Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter • Hacker News Board

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#31

Post by jrockway » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 11:00 PM UTC

I don't think this guy gets it. Clearly, he has drawn the line at "proprietary software is fine, as long as it's useful to me". To RMS, though, that's not where the line is: he simply refuses to use software he can't tweak or audit. That's not like calling Obama Hitler or saying global warming is a scientific fraud. It's just an ideology, like not driving a car or only eating foods that don't come from animals. Nothing wrong with that, so why all the hate?

This article is sillier than calling the kindle "swindle".

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#32

Post by pgbovine » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 11:02 PM UTC

minor nit: i don't think rms is a "Dr.", since he didn't get a Ph.D. (unless he has a secret M.D.)

From wikipedia: "Stallman then enrolled as a graduate student in physics at MIT, but abandoned his graduate studies while remaining a programmer at the MIT AI Laboratory. Stallman abandoned his pursuit of a doctorate in physics in favor of programming."

perhaps he has an honorary doctorate?

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#33

Post by roadnottaken » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 11:03 PM UTC

pgbovine wrote: post #32

minor nit: i don't think rms is a "Dr.", since he didn't get a Ph.D. (unless he has a secret M.D.) From wikipedia: "Stallman then enrolled as a graduate student in physics at MIT, but abandoned his graduate studies while remaining a programmer at the MIT AI Laboratory. Stallman abandoned his pursuit of a doctorate in physics in favor of programming." perhaps he has an honorary doctorate?

From the same wikipedia article:

1996: Honorary doctorate from Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology [85]

2001: Honorary doctorate, from the University of Glasgow [89]

2003: Honorary doctorate, from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel [91]

2004: Honorary doctorate, from the Universidad Nacional de Salta. [92]

2007: Honorary doctorate, from the Universidad de Los Angeles de Chimbote.

2007: Honorary doctorate, from the University of Pavia [93]

2008: Honorary doctorate from the Universidad Nacional de Trujillo, in Peru

2009: Honorary doctorate, from Lakehead University [94][95]

RTFA :)

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#34

Post by hubb » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 11:04 PM UTC

leoc wrote: post #21

Eben Moglen http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/ is a more winning spokesman for the FSF these days. I hope he'll forgive me for mentioning that there's plenty of him on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=eben+moglen :)

eben's a wonderful speaker, but i believe he's resigned from actively working for the FSF? i could be wrong

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#35

Post by estel » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 11:17 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #31

I don't think this guy gets it. Clearly, he has drawn the line at "proprietary software is fine, as long as it's useful to me". To RMS, though, that's not where the line is: he simply refuses to use software he can't tweak or audit. That's not like calling Obama Hitler or saying global warming is a scientific fraud. It's just an ideology, like not driving a car or only eating foods that don't come from animals. Nothi…

If the spokesperson for the Vegetarian Society was trying to persuade others to become vegetarian by branding all farmers "murderers" and engaging in ridiculous rhetoric, I think other vegetarians might be concerned that their message wasn't being conveyed appropriately and was alienating them from the mainstream, thereby resulting in fewer vegetarians.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#36

Post by vog » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 11:17 PM UTC

hernan7 wrote: post #30

Tichy wrote: post #19

Damn you, Photoshop (presumably the only piece of closed software some people just can't do without).

Lots of proprietary software in the music industry too. Even if you want to create music as a hobby on your computer, things like samples are all in proprietary formats.

> things like samples are all in proprietary formats

This is not exactly true. There do exist free samples in open formats, for instance the Freepats project:

http://freepats.zenvoid.org/

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#37

Post by rdouble » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 11:20 PM UTC

estel wrote: post #35

jrockway wrote: post #31

I don't think this guy gets it. Clearly, he has drawn the line at "proprietary software is fine, as long as it's useful to me". To RMS, though, that's not where the line is: he simply refuses to use software he can't tweak or audit. That's not like calling Obama Hitler or saying global warming is a scientific fraud. It's just an ideology, like not driving a car or only eating foods that don't come from animals. Nothi…

If the spokesperson for the Vegetarian Society was trying to persuade others to become vegetarian by branding all farmers "murderers" and engaging in ridiculous rhetoric, I think other vegetarians might be concerned that their message wasn't being conveyed appropriately and was alienating them from the mainstream, thereby resulting in fewer vegetarians.

I can't tell if you are being facetious, but the main argument for vegetarianism is that "meat is murder."

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#38

Post by treeface » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 11:21 PM UTC

vog wrote: post #27

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'…

I'm a happy fellow of the FSFE ( http://fsfe.org/ ), the European pendant to the FSF. Sometimes we also discuss FSF campaigns, and usually agree that those would almost certainly be counter-productive here in Europe, especially things like the "Windows 7 sins". However, we always thought: Well, the USA have a different culture, so maybe this kind of campaign is needed there, and probably our style of campaign would n…

Perhaps this a silly question, but why don't you guys expand your campaigns to the US? Why the geographic limitation?

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#39

Post by estel » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 11:26 PM UTC

rdouble wrote: post #37

estel wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the spokesperson for the Vegetarian Society was trying to persuade others to become vegetarian by branding all farmers "murderers" and engaging in ridiculous rhetoric, I think other vegetarians might be concerned that their message wasn't being conveyed appropriately and was alienating them from the mainstream, thereby resulting in fewer vegetarians.

I can't tell if you are being facetious, but the main argument for vegetarianism is that "meat is murder."

I guess I meant PETA-levels of extremism. Like this: http://blog.peta.org.uk/2011/01/peta-takes-meat-warning-to-c...

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#40

Post by eliasmacpherson » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 11:26 PM UTC

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…

"even if you believe that the government had nothing to do with the attacks of September 2001," - could well be blaming foreign policy of previous governments, not theorising about conspiracies.

I always wonder why conspiracy theory has become such a loaded phrase, people conspire in secret, other people theorise about it, I don't really see the problem.