest of the world is quite capable of taking care of itself - I don't care about overpopulation in 200 years. Maybe that's selfish but aren't we here to enjoy ourselves? What's the point of life if all you do is spin around working, working, working and trying to change things. So what if there are no humans to greet the year 3000? Would the Universe be any worse off?
You mean besides the fact that he's living proof that if you put idealism before nature, one person can defeat even the largest problems?
And why is that so great? Anyone can change the world if they put their mind to it, but if they expect it to make them happy they may be disappointed. Hence our belltower rifleman. He's certainly changed the world for some people, hasn't he?
If everyone did as much with their life as RMS has, there would be no problems on earth. We would be living in a perfect society.
No we wouldn't. We would all be bitter old men so determined to leave our mark that we couldn't stop to smell the roses.
It's because of complacency and fear that we live in the world we do now.
No, we live in our world because of the few people who need to change the world, often by enslaving others. To make reference to the bible in a purely allegorical sense, had it not been for an excess of ambition we would never have left the garden.
If you had done so you would certainly have found that we are arguing on the same side. RMS should get no more recognition than Jim Gettys and a thousand other selfless academics.
And you talk about being selfish and egotistical?
No, I'm talking about being foolish enough to believe that the world "owes" you something and childish enough to throw temper tantrums if it doesn't give you what you feel you've earned.
A lot of people have made lasting contributions to the world over the course of the last few thousand years, and only a very few of them have done it for the sake of self-agrandizement. RMS is one of them - why else would he be so insistent on teh GNu recognition.
I'd rather die knowing that I'd made a tenth of the contribution that someone like RMS has, than simply knowing I'd had a good time...
I once felt that way, but I grew up. I would rather die surrounded by those I know and love.
Do you know Dennis Ritchie? Jim Gettys? Knuth? Any one of a dozen other people who have contributed to the computer system you now use? Why don't they get recognized?
I want them (if/when I have them) to be born into a world of opportunity
Opportunity for what? To get a job so they can earn a living and then go off and procreate? To live like mindless automatons?
I want my children to live in a better world where they can do what they want without having to worry about being compelled to "leave their mark."
Thanks for taking everything I said out of context. Yes, I have read Hackers, you obsequious little sh*t. I wasn't trying to downplay RMS' contribution to the computing world and I am not trying to make "snap judgments" or to imply that he is in some way any more demented than a large number of other people.
My point from the beginning has been that RMS has made a major contribution to the computing world but deserves no more recognition than any one of the thousands of other who have worked here. I then went on to speculate as to why it might be that RMS feels teh world owes him kudos. My theory runs basically along teh lines that there once was a lonely person named Rick Stallman who found a niche with some other people at MIT's AI lab. These friends went off to get jobs so they could raise families and seek self-fulfillment.
Feeling abandoned, our protagonist sets out on a Quixotic journey to fell the windmill of propriety software. Others joined him, seeing that there was actually a certain amount of good in what he was doing. These people then set a somewhat different course for the movement and renamed it. Once again our hero feels abandoned and raises a stink.
It doesn't matter that RMS sacrificed a normal life for free software - he did it of his own free will and no one owes him a thing. I might once have called the OS in question GNU/Linux out of respect for him, but his public displays of ill humour have cost him any respect I may once have held for him.
>"I hope not. But how can I know for sure? I've
>got an ego like everyone else. I'm sure my ego >wants me to be more famous. I don't know."
Well, it's not like everyone else's. It's much bigger. I appreciate what he's done for the open-source/free-software community but it's only a part of Linux/Free-Software. What is important here, the credit or the code?
Is it uncompromising idealism or is it uncompromising egotism hiding behind idealism. There's a difference. And more and more, I find myself feeling that he is hurting more than helping his nominal cause.
-Steve Bergman
>Breeding" is the most important thing humans do -
>that's not opinion, that's biology.
>I'm talking about love here, not sex
Interesting juxta-position. This is horribly off-topic, but does intimacy require having children?(!) And what does this really have to do with free/open-source software?
-Steve
Tanenbaum discovered the dark side, too. Ego, ego , everywhere, but not a moment to think...
o lete.txt
http://alge.anart.no/linux/history/linux_is_obs
Linus only maintains the kernel, and the part he wrote is very small.the libc, gcc, emacs, vi, all of these were made by FSF and GNU
Natureman
Yes, he got burned with the GNU/Linux thing, but one very popular distro has made that concession. Maybe he got a raw deal. But if he continues to go ballistic every time someone doesn't credit him in the name Linux itself, he's really going to lose it. More than now, I mean. I mean become obsessed with a name and start forgetting about everything else, including free software.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Actually, he'd get a more powerful message that GNU doesn't just make Linux possible, GNU makes real work possible. cygwin32 is a lifesaver for NT admins who don't even have the bluntest of tools with their OS.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
I remember (stories) when /bin was on a disk, them newfangled dishwasher-sized things that sure was fast, and /usr/bin was on a tape, and you moved things you wanted to be fast off /usr/bin and into /bin
Sure seems an antiquated notion these days. Why keep it now?
