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Stallman’s Law

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Re: Stallman’s Law

#41

Post by pseudalopex »

stcredzero wrote: post #10

Here's the thing about Richard Stallman -- he's absolutely correct in all of his principles and all of his underlying thinking. He's as intellectually farsighted as anyone I can think of in tech. However, all of the movement around him and the resulting "outreach" efforts have been rather shortsighted in comparison. Let's use environmentalism as an analogy. There is a place for an absolutist intellectual position, wh…

Stallman's style isn't mine, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Radicals can alienate moderates, but they can also shift the Overton window.

Re: Stallman’s Law

#42

Post by oelmekki »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #26
oelmekki wrote: post #15

And yet, today's big opensource projects often are driven by big corps. I wonder how rms would reconciliate that. Maybe we can get there the difference between opensource and freesoftwares? In any way, having big companies publishing opensource code tell us how past we are the time when every single company will just publish proprietary software and let you guess the specs.

I think there's a few drivers for big corps getting involved in open source: 1. Getting intelligent people to work on projects for free. This is actually rarer than it sounds. But it does happen. 2. Protecting dependencies. Once a large company depends on a piece of technology, it has a vested interest in the future of that piece of technology. For proprietary code bases, this might mean buying the supplier. For open…

> RMS' view often seems to come from a place where all commercial organisations are inherently evil and out to do their users harm.

Yes, this was the thinking in early 2000', and indeed this was a proper reaction to the windows context back then. But I don't think that's what rms is fighting for anymore, I would state it more like : "if I bought it, then I own it", like when you buy a house, you can do any change in it you want. That's what is puzzling me in the linked statement, it sounds a lot like we're back in the 2000'. I guess shortness of statement is killing its details.

Re: Stallman’s Law

#43

Post by edblarney »

stcredzero wrote: post #10

Here's the thing about Richard Stallman -- he's absolutely correct in all of his principles and all of his underlying thinking. He's as intellectually farsighted as anyone I can think of in tech. However, all of the movement around him and the resulting "outreach" efforts have been rather shortsighted in comparison. Let's use environmentalism as an analogy. There is a place for an absolutist intellectual position, wh…

That some corporations can abuse IP is obvious, but that doesn't remotely imply that the concept of IP itself is either dysfunctional or immoral.

Stallman is completely wrong in all these statements.

He's very shortsighted in fact, his views are 19th century if anything, and they're not even very intellectually founded, or well expressed.

Re: Stallman’s Law

#44

Post by [deleted] »

stcredzero wrote: post #10

Here's the thing about Richard Stallman -- he's absolutely correct in all of his principles and all of his underlying thinking. He's as intellectually farsighted as anyone I can think of in tech. However, all of the movement around him and the resulting "outreach" efforts have been rather shortsighted in comparison. Let's use environmentalism as an analogy. There is a place for an absolutist intellectual position, wh…

[deleted]

Re: Stallman’s Law

#45

Post by loup-vaillant »

tbrownaw wrote: post #31
stcredzero wrote: post #10

Here's the thing about Richard Stallman -- he's absolutely correct in all of his principles and all of his underlying thinking. He's as intellectually farsighted as anyone I can think of in tech. However, all of the movement around him and the resulting "outreach" efforts have been rather shortsighted in comparison. Let's use environmentalism as an analogy. There is a place for an absolutist intellectual position, wh…

Here's the thing about Richard Stallman -- he's absolutely correct in all of his principles and all of his underlying thinking. I disagree with this. There are things you can (are allowed to) do, things you know you can't do, and things that are inconceivable / impossible. His position is that #2 is evil (because knowing you could fix that printer driver if only you were allowed to is fucking annoying ), and there is…

#2 and #3 have one huge practical difference: incentive. See, as far as profit-maximising is concerned, expanding the realm of #2 is very good for whoever owns the stuff. See how DRM is doing exactly that. If #2 itself was either forbidden or visibly abhorrent for everyone involved, we'd get more #1 right away.

Note that there is some flaw to #3 to #2 even when public funding is involved. Many patents were born that way. This abomination should of course stop yesterday. Because right now, the flow from #3 to #1 is smaller than it has rights to be.

Destroying #2 doesn't have to choke off the flow from the impossible to the possible, if adjust our society around it. Stuff like ending capitalism may do. (Of course, let's not do USSR "communism", it obviously didn't work. To be honest, I'm not sure what a good solution should look like. But I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve mega-corporations that own more money than entire nation-states.)

