Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Richard Stallman Explains [video]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 207 posts

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#121

Post by Boothroid »

copperx wrote: post #29
Boothroid wrote: post #2

I was amazed to see that Stallman doesn't install his OS himself - hasn't for years. He seemed diminished in my eyes after I learnt this.

Diminished for not installing an OS? The man who could write an optimizing C compiler from scratch in a few days just so he could make it free?

Fair point - perhaps it was his comment that everyday users could just go along to a user group to get Linux installed, and needn't worry about doing it themselves. This seemed painfully out of touch to me, as if he were talking about finding someone to solder your Altair together or something.

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#122

Post by afarrell »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #108
teekert wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This discussion is one level higher, it is about the freedom of the creator to choose a license for his software. GPL is not better than BSD or the other way around, it is about the freedom to choose a license. The freedom to say to a buyer: "Ok, we have a deal under these conditions." The buyer has the freedom to reject the deal. This is the scenario with the most freedom imho. I'm afraid, but correct me if I'm wron…

There are limits on what is enforcable in a contract. Like, you cannot enslave yourself. It is true that that limits freedoms in some sense. But it serves to protect freedoms that society at large deems more important.

There is indeed a set of contracts with the property that banning them makes people more free. This set is non-empty.

But the argument still needs to be made that proprietary software licences are part of that set.

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#123

Post by mseebach »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #78
teekert wrote: post #54

Ever since I listened to this episode of the Linux Action Show [0] I can't take RMS serious anymore. He bases everything he believes on one assumption he doesn't dare to argue himself: "Proprietary software is evil." That is it. When you attack his values and stances, he falls back to that sentence. When you argue: But aren't you restricting freedom when you would keep a creator from sharing his software under his ow…

"When you argue: But aren't you restricting freedom when you would keep a creator from sharing his software under his own terms?" I hope you're aware that this is the oldest argument in the book. It literally goes back to Plato and arguments about how you can be free if you're not free to make other people slaves.

> It literally goes back to Plato and arguments about how you can be free if you're not free to make other people slaves.

He may have been the first (recorded) philosopher to make that point. But he's not exactly the last to think about this, and the enlightenment was largely about finding a good answer to it.

Basically (hyper-abridged version), the answer is self-ownership, and self-ownership precludes selling yourself into slavery, because once you've sold yourself, you don't own yourself and therefore cannot accept consideration for the sale, which then is invalid (a sale without consideration isn't a sale, it's a give (or take!) away). It does not preclude contracting a limited commitment (eg. to do work for renumeration), nor does it preclude accepting conditions in such a contract.

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#124

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

afarrell wrote: post #122
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are limits on what is enforcable in a contract. Like, you cannot enslave yourself. It is true that that limits freedoms in some sense. But it serves to protect freedoms that society at large deems more important.

There is indeed a set of contracts with the property that banning them makes people more free. This set is non-empty. But the argument still needs to be made that proprietary software licences are part of that set.

Sure, but (a) RMS actually does make that argument and (b) he AFAIK doesn't actually call for making proprietary software illegal, but just tries to convince people to not produce, endorse, or use it.

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#125

Post by loup-vaillant »

teekert wrote: post #112
rglullis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In RMS' world Photoshop wouldn't even come to existence.

The question is indeed: would Adobe have created Photoshop in RMS world. It's very short sighted to think everything else would be the same except for software licenses.

In a capitalistic society where proprietary software were forbidden, we may not have Photoshop. To me, that indicates a problem with capitalism itself.

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#126

Post by fwdpropaganda »

missbit wrote: post #98

He is obviously brilliant. The interviewer wants to steer him into being a crazy nut corner. Pepsi vs. Coke. I realize historically there was only low level software that existed. These days we've got much higher level services which really could benefit from free software. He hits on these ideas. Maybe he'd be open to working on these sorts of things. Services have gotten to the level where they are taking a piece o…

> The interviewer wants to steer him into being a crazy nut corner. Pepsi vs. Coke.

Absolutely wrong. The interviewer even said at one point "The things you're describing I believe should be of a concern to many more people than they are." You're totally off.

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#127

Post by afarrell »

reacweb wrote: post #83
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When you argue: But aren't you restricting freedom when you would keep a creator from sharing his software under his own terms?" I hope you're aware that this is the oldest argument in the book. It literally goes back to Plato and arguments about how you can be free if you're not free to make other people slaves.

The best metaphor I have ever seen to understand why proprietary software is evil.

But the metaphor does not actually succeed at doing the heavy lifting required to demonstrate that the licence for photoshop falls into the category of "contracts which are unjust and ought be prohibited".

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#128

Post by afarrell »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #124
afarrell wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is indeed a set of contracts with the property that banning them makes people more free. This set is non-empty. But the argument still needs to be made that proprietary software licences are part of that set.

Sure, but (a) RMS actually does make that argument and (b) he AFAIK doesn't actually call for making proprietary software illegal, but just tries to convince people to not produce, endorse, or use it.

Ah, then someone should reply to the top-level comment with a link to where RMS makes that argument.

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#129

Post by [deleted] »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #124
afarrell wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is indeed a set of contracts with the property that banning them makes people more free. This set is non-empty. But the argument still needs to be made that proprietary software licences are part of that set.

Sure, but (a) RMS actually does make that argument and (b) he AFAIK doesn't actually call for making proprietary software illegal, but just tries to convince people to not produce, endorse, or use it.

[deleted]

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#130

Post by sokoloff »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #125
teekert wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is indeed: would Adobe have created Photoshop in RMS world. It's very short sighted to think everything else would be the same except for software licenses.

In a capitalistic society where proprietary software were forbidden, we may not have Photoshop. To me, that indicates a problem with capitalism itself.

In a capitalist world where food could not be sold or traded for consideration, I believe we would obviously not have restaurants/supermarkets and it seems very likely either more people would need to be farmers and/or more people would starve.

Is that also a problem with capitalism, or a problem with "not capitalism"?

Post reply on HN