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
I can understand RMS' point. Think about it, after so long toiling for his ideals for a completely "free" system, a finnish guy comes and steals pretty much all the momentum from it. When people think of Linux, they think of Linus, but most of them dont realize the millions of lines of code in the OS BESIDE the kernel - they associate the whole OS - utilities, compiler, and all - with Linus. Now, Linus is a very nice guy - very humble and everything, but it is true that he does not really care for the kind of ideology that Stallman holds. Look at it, Linus has said pretty much openly that he doesnt mind non-free programs on linux, and even non-free code in the kernel. This must be RMS' nightmare. It's a knee jerk reaction for him - facing the fact that all that he worked for might go down the tube. Look at it - big businesses are jumping in bed like crazy with linux. Soon, the screws will start turning for the "Linux" system to give the companies more and more "freedom" to make money. RMS' just sees his dream being threatened. He might have an ego, and he is frank enough to state it: Unlike many of you hypocritical bastards here.
I respect RMS' ideology - except for the fact that he only follows it when it comes to software. I think this sort of ideology should be followed across the board. Microsoft is just one example of thousands of companies that are ripping the average man to shreds today - and I dont know how you can simply state "free code" and stop at that.
Oh yeah - too all of you "commie-bastard" flamers, just because you can repeat a '50s "bad word" doesnt make you right.
-Laxative
Dont just free software - free the individual
Emacs was originally developed under the Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS). I'm not sure what relationship RMS has with ITS, but I'd be surprised if he didn't play a major role in its development.
When I was playing around at MIT (my father was a professor there and was able to get me access to the AI Lab systems), I met RMS several times. He was a fascinating character; interesting but a shade intense. (That is, of course, an enormous understatement).
His main legacies are EMACS and GCC. I would think, though, that if GNU had not existed, Linux would be based on utilities from BSD Unix. However, let's not take too much away from RMS and GNU; the GNU utilities/shells do offer significantly superior functionality to their proprietary software ancestors.
Did Berkeley do any kind of C compiler as part of BSD? What happened to it?
D
----
When I first started reading the article, I thought: "Hey.. he got short changed!".
But then, his life is described as a chain of avoidance of responsibilities or so the article notes. He doesn't want children because he doesn't want to work to make enough to support them. He doesn't own a computer of his own, he just uses the foundation's. He charges people high costs for his services. He lives in a rented home.
And he is advocating free software? Maybe he should live his life like his claimed ideal before he goes out and make statements against a man, Linux Torvalds, who not only took the time to work on a critical piece of software, work with others on it, share his work openly, and MAKE the time and put in the EFFORT to be responsible to the public.
Linux takes his position seriously and because of that, he will be taken seriously.
From the article, it looks like Stallman wants no responsibility, not even for his own statements, yet wants the accolade for a project which is used with Linux, not what makes Linux.
I agree with the final note in the article. That Stallman's abrasive personality does little to help him become better noticed. No one wants to spend time with or on someone who seems to condemn the world and at the same time, show utter apathy towards it and himself and his own life.
Just my two cents.
(On a side note, Stallman, if he had taken the time to work with people instead of, as the article suggests, bitch about things, he might be more respected on a personal level. Many a contributing members of society have gone unnoticed despite their hard work simply because they decide to seclude themselves and communicate with no one but an elite few.)
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
Seems like GNU had a body of tools and functions.
:)
But Linus had the heart. Linux.
Both are important. But issues of what the name should be due to how much a group contributes.. sounds sad and rather lame. It isn't like due credit isn't given in the various source files and documentations.
What's in a name? A Linux distribution by any other name would run just as well.
I like the Linux name. So what? Should we call the Redhat distributions: GNU RedHat Linux? Xfree86 Linux? GNU Xfree86 RedHat Caldera contributed People of (list states)(list cities)(list denomination)(list choice of keyboard and bath soap) Linux (list year, month, day, hour, minutes, seconds, etc..)
I don't see Linux as Linus owning the whole thing. It is more like a flag.. a banner.. an image and a symbol that the community can stand behind.
America has a flag.. doesn't mean the one who made the flag(martha something or other?) rules the US.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
Who the fuck am I?
I am an individual in this world. And I had not intended to bash RMS. (Yes, upon re-reading my post, it DID sound like and feel like bashing. I'm sorry for that.)
But if an individual like myself see's that from one article posted by an e-zine, what does the myriad of computer users who are keen to the issues see?
I respect GNU & FSF and what it represents. I see the FSF & GNU as an important factor in the development of the computer software and hardware industry in the years to come. A positive factor.
I agree with your reminders that without GNU, Linux would never have gotten as far as it has now. But isn't it equally true that GNU would not have spread as quickly or gained as much establishment in systems without Linux?
