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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.

#221

Post by _pi »

mseebach wrote: post #186
_pi wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Surely you're joking? Outlook is a crappy email client. Mutt which is older than I am, handles mail better than Outlook does, I hate using Outlook. It means archiving my mail every month (several accounts over sever…

> Surely you're joking? Outlook is a crappy email client. Surely you're joking. First, Outlook isn't for anyone who'd be comfortable operating mutt. Period. Second, sure, Outlook has stupid design-decisions. But nobody claimed that Outlook is perfect, it was argued that Outlook was better than Lotus Notes which is was competing against when it was launched. And it was (and is), leaps and bounds. Third, Outlook isn't…

>Third, Outlook isn't just a mail client, it's an integrated communications suite. It has taken OSS years and years to catch up with this. You may not agree that it's a critical feature, but for millions of business users, it's a deal-breaker.

KDE has had very good PIM software for a while now even before KDE4. Kontact has always been a suite for that kind of stuff, and it's possible to do most things in Outlook in Kontact. Also if you're talking about Exchange and groupware servers there are a few for Linux like Zimbra. However I haven't even seen Fortune 500 companies make most of the use of Exchange features.

Also your measure for success is very shallow. Essentially you don't see OSS as competition, which belies your actual position and tells me that there's no point in arguing this with you considering your mind is made up about OSS. As far as I'm concerned all vendor software loses out because it's missing basic features from a IT management standpoint. Also from my experiences millions of business users are too stupid to use Outlook in any shape or form because they lack basic computer proficiency skills.

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

#222

Post by elblanco »

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 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."

Bang! Nailed it. This I think is the source of all problems in the friction between open source philosophies and the general populace. At his heart, RMS is an economic theorist, not a social or technological one. This is because software takes time to make, and time = money. Yet he continuously fails to understand this because he's never personally had to feed himself with the fruit of his daily labors. In RMS's mind, making money from your effort = mistreating people.

The analogies between RMS and various communist thinkers all derive from the simple fact that none of them ever had to feed themselves in that way and simply don't understand how basic economics work and all come up with various economic ideals that simply aren't modeled on how the world works.

By his model, all people have to do is write software, give away all their labor for free to be "ethical" and then feed themselves off of reward payouts and speaking engagement fees (or some other mysterious source of money RMS has left unspecified because he simply doesn't know how people actually make money in the real world). This is clearly a model that doesn't scale beyond maybe a few dozen people on the planet. The rest of us need to eat, arguing that we are bad people because we demand our supper after a day of work is what makes RMS's arguments ultimately unethical. He would rather people starve to death than charge for software -- this is ultimately what his equation balances out to.

If I ignore this type of prattling nonsense, I have to say that RMS has been on the balance a force for good in the world. But he's fantastically out of touch and seems perfectly oblivious to it.

Now, if he changed his message and said "it's a good and useful thing, it's 'nice' for people to release free software, and we all can benefit from sharing and pooling our labor together" I don't think anybody would have a problem with him. But like many here have said, RMS represents the extremist goal posts of the idea, and on the balance, that is a good thing, just so long as everybody is aware that a world at the end of the field is not one conducive to people eating.

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

#223

Post by elblanco »

ynniv wrote: post #86
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…

it's obvious to me that capitalism is utlimately more moral and does more good. That is a heavy statement, and highly contextual. I expect it to be popular in this forum where people view technology as a way to make life better, but keep in mind that strong control over technology can do amazing evil more easily than it can meager good. Gates' philanthropy may appeal to you, but only because as individuals we cannot…

"The efficiency gains are enormous, much larger than if every computer needed a buggy, licensed copy of Windows that automatically updated in the middle of your slideshow (happened in the office yesterday)."

yawn, welcome to 1995 again.

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

#224

Post by wjy »

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…

This exact same argument could be used on the theoretical pacemaker in another question. But he believes the pacemaker should free software. His response there could have been tongue-in-cheek, but I can't quite tell.

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

#225

Post by sid0 »

_pi wrote: post #219
sid0 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Linux in the kernel level has removed the need for file polling, replacing it with iwatch As long as we're comparing who did what first (as if that's relevant today ), ReadDirectoryChangesW came in Windows 2000. inotify came in 2005. > MS to this day hasn't standardized it's own security structure (EX: runas.exe in XP will have the processes pass on administrator rights to all child processes 7 doesn't neither does…

>As long as we're comparing who did what first (as if that's relevant today), ReadDirectoryChangesW came in Windows 2000. inotify came in 2005. Inotify was a replacement for dnotify. Which was there since 2.4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnotify Also comparing the two subsystems is entirely wrong. ReadDirectoryChangesW is still a polling mechanism, inotify and dnotify are kernel level events. >Amusingly, this just d…

dnotify wasn't sensibly designed. inotify/ReadDirectoryChangesW are.

