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Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement

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Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement

#11

Post by rekado »

nerdponx wrote: post #9
drallison wrote: post #5

The Free Software Foundation and the GNU project have had an enormous impact on people's lives. We all owe a significant debt of gratitude to the many people who have worked on FSF/Gnu products. Even more significant is the ethos involved. Where would we be today were it not for the free software community.

Indeed. GNU is way more than Linux. GNU Parallel, the ubiquitous GNU Make (did you know ":=" is a GMU extension?), GNU versions of Grep and Sed that have some really nice quality of life options, and the GPL which for better or worse has "infected" a lot of really important software. That said, it's a shame that GNOME, Gtk, and Glibc are evidently not the best (I use none of them but I have read many complaints). Lot…

What's not to like about the GNU C library? It's used on the vast majority of GNU+Linux distributions.

> Lots of other old, weird, and/or semi-abandoned projects too like Taler, ...

GNU Taler is none of these things.

> And where does this "everything but the kitchen sink" mentality come from with respect to options and configuration in GNU programs?

Did you know that GNU Emacs had an overflowing kitchen sink as its logo for a while? (I still prefer that logo over the current logo, actually.)

Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement

#12

Post by AceJohnny2 »

jimmies wrote: post #8
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> insane dedication who is not motivated by money You can say that again. I believe he's pretty far on Asperger's? I view RMS as one pole of the philosophical spectrum of free software (the other being entirely proprietary). An uncompromising absolutist, his views can't survive contact with the real world intact, but they can influence the landscape as he exerts pressure on it. And he has proven visionary and right t…

> An uncompromising absolutist, his views can't survive contact with the real world intact, but they can influence the landscape as he exerts pressure on it. Well, somehow his views survived. GNU happened and is alive today. Billions of people are using it or a variant of it. In fact, GNU/Linux is arguably the most successful OS in the planet. The GNU has projects that power almost every computer and every mobile pho…

> What more you want?

Broader adoption of the GPLv3 and AGPLv3, for one thing.

Getting Apple to get over their aversion of the GPL, for another. Ever wondered why macOS shipped with antiquated version of Bash, Emacs, Make...?

Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement

#13

Post by walki »

nerdponx wrote: post #9
drallison wrote: post #5

The Free Software Foundation and the GNU project have had an enormous impact on people's lives. We all owe a significant debt of gratitude to the many people who have worked on FSF/Gnu products. Even more significant is the ethos involved. Where would we be today were it not for the free software community.

Indeed. GNU is way more than Linux. GNU Parallel, the ubiquitous GNU Make (did you know ":=" is a GMU extension?), GNU versions of Grep and Sed that have some really nice quality of life options, and the GPL which for better or worse has "infected" a lot of really important software. That said, it's a shame that GNOME, Gtk, and Glibc are evidently not the best (I use none of them but I have read many complaints). Lot…

> ... Glibc are evidently not the best

The GNU GCC compiler and the glibc are actually the 2 GNU projects I like most. If you are interested in high performance you won't find any better, most Linux servers (which means 99% of cloud servers) are based on these 2 projects! There are other C library implementations that may be suited better for embedded or low power devices but for servers and Desktop CPUs glibc is very good/fast.

Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement

#14

Post by overcast »

What I always found bizarre about Stallman is the lengths he goes to make himself anonymous(no online purchases, fetching websites remotely and then emailing output). Yet at the same time, he's so prolific publicly in everything he preaches about.

https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement

#15

Post by vfclists »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #7
adtac wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There wouldn't be a place for free and open software without him. I'm absolutely convinced of this -- he is a combination of good will, great programming talent, insane dedication who is not motivated by money. It's just a shame he'll never be as well known to the general public as someone like Steve Jobs.