Without the Linux kernel, I doubt my GNU equiped system would do much in the way of running. Likewise, without Linux, I doubt GNU would have even gotten onto my computer in the first place. Both sides have credit due to them. But an abrasive personality goes a long way and an individual who is aware of the ideals involved may find it less agreeable to stand beside someone like that. That is where respect for an individual fails. While the good that one person does is noted, the connection may not be made.
What I posted is the image I got from the Wired article. But in response to your post, respect for an ideal and respect for a person are two different things. I can hold the utmost respect for one and little for the other. I use GNU software with my Linux systems. But I doubt I'd be calling Linux GNU/Linux anytime soon.
Just because I don't use the prefix in the name shouldn't have to mean I don't hold the ideals or understand them.
And despite the numerous posts about personality not mattering, it does. Not just for business purposes, but for interaction as well. You can be respected for your work. You can be respected for your skill. Your determination. Your fighting to the last breath and giving up the things you might hold dear. Those perspectives of respect, now that I've seen posts countering my own post, I believe are due to RMS and I am sorry for not having seen it before.
However, an abrasive personality goes a long way towards souring the views of people who see him. The slip in feelings for RMS, at least for me, lies not so much in what he says, but rather, how he says it. And that is something which can be found to be important both in organizations and out of them.
If I've drawn flames, my apologies. I was just sharing my thoughts on a Wired Post.
RMS definitely has a sense of responsibility. But his reported persona does an equally good job of convincing me otherwise.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
They may not be gods, but eyes are on them. They may not be divinity, but hope from the people are with them.
It can probably be said that what they say has an impact on the groups they represent. They should take responsibility for that. And in many senses, they do and they don't. Out of no fault of their own. A good deal lies with the people.
Myself for instance. I read an article posted by an e-zine. From this, I have a mental picture. I make a post. People who disagree, are negatively affected, make their posts. They make their voice heard and say what they feel or just say something.
If I had made no post and kept silent, there would not have been these posts. But they might have come out elsewhere...
Stallman makes comments and remarks and whether or not he is aware of his presence in the public eye, his comments do paint a picture of himself. And if continued on, the picture painted can be associated with the movement itself.
Responsibility comes from maintaining and knowing the repercussions of one's actions. He started GNU and continues with it. But his persona could become a shadow over it.
I'm not saying he should kiss ass. That would be a compromise of his ideals. But being friendly doesn't hurt and is not a sign of weakness.
As I said in another post, one can have respect for an ideal, and an organization. But one can have a lack of respect for the person behind the same. Hard work does a great job of earning respect. An abrasive personality directed at people does an equally good job of destroying that same respect.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
Yes, it is understandable and sad that someone who has done so much is remembered so little.
But while GNU has done much for Linux, Linux has likewise done a good deal for GNU. By providing a working kernel, Linux made it into something practical and usable.
No, he does not owe anyone to be normal.. except in this case, where he would like some credit due and visibility for his cause, belief, and him self, he would owe it to himself.
Your average guy who doesn't think much of his bad breath, sweat and grime and the need for baths would have a hard time finding a date or his dream girl.
While Stallman is nothing like the extreme picture, his personality might be likened to it. And accolades of the public nature can be likened to the girl of his dreams.
Yes, you will get due awards and credit for your hard work from agencies and groups who see's your work for what it is outside of who you are. But the public would like just a bit more.
More than anyone, it can be said that he owes it to himself. No one else.
To comment on your final point.. isn't every living thing on this planet?
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
emacs
Without emacs? I do not think emacs matters..
Good editor thought..
gcc? Why egcs then? Maybe because of Stallman's personality? Is not it?
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
.. all this utilities I never use.
Following Comrade Stallman logic it should be
X/Linux then.
Yes, gcc is important too. And gmake. And bash.
And so oin. - but these are not the central parts.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
... it is hard for me to be sympathetic with a person, whatever genius he is, who do not like children. Just my opinion of course...
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
RMS sounds like what Linus referred to in his keynote: a visionary who looks like road-kill. I know he was referring to Gates' book, but I think he spoke volumes about others in the industry.
Talk is cheap. One show leadership not by complaining, but by _doing_. In this way Linus deserves the adulation he gets.
RMS, I admire your work. But what have you done for me lately?
Your child will live long after you, and in doing so will improve the world as you have taught him/her to do.
Did Hitler improve the world? Wasn't he someone's child?
You are absolutely right. I would not be able to
use a fully free system without the Linux kernel.
I definitely agree that the operating system I use
should have 'Linux' in the name because of this.
But I would not have a free operating system
without the GNU project either so I think this
operating system should also have 'GNU' in the
name. I don't ignore the Linux kernel by calling
this OS 'GNU', don't ignore GNU by calling this OS
'Linux'.
First, I'll bet mine's bigger than yours by a long shot. Second, while there's certainly ego involved here, remember that Linux is named after Linux, while GNU stands for, "GNU's Not Unix."