Re: Stallman’s Law

#46

Post by grzm »

oelmekki wrote: post #42
marcus_holmes wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a few drivers for big corps getting involved in open source: 1. Getting intelligent people to work on projects for free. This is actually rarer than it sounds. But it does happen. 2. Protecting dependencies. Once a large company depends on a piece of technology, it has a vested interest in the future of that piece of technology. For proprietary code bases, this might mean buying the supplier. For open…

> RMS' view often seems to come from a place where all commercial organisations are inherently evil and out to do their users harm. Yes, this was the thinking in early 2000', and indeed this was a proper reaction to the windows context back then. But I don't think that's what rms is fighting for anymore, I would state it more like : "if I bought it, then I own it", like when you buy a house, you can do any change in…

Wow. This is starting to sound like Stallman Kremlinology.

Re: Stallman’s Law

#47

Post by makecheck »

Corporations need to be treated as if they could have radically different managers at any moment (because they can). The Best Company Ever of today could be bought by Worst Corporation In Existence tomorrow.

It essentially doesn’t matter what a company is currently doing or “promises” to do or not do, if those behaviors are not legally binding. And even then, if you have to read a hundred-page document to figure out what the legal binding is, assume that the company has carefully placed a nice escape hatch somewhere in their legalese.

It was supposed to be true that if one vendor does something you don’t like, you simply “vote with your wallet” and go to one that you do like. That works great when buying toasters. Yet now, with essentially your whole life tied up in one or two devices and key services like Internet being dictated by one company based on where you live, it is REALLY hard to just walk away from one crappy technology experience and find something you like better. This is a real sign that it is not a good idea to have so much technology powered by so few corporations.

Re: Stallman’s Law

#48

Post by bpchaps »

daveguy wrote: post #20
ktRolster wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I found the FSF animosity towards "Open Source" perplexing I think you've misread something somewhere. Here is what the FSF says about "Open Source," and it doesn't seem like animosity: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.htm... "We disagree on the basic principles, but agree more or less on the practical recommendations. So we can and do work together on many specific projects."

"Disagree on the basic principles" is diplomacy 101 fail -- a great way to project animosity. It is the basic principles on which they agree .

At the very top of GP's article: This article has been superseded by a major rewrite, “Open Source” misses the point of Free Software, which is much better. We keep this version for historical reasons.

With a bit less animosity further down: "The official definition of “open source software” (which is published by the Open Source Initiative and is too long to include here) was derived indirectly from our criteria for free software. It is not the same; it is a little looser in some respects. Nonetheless, their definition agrees with our definition in most cases."

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

Re: Stallman’s Law

#49

Post by nullc »

stcredzero wrote: post #10

Here's the thing about Richard Stallman -- he's absolutely correct in all of his principles and all of his underlying thinking. He's as intellectually farsighted as anyone I can think of in tech. However, all of the movement around him and the resulting "outreach" efforts have been rather shortsighted in comparison. Let's use environmentalism as an analogy. There is a place for an absolutist intellectual position, wh…

Consider the concept of the overton window, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window -- the cause of software freedom needs at least some people taking an extreme view in order to help shift the discussion and normalize more moderate views.

Re: Stallman’s Law

#50

Post by icebraining »

edblarney wrote: post #43
stcredzero wrote: post #10

Here's the thing about Richard Stallman -- he's absolutely correct in all of his principles and all of his underlying thinking. He's as intellectually farsighted as anyone I can think of in tech. However, all of the movement around him and the resulting "outreach" efforts have been rather shortsighted in comparison. Let's use environmentalism as an analogy. There is a place for an absolutist intellectual position, wh…

That some corporations can abuse IP is obvious, but that doesn't remotely imply that the concept of IP itself is either dysfunctional or immoral. Stallman is completely wrong in all these statements. He's very shortsighted in fact, his views are 19th century if anything, and they're not even very intellectually founded, or well expressed.

That some corporations can abuse IP is obvious, but that doesn't remotely imply that the concept of IP itself is either dysfunctional or immoral.

Nowhere does rms claim this implication, so this is just a strawman. He doesn't even oppose "IP" as a whole (except for the term itself), just those restrictions which conflict with the Four Freedoms.

He's very shortsighted in fact, his views are 19th century if anything, and they're not even very intellectually founded, or well expressed.

Says the person who fails to make a single argument to justify their position.

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