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Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

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

#61

Post by protomyth »

okmjuhb wrote: post #52

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…

Giving the GPL sole credit is a little bit of a stretch, BSD / MIT / Apache licensed projects have made major contributions to the current ecosystem.

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

#62

Post by rbanffy »

hugh3 wrote: post #50
alextgordon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organisations like the Business Software Alliance ( http://www.bsa.org/ ) are the closest I can think of to a pro-proprietary advocacy group.

Do they openly advocate for the end of free software?

I don't think so, but I am quite sure most members would be quite happy with it.

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

#63

Post by kiba »

whyenot wrote: post #35
benofsky wrote: post #5

In response to software which requires a lot of development time to create, specifically tax software or games, RMS says: > The reason I don't use nonfree software is that it would take away my freedom. I don't want to let that happen. So I don't consider installing nonfree program, even as an possible option. I treat them as poison. I hope that you will too. This man lives in an imaginary world where no one has to m…

You selected a single sentence out of a multi-paragraph response. Why not look at the whole thing, which is a lot more nuanced (for Stallman) and kind of interesting? Tax software can and should be released by the state under a free license. But when the state fails to do its duty, the community do the job. In Brazil, FSF Latin America releases free software for filing tax returns, and this year managed to release th…

Economics merely treat people's interests as a given. It's not valuing anything, but rather it's value free.

If you want to maximize the freedom values, than you would trade X values for that freedom values, often controls over other people.

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

#64

Post by tjr »

whyenot wrote: post #38
gaius wrote: post #7

I decided that I would rather do something good with no monetary reward than profit by mistreating people A $1M grant from the MacArthur foundation and another $1M from the Takeda foundation tends to skew one's view of economics somewhat.

He had no permanent residence, no salary, and lived out of his office at MIT for years before he got either of those awards.

No salary, but he used to do software consulting, working just enough to get the money he needed. (I vaguely recall he worked about two months out of the year as a paid consultant?)

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

#65

Post by patrickaljord »

benofsky wrote: post #5

In response to software which requires a lot of development time to create, specifically tax software or games, RMS says: > The reason I don't use nonfree software is that it would take away my freedom. I don't want to let that happen. So I don't consider installing nonfree program, even as an possible option. I treat them as poison. I hope that you will too. This man lives in an imaginary world where no one has to m…

> This man lives in an imaginary world where no one has to make any money (or if they do, they are evil)

Did you even read the article? He says it's ok to make money with free software and should be advertised:

"When you meet people who think free software is supposed to be gratis, tell them "It's free as in freedom; it doesn't have to be gratis." Then refer them to http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html, and you should be able to educate them with very little effort on your part. When you get practiced in doing this and you see how easy it is, you won't feel annoyed when the need arised."

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

#67

Post by rbanffy »

hugh3 wrote: post #22
milesf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman is like a goalpost. He's as far over to one side as you can be. We need people like him since we all tend to measure our views and beliefs in reference to others. I just wouldn't want to hang out with the guy. I say "Linux" and buy proprietary software. I'm sure he wouldn't want to hang with me either, but I do respect him.

Who is the other goalpost? Are they equally necessary?

Casual users.

There are lots of market forces pulling towards proprietary. Most people don't care about software freedom - they want shiny toys right now. Jobs, Gates, Ballmer and Ellison cater to them. They build and sell tools to help you lock yourself to their software. And they even use free software for that.

edit: dear downmodder: try harder. I am sure you can articulate a useful argument instead of just downvoting a comment you disagree with. This should be a place for debating ideas.

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

#69

Post by kiba »

Aaronontheweb wrote: post #60

"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…

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.

Free software have nothing to do much with capitalism. Stallman probably agree with the idea of competition improving life. What he disagree with is what he called combat.(Or what I least remember from reading one of his essay) Rather than improve over your competitors and sell great stuff to customers, you seek to annihilate your competitors by unethical means and gain control over your customers.

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

#70

Post by mkr-hn »

Locke1689 wrote: post #12
benofsky wrote: post #5

In response to software which requires a lot of development time to create, specifically tax software or games, RMS says: > The reason I don't use nonfree software is that it would take away my freedom. I don't want to let that happen. So I don't consider installing nonfree program, even as an possible option. I treat them as poison. I hope that you will too. This man lives in an imaginary world where no one has to m…

Frankly, I believe that this tone and rhetoric devalues some of the great things he has done. I completely disagree. He has certain values and political goals which he believes very strongly in -- and espouses them aggressively. This is true for all of us. I personally disagree with him (I am willing to give up some of my freedom for money), but I would never say that that diminishes his accomplishments and contribut…

You don't necessarily give up freedom to use proprietary software. If free (as in speech) software offers no suitable solution for what you need to do, and you lack the skills or time to improve the existing alternatives, I don't think you can be free if you choose to use the next-best option.

Proprietary vendors can do things to prevent a suitable alternative from existing, but that's a separate consideration from whether or not you're freer for choosing one way or the other.

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