At least RMS wasn't egotistical enough to name the movement after himself.
X is full screen, in case you haven't tried it. If you'd like each window to be full screen, well then maximize them. I'd have to say though, I think this is a pretty lame complaint.
In your religion, did Jesus breed or did he have more important things to do?
I have used X for years and it has NEVER crashed on me.
Its sad to see so many persons personally attacking RMS. I have never felt the same curiosity and admiration for a hacker as I feel for him.
He wrote gcc, emacs and many stuff which we use everyday. Without it, Linux (the kernel) would probably not exist.
Take a look at the gcc code, take a look at emacs. You will recognize the mark of an *incredible* inteligence there.
Do you know he suffered physical problems at around 1990 that caused him great pain on his hand and couldn't code anymore? He hired students and tried to continue to code thru their hands but that didn't work. He had to stop. How did you want him to create a Kernel (or anything) without hands?
Some say he's forcing everyone to call it GNU Linux. He's not. He's just making a "a polite request" (he's fingers typed that). Have you seen the GPL clausule where it says you have to call it GNU/Something if you use his free software? He's just making a polite request.
Few programs are as Sublime (its a matter of Art) as the ones he wrote. However, that is not the reason why I think he deservers more credit than Linus and anyone else. More important than emacs, gcc and all the wonderful GNU software, he wrote the GPL and the GNU manifesto. He started the Free Software (now called Open Source by many) movement. GPL. How would our computing world be if GPL did not exist? Can't you see he started our movement?
Richard Stallman deserves more credit than any other hacker.
AFC.
Do you really think having a GUI is more important than being able to compile programs?
Umm.
What non-gcc-based, open-source compilers are there?
AFC.
Well, I have never met RMS in real life, but we have exchanged a few emails. I am developing an application that *may* be released as part of the GNU project so most (if not all) are related with it. However, from the very beginning, the responses I have received from him have been very warm. I have received a wonderful treatment from him. There is nothing I could complain about.
The first email I sent him was a question, I asked him why did he want us to call it GNU/Linux and then critiziced what he called the "obnoxious BSD advertising clause". His response was very nice, he had no idea who I was yet he took the time to write me back and explain his reasons.
He has always been very respectful.
I can't believe someone calls the Open Source/GNU movement hypocritical (is that how you spell it?).
It is true, no one (umm, well... actually... umm) will give you support for free. If you expect developers not only to give you their applications for free (free as in $0) but also give you support, you are probably dog c^H^H^H^H^Humm rather silly.
There's no hypocresy (heh... again... how do you spell it?) in the GNU movement. Well, at least I can't see it.
AFC.
There might be a lot of GNU code in Linux systems, but it is mostly in trivial things like "ls" and "cat". I wouldn't cal 'gcc', 'ld' and 'as' trivial things. Have you ever booted a Linux kernel not compiled with gcc? How far do you think Linus' project would have progressed whitout a freely distributable, portable C compiler? Q.E.D
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
Also, LynxOS and QNX use and distribute GCC and GDB. What all these people bashing RMS don't seem to realize is that it would be extremely difficult for Linux to get off the ground were it not for the previous availability of a free, portable C compiler, a linker, a debugger and a make utility.
And, no, don't give me the BS about G++ vs EGCS. That's a fork because of C++ features, not C. Nobody using C++ in the kernel, right?
Show me a distribution of Linux where the kernel was not compiled with gcc and I'll show you a non GNU Linux.
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
Going on the current population level, I'd say having kids shows a lack of responsibilty..
;)
All this talk of kids, and technology and someone actually mentioning Steve Jobs in a thread reminded me of a Wired interview Jobs gave in 1996. The interviewer was asking him about the Web and was hoping for some great vision of mankind's future (here's the excerpt):
--Start of Quote--
What's the biggest surprise this technology will deliver?
The problem is I'm older now, I'm 40 years old and this stuff doesn't change the world. It really doesn't.
That's going to break people's heart's.
I'm sorry, it's true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It's been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much - if at all.
These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people people we might not otherwise...These things can profoundly influence life. I'm not downplaying that. But it's a disservice to constantly put things in this radical new light - that it's going to change everything. Things don't have to change the world to be important.
--End of Quote--
I agree with him, and with you too. Perhaps if RMS did have children could help him find a different perspective, the way that children made Steve Jobs mature.
-- John Truong
You mention intelligence then try to fix the blame of the argument to Micro$oft? Ok..
GNU/Linux has *not* been getting all the media coverage. Linux and its successful development model has.
Reality creates "haves" and "have nots". The "have nots" that you mention rarely "ask" the "haves" to share - *this* is where the division starts. We're talking about coercion and RMS & Co. would do it forcibly if they had it in their power to do so. Indeed, doing so requires that they be working under a very wrong premise indeed. Successful "have nots" work their butts off to become "haves" themselves. Its not until then that they understand what has value and that the very act of giving it away makes it less valuable.
