Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions. • Hacker News Board

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#51

Post by bad_user » Thu, Jul 29, 2010, 10:29 PM UTC

avar wrote: post #34

chc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source code is not equivalent to a schematic. Source code is equivalent to schematics, raw materials, free labor and the key to a factory. All you need to do is run it through a compiler and you've got an operational program.

Indeed, there aren't any manufacturing costs. So under a free software model you'd have to make money by continuing to make improved versions under contract, or offering support, hosting or other things like that. A lot of people are doing this sort of thing already, so you can make a living off it.

> there aren't any manufacturing costs

WTF are you talking about?

Are you saying that all these nights I'm not sleeping, working 14 hours per day, not spending time with my family ... don't have a cost?

Is this not manufacturing?

> under a free software model you'd have to make money by continuing to make improved versions under contract, or offering support, hosting or other things like that

Yeah, that's called consulting or selling complementary products that are proprietary.

It sucks.

I prefer to exercise my freedoms that I have in the quasi free market I'm operating in and decide for myself how I want to sell my work.

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#52

Post by okmjuhb » Thu, Jul 29, 2010, 10:34 PM UTC

I wonder how many Hacker Newsers really remember what it was like back before the GPL and the FSF. The availability of a high-quality open source unix system is pretty much the defining quality of modern computing, and it took us out of the dark ages of a half dozen mutually incompatible proprietary OSs, compilers, and commandline utility packages (sometimes broken - with fixes impossible).

Stallman's contribution is much greater than that of cheerleader or discussion framer - the ecosystem that exists in large part because of him is, I suspect, tremendously important in the day to day lives of many of the people reading this.

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#53

Post by kiba » Thu, Jul 29, 2010, 10:34 PM UTC

logic wrote: post #14

I expect most responses here will be pretty negative, and I honestly can't defend his position because our politics differ so greatly (and his stance spins directly out of those philosophical roots). Nor can I forgive his personal attitude and general arrogance over the years, although it has softened significantly of late. But I'll give the man a grudging amount of respect: he hasn't budged one inch on his position…

ESR is far more radical than RMS will ever be but few measure themselves by him, probably because ESR look like and act like a pragmatic man.

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#54

Post by tvon » Thu, Jul 29, 2010, 10:34 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #28

hugh3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is the other goalpost? Are they equally necessary?

Steve Jobs?

Apple is pretty active in OSS for someone you'd call the polar opposite of RMS.

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#55

Post by protomyth » Thu, Jul 29, 2010, 10:35 PM UTC

jballanc wrote: post #36

Ah RMS, same fundamentalist as always! One thing I would suggest, for those not familiar with RMS's history, is to take a moment to read the Wikipedia page on Lisp Machines. Specifically, this passage: Symbolics still had the major advantage that while 3 or 4 of the AI Lab hackers had gone to work for Greenblatt, a solid 14 other hackers had signed onto Symbolics. There were two AI Lab people who did not get hired by…

The counterpoint: http://danweinreb.org/blog/rebuttal-to-stallmans-story-about...

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#56

Post by sprout » Thu, Jul 29, 2010, 10:35 PM UTC

moxiemk1 wrote: post #37

logic wrote: post #14

I expect most responses here will be pretty negative, and I honestly can't defend his position because our politics differ so greatly (and his stance spins directly out of those philosophical roots). Nor can I forgive his personal attitude and general arrogance over the years, although it has softened significantly of late. But I'll give the man a grudging amount of respect: he hasn't budged one inch on his position…

I normally have the same sentiment about RMS, but one of his responses here really ticked me off in the 'clarity of purpose' department: The bit about the microwaves (#23) 'Installing software' is a fairly abstract concept, especially given how liberally RMS likes to see the GPL used beyond normal software. To that end, I think that if he were truly logically pure, the same logic would apply to the iPhone. But, he wo…

Your comparison of the microwave to the iPhone is just false. The point is that if the software is simple enough that it's pretty obviously bug-free, and you have no reasonable need to tinker with it, there's no reason you should need the source for the microcontroller. If the controller isn't working, the source is probably not going to help you. You just need a new microcontroller. On the flip side, there's no reasonable need to extend the microwave's software.

The iPhone, by contrast, has millions upon millions of reasons you might need/want to tinker with the software. Hence the demand for source. Seriously, RMS is not the one with a logic problem.

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#57

Post by tvon » Thu, Jul 29, 2010, 10:36 PM UTC

milesf wrote: post #6

I lost patience with RMS years ago. The problem with Free Software is a marketing problem. If you have to keep explaining things over and over again, saying "Free as in Freedom", or trying to get GNU/Linux to take hold instead of just Linux, you're doing it wrong. Richard is a tremendous hacker, but he's a lousy salesman. I'm not a big fan of salespeople in general, but guys like DHH have proved that it's not enough…

> Maybe GNU will finally see a rebranding.

I'd be happy if they just dropped the hard 'g' pronunciation.

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#58

Post by ohyes » Thu, Jul 29, 2010, 10:36 PM UTC

benofsky wrote: post #33

ohyes wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is actually the opposite of that. > You have a choice between deserving a reward and not getting a material reward, and getting one but not deserving it. I think that RMS sees our current society as intrinsically flawed with regard to how it is that we reward people for their good and hard work (and the behavior patterns associated with that work). It is not that he lives in a world where no one has to mak…

The fact of the matter though is that it is not financially viable in any way (or ever will be) for all software to be "free" in the sense of RMS "free". How could a company like Google, built fundamentally on trade secrets, ever be developed. No one would invest the kind of money that was required to build Google into what it is today if Microsoft could go to Github and download "google-search". It is pie in the sky…

It is not currently financially viable for all software to be free. However, A society in which it is viable for all software to be free is not terribly difficult to imagine. (There are numerous possible scenarios, state funded works, high literacy and citizen programmers, maybe some sort of programming by the job system.)

In this situation, monopolies like Google and Microsoft probably wouldn't exist at all. I think search is an excellent example, actually, of something that is required for the proper functioning of the web. It is practically a public good. If we found out Google were biasing its search results, it would be a very big deal (but how do you know it isn't?). If it were open source, we would know.

I guess the question then is 'who pays for the hardware to run open source Google,' and that is a good question, to which I do not know the answer, but seeing as anyone can download the software, it seems anyone could.

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#59

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Jul 29, 2010, 10:38 PM UTC

For CAD, I would suggest investigating BRL-CAD.

And a hybrid between a Unix box and a Lisp machine would be awesome. Too bad GNU didn't turn out that way.

edit: apparently, BRL-CAD has no teapotahedron primitive: http://brlcad.org/gallery/s/diagrams/primitives.png.html

Someone must add it.

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#60

Post by Aaronontheweb » Thu, Jul 29, 2010, 10:39 PM UTC

"I faced the same question at the beginning of the GNU Project. I decided that I would rather do something good with no monetary reward than profit by mistreating people."

Thank God Stallman helped all of those sick kids with Malaria in Africa with by giving them GIMP and GCC.

Way better than the billions of dollars and thousands of vaccinations Bill and Melinda Gates gave to them.

In all seriousness, if we're going to argue the ethics of charging for software,at the end of the day who has done more good? Bill Gates who made himself rich, gave thousands of people jobs, created products that made the lives of millions of other people easier (all snarking about Windows and Office aside, they ultimately made computing more accessible to everyone), and has created the world's most well-funded charity which actually goes out and does good, like giving vaccinations to sick kids around the planet.

When I compare the more calculus of capitalism and propreitary software against Stallman's dogmatism, it's obvious to me that capitalism is utlimately more moral and does more good.