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A short critique of Stallmanism

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Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#61

Post by sprafa »

vinceguidry wrote: post #56
sprafa wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We live under a capitalist system that is driven by the profit motive, and the idea that you can have an "agnostic" system for software, separate from the rest of society, seems like a fantasy to me. Anything that can't be sucessfully integrated by capitalism is fought agaisnt by the system itself, much like an organism defending itself agaisnt a virus. This would deweaponize the whole issue. If you were to legislate…

That agnostic system for software that you think is a fantasy already exists, it was created and is managed by the Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project, both organizations that Stallman started. Of course, it's not mainstream, but it's definitely not a fantasy. Capitalism isn't the monolithic agency you seem to think it is. There's room for both approaches under the umbrella of capitalism. Stallman is not opp…

Ok well I agree with you. That's a very good point. And I'd like him to have even more sucess.

I think closed source software is a terrible, terrible problem for non-programmer workers. Productivity gains from the Computer Revolution to non-programmers have been very small. I think that's partially attributtable to the fact that general-use programs for enterprise are mostly closed-source. And this is a problem because it A. Doesn't allow for customization of applications for specific uses, which I believe would unlock a lot more productivity gains and B. it discourages workers from learning to program (because what the hell would they program anyway!), which again, I believe would unlock productivity gains.

So I do believe making most software open-source and modifiable should be a matter of legislation at this point. It's ridiculous that users have less capacity to modify their work tools today than they ever had during the Industrial/Mechanical Age. And I believe the reason why this is because you can't make any money out of open-source. Because of that, companies discourage it, workers don't see the benefit in programming. The compounding effects of this are getting worse by the day.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#62

Post by closeparen »

throwaway729 wrote: post #30
milesrout wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And the legal framework required to protect privacy for GMail users is utterly draconian -- to the point that Google would probably just shutter the service. Could you elaborate on this? The idea of the law protecting peoples' privacy is not really new or untested. I don't think you need to be anywhere near what I would call draconian to be able to protect peoples' privacy legally.

Hm, thanks for making me think more about this. I still don't think GMail could've come into existence without the carrot of user data. Maybe now that it does exist Google has a vested interest in keeping people inside its platform, which would mean my statement is incorrect. Maybe I'll just weaken my statement to this: I think a GMail replacement would be far easier to achieve than a strong legal framework protectin…

GMail is GMail because of spam filtering and search. There can be no such thing as GMail that respects your privacy, because without the spam filtering and search efficacy that come from huge training datasets, you have just another Squirrelmail/Roundcube/Zimbra installation.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#63

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

greyman wrote: post #14

> Stallman's rhetoric is filled with this problematic logic on all layers: from trying to correct other people's terminology Yes, this is my main obstacle accepting RMS. In my opinion, he took the word "free", made a term "free software", and described it in accordance with his agenda, while what he advocated only partially conforms to the meaning of the word "free" or "freedom". There are certainly licenses offering…

You're thinking of the wrong sort of freedom. RMS was motivated by the need to freely control and alter the behavior of computing hardware not software. The restrictiveness of the GPL is designed to guarantee that happens. BSD and MIT code that goes into embedded devices falls into a black hole of proprietary code no matter how free it was to begin with.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#64

Post by carussell »

wanderingjew wrote: post #51
angry-hacker wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know it was taken without permission? Are you the artist?

Author of the Hackaday post. I would know if this were taken with permission. The artist (joe kim) can be found here: http://theartofjoekim.tumblr.com/ In case anyone's wondering, we (hackaday) probably would have allowed the author to use this art, provided we get a link back to the post or some credit to Joe. In the absence of that, we're just going to point and laugh at this guy for clearly demonstrating he doesn'…

Please add a byline to Hackaday header images, or a rider to the article along the lines of "'Vishnu Stallman' by Hackaday artist Joe Kim". The first thing I did when clicking through to the linked article is to do a reverse image search that dead ended at Hackaday and walked away disappointed, not knowing that it was original content.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#65

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

pksadiq wrote: post #37
greyman wrote: post #14

> Stallman's rhetoric is filled with this problematic logic on all layers: from trying to correct other people's terminology Yes, this is my main obstacle accepting RMS. In my opinion, he took the word "free", made a term "free software", and described it in accordance with his agenda, while what he advocated only partially conforms to the meaning of the word "free" or "freedom". There are certainly licenses offering…

>There are certainly licenses offering more freedom than GPL v3. It's up to you what 'freedom' really is. For me, I wish my smartband had more features than it does now. I wish my non-smart phone vibrate when the opponent attends the call. Lots of my wish (and many others) won't be fulfilled as long as there isn't an easy way to modify the underlying software/firmware. I call that 'freedom'. Most of these limitations…

You're arguing for features that would be genuinely challenging for companies to implement and support.

I'd love to have the freedom to modify the software in every gadget I own. But the $40 digital toaster oven with absolute crap firmware coded by idiots doesn't even have a USB port or any way to attach it to a computer; it's probably got its code permanently burned into ROM and isn't even software upgradable even with the right hardware.

If it were programmable, it probably would have cost 5x as much.