I'm aware that RMS is concerned that he is being left out because his FSF movement has been important to Linux development but FSF was not fundamental to the existence of Linux.
Without Andrew Tannenbaums Minux (minimal unix: rimes with Linux) I believe that Linux would never have existed. In the '80's people would often complain to Andrew Tannenbaum that they wanted a 386 version of Minux and Mr. Tannenbaum would respond, "You are welcome to make a 386 version, go ahead, you have the source code." You see, Tannenbaums Minux package was a source code licensed product designed to teach OS design. Linus was on the comp.os.minux newsgroup (or was it alt.os.minux back then?) and that is where he announced his first 32 bit kernel. You can still see traces of the Minux heritage in Linux when you rebuild the Kernel and look at filesystem options.
RMS when I spoke with him in the '80's about working on the OS Kernel (to be called Hurd) I was informed that it was in capable hands. I feel that the FSF has a bit of elitism. RMS did not initially want Linux to be the OS of choice for FSF and planned to have Hurd replace Linux as soon as it was available. Since FSF was not committed to Linux as their core (something they were never able to produce) why should the Linux community rally around the FSF. The linux community has been able to do what RMS never was able to do: Use the GPL to produce a whole OS capable of supplanting commercial products.
If anyone deserves more credit for Linux its Tannenbaum, not RMS who never seemed to really like Linux anyway.
Earlier I wrote about how Andrew Tannenbaum dosn't get mentioned as much as he used to in the Linux community. Those of us who were Minux users know how much we learned from the Minux source code. It was a great place to start. Of course this got me thinking about the many people who have contributed to where we are. The list is endless! Pike, Richie, Kernigan, RMS, Torvalds, Alan Cox, Jackson (one of my instructors), Babbage, Joy, Hopper, and many many more. Good god the list is nearly endless when you really think about it. Heck, I even ask questions on the net occasionally. Maybe they help maybe not. The real question in this discussion becomes, "What role does Ego play in the Open Source world?". Do we let leaders in the movement start a pissing match that leads to the destruction of the movement or will this be more like the Net distributions? Very evolutionary, the person who best fit the need rose to the pivital position at that time. Does this say that one person is better, worse, or indifferent? No, I think it means that someone who was the right person at the right time was there when we needed them. I only hope that the right person is in place where and when we need them in the future. And you know what? That person may just be you....
While RMS may be intolerant of practices divergent from his beliefs (which is perfectly fine), he doesn't go around trying to silence those who disagree with him.
On this website, however, some supporters of RMS and his ideology do attempt to silence the opposition.. through flames, personal attacks, etc.
Now, I'm trying hard not to generalize; there is the occasional pro-MS post that derides all users of Linux.
I'm fairly certain that Stallman recognizes the right of a software author to release *wholly original* code in a form other than GPL-covered source. It's just that he wishes that people would not, especially if they use GNU and other GPL'd tools to develop it.
This frustration (I imagine) is what leads to the whole "Lesser GPL" campaign.
What's the point of this post? To show the pro-FSF contingent on slashdot that not everyone who disagrees with Free softare ideology is irrational. If the context of the argument is kept on stronger footing than CAPS-LOCKED oneliners, then maybe the flames will decrease somewhat.
I'm probably just wasting my time.. AC one-liners won't cease, and all the intolerance won't cease..
have a nice day anyway.
Great title for a book..
:-)
If Stallman was so critical to the project from a code perspective, that his absence killed it, why didn't he find step into a managerial position, and open up development to others?
ah, the bazaar.. it's a term overused these days, but it applies, I imagine. If Stallman requested patches and improvements, to get the GNU kernel off the ground, zealots from around the world would heed the cry.
That many eyeballs are a substantial resource; the HURD developers should take advantage of it, by publicizing HURD more, and actively recruiting developers.
Be has swayed a lot of people, and BeOS is not even free. Stallman should be able to attract a horde for HURD.
Stallman is such an egomaniac. Better things to
do than have kids? Somebody better rethink his
plan on becoming immortal. It seems he wants
glory for himself rather than to have people using a free
operating system.
The point of having a family is not just to create
more people in the world. The point is to make
the ultimate investment. By having children you
are spending >20 years creating an individual who
is smarter, more aware, and better than yourself and Richard Stallman.
Your child will live long after you, and in doing so
will improve the world as you have taught him/her
to do. This is what "having kids" is about.
I think RMS sounds like an eccentric to me. I think I would agree with the previous comments that he probably would love to take the credit for Linux if he could. I mean, let's face it... The HURD is an interesting idea, but it is so far out that it cannot seem to get off the ground... The latest news on the GNU website is that they are at v0.2, and struggling just to get it to be usable. In various places, even they seem to hint that for practical purposes, they must use Linux, and not HURD... I mean, let's face it... The HURD doesn't even have a RANDOM device, for crying out loud! I agree RMS deserves some credit for all his work too, but there is a reason for Linus getting most of the credit: the kernel is probably the biggest single contribution given, even if it is only 3% of the entire system, which is probably accurate... In other words, that 3% is probably more than any other single contributed bit of code.
