Tell HN: Dear 'open source' people (on defending rms)

There have been countless times when rms has said something, and you jumped to attack him, on every level. Here are some of your argumets. I try coming with some answers.

1) "To me, free is the freedom to use whatever I want, including propertiary software."

In this context, when we talk about 'Freedom', we mean 'Free Software'. Fortunately, Richard Stallman, they guy you are bashing about, defined the term 'free software'.

Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose.

Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.

Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.

Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

This is what 'Free Software' means. Please, feel free to use any propertiary software you want. But please dont try changing or misusing the 'Free Software' term. This is the software freedom rms talks about. When arguing about 'Free Software' you dont have the right to change the meaning of term for the sake of argument.

2) "Richard Stallman is crazy. We should replace him with someone more practical."

Free Software Foundation is an ideologic campaign. Its not a Software Project. Its not there to create a fancy UI for your desktop. Its there to pusht the concept of 'Software Freedom'. FSF doesnt care about quality of software. Their priority is freedom.

GNU project, on the other hand, is a software project. It includes many many software projects, created by hundreds of programmers around the world. You probably have emacs, gcc and gnu coreutils on one of your devices. These are written by rms. He has doe more. Way more.

He puts his work where his mouth his. He has done some high-profile work. He IS a practical person.

GNU project is a software project. Richard Stallman created it. Created emacs, gnu coreutils, gcc and many other projects on it. He has done A LOT on his 'practical' side of efforts.

FSF should NOT be run by people who would give up a penny on software freedom for practical reasons. Because insisting on software freedom is its mission.

3) "Richard Stallman is politically incorrect." Yes he is. That is the way he is. Like it or not. Respect his individuality. Not everyone should be 'politically corect'. However, that doesnt mean he is 'wrong'. Most of the times, he is a very harsh guy making very valid points.

4) "rms should 'step down'." rms should step down as what? As the leader of Free Software `movement`? Well, there is no official 'leader' on this movement. Its just that people value his words ad his work. And he earned it.

Now, you say he should step down as the president of Free Software Foundation? Why? He is the founder of FSF. He drives it the way he wants. If you (or anyone else) think you could do a better job of pushing free software through an organization, GO DO IT. Free Software Foundation is not the 'exclusive' supporter of Free Software.

(There are already other orgaizations like FSFE)

Now, enough defending rms. I dont think he needs me or anyone else to 'defend' him. As a matter of fact, I bet he would argue me about many things I write here.

Lets talk about you this time.

Most of you are the people who use propertiary software. Even develop (or dont mind developing) and selling propertiary software and its 100% ok to you. You use Macs and iPhones because they have a litte bit fancier user interfaces. You praise Apple because its products are 'slick'. You would immediately choose a propertiary software if its technicaly 'a little bit' ahead.

You occasionally drop a few hundred lines of code on github and then think you are a contributor to Free Software? No. Your reasons for sharing that piece of software is usually very 'Open Source'. You do it because you want a good resume. You do it because it gets you credit and karma. You do it because its fancy. Most of you dont do it because of Free Software. You dont actually care about Free Software.

Disclaimer: Im among you. Im not like rms either. We barely have people like rms. Thats what makes him noble and the right person to lead the Free Software movement.

Sorry for not-good-enough English.

Edit:Formatting.

Who died and made RMS the King of England? That is his definition of Free Software and he is welcome to it. Not everyone else follows his definition, in fact I would say most don't. So much so that his pronouncements about this and that violates Freedom turn people off the movement. His inability to function as public figure just makes it worse(ie his publication about SJ's death being a victory for Freedom.)

He has done some great stuff, that doesn't excuse his faults. Basically him being the leader of the free software movement reminds me of the old line about being promoted to the level of greatest incompetence. When people talk about him stepping down they mean as president of the FSF. They want to see the organization focus on being useful rather than being ideological because they think the ideological stance rather marginalizes the movement. I know when I come into contact with free software 9 out of 10 times the FSF isn't involved.

Are campaigns like Bad Vista and Windows Sins really promoting free software, or bagging on non-free software? It is campaigns like these that can make you question, does the FSF really send the right message about free software. They certainly have a lot of positive campaigns, but some people could be put off by the almost 'smear campaigns' that the FSF supports.

The problem with hardcore ideologists is that they always end up bickering about details with other hardcore ideologists. This is fine, and it's their right to do so, but from a distance it will make the movement they all represent together look like a bunch of fighting children.

Any activist group that has ever made a difference in history has had leaders who were able to accept their minor differences and fight together for the greater good (until the fight was won, at least)

RMS is entirely incapable of separating main points from side issues. This makes it impossible for him to make peace with people who are, in fact, on his side. How can you expect someone like that to ever gain the amount of support needed to really push a globally relevant point forward? The world of software isn't a village council.

This man might have been a great programmer, but as an activist, he's a joke.

I've never advocated finding another leader of the FSF ... But I am afraid that it will become completely irrelevant if it's viewed as an extremist organization. I think the real danger is that it's membership will decide not to be associated with it and it's funding will dry up. RMS hasn't really said where his income comes from, but I'm assuming he's paid as the FSF's leader. Assuming that RMS' marketable skills revolve around software, wouldn't it be ironic if he had to develop closed software to support himself? Given his current extremist stance, I suspect he'd choose to starve first.