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Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

alexeymk.com

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Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#11

Post by patrickaljord »

AlexeyMK wrote: post #6
michaelpinto wrote: post #4

If Stallman wasn't a crazy hippy he wouldn't have been into this cause years before even the first dot.com boom. It's unfair for someone to insist that a visionary go corporate all these years later because you feel uncomfortable. If you want to be the next generation spokesman than become that, but don't waste time trying to make a zebra shed his stripes.

Thanks for making that point. I want to make perfectly clear that I have a tremendous amount of respect for RMS and everything that he's done. By no means would I recommend that he compromise his ideology or 'go corporate.' All I'm saying is: almost everybody at his talk (already a self-selecting group) was put off by the tone and extremist nature of his delivery. His message got lost, and that sucks - it's an import…

But his eccentricity and radicalism are what made the fsf and gnu possible in the first place. Anyone with his skills in the 70s turned into a millionaire by the end of the 80's. Instead he decided to lock himself up and write emacs, gcc, glibc etc and give them away for free living on donations and minimum wage freelancing.

The thing is that you can't call him on his eccentricity and radicalism when this is exactly what got him there in the first place. Sure, he's not business friendly but we already have very powerful entities such as google advocating foss in a business friendly way. I still find his speeches entertaining and things like swindle and digital restrictions don't offend me, they're actually refreshing compared to the usual politically correct speeches.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#12

Post by lell »

Proponents of the FSF desire the hegemony of free software with the same uncompromising fervor as revolutionaries in russia desired communism in 1917. And the analogy does not end there. In many ways, free software is a communists dream.

Marx hoped that technology would make human labour redundant through mechanisation of production, allowing humans to spend all their time doing r&d (or r&r) --- he hoped that stuff like food would become free to create. With software, it's already possible to make this a reality, as programs can be replicated without cost. All other things being equal, this should lead to great benefits to society, a prospect that has attracted RMS and others.

That being said, it is as useless to ask RMS to compromise as it would be to ask those revolutionaries to in russia, 1917.

Furthermore, asking them to take baby steps is condescending, and they will ignore this advice. The reason is that their motivation differs from the majority of the hackernews readership. Sure, if they took baby steps and focused on PR and focused their agenda, free software might become more mainstream, and many entrepreneurs and small companies would benefit. But they don't want entrepreneurs and small companies to benefit, esp. if it means making these compromises.

Essentially, this is why I find articles like this condescending. The point of FSF is to improve society by advocating universal adoption of free software. Entrepreneurs indirectly benefit from these endeavors. Entrepreneurs then complain that the FSF could be more effective if they compromised their platforms. But this is sort of disingenuous because it's essentially the entrepreneurs telling the FSF to redirect effort that would benefit all of society to effort that would benefit the entrepreneurs. Granted, the former efforts are harder than the latter, but it is no one's place to tell the FSF how to direct their charity and advocacy, especially not someone who stands to gain from the reallocation that they themselves suggest.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#13

Post by Typhon »

AlexeyMK wrote: post #6
michaelpinto wrote: post #4

If Stallman wasn't a crazy hippy he wouldn't have been into this cause years before even the first dot.com boom. It's unfair for someone to insist that a visionary go corporate all these years later because you feel uncomfortable. If you want to be the next generation spokesman than become that, but don't waste time trying to make a zebra shed his stripes.

Thanks for making that point. I want to make perfectly clear that I have a tremendous amount of respect for RMS and everything that he's done. By no means would I recommend that he compromise his ideology or 'go corporate.' All I'm saying is: almost everybody at his talk (already a self-selecting group) was put off by the tone and extremist nature of his delivery. His message got lost, and that sucks - it's an import…

The tone and extremism are part of the message. Parts of his message. The ideas that seem important to you, you can pick them from it and propagate them yourself.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#14

Post by patrickaljord »

emilsedgh wrote: post #8

A few points i would like to remind everyone who criticizes rms. 1) rms is a radical guy. You cannot change that. He fights for what he thinks is right. He is not the kind of person you can ask to censor himself. If he thinks u.s goverment is to blame for 9/11, no matter how saying it in a lecture seems childish, he will say it. If you invite rms for a lecture, he is coming with his radicalism. That is to be expected…

> If he thinks u.s goverment is to blame for 9/11, no matter how saying it in a lecture seems childish, he will say it.

By the way he doesn't believe that. Last time I read about his opinion on the subject he said that proofs were lacking on both sides (truther and non-truther) but that it was probably the work of religious fundamentalists (either christians or muslims).

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#15

Post by estel »

emilsedgh wrote: post #8

A few points i would like to remind everyone who criticizes rms. 1) rms is a radical guy. You cannot change that. He fights for what he thinks is right. He is not the kind of person you can ask to censor himself. If he thinks u.s goverment is to blame for 9/11, no matter how saying it in a lecture seems childish, he will say it. If you invite rms for a lecture, he is coming with his radicalism. That is to be expected…

What I feel, and what I suspect many others feel also, is that however much this might be true, it's the way that RMS presents these views to the public that instantly marginalises him and the FSF.

Were he to choose not to mention 9/11 conspiracy theories, or to not act in a way that marginalises the movement; it's quite likely that it would alienate fewer people and be generally more successful.

It's great to have a leader who is genuinely passionate about what he's doing, but for others who might agree with much of what he says, it can be disheartening to see so many turned away by some of the rhetoric.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#17

Post by dget »

emilsedgh wrote: post #8

A few points i would like to remind everyone who criticizes rms. 1) rms is a radical guy. You cannot change that. He fights for what he thinks is right. He is not the kind of person you can ask to censor himself. If he thinks u.s goverment is to blame for 9/11, no matter how saying it in a lecture seems childish, he will say it. If you invite rms for a lecture, he is coming with his radicalism. That is to be expected…

It seems that he's become less practical and more radical over time, though. When asked, he doesn't program very much any more, devoting his time instead to championing free software in an idea that some (such as Alexey) would argue isn't practical.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#18

Post by lewispb »

microtonal wrote: post #3

Years back, I used to be an FSF member. Not that I liked the GPL much (in fact, I mostly use the Apache License), but they raised important issues, and had a track record of investing into fine software (GNU) that I benefitted from a lot. However, their campaigns were getting so off-target, that much of my sympathy dwindled, and I ended my membership. Childish 'anti' advertising, such as 'BadVista' and DDoSing Apple'…

Funny you should mention childish: http://www.fsf.org/facebook

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#20

Post by patrickaljord »

lell wrote: post #12

Proponents of the FSF desire the hegemony of free software with the same uncompromising fervor as revolutionaries in russia desired communism in 1917. And the analogy does not end there. In many ways, free software is a communists dream. Marx hoped that technology would make human labour redundant through mechanisation of production, allowing humans to spend all their time doing r&d (or r&r) --- he hoped that stuff l…

> Proponents of the FSF desire the hegemony of free software with the same uncompromising fervor as revolutionaries in russia desired communism in 1917.

Sorry but this is not true. Stallman already said many times that he doesn't think proprietary software should be banned. In fact the first version of the emacs license used to oblige people to redistribute their modifications even when there were no re-distribution. RMS realized that was fascist and decided to only ask for source in case of redistribution (as in the gpl later).

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