Actually, I think Stallman would get much more recognition if he simply adopted Linux as an official part of *THE* GNU system, and all the work Torvalds has done... In other words, I think the two should shake hands. Then we would have a situation where Linus made an acknowledged contribution to the GNU project, and Stallman would be equally acknowledged for his contributions... But NO, RMS wouldn't have it that way--heaven forbid if that should happen... Heaven forbid if his philosophical issues took second seat to technical ones.
Another thing: since his ideas are revolutionary to the proprietary software world, naturally there must be a REASON presented for why Open Source is superior, and the practical issues he dismisses so easily are probably the main reason why Open Source has penetrated the market as much as it has.
The heavy lobbying of RMS to keep X free so it could be used for the GNU system is one of the biggest reasons MIT agreed to make X free.
Wether they are or not is irrelevent. GNU/Linux would not have happened as fast or on as big a scale if the core X code weren't free.
Arguably X in general would not have won the Unix windowing system wars if it were not free.
Stallman claims that he's not seeking any glory for himself, but the quotes in the article say otherwise. Here is a man who is obviously very bitter that he hasn't gotten some large chunk of the Linux payoff.
I submit that he does not get acknowledged because his behaviour is so far out on the fringe of society that he himself could do more damage to the concept of free software simply by being who he is.
Personally, I think that we should all breath a sigh of relieve that Stallman is not too closely associated in people's minds with Linux.
There...I said it. Linux. Not GNU/Linux. I call BS on the idea that people are too lazy to say it...they call it by the name that it really is. Sheesh. Egos.
Hey, wait, this has the germ of an idea!
Maybe we should attach the name of every single person or organization who has worked on Linux to the name of the operating system. Yeah, that's it! Then instead of wasting our time arguing over who should get credit for it, we can waste our time trying to pronounce it.
Good idea, Don!
=d=
I don't think I need to explain my reasoning here. The two are about as extreme as they can get in this respect.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
If you replace all the Sun tools with their GNU equivilents, would the OS suddenly be GNU/Solaris? No. So why GNU/Linux? No.
The kernel is the OS, and all the tools in the world from some other source don't change the origin of the kernel.
Jealousy is an ugly thing.
Why don't we just start calling the President of the U.S. 'Mr. Cabinet'? After all, most of the executive branch consists of other people doing 'most' of the work. Probably a lot of them are a lot more intelligent than he is, and other's are better military leaders, etc., etc. ad nauseum...
:) That's just semantics. Most people consider the operating sytem, that which makes the computer do what THEY want it to: If my LINUX kernel crashes, my computer has stopped running. If my c compiler stops working, I can't compile programs, but my system will keep running the programs which are doing what I need to do. Now I suppose that for many hard-core hackers the most importants program that can run on their Linux/Unix/Windows/MacOS, etc. IS the compiler. That's cool. Call your OS: "(insert favorite compiler) (insert favorite kernel) (insert other favorite tools/apps/etc. or just a postfix or prefix if you prefer)"
You can insert your metaphor of choice here...
What do you call an operating system? It's the same old debate. Some say it's the kernel, others say it's all those tools that help people get stuff done with the kernel, including building new kernels
I prefer to think of the operating system as the single most indispensable program running: the kernel.
I give great thanks to Richard Stallmann and friends for providing many useful tools to run on my OS (Linux), and I'm sorry that injuries to his hands have prevented him from producing more brilliant software; BUT...
I'm sure Mr. Stallmann would himself agree that his brain should get the credit for his software not his hands...
in due (and only due) respect
Chris Kuhi
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
I think we should all start calling it Freeax again. Maybe everyone could get along then. Seriously, do you think we would have these problems if Freeax had been kept as the name?
If it was truly a philosophical issue then who cares about the name? I believe that RS should get all the credit he deserves, but it appears that he dodges the mainstream. As soon as something starts getting big, he splinters off. Otherwise he could have all the recognition he deserves.
:)
Sounds like some sour grapes in there too. Seems like they're both a part of the same team and trashing doesn't help anything.
Of course I could be way off base. Just my impression
Ben
it is very difficult to perform even one major life project with excellence. if I thought I had a chance to make as big a contribution to society and to the world of the intellect as Stallman already has, I would forgo having kids, too, to avoid diluting my creative energies. the fact the the 2 most creative intellectuals ever, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, did not have kids --Newton said on his deathbed that he never had sex even-- is evidence
(oops. here is the full post.) it is very difficult to perform even one major life project with excellence. if I thought I had a chance to make as big a contribution to society and to the world of the intellect as Stallman already has, I would forgo having kids, too, to avoid diluting my creative energies. the fact the the 2 most creative intellectuals ever, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, did not have kids --Newton said on his deathbed that he never had sex even-- is evidence that a wife and kids can reduce your chances of making a major intellectual contribution.
