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

Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

blog.reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 263 posts

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

#91

Post by rbanffy »

wtallis wrote: post #84
rbanffy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 downvo…

I'm not the one who downvoted you, but I do think that casual users aren't quite the opposing goal post to RMS. They are greedy, but more than that, they are short-term thinkers. They can't (even collectively) cause quite as much harm as the guys like Jobs, Gates, Ballmer, and Ellison can when they manipulate the market. Big corporations led by big egos have the power to kill products and permanently remove innovatio…

Indeed. I have no doubt people like Jobs, Gates, Ballmer and Ellison (among many others) oppose the freedom ideals Stallman stands for. Still, I think they rely (willingly or not) on the casual user and its disregard/unawareness of the freedoms they thrown away to reach their goals. Without uninformed users, they are harmless. Tools will be developed and willing users will free themselves from their power.

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

#92

Post by rimantas »

wtallis wrote: post #84
rbanffy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 downvo…

I'm not the one who downvoted you, but I do think that casual users aren't quite the opposing goal post to RMS. They are greedy, but more than that, they are short-term thinkers. They can't (even collectively) cause quite as much harm as the guys like Jobs, Gates, Ballmer, and Ellison can when they manipulate the market. Big corporations led by big egos have the power to kill products and permanently remove innovatio…

  Big corporations led by big egos have the power to kill
  products and permanently remove innovations from the market
They also have money to sponsor development: Sun (R.I.P.) and JRuby, Apple and LLVM/Webkit/CUPS, Google and Android, and many more.

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

#93

Post by smallblacksun »

sprout wrote: post #56
moxiemk1 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reas…

Who gets to decide if there is "no reasonable need"? Apple clearly believes (just like the microwave manufacturer) that there is "no reasonable need" to extend the iphones software.

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

#94

Post by rimantas »

rbanffy wrote: post #67
hugh3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 downvo…

I downmoded you. Mainly because I see no freedom in Stallman's vision and phrases like "shiny toys" and "lock yourself" rub me the wrong way. I want my freedom to use whatever I choose: open source, proprietary, free, paid, whatever, without some RMS telling me what to do. And I see more freedom in MIT/BSD than in GPL.

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

#95

Post by rimantas »

avar wrote: post #30
hugh3 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman believes that you should vote with your feet and avoid using non-free software, and that if we all did this for everything there would be no space for non-free software in the market. And this falls under the mantle of "consumer protection" how? Maybe a world with no non-free software would be better for me personally, or maybe it wouldn't (I think it probably wouldn't), but trying to create a world in which…

I said "grassroots" consumer protection. He's suggesting that people that use software band together and collectively reject software under proprietary licenses. Because doing so creates a bigger market for free programs, and reduces the market for proprietary ones. There are similar movements that advocate boycotting e.g. out of season fruit, or goods manufactured by oppressive countries.

  Because doing so creates a bigger market for free programs,
  and reduces the market for proprietary ones.
And this protects consumers how exactly?

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

#96

Post by mmphosis »

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…

I think that Gate's work of software and philanthropy has been both beneficial and detrimental. Call me a sick kid, but I would deeply question some of the so-called "philanthropy" of the Gates Foundation. http://www.lavidalocavore.org/diary/3059/gates-foundation-mo...

Stallman has given us GCC which is free in the many senses of the word free. The Microsoft C compiler has been good too, but it comes with strings attached, just like vaccinations and bio-tech.

"Alone, I have seen many marvellous things, none of which are true."

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

#98

Post by astrange »

jarin wrote: post #85
bosch wrote: post #49

I don't care what this guy has to say anymore. After he pulled his sock off, picked his foot and ate whatever the fuck it was he picked off, all in front of what appears to be a lecture class sized audience - I lost all respect for the guy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ No wonder computer people have a brutal rep for social interaction. WTF.

I'm surprised that wasn't one of the top 25 questions.

It was #11.

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

#100

Post by culled »

smallblacksun wrote: post #93
sprout wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reas…

Who gets to decide if there is "no reasonable need"? Apple clearly believes (just like the microwave manufacturer) that there is "no reasonable need" to extend the iphones software.

Clearly the success of the app store shows that there's a desire to extend the functionality of the phone. Apple just doesn't believe that there's a reasonable need to do it beyond a certain point or to do it without their permission.

However, no one is clamoring to write apps for a microwave. A microwave really just has one function and as long as it does that one thing then it doesn't really matter how the software works.

Post reply on HN