Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement • Hacker News Board

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#21

Post by throwaway81523 » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:32 AM UTC

MilnerRoute wrote: post #2

It looks like Lunduke just cut-and-pasted all the quotes that Slashdot published (presumably their transcription from the FSF's audio file) on Saturday. https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/04/16/238221/richard-stal... https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/04/16/238221/richard-stal...

Thanks for posting those but for the first of your two links, I think you meant:

https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/04/16/2154203/richard-sta...

That is, are two different slashdot posts about the different aspects of the talk, and the above link is to the earlier of the posts.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#22

Post by TulliusCicero » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:34 AM UTC

dangom wrote: post #12

cmeacham98 wrote: post #8

> “Well, first of all, I don't think there's anything bad about playing a game. Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it. I get that Stallman's shtick is being as hardline as possible about free software, but it really feels like sometimes this hurts the free software movement. Imagine trying to bring in a normal, non-technical person who plays video games as one of their hobbies (describes…

Stallman has a vision that you and I should be typing our comments and playing our games from machines that are under our control, i.e., whereby we can inspect and modify all of the code that is running on them. That is not the case, and all Stallman is saying, is that this is bad for us. The Free Software Foundation was founded in 1985. From there since Free Software has only lost ground. I don't think Stallman woul…

> That is not the case, and all Stallman is saying, is that this is bad for us.

Right, but to most people, that's still an extreme position. Because again, like 99.99% of games are non-free, and especially the way he phrased it is gonna come across as a crank.

Stallman strikes me very much as the kind of person who communicates poorly, in an inflammatory way, and gives zero shits how much this bothers anyone else.

Which for a random individual is probably fine, or at least tolerable, but is less good when you're the face of a movement.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#23

Post by TulliusCicero » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:37 AM UTC

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #7

> But typically these games are not solitaire; you're playing with other people. And using a non-free program together with other people? That's particularly bad. Because it means that those people are pressuring each other to keep running that non-free program. I wonder what Stallman would say about anticheat software. Even people who don't care in the slightest about free software think anticheat is detestable. But…

> Even people who don't care in the slightest about free software think anticheat is detestable.

Generally the people who are actually into multiplayer games accept anticheat software as a necessary evil. Yes, they're not exactly enthused about what amounts to game-supporting spyware, but playing a game that's rife with hackers is a miserable experience.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#24

Post by Beltalowda » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:37 AM UTC

cmeacham98 wrote: post #8

> “Well, first of all, I don't think there's anything bad about playing a game. Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it. I get that Stallman's shtick is being as hardline as possible about free software, but it really feels like sometimes this hurts the free software movement. Imagine trying to bring in a normal, non-technical person who plays video games as one of their hobbies (describes…

A few years ago I saw an indie game developer recount his experience with Stallman[1]; he doesn't see how he can release his games as Free Software while making a living, pay his rent, pay for his children's education, etc. So he asked Stallman what to do about that.

Stallman's reply? "You should not be making those games, it is unethical."

To say that is non-constructive would be an understatement; it's just shutting down any conversation and exploration and how we can improve things. There are a whole bunch of things one can think of: release the code but keep the assets (graphics, sound, music, etc.) proprietary, release under some sort of "source available" license, keep the core rendering parts proprietary SO/DLLs and release the rest as free software, and maybe a few other things. All of that would be a huge improvement over "100% closed".

But Stallman isn't open to any of that, and because the FSF is still very much Stallman's organisation, neither is the FSF. For at least 20 years the FSF has done nothing except preaching to the choir, and certainly hasn't actually made many significant meaningful every-day improvements. In the above situation the game dev essentially asked was "what is the best way to make my software more free?" and all he got was a rather insulting and condensing shutdown of that conversation before it could even take off.

[1]: I don't have the source for that right now; I think it was somewhere on YouTube. It may have been an interview with Lunduke, but I'm not sure.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#25

Post by TulliusCicero » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:37 AM UTC

nighthawk454 wrote: post #16

Arainach wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even people who don't care in the slightest about free software think anticheat is detestable. [[Citation Needed]]. Trying to play a multiplayer game that doesn't implement effective anticheat is miserable. The arms race is unfortunate but 100% understandable, and I wouldn't play any game that doesn't implement some form of it.

Bit of a false dichotomy. Detesting anticheat doesn't mean you support none (and therefore enjoy rampant cheating). More probably, the point here is most anticheats are very invasive and harmful to privacy, while also degrading game performance and often being ineffective at preventing cheaters.

> More probably, the point here is most anticheats are very invasive and harmful to privacy, while also degrading game performance and often being ineffective at preventing cheaters.

