Bash Microsoft, and all proprietary software: ✓
Refer to DRM as Digital "Restrictions" Management: ✓
Point out the Linux kernel is one "small" part of the GNU operating system: ✓
Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
51–60 of 73 posts
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#52Earlier 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.
[deleted]
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#53Earlier 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.
Gates didn't steal his money - he made it a way that Richard Stallman happens to disapprove of... there's a big difference.
Not only RMS would disapprove. Big difference.
Backgrounder: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/19/ballmer_eggs/
http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=49451
How about spending those EU funds directly to cure illness and not let MS and lawyers chip away at it???
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#54Earlier 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…
I agree with you on the point you are making. For example Hezbollah in Lebanon gains much of their power from their charity work - and uses that power for terrorist actions. BUT I don't think you can equate BillG with the mafia, villians, or terrorists. So in this instance, RMS is WAY off base, and winning himself no favors. In fact he just looks like a whiner.
As a person who was born in a present day US colony, I can personally prove you wrong. These people make poor people suffer the exact same way as the Mafia and other villains. You can call it white collar crime, creative accounting, aggressive business practices or whatever euphemism you are comfy with. But the end result is the same: extort wealth from the defenceless.
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#55rms should stick to software. He'd make a lousy district attorney. Of all the evil Microsoft did to the world, "prosecuting" them for writing propietary software is an unwinnable argument. Instead of presenting arguments against illegal monopolistic practices he chooses the one thing Microsoft did that most people agree with: creating IP. And by arguing against IP, he disqualifies himself from attacking Microsoft's b…
At least that was also a crime.
Ah yes, those were the days my Friend...
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#56I 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…
And: Also announced was the decision to "... spend all of [the Trust's] resources within 50 years after Bill's and Melinda's deaths http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_Melinda_Gates_Foundati... Most foundations exist eternally to provide welfare for social workers. I'll credit Gates for preventing that. Stallman didn't do basic research on the matter. Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and the rest, offer you software that g…
For about 15 years, Stallman had several programmers on paid staff for the Free Software Foundation. I don't think he's expecting developers to work for nothing.
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 c…
> 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. Noone was arguing that closed source isn't profitable. "Proprietary software exists" isn't an argument for it's existence & many are unhappy about it. > >Often times closed-source software pioneers an approach, makes an initial profit, and proves a demand which open sou…
> Noone was arguing that closed source isn't profitable. "Proprietary software exists" isn't an argument for it's existence & many are unhappy about it.
There is definitely slippery-slope rhetoric in the GNU propaganda. Thus far, no slope has existed. That's all I meant to say.
> I hope you're not saying OSS isn't innovative.
I am not saying this, but it is historically true that lots of different fields have been pioneered by closed-source or closed-license-source and that kind of funding. It may shortly thereafter become open-sourced in some fashion, or take longer.
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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.
His views are a religion, and he essentially calls Bill Gates something worse than an idiot: evil.
I honestly don't understand your "religion" line towards Stallman's position. Yes, he's been consistent and kept saying the same thing for years, that's the only grounds you can base your analogy on.
Free software is a wonderful thing and keeping a source code "secret" or patenting stupid shit like "single click buy" is indeed evil, what else you want to call it when closed-source systems are forcing the entire world to reverse-engineer their file formats, communication protocols, etc. How many programmer-hours have been wasted re-implementing JPEG compression, TCP/IP stack, XML parsing, etc etc etc?
Tell me, how is it NOT evil to hold font-rendering patents forcing the entire non-Windows (or OSX) world to stare at fucked-up unreadable fonts? ... and at the same time borrowing anything they want from OSS community when they feel like it (look! there is "etc" folder in windows/system/drivers!) How is it possible to look into SCO vs Linux case and not call Microsoft's envolvement "evil"? If not evil, what is it then?
Moreover, the modern history of computing is actually proving that Stallman's views make perfect sense, even from commercial perspective: look at Adobe, who's actually being forced to open-source because they suddenly realized that this gives them an edge over Silverlight. Just compare that to Macromedia's not so distant dreams of selling crazy ass expensive "Flex servers". Or look at poor Opera fighting against the whole world's efforts of improving FF.
Even your own examples of better software don't apply. On features and flexibility alone, OSX can't hold a candle to even (!) Gnome and wins user's hearts purely on looks. What's more important, however, is that OSX itself is a giant example of open source (BSD) taking over commercial (Windows) with a for-profit company cashing out in the background - I still don't understand why OSS community lets Apple to get away with it: they took all they wanted and haven't given much of their own stuff back. Majority of code you get installed with OSX isn't written by Apple, yet they get to charge you for it. So don't use OSX as an example of successful closed-source product because it isn't.
Also, look back in time: open source systems have been innovating and are responsible for nearly everything we see around ourselves: languages, compilers, internet itself, the list is huge: commercial and closed-loop development hasn't produced anything with an impact, merely playing "catch-up -> copy -> resell" game.
You're an intelligent guy, you like to speak your mind directly and I enjoy your blog. There is probably something in your argument that you just can't get across.
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The selection of software at Wal-Mart is probably limited to closed source.
Re: Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you on the point you are making. For example Hezbollah in Lebanon gains much of their power from their charity work - and uses that power for terrorist actions. BUT I don't think you can equate BillG with the mafia, villians, or terrorists. So in this instance, RMS is WAY off base, and winning himself no favors. In fact he just looks like a whiner.
As a person who was born in a present day US colony, I can personally prove you wrong. These people make poor people suffer the exact same way as the Mafia and other villains. You can call it white collar crime, creative accounting, aggressive business practices or whatever euphemism you are comfy with. But the end result is the same: extort wealth from the defenceless.
You probably have a point but your statement is a little extreme. You have to look at the benefit the software provides as well as the cost and there are times when a closed source system is better than no system at all.