Say it's a device that already supports updates, like your smartband likely does. By locking down, say, a smartband, you've made it much easier for your support personnel to be able to answer questions -- and they won't have to say, "Sorry, you've modified the device, so I can't help you." And they won't have to field questions from hackers who are trying to follow the poor instructions that engineers pieced together on how to rebuild the firmware.

And that's if they even have the right to distribute the firmware to begin with. Just because your smartband manufacturer wants to do the right thing (in this theoretical universe) and make it hackable, doesn't mean that the chip manufacturers are happy with that. So they might need to switch to another, possibly more expensive chip.

And that means the goal of "hackable" needs to be a design goal from the start. Shortcuts they might have been able to make with a closed system are now off the table. You've added another constraint to the design, and every constraint takes time. And money.

Advocate that companies produce modifiable devices, sure. But don't pretend that it won't increase their cost at some level. It's not ethics; it's simply good business to lock down products that 99.9% of users won't try to hack.

And I'm a fan of hacking devices. I just can see the other side of the argument.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#66

Post by vivekd »

I don't agree with everything in this article but I think a part of it really put into words something I had been feeling for some time. I had always found it easy to agree with Stallman's view of free software. I think most reasonable people who didn't have a stake in proprietary software would agree with him. But, something about Stallman that made it hard for me to really take his movement seriously enough to want to take up his banner and follow him, and I think this article hit on why. He is right about the problem but there's a flaw in his approach to solving the problem.

While Stallman is right in asserting that software should be free, he moves into Zealotry in insisting that he only use free software and thereby excluding himself from much of the technology available today. I think ordinary people looking at something like this would be reluctant to follow him or take up his cause because the average person's reaction would be "I could never live like that, yes I agree with him, but I'm simply not willing to give up my facebook, or google chrome, or microsoft word."

I don't think Stallman would look like a hypocrite or have his point weakened if here were to advocate for legislative changes to make software free while still using proprietary software. If someone challenges him or calls him a hypocrite he could just respond that he is living within the unfortunate realities of the current day, which is dominated by proprietary software, while still fighting for a better tomorrow with free software. I don't think any reasonable person would take him less seriously just for using software that, in many cases, he has no other option but to use. I mean really, this guy doesn't even browse the internet because websites have proprietary software and instead uses some kind of software to get info off the web - that's extreme.

I don't think convincing the world to only use free software is a very realistic goal, because most people don't really understand the problem, let along care enough about the problem to make the huge sacrifices that a life without proprietary software would demand. Instead I think he would have a much stronger chance of succeeding if he worked to protest and raise awareness geared towards legislative change to prevent software companies from using the restrictive licensing agreements they use today.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#67

Post by jordigh »

greyman wrote: post #14

> Stallman's rhetoric is filled with this problematic logic on all layers: from trying to correct other people's terminology Yes, this is my main obstacle accepting RMS. In my opinion, he took the word "free", made a term "free software", and described it in accordance with his agenda, while what he advocated only partially conforms to the meaning of the word "free" or "freedom". There are certainly licenses offering…

What is it that you want to do that the GPL will not allow you? How is the GPL taking your freedom or society's freedom away?

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#68

Post by A_COMPUTER »

schoen wrote: post #55

(Here I'm focusing on part 2 and the conclusion of the article, not part 1.) This article suggests that RMS ought to make his own leftist beliefs an explicit part of the free software movement. As the author is aware, RMS has generally tried not to do this, recognizing that free software advocates can have a wide range of beliefs about other issues, even if a plurality of people in the movement are hold leftist views…

I think they're working out how they're going to justify what they're going to do with his movement after he's no longer in charge of it. In the last year about three different times I have seen people making the same argument, that free software needs to be understood as part of a broader left wing ideology. It's bullshit and I hope those people lose hard.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#69

Post by BuuQu9hu »

darpa_escapee wrote: post #60
wanderingjew wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't assume gratis usage of anything . The free software movement, creative commons, and anything surrounding copyleft is predicated on the fact that everything is copyrighted at its creation. Copyleft is a 'hack' of sorts of copyright, in that the author or owner of a piece of work gives everyone else explicit permission to use it. You can't have copyleft without copyright, and everything is copyright unless it…

Everything that is 'copyleft' is inherently copyright. The protections enshrined by copyright protect 'copyleft' works.

The GPL and copyleft are not magic pixie dust. Just as proprietary software is pirated very frequently, so too do companies and individuals ignore copyleft licenses. Like the BSA spends money to enforce proprietary licenses, so to do the FSF, SFC, gplviolations.org and others have to spend money to enforce copyleft.

There are also lots of violations of permissive licenses, but generally the authors of permissively licensed software do not bother to enforce their licenses.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#70

Post by BuuQu9hu »

krapp wrote: post #34
icebraining wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really disagree with this view that one has to have the skill to understand and edit the code to benefit the Four Freedoms. The fact that everyone who gets a copy has that Freedom is the important part. How many use Cyanogenmod without even knowing what a compiler is? How would that be possible without Freedom #4?

Users can't benefit from the fourth freedom, specifically the right to republish their own modifications to their own software, without having the skill to understand and edit that software to begin with.

You are ignoring the fact that users exist in society, around them there will be programmers who may be friends, colleagues or consultants. Some of those will be willing to modify the software gratis, for a favour or for money. Others will be willing to teach the non-programmers enough to be able to make the changes they need.
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