[Citation needed] at the last part. Of course they're not gonna prevent 100% of cheaters, but I have doubts that they don't do anything.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#26

Post by Flankk » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:38 AM UTC

cmeacham98 wrote: post #8

> “Well, first of all, I don't think there's anything bad about playing a game. Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it. I get that Stallman's shtick is being as hardline as possible about free software, but it really feels like sometimes this hurts the free software movement. Imagine trying to bring in a normal, non-technical person who plays video games as one of their hobbies (describes…

He is fighting an unwinnable war, to be sure. Most people will never be technically savvy enough to care about these issues. Apple will probably start soldering their cases shut. Sadly I don't think it makes much difference what Stallman thinks, even though I think he is mostly right.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#27

Post by abetusk » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:38 AM UTC

Buttons840 wrote: post #15

cmeacham98 wrote: post #8

> “Well, first of all, I don't think there's anything bad about playing a game. Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it. I get that Stallman's shtick is being as hardline as possible about free software, but it really feels like sometimes this hurts the free software movement. Imagine trying to bring in a normal, non-technical person who plays video games as one of their hobbies (describes…

On this topic: Tales of Maj'eyal is an open source game, but the game content is not. I was surprised to learn this, and it seems open source games isn't a complete non-starter like you might expect.

Richard Stallman has a policy of putting his non-engineering works under a non-libre license (CC-BY-ND 3.0) [0] [1], so maybe he wouldn't have a problem with this non-libre game as the underlying code is libre, just not the assets.

In my opinion, this is one of the problems with Stallman's "moral authority" approach to the FSF. I would very much like to hear about these cases where a game's source is libre licensed but not it's content and see what Stallman actually has to say about it.

Not for nothing, but there are many network/online games that have both source and content libre licensed. Here are a few:

* Teeworlds - https://www.teeworlds.com/

* Minetest - https://www.minetest.net/

* Battle for Wesnoth - https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth

I'm sure there are many others of note but those are just the few that I have at least some passing familiarity with.

[0] https://stallman.org/#thanks

[1] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#28

Post by dangom » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:40 AM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #22

dangom wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman has a vision that you and I should be typing our comments and playing our games from machines that are under our control, i.e., whereby we can inspect and modify all of the code that is running on them. That is not the case, and all Stallman is saying, is that this is bad for us. The Free Software Foundation was founded in 1985. From there since Free Software has only lost ground. I don't think Stallman woul…

> That is not the case, and all Stallman is saying, is that this is bad for us. Right, but to most people, that's still an extreme position. Because again, like 99.99% of games are non-free, and especially the way he phrased it is gonna come across as a crank. Stallman strikes me very much as the kind of person who communicates poorly, in an inflammatory way, and gives zero shits how much this bothers anyone else. Wh…

It's 2022 and it's close to impossible for you and me to own a computer that we control. Even the thought of owning a computer we control is now seen as "extreme". If we did go through hops to have a machine that we control, it'd be practically impossible to use it to communicate with our friends and family, because all of our communications go through third party servers that we do not control.

In exactly which way is Stallman being inflammatory here?

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#29

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:41 AM UTC

dangom wrote: post #12

cmeacham98 wrote: post #8

> “Well, first of all, I don't think there's anything bad about playing a game. Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it. I get that Stallman's shtick is being as hardline as possible about free software, but it really feels like sometimes this hurts the free software movement. Imagine trying to bring in a normal, non-technical person who plays video games as one of their hobbies (describes…

Stallman has a vision that you and I should be typing our comments and playing our games from machines that are under our control, i.e., whereby we can inspect and modify all of the code that is running on them. That is not the case, and all Stallman is saying, is that this is bad for us. The Free Software Foundation was founded in 1985. From there since Free Software has only lost ground. I don't think Stallman woul…

[deleted]

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#30

Post by TulliusCicero » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:41 AM UTC

dangom wrote: post #28

TulliusCicero wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is not the case, and all Stallman is saying, is that this is bad for us. Right, but to most people, that's still an extreme position. Because again, like 99.99% of games are non-free, and especially the way he phrased it is gonna come across as a crank. Stallman strikes me very much as the kind of person who communicates poorly, in an inflammatory way, and gives zero shits how much this bothers anyone else. Wh…

It's 2022 and it's close to impossible for you and me to own a computer that we control. Even the thought of owning a computer we control is now seen as "extreme". If we did go through hops to have a machine that we control, it'd be practically impossible to use it to communicate with our friends and family, because all of our communications go through third party servers that we do not control. In exactly which way…

By framing playing virtually all video games in existence as being "bad for you".