> insane dedication who is not motivated by money You can say that again. I believe he's pretty far on Asperger's? I view RMS as one pole of the philosophical spectrum of free software (the other being entirely proprietary). An uncompromising absolutist, his views can't survive contact with the real world intact, but they can influence the landscape as he exerts pressure on it. And he has proven visionary and right t…

I don't get why people pretend not to understand Stallman's view point.

If you buy a physical device which isn't controlled by some software black box, you can fix or improve it so long as you have the materials, skills and tools to do so, or you can afford for others to do that for you.

Libre software operates on the same principle. If you have the skills to understand the code, you can extend it or fix it.

What is so difficult to comprehend about this? Libre software is not about money, but the ability to learn, fix and improve the software. You can sell a 100 line free software package for a $1bn if you want to, so long as you provide the code.

Why so much propaganda has developed around this principle only shows how the free software discussions are overrun with shills.

The fact that tons of free software can be downloaded for the cost of a monthy internet subscription doesn't change financial principle.

Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement

#16

Post by agumonkey »

rekado wrote: post #11
nerdponx wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. GNU is way more than Linux. GNU Parallel, the ubiquitous GNU Make (did you know ":=" is a GMU extension?), GNU versions of Grep and Sed that have some really nice quality of life options, and the GPL which for better or worse has "infected" a lot of really important software. That said, it's a shame that GNOME, Gtk, and Glibc are evidently not the best (I use none of them but I have read many complaints). Lot…

What's not to like about the GNU C library? It's used on the vast majority of GNU+Linux distributions. > Lots of other old, weird, and/or semi-abandoned projects too like Taler, ... GNU Taler is none of these things. > And where does this "everything but the kitchen sink" mentality come from with respect to options and configuration in GNU programs? Did you know that GNU Emacs had an overflowing kitchen sink as its l…

> GNU Emacs had an overflowing kitchen sink as its logo

oh wow, http://ergoemacs.org/misc/emacs_overflowing_kitchen_sink_ico...

pretty nice, and with dataflow !

Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement

#17

Post by vfclists »

The GNU vision of the desktop needs to be rebooted and more dedication and skill applied to it.

I got into a discussion on it on the emacs reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/701v90/guile_needs_a... but it seems a fair number of people have forgotten about or don't quite get it.

Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement

#18

Post by rekado »

marksomnian wrote: post #3

RMS may be seen by many as a zealot or maybe even an extremist, and I personally disagree with some of his views, but it's clear that without him the open-source world would be in a completely different place. Hat tip.

It's a bit ironic to recognize him for his impact on the "open source world". "Open source" is a term that was introduced as a means to divorce the social implications of free software from the boring bits.

Here's a good article about the history: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-meme-hustler

Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement

#19

Post by agumonkey »

marksomnian wrote: post #3

RMS may be seen by many as a zealot or maybe even an extremist, and I personally disagree with some of his views, but it's clear that without him the open-source world would be in a completely different place. Hat tip.

We still don't have fixable printers though. Come on Rich, finish the job ;)

Re: Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement

#20

Post by AceJohnny2 »

vfclists wrote: post #15
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> insane dedication who is not motivated by money You can say that again. I believe he's pretty far on Asperger's? I view RMS as one pole of the philosophical spectrum of free software (the other being entirely proprietary). An uncompromising absolutist, his views can't survive contact with the real world intact, but they can influence the landscape as he exerts pressure on it. And he has proven visionary and right t…

I don't get why people pretend not to understand Stallman's view point. If you buy a physical device which isn't controlled by some software black box, you can fix or improve it so long as you have the materials, skills and tools to do so, or you can afford for others to do that for you. Libre software operates on the same principle. If you have the skills to understand the code, you can extend it or fix it. What is…

Any licensee who adheres to the terms and conditions is given permission to modify the work, as well as to copy _and redistribute_ the work or any derivative version

That redistribute there is what undermines any business model that depends on selling licenses for GPL software. If you sell your 100-line code for $1bn, there is huge incentive for the customer to sell it themselves at a lower cost, undercutting you.

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