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Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

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Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#111

Post by 3am »

roadnottaken wrote: post #33
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 Uni…

Other people who have honorary doctorates: Bill Cosby, Bob Hope, and Oprah.

(edit: and Bob Barker, Tim Allen... obviously, RMS has accomplished more than many PhDs, but you shouldn't refer to a holder of an honorary doctorate as "Dr.")

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#112

Post by msutherl »

What bother's me about Dr. Stallman is that he is concerned with particular freedoms, such as the freedom to tinker with software, and brands this as the freedom. This is ideology. For me the most important freedom is the freedom to get my work done with the best available tools. Often the best available tools are not "free" software, especially if you do anything other than web or systems programming.

I actually prefer to see him marginalize his views – it helps intelligent people who are not interested in buying into other people's ideology realize that he is an egomaniacal cult leader without needing to waste time considering the soundness of his ideas.

I prefer the "open source" guys.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#113

Post by omouse »

Saying "Big Brother" is simply telling the truth. When the US government and other governments feel it's okay to illegally wiretap people and the TSA subjects you to full body searches and cellphones make you easy to locate and the US government uses drones to kill people in other and the NSA wants backdoors into encryption schemes and ways to break them, I think it's safe to call them Big Brother.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#114

Post by nkassis »

flomo wrote: post #109
emilsedgh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, rms 'won' his initial battle, which was having a free operating system. Now there are thousands of people helping free softwares to improve. He would be just another programmer if he keeps coding. What im trying to say is, if he doesnt code anymore, its probably because he doesnt think that would be a necessary contribution anymore. Or maybe he is simply tired of coding :)

> He would be just another programmer if he keeps coding. Wouldn't that be better than being just a gadfly? At least that's my impression; RMS will appear on some group or maillist, drop a bomb, tell everyone they're doing it wrong, and then disappear while the flamewar blazes, accomplishing nothing constructive in the process. And, in this community, everyone's status is based primarily on their programming, includi…

His status has been earned. RMS did incredible programming work in the 70s,80s that I think entitles him to make comments (even if they are wrong).

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#115

Post by omouse »

Also, Stallman has been taking baby steps for a very very long time. He didn't start with a completely free software machine at all. He used a proprietary compiler at first, a proprietary editor, etc. in order to build everything up.

In today's world, it is possible to do all of your work using free software. It may not be Google Docs, but LibreOffice is pretty awesome and you can just use Empathy or Pidgin IM to talk to people over an XMPP network.

At some point you have to pry yourself away from proprietary software and the sooner you do it, the less likely you are to cave in and use more proprietary software.

Stallman has been repeating the same ideas for years. It's hard to sound persuasive or charismatic when you're not trying to be a leader and when you've been saying the same damned thing over and over and having to adapt it to the realities of today (which could have been avoided if only more people had listened in the first place...)

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#116

Post by msutherl »

yxhuvud wrote: post #108
Sukotto wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that radicals are the most influential when they contrast against (and serve as a warning about ignoring) the moderates. Imho, the problem the FSF has is that they don't have a MLK to Stallman's Malcolm X. Eben Moglen? maybe? Is he active anymore?

But on the other hand, if we instead choose licences and the GPL as Malcolm X, then there definitely is a MLK in BSD. Do the BSD and BSDish licences have any front people the same way GPL do in Stallman?

"Open Source" (Eric Raymond et al) and Apache Foundation.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#117

Post by schrototo »

doki_pen wrote: post #85
schrototo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... proofs were lacking on both sides ... religious fundamentalists (either christians or muslims). These are equally ridiculous statements. We know who did it, we know how they did it, we know why they did it. People just can't accept that enormous events can have relatively simple causes.

It's ridiculous to think that there is no possibility that there were people who could have prevented it, but choose not to.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#118

Post by abrahamsen »

rosser wrote: post #50
rdouble wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

For many of the vegetarians I've known, that's a secondary argument, the primary being a healthier lifestyle.

The analogy works fine. We have the politically motivated FSF on the "meat is murder" side, and on the other hand the Open Source movements belief that open source is simply a more practical way to develop software on the "healthier lifestyle" side.

I wouldn't expect PETA to stop with their off-putting campaigns ("Your Mommy Kill Animals"), it is what they genuinely believe, and for them keeping silent and advocating "a healthier lifestyle" would be so far from their viewpoint that it would practically be a lie, even if it might win them more friends and influence.

Same with RMS. His views are radical, and toning his messages to make them more palatable down would be dishonest to who he is. Let someone else play the moderate and practical.

Of course, moderate and practical people don't dedicate their life to a message, be it "a healthier lifestyle" or "a better way to develop software". The Open Source spokespeople like Michael Tiemann or Tim O'Reilly) tend to get distracted by having a life to live.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#119

Post by kragen »

flomo wrote: post #109
emilsedgh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, rms 'won' his initial battle, which was having a free operating system. Now there are thousands of people helping free softwares to improve. He would be just another programmer if he keeps coding. What im trying to say is, if he doesnt code anymore, its probably because he doesnt think that would be a necessary contribution anymore. Or maybe he is simply tired of coding :)

> He would be just another programmer if he keeps coding. Wouldn't that be better than being just a gadfly? At least that's my impression; RMS will appear on some group or maillist, drop a bomb, tell everyone they're doing it wrong, and then disappear while the flamewar blazes, accomplishing nothing constructive in the process. And, in this community, everyone's status is based primarily on their programming, includi…

> Wouldn't that be better than being just a gadfly?

Perhaps you should ask Socrates.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#120

Post by abrahamsen »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #74

I don't think that Stallman should tone down his message. Sure, he can be rough, but so what. (I've experienced this in email with him when he asked about re-releasing some of my early Lisp books under the FSF doc license, but that is OK.) The world needs people with strong contrarian opinions and even if I don't always agree I value what they say. Way off topic, but: I can imagine a future world where there is an un…

RMS wrote a short story on the premise

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

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