> Also comparing the two subsystems is entirely wrong. ReadDirectoryChangesW is still a polling mechanism, inotify and dnotify are kernel level events.

ReadDirectoryChangesW sleeps while there aren't any changes and only returns once there are some changes. Efficiency-wise there isn't any real difference between kernel-level events and sleeping on a different thread, and I don't see one as clearly better than the other. After all, waking a thread up is also a kernel-level event!

> Not only that but you still need a password for single user mode, and it would take a bit longer for him if he had a boot disk.

Who cares? The difference in the level of security you get is a small epsilon. You either don't care about physical attacks, in which case you don't care whether it takes 5 seconds or 5 minutes to break, or you do care about physical attacks, in which case you encrypt your data.

Of course, your entire point is irrelevant -- calling Windows 9x "on the top of it's [sic] game" in terms of security is lying. Windows 9x was insecure in much more serious ways than a stupid login prompt. Windows NT-based systems, especially Vista onwards, are much more effectively designed.

> This isn't about Microsoft Research, this is about Microsoft products. This is a completely irrelevant point.

You used the words "success" and "innovation". The fact that MSR exists and is as good as it is, is an important part of Microsoft's success as a whole, and there's no lack of innovation on display there (witness Street Slide for a recent example). To consider "success" and "innovation" only in terms of released products is myopic.

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

#226

Post by winthrowe »

wjy wrote: post #224
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…

This exact same argument could be used on the theoretical pacemaker in another question. But he believes the pacemaker should free software. His response there could have been tongue-in-cheek, but I can't quite tell.

Isn't he using these two situations to show how he can advocate a reasonable common ground for free software advocates, but he personally holds himself to a higher standard as he tries to be the beacon for Free Software, and secondarily, that to replace non-free software, sometimes you have to closely blackbox it:

"The only way I could justify this is if I began developing a free replacement for that very program. It is ok to use a nonfree program for the purpose of developing its free replacement." - RMS answering 22.

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

#227

Post by winthrowe »

jff wrote: post #203
winthrowe wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As there are starting to be more and more Linux systems that aren't GNU anymore (think of all the Android tablets, to start), I can see the GNU/Linux distinction becoming more important. Because, when you get down to it, I acutally do want a GNU system. I might very well install Debian GNU/kFreeBSD one of these days, but I want the GNU.

I'm exactly the opposite--I'm looking forward to the day when I can run a GNU-free Linux with no stupid compatibility issues. It'll be hard, given how badly 20 years of GNU has broken Linux, but maybe someday it'll happen, and we'll have a decent C compiler and a non-bloated /bin.

That underscores my point that it is increasingly important to differentiate, regardless of what your preference is.

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

#228

Post by kiba »

rick888 wrote: post #217
kiba wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why does the GPL make it so difficult to make any kind of money. Many of the supporters are also against any and all forms of commercial software. How many Free software supporters did you count said they're explicitly against profiting from software? Beside, if GPL make it difficult to earn money, than it's a pure side effect.

"How many Free software supporters did you count said they're explicitly against profiting from software?" Do I really need to keep count? Look at any discussion involving the GPL. "Beside, if GPL make it difficult to earn money, than it's a pure side effect." A side effect? I just don't believe it. Stallman and many people from the community are very focal about being anti-corporation and anti-profit. If you can't s…

Do I really need to keep count? Look at any discussion involving the GPL.

I have not detect any anti-business bias in the discussion where I was involved. I didn't hear free supporters hating the profit motives in the time I been around.

A side effect? I just don't believe it. Stallman and many people from the community are very focal about being anti-corporation and anti-profit. If you can't see this, then I don't know what to tell you.

The FSF sold software packages in the past. Stallman keep saying that he isn't opposed to software developers not being able to make a living.

Ever consider that your views of the world might be colored about what you think you see in Stallman and the others?

Now, it seem that you and I hold the same views about business and the profit motives. The only difference is that I don't see free software as antagonist to the profit motives and the ability to make a living, partly because I actually try to make money off free software and free content.

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

#229

Post by wvenable »

jscn wrote: post #112
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…

When I heard RMS speak a few years ago, he made the distinction between devices like microwaves, and general purpose computing devices. The latter you want to be running Free Software. But for the former it's not really an issue. Unfortunately, the line between the two is blurry at best. For example, I'm not sure how well this jives with the case of the printer software which provided the catalyst for RMS starting th…

Think of it this way, the printer itself probably has some firmware in it. That firmware source code isn't as important as the printer driver, which is what allows you to use the printer from a general purpose computing device. Without the driver, the printer is useless.
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