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

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

#131

Post by cookiecaper » Fri, Jul 30, 2010, 2:22 AM 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…

The real weird thing is that RMS is OK with microwaves but could not accept an implanted device that runs proprietary software unless he started developing a free replacement for it.

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

#132

Post by alnayyir » Fri, Jul 30, 2010, 2:29 AM UTC

patrickaljord wrote: post #130

mattmanser wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an extremely naive diatribe. There are few OSS projects that have done anything more than steal ideas from commercial software in terms of innovation. Programming languages are the only place I can think of that OSS is cutting edge. MS pushed the boundaries of software to the extreme. Go look at any of their competitors at the age of their dominance. Man, look at Netscape navigator in its bloated unusable for…

> Google is winning now, with its even more extremely closed source software known as google search Google search is not closed source as it is a hosted service. It would be if it was redistributed under closed source license. This is why RMS himself said he uses Google. > It's just pretending to support OSS. Without actually giving away the crown jewels. It has not given sources, but Google gave many papers about th…

>This is why RMS himself said he uses Google.

Where exactly did he say this? He's opposed cloud services from the beginning and designed GPLv3 to attack web apps.

Last I checked, the man scarcely browsed the web.

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

#133

Post by JulianMorrison » Fri, Jul 30, 2010, 2:35 AM UTC

On a modern Linux system, Gnu is the command line userland, one compiler (among many, and not the dominant one for work if you're a Java shop), and Emacs. And that's it. Not X, not really Gnome, not KDE at all, not the polish put on by Ubuntu etc, and not most of the OS underpinnings either nowadays (dbus, hal, udev, upstart, dpkg, network-manager...).

Tell me again, why he should get the Gnu/... in front of the kernel name?

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

#134

Post by RodgerTheGreat » Fri, Jul 30, 2010, 2:39 AM UTC

ynniv wrote: post #88

swilliams wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think names like that (and Digital Restrictions Management and all the others) just undermine the seriousness of their position. They sound like the playground taunts of children.

I'm not fond of the "iGroan", but Digital Restrictions Management is a great clarification of what the term means.

In the term "Digital Rights Management", the "Rights" refer to the rights of the copyright owner, not the rights of a consumer licensee.

It's a lot like "Trusted Computing"- a surface reading might suggest it means the computer is "trustworthy" or dependable to the user, while it actually refers to a "Trusted System" in a security engineering sense.

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

#135

Post by patrickaljord » Fri, Jul 30, 2010, 2:40 AM UTC

alnayyir wrote: post #132

patrickaljord wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google is winning now, with its even more extremely closed source software known as google search Google search is not closed source as it is a hosted service. It would be if it was redistributed under closed source license. This is why RMS himself said he uses Google. > It's just pretending to support OSS. Without actually giving away the crown jewels. It has not given sources, but Google gave many papers about th…

>This is why RMS himself said he uses Google. Where exactly did he say this? He's opposed cloud services from the beginning and designed GPLv3 to attack web apps. Last I checked, the man scarcely browsed the web.

RMS opposes software as a service, Google Search is no such thing http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-se...

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

#136

Post by jberryman » Fri, Jul 30, 2010, 2:42 AM 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…

> it's not enough to be a great hacker if you want your code and ideas to flourish.

I mean... are you saying that Stallman's code and ideas haven't flourished? Everyone who uses the internet in a day is participating in Stallman's vision.

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

#137

Post by tjmc » Fri, Jul 30, 2010, 2:47 AM UTC

patrickaljord wrote: post #65

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 yo…

He must know his philosophy on selling is fundamentally flawed though. The high-budget computer game question (which he side stepped) is a good one. Why would you spend millions of dollars on a software product if you could only count on selling the first copy?

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

#138

Post by tzs » Fri, Jul 30, 2010, 3:00 AM UTC

patrickaljord wrote: post #128

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…

> 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. RMS and the free and open source community have given way more billions of dollars and jobs that Gates ever has. Let me explain. Many governments have switched to Gnu/Linux and are saving billions of doll…

Dead people can't use free software. Nothing you've cited comes anywhere near matching or exceeding the good the Gates Foundation as done with its global health initiatives.

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

#139

Post by rick888 » Fri, Jul 30, 2010, 3:03 AM UTC

patrickaljord wrote: post #128

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…

> 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. RMS and the free and open source community have given way more billions of dollars and jobs that Gates ever has. Let me explain. Many governments have switched to Gnu/Linux and are saving billions of doll…

"Many governments have switched to Gnu/Linux and are saving billions of dollars each year for the last ten years such as Brazil"

It's funny how you can make the argument about money that "would have been spent". Many open source zealots (and Stallman himself) talk about how the software industry can't equate piracy to dollars people would have spent. Why should this be any different?

Software licenses are also a very small part of the entire cost. The biggest costs are support (this is how most open source companies make their money).

Even if governments had saved as much money as you want us to believe, I seriously doubt it would go into healthcare, education, and employment.

"Do you think Google could have been done without Gnu/Linux when they needed to install thousands of servers and didn't have yet the money to pay licenses?"

There are other variants of unix that have even less restrictive licenses. BSD comes to mind. Gnu/Linux was a means to an end.

"It's all free/open source software, a way bigger revolution than the PC which was a boring work machine before for most people."

Most users don't use a variant of linux on their desktop. Microsoft brought computers in every home and made computers "interesting".

"Well, think and try to calculate again. Gates' done way less."

Gates has proof that he has helped the poor with billions of dollars. Stallman has possibilities and no direct proof of anything.

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

#140

Post by jhuckestein » Fri, Jul 30, 2010, 3:06 AM UTC

This makes me a little sad, maybe I even pity RMS. He is the most vigorous defender of a great cause but has also sacrificed his life for that cause.

Some people say he softened up over the years, but sometimes it appears to me as if he were just growing wary. In another interview that was on HN a while back he said something along the lines of "It is not great, but this is the life I have chosen for me and I have to live it this way".

Am I the only one who feels that way? Maybe it's just because I'm listening to the Schindler's List theme ...