I listed all of the top 2 greatest minds.
tell me who you think #3 is and I'll find out if he had kids, too.
Dude, you completely missed HIS point -- which was that WRT 'intellectual property', the distinction between an 'idea' and 'implementation of idea' is not nearly as strong (and even arguably non-existint) as with material goods.
Your example about the bookshelf was the classic bit of lunacy that is spewed forth by people too lazy to think about what the words 'intellectual property' mean. Use your brain, for pete's sake -- you don't OWN ideas (in specific form or not), you are instead granted RIGHTS TO RESTRICT OTHERS' USE OF THEM!
In short -- the poster's underlying statement was that 'intellectual property' is a linguistic sleight of hand designed to trap people into thinking about information as about something of the same nature as cars and tables. When you made your answer, you fell into this trap, making yourself look like a fool who does not know the difference between the ontological status of material objects and information.
P.S. Asserting yourself to be the winner in an argument does not make you one.
--
Victor Danilchenko
(sigh) Ideas are information. The difference is merely in degrees of specificity. Unlike material goods, there is no qualitive distinction between idea and its implementation in information trade, just a qualitive one. You say information is not cost-free to obtain? Well, DUH, neither are design ideas, for example! You have a problem with someone patenting, say, the object-oriented language design, but not with someone copyrighting a specific OO language -- even though the former (idea) took a lot more effort to come up with?.. get real.
BTW, patents are NOT granted on ideas, but rather on processes -- which is why software patents are a very thorny legal issue, they have to be issued for a combination of software and computer (which thus form a processing unit where the software is the essence of the process), rather than the software itself.
The current copyright laws were written in a different era, under different technology. They made sense for books, when the reproduction mechanism was either the printing press or hand-copying (so only your competitors had the means to mass-produce the books, thus fundamentally undermining fair competition); the world has changed. There WAS a qualitive difference between an idea for a book and a book itself (although the difference was purely pragmatic); this distinction has gone away with our newfound ability to replicate information virtually for free.
You DO realize that 'code' is also ideas, just more specific than design?.. it's a continuum, dude, from conceptual design to a specific instance of code on a disk.
P.S. Here is another tip, since you liked my previous one so much. Sit down and think a bit about what information is, and its ontological status. Once you do THAT, sit down again and think about how material property laws apply to something like information.
P.P.S. Post under a name, will you? Anonymity in an argument is a refuge of cowards and fools.
--
Victor Danilchenko
No. Anonymity is irrelevent in an argument. It is what is said that matters, not who says it.
Agreed -- and I never said anything to the contrary. Anonymity indeed is irrelevant to the validity of the argument -- to say otherwise would be argumentum ad hominem. However, it DOES matter -- anonymity provides one with a convenient cover from behind which one can say any kind of crap they want, without being responsible for their words.
This is why I address the arguments by ACs -- they are no less valid for their lack of discernible authorship. However, to me, it is a matter of respect -- I prefer knowing who I am speaking to, I despise voices from the crowd, and I prefer to argue with someone I can respect.
I can understand one being unwilling to take the time to identify themselves for a quickie one-time post. However, when a push comes to shove, the implied lack of responsibility for their words makes me regard the my AC opposition without any respect (this does not apply to their arguments, though, to which respect does not apply).
Just an opinion of a man who prefers honesty and responsibility...
P.S. The "dude" thing is a little too cute.
Glad you like it, dude.
--
Victor Danilchenko
Hmmm... hasn't this been said before?
A few hundred times perhaps?
"I want these ideas to get the publicity. I think it's a damn shame that all the publicity is going to someone who doesn't advocate these ideas of freedom."
Get real.
I don't know why he has such a problem with GNU being associated with UNIX, and no problem with GNU being assocaited with Linux.
Because "UNIX is a trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories."
Remember that when RMS started the GNU Project, in the early 80s, free software had been going proprietary at an alarming rate for several years. The whole point of GNU was that it wasn't UNIX -- it didn't have AT&T's cutthroat licensing policy behind it. This obviously is not true of the Linux kernel, which is free software.
RMS should not complain. One cannot ask for better publicity than Linux.
Sure you could. You could get a marketing program that identifies the system as the GNU software system running on the Linux kernel. Believe it or not, Linux fans really do tend to forget where their software came from -- just consider the questions in Linux newsgroups about "Linux's GCC" and "the Linux Emacs editor." I'm not surprised that RMS feels slighted by the Linux community.
I switched from Linux to FreeBSD several years ago, when it became clear that the Linux community were by and large MS-DOS refugees who were more interested in software they didn't have to pay for than software they could hack on. Things seem to be changing these days, which is nice to see. But I don't blame RMS for his frustration with the changing face of the "free" software movement.
