It's important to ask whether society benefits from proprietary source code whether it be controversial claims to patents on genetic data or software. Proprietary ownership of code harms society by limiting farmers, scientists, end users from having their rightful freedom and flexibility. The short term benefit to individuals gained by selling licenses does not excuse the resulting restriction of freedom, because it is viable to make money on free software. Stallman is an idealist who bases his demands on what an ideal world should be like. The case for software freedom (including the case for its economic viability) has been made repeatedly, most notably by Stallman. But the anti-freedom argument has never been convincingly spelled out, to my knowledge.
Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
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Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay, then it's a matter of word choice. He actually was talking about 'proprietary' software. "But Gates didn't invent proprietary software, and thousands of other companies do the same thing. It's wrong, no matter who does it." That is an outrageous statement.
Why? Could you elaborate? Just like Stallman actually explains, why he thinks proprietary software wrong.
The problem with Stallman's statements here is that he makes arguments that are essentially non-sequiturs. He argues that code ought to be open because it is the best situation for all parties involved, which seems more-or-less on the money (although there are edge cases where it may not be true, as ESR pointed out).
But this leads him to a militant, legally questionable and altogether obnoxious philosophy that all code therefore must be free, because otherwise it will all collapse into some sort of dystopian future and a black hole where all information is censured and controlled.
But this wasn't the case when Stallman started his activist efforts, and it's not the case now. There is lots of free software and lots of for-pay software and some intersection of the two, and the world seems fairly happy with this situation. And there's really no evidence that the GNU approach has been solely or even significantly responsible for this state of affairs! It really seems like the market has understood the value of open source outside of Stallman's framework for it for quite some time.
From a free-market perspective, the two kinds of software fill different market requirements. Often times closed-source software pioneers an approach, makes an initial profit, and proves a demand which open source efforts then methodically fill. This makes a lot of sense, when you think about it.
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#13I don't agree with Stallman. Like probably most HN readers, I use a lot of Free/Open Source software - Linux, MySQL, Rails... and it's incredibly valuable. However I don't expect all software to be free, and to a large extent many major bits of open source software are 'market distortions' created by the big commercial IT companies. Eg OpenOffice is largely StarOffice, bought by Sun and open sourced, mainly in order to (IMHO) piss off Microsoft.
Writing good software takes time and skill (as we all know) and I don't think it's unreasonable that the people who do it should be able to charge end users for their efforts. Expecting all software to be written by public employees or in people's spare time is unrealistic.
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#14Whether you hate Bill Gates for his business dealings with Microsoft or not is a matter of opinion.
One thing we can thankfully all agree on, is Bill is sorely lacking in his ability to successfully dodge food...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gallery/2008/jan/31/bil...
... at least Steve Ballmer does a pretty good job at it.
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Commercial software largely means proprietary, especially in the area of web applications. It can have APIs and interact with other programs much the way Windows does, but it is proprietary nonetheless.
... which I consider a major loophole in GPL. If google is using a single line of GPL'ed software in their "Big Table" implementation, I demand to see the source, even though it's not "distributed" to my computer. Matt, free software is the major reason why PG, YCombinator, YouTube and Google are possible: this is why starting a software company is so cheap these days. Without it you'd be paying "enterprise-grade" fe…
You're assuming it's an either/or proposition. I never said that. I love free software, we use it for many things at Draftmix, and I own a ton of websites myself, none of which are hosted on Windows. I think it's had a hugely positive impact on the world, and I hope that some day my startup can contribute back.
But that doesn't mean proprietary software is evil. There's a place for both, and Stallman doesn't see that. He can't because his religion blinds him to it.
Free software is often better for a given task, and would still be preferable if it were equal. But I like Photoshop a hell of a lot better than GIMP and Windows or OSX (for my laptop anyway, not so much for servers) much better than Linux. Free software still clearly lags behind proprietary in some cases, and always will.
There's plenty of room for both. And it's quite a large error on your part to assume I take it for granted.
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's his religion, and no matter how mathematically intelligent he may be, he's as blind to rational thought in that area as the most zealous Imam. There are different types of intelligences, and it seems pretty obvious that he is incredibly strong in some and weaker than the average Wal-Mart shopper in a few.
He seems to dislike Gates more than you dislike him, yet he managed to avoid personal insults against Bill's intelligence, despite his own limited (according to you) mental capacity.
I don't dislike him at all. I consider him the computer science version of a communist. Well meaning, but misguided and suffering from a severe case of tunnel vision.
Saying he has limited mental capacity has a little different connotation than what I meant. Perhaps I didn't express it well. He would appear to be genius-level intelligent in certain regards (math/logic type) and the opposite in others (social, if his Craigslist personals and appearance are any indication). The free software thing is sort of a mixture of the two.
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#17I stopped reading the second I reached this:
Gates' philanthropy for health care for poor countries has won some people's good opinion. The LA Times reported that his foundation spends five to 10% of its money annually and invests the rest, sometimes in companies it suggests cause environmental degradation and illness in the same poor countries.
I've just lost all my respect for Richard Stallman. He's a total ass if he thinks he can make FSF look good by bashing the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation by spreading what qualifies - by Stallman's own definition - as FUD.
Update: http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/richard-stallman-expert-in-the...
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#18I stopped reading the second I reached this: Gates' philanthropy for health care for poor countries has won some people's good opinion. The LA Times reported that his foundation spends five to 10% of its money annually and invests the rest, sometimes in companies it suggests cause environmental degradation and illness in the same poor countries. I've just lost all my respect for Richard Stallman. He's a total ass if…
Lol. You definitely won't win many points by bashing the guy who is doing more to cure the worst disease in the impoverished world (malaria) than all of the governments of the planet combined. At least, not by bashing him for doing that.
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#19It's important to ask whether society benefits from proprietary source code whether it be controversial claims to patents on genetic data or software. Proprietary ownership of code harms society by limiting farmers, scientists, end users from having their rightful freedom and flexibility. The short term benefit to individuals gained by selling licenses does not excuse the resulting restriction of freedom, because it…
The "anti-freedom argument" (which should actually be called the pro-proprietary argument, because nobody sane is against free software) is fairly simple: there can be both and both can coexist peacefully. We can (and do) have Linux and Windows, and use them for different things. The market and individuals decide which is better for what task.
Some people say Ubuntu is finally a usable desktop OS for average Joe. Even if that's true, it took how many decades for free operating systems to reach that mark? They're at least 20 years behind in crossing the line (though perhaps now gaining ground rapidly).
The financial incentive enabled by proprietary software gives us things like Photoshop (sorry, GIMP still sucks) and Illustrator, Flash, Windows or OSX.
Certainly nobody would suggest that the open source community be legally prevented from making a Photoshop or Outlook or IE competitor. So why can't we have both and let the market decide? Why must proprietary be evil?
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#20It's important to ask whether society benefits from proprietary source code whether it be controversial claims to patents on genetic data or software. Proprietary ownership of code harms society by limiting farmers, scientists, end users from having their rightful freedom and flexibility. The short term benefit to individuals gained by selling licenses does not excuse the resulting restriction of freedom, because it…
The "anti-freedom argument" (which should actually be called the pro-proprietary argument, because nobody sane is against free software) is fairly simple: there can be both and both can coexist peacefully. We can (and do) have Linux and Windows, and use them for different things. The market and individuals decide which is better for what task. Some people say Ubuntu is finally a usable desktop OS for average Joe. Eve…
>Why must proprietary be evil?
Because rms says so