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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"

#21

Post by pavelludiq »

You know that a lot of the famous idealist of the past have been laughed at for being diluted and not in touch with reality. RMS is not blind, he just sees what he wants to see. He knows the reality and knows that a lot of people laught at him for some reasons, but doesn't care. Look at him, he doesn't give up, he pushes harder and harder. I don't support his extremist ideas, im a more moderate free software fan, but his impact has been mainly positive. Did he cost any real harm to technology? Are his ideas killing jobs, destroying businesses? No, they are just supplying alternatives. We are now more ahead, if we didn't have free software. We may not be extreme as RMS, but we get pushed by a complete nutcase to do good. Im pretty sure RMS doesn't have any illusions and knows that he can never win completely, but he sees that he has positive effect and just goes on.

P.S. Gimp sucks, but Photoshop's prise tag sucks more.

Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"

#22

Post by narag »

rplevy wrote: post #11

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…

I can't see in what way you can call "freedom" restricting individuals from enter mutually-beneficious contracts. Governments must intervene to prevent abusive clauses. There are some limitations that would be reasonable like making a deposit of the source code for cases of disappearing vendors, forcing software vendors to honor the buyers' right to their own data...

But the basic fact is that someone can create and sell licenses for a closed source program that would not be profitable unless it's made for many customers. Sometimes an open source program can be made for the same niche and offer similar quality. But not always.

Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"

#23

Post by bayareaguy »

mattmaroon wrote: post #15
tx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... 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…

It's ironic that the biggest obstacle to Stallman's idea of free software is his own stupid use of the word "free", so I feel I have to ask but do you mean free as in "without charge" or free as in "unencumbered"? Given that this is Hacker News, it's perhaps important to keep in mind that Stallman has nothing against commercial software. The whole "free" issue for him has to do with restrictions on the right of people to hack and redistribute their hacks.

Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"

#24

Post by Tichy »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #17

I 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…

So as long as you donate a percentage of your income to a good cause, it doesn't matter how you made that income? Like if you run a serial killer business or the Mafia, you are still good, as long as you donate to cancer research?

Not a judgement about Bill Gates Foundation vs Stallman, I don't know much about it, just questioning your logic.

My qualified opinion from reading lots of crime novels and watching mainstream Hollywood movies is that publicly donating to good causes is established standard practice for villains. (Again, not saying BG is a villain - being able to donate to good causes is one good motivation for trying to hit it big with a startup).

Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"

#25

Post by bayareaguy »

mattmaroon wrote: post #19
rplevy wrote: post #11

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…

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?

Personally I think it's a mistake to argue along the lines of good/evil.

The biggest problem with both proprietary and free software actually lies in the ignorance of the people who license and deploy either form without understanding the consequences, especially the technical and legal ability to access data and historic documents.

Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"

#26

Post by asimjalis »

mattmaroon wrote: post #16
tx wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Also you managed to insult Imams and Wal-Mart shoppers for no particular reason, even though as far as I know neither takes a position on open source versus closed source software.

Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"

#27

Post by galactus »

mattmaroon wrote: post #15
tx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... 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…

"Free software still clearly lags behind proprietary in some cases, and always will."

For Stallman it is not a question of quality of software but of ethics. And he explains his views without resorting to religion or calling people idiots.

Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"

#28

Post by ComputerGuru »

Tichy wrote: post #24
ComputerGuru wrote: post #17

I 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…

So as long as you donate a percentage of your income to a good cause, it doesn't matter how you made that income? Like if you run a serial killer business or the Mafia, you are still good, as long as you donate to cancer research? Not a judgement about Bill Gates Foundation vs Stallman, I don't know much about it, just questioning your logic. My qualified opinion from reading lots of crime novels and watching mainstr…

Gates didn't steal his money - he made it a way that Richard Stallman happens to disapprove of... there's a big difference.

Gates took his capitalist profits and put them to good use treating malaria in 3rd world countries - doesn't smell like the mafia or organized crime to me; but what do I know.

Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"

#29

Post by Tichy »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #28
Tichy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So as long as you donate a percentage of your income to a good cause, it doesn't matter how you made that income? Like if you run a serial killer business or the Mafia, you are still good, as long as you donate to cancer research? Not a judgement about Bill Gates Foundation vs Stallman, I don't know much about it, just questioning your logic. My qualified opinion from reading lots of crime novels and watching mainstr…

Gates didn't steal his money - he made it a way that Richard Stallman happens to disapprove of... there's a big difference. Gates took his capitalist profits and put them to good use treating malaria in 3rd world countries - doesn't smell like the mafia or organized crime to me; but what do I know.

If you read what I wrote, I am not claiming that Bill Gates is running the mafia. I am merely making the strictly logical point that doing something good doesn't prove that your other actions are not bad.

I usually defend the business practices of Microsoft in discussions (for example http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=229715) - I am in general for capitalism (I say in general because people might have varying definitions of capitalism in mind). But if what Stallman says is true, that behind the scenes Microsoft is investing in damaging industries, I think it is fair to take that into account. Again, I have to stress I don't know the substance of Stallman's accusations - but something tells me you won't notice that I wrote that sentence anyway... In general, I like Bill Gates, I think he is a very capable guy.

Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"

#30

Post by [deleted] »

billroberts wrote: post #13

I 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…

[deleted]
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