I do think his criticism of Linus is strange. Linus has always made it clear that putting Linux under the GPL was the smartest decision he ever made with the software, because it meant that no one could ever steal his work from him or from the people. Whether Linus does not personally trumpet FSF or Project GNU, it seems clear that he understands and pursues the goals of free software. RMS may be unhappy because of his employment at the CIA^H^H^H^H^H^H^HTransmeta.
My point is that linux can run without GNU software...
It could.
But it doesn't.
That's why it's appropriate to call it GNU/Linux.
The fact that it would take so much work to put together this mythical "Linux operating system that doesn't include any GNU tools" is precisely why the name "GNU/Linux" is justified.
A couple of comments:
1. RMS has a vision and idea of what he thinks is right. He is living according to his ideals which is more than I and many others can say.
2. Most geniuses were labeled as crazy lunatics in their time.
3. Judging by his actions, RMS wants to keep the idea of free software alive. Sometimes I think his mouth gets in the way, but it's always better to judge a man by his actions instead of his words. It's not so much that he wants everyone to start saying "GNU/Linux", rather he doesn't want the concept of free software (which contributed a large chunk to Linux) getting lost in the wash.
You are, of course, correct. But having children and taking care of them, if done with love and keeping them first in your mind, can be one of the greatest self-sacrifices. I kind of long to have a kid (or two -- maybe), and I feel like I would make a good father, if given the chance. I love children.
BTW, I am not a crazy christian. I have spiritual faith and believe in God, but don't find either in churches.
Folks:
Maybe RMS should have called GNU the RMS system. GNU is so thoroughly embedded within BSD, Linux, and the commercial Unicies, and free software in general (the egcs project, the sendmail code, ssh, etc) that maybe he needs to rethink what he wants.
From reading the article, RMS wants recognition. Well, unless he is looking for a coronation or something like that, shit, he has it! His tools are used widely by tens of millions of people every single day, whether or not he knows it.
IMO what he should do if he wants his ego satiated, is to stop the "GNU/Linux" stuff. It is Linux, and leave that alone. Start getting some people to work with him on spreading the message that GNU makes Linux possible, hell it makes most Unix possible. Talk about this, and talk about his contribution to starting and sheparding GNU. Point to Linux as a successful example of the use and power of the GNU approach, as well as the OSS model, and Free software in general. Stop doing the penis length comparison of "your kernel.c is only 3% of the OS," as a) nobody cares, b) sounds like massively sour grapes there dude.
Talk positively about how he laid the foundation which enabled Linux and xBSD to grow. That should inject him with some serious ego boosters, as people realize that Linus was able to bring about his work in the context of RMS's work. That is a pretty powerful story.
Just a small correction; Linux is licensed under the GNU General Public License. This does _not_ make it GNU software. Calling a program GNU software means that the developer and the GNU project agree that the software is part of the GNU system. Linux is not part of the GNU system though many people have adopted it to make a free operating system.
This is not so. I won't go into specifics, but you can look into the philosophy section on the GNU project web server. I hope you'll understand what it is RMS and the GNU Projects wants after that.
OK, so the article refers to GNU/Linux. We know which side of the story they got.
I'm tired of hearing about this. I don't call my Solaris system GNU/Solaris; I don't call my HP/UX system GNU/HP/UX (although I will have to confess to having called it other things).
GNU/Linux isn't the proper name, Linux isn't an abbreviated form, and the only thing that RMS is getting is labelled: BABY.
I agree. He might want to make himself relevant by actually DOING something instead of trying to talk his way into the limelight.
Also : RMS might have to realize that while GNU is an important part of Linux and loads of other software packages out there, times passes and as in any evolution, things get outdated and forgotten but there is always something there to be reminded of it.
-- http://z80.org - all opinions, all the time --
It seems like Stallman wants to take linux and make it his baby. Linus wrote the kernel, which is what Linux essentially is, he can do whatever he wants with it. Why should we all have to call it GNU Linux because stallman wants it that way? Maybe I'm off here, but unless Linus has been lying all this time, Linux came out of minix, not GNU. What ever happened to Hurd anyway...
Yes, those are all very important, but they are not linux in my mind. The GNU tools are used on a wide variety of platforms. They are not what makes an OS, the kernel is. What's the difference between FreeBSD and Linux? The kernel ( yes, there are others, but the kernel is the biggest). They all use the same GNU tools. Why isn't stallman pushing for GNU/FreeBSD? Yes, GNU contributed a lot to the linux movement, and propelled it forward faster than it would have gone without it. But that doesn't mean linux wouldn't be here without them. Someone, somewhere would have written a c compiler, an editor, etc.
I can take my linux box and replace all the GNU tools. So if I do that am I no longer running Linux? I don't think so. Yes, linux uses these tools, but these tools depend on linux, linux does not depend on these tools. There is other software out there than GNU...