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Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

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Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#151

Post by varaon »

StavrosK wrote: post #148
vog wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's interesting how advertising cultures are different. In Greece, for example, it is unthinkable for an ad to acknowledge the competition, especially in a negative light. It was a rather big shock for me when I saw a US ad for a Ford car (for example) saying "our fuel consumption is X lower than the Prius". This would never happen in Greece. At most, they would say "our fuel consumption is X lower than the nearest…

(Canadian here, but the ads are similar and we get lots of US channels.)

>At most, they would say "our fuel consumption is X lower than the nearest competitor".

This is what usually happens. It's only when a competitor is so well-regarded that people wouldn't even consider the company running the ad that they mention names.

For example, fuel econonmy and the Prius and almost inseparable in people's minds thanks to good marketing, to the point that someone shopping for an efficient car would probably not even consider Ford unless you challenged their assumptions with a surprising fact (that the Ford had better MPG than the Prius).

It's like the "Droid does" ads (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e52TSXwj774) - the iPhone was so dominant that they basically had to say, "You think that Apple/Toyota is the best in this field? Well guess what, we're better!"

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#152

Post by cooldeal »

danenania wrote: post #149

Ignoring the particulars of the issue, I think it's sad that non-mainstream views on 9/11 automatically makes someone a valid target for ad hominem attacks, even in educated and intellectual circles. This form of social exclusion is essentially nationalistic and a dangerous trend. While conspiracy fetishism is unfortunate, it's good to have people questioning the official line, and it isn't as if all the facts around…

The issue is not that he holds such views, the issue is that he brings it up in the context of free software in order to push the line "the gummint is out of get us", which makes it a little unpalatable to many.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#153

Post by MostAwesomeDude »

Typhon wrote: post #10

Can somebody tell me when exactly did Stallman say that someone who used proprietary software was a hater of freedom ? In the last interview I read, he seemed able to understand that almost nobody would go as far as him on the side of software freedom. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/031411-richard-stallma...

I have no citation, but he did say things along those lines when I saw him at Portland State not even a month ago.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#154

Post by MostAwesomeDude »

Typhon wrote: post #10

Can somebody tell me when exactly did Stallman say that someone who used proprietary software was a hater of freedom ? In the last interview I read, he seemed able to understand that almost nobody would go as far as him on the side of software freedom. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/031411-richard-stallma...

I have no citation, but he did say things along those lines when I saw him at Portland State not even a month ago.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#155

Post by leoc »

hubb wrote: post #34
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

His homepage still lists a FSF affilation, and I'm pretty sure he's still serving as the GPLv3's attorney (as 'twere).

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#156

Post by danenania »

cooldeal wrote: post #152
danenania wrote: post #149

Ignoring the particulars of the issue, I think it's sad that non-mainstream views on 9/11 automatically makes someone a valid target for ad hominem attacks, even in educated and intellectual circles. This form of social exclusion is essentially nationalistic and a dangerous trend. While conspiracy fetishism is unfortunate, it's good to have people questioning the official line, and it isn't as if all the facts around…

The issue is not that he holds such views, the issue is that he brings it up in the context of free software in order to push the line "the gummint is out of get us", which makes it a little unpalatable to many.

I agree it's not effective rhetorically. Digging into any controversial issue is rhetorically risky for a public figure. What is worrying to me is the disproportionate sensitivity Americans have to this particular bit of controversy. All he said is he believes the US government was involved in 9/11. He didn't say how or in what capacity. Yet based on many of the responses, you'd think he said that Lizard Man Bush flew the planes himself by remote control. The author complains that Stallman is marginalizing himself, yet if he and others are willing to attempt to marginalize him based on unpopular (not crazy) political opinions, who's really to blame?

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#157

Post by cgray4 »

3am wrote: post #111
roadnottaken wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.")

Bill Cosby has earned a doctorate in education along with his honorary doctorates.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#158

Post by cgray4 »

dget wrote: post #89
cgray4 wrote: post #63

I really don't think the signs that are used to illustrate this article are comparable. The Kindle/Swindle sign isn't making up a new name for the Kindle. It is saying that this thing in the sign is a swindle. You shouldn't buy it because it makes false promises. If a person made up a sign with a bottle of Coke and put "Tastes Great" beneath it, that person wouldn't be calling Coke "Tastes Great". Sure, it's negative…

In his talk, he referred to the Kindle nearly exclusively as the "Amazon Swindle," only clarifying that he was talking about the Kindle at the end, for what its' worth.

That's unfortunate. In the past, I've had more respect for the FSF because they generally refrained from such juvenile word substitutions.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#159

Post by Joeri »

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'…

"Whatever happened to relying on your own strengths, rather than caricaturizing the competition?"

This is exactly what my issue with the FSF is. Their stated goal is to deliver freedom to software users, but in my opinion they've totally failed at this in recent years by sticking to the GPL, which at this point does more harm than good.

First of all, the GPL creates an unhealthy incentives structure. In GPL software, there's little incentive to add the features that end-users need. Corporations can afford to pay developers to add features to GPL software, but end users don't stand a chance. Most developers will build the features they personally find most useful, and because of this there are very few GPL-licensed pieces of software that have superior usability for non-technical users when compared to proprietary alternatives. If a feature isn't necessary for the developers personally, it faces an uphill battle to get into the software.

But let's discount that discussion and assume that it's true that an open license produces software whose fitness for purpose matches that of closed software, for all users. Even in that case the GPL isn't helping.

Suppose facebook released their entire codebase under the GPL tomorrow. Would it actually make their users any more free? Would the risk of privacy intrusion be any less? Would it be easier to set up a competing platform? That's three times no in my book. The GPL's freedom, that you can build any software you want with it, is its biggest deficiency. By not including a standard of ethics in the license itself, developers are free to add user-hostile features. As long as you could fork the project to remove those features, this wasn't an issue, but what use would it be to fork facebook's code?

The FSF's only recourse at this point to achieve their long-term goal of user freedom is to go back to the drawing board and develop a new GPL-incompatible license that enforces a code of conduct on the part of the users _and_ developers of the software (not just a license but a contract). Basically they need to three-laws-ify software licenses. You can only exercise your freedom to adapt the software in so far that you don't hurt the freedom of others. I don't know if someone like stallman has the mental agility to make this strategy shift though, so I suspect the FSF will remain largely irrelevant to the future battle between free and closed.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#160

Post by yesbabyyes »

jackvalentine wrote: post #136
angus77 wrote: post #56

I pretty much agreed with everything except the ridiculous idea that Stallman should try out Google Docs so he could see how "good" it is.

I don't understand your objection. It is an amazingly simple tool for collaborative editing and I don't know of any free software alternatives that are as easily usable.

Etherpad?
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