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Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

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

#181

Post by Merad »

lovich wrote: post #82
Beltalowda wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 shuttin…

Stallman seems like the kinda of guy who would tell you that you need to starve in the streets as long as you fit his version of ethics. All while he lives comfortably off the income of his own celebrity.

He has told people almost that exact thing. I recall an interview from about a decade ago where some asked RMS a question similar to the one the GP mentions, but their phrasing was more like, "I need to make money from software to feed my family." RMS' answer was that the interviewer's ability to feed their family was less important than free software.

RMS' heart is mostly in the right place, but he's a fanatic who is 100% out of touch with the real world.

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

#182

Post by gigatexal »

lol why is Stallman on HN? He’s not relevant to anything anymore. His hardline stances on free software only aren’t practical. Also, as a person, he’s a bit creepy. I thought we as a community of open source folks moved on and chose better more practical champions. :shrug:

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

#183

Post by josephcsible »

kmeisthax wrote: post #161

>Some important packages are now distributed only through their non-freedom-respecting package system Wait, why is Ubuntu's package manager "not freedom respecting" but dpkg is? I thought snap was licensed under GPLv3. >It should be illegal to sell a computer that doesn't let users install software of their own from source code. Agreed, but this is such a low bar that even iOS meets it. Apple has never attempted to r…

> Wait, why is Ubuntu's package manager "not freedom respecting" but dpkg is? I thought snap was licensed under GPLv3.

The Snap server is what's closed-source.

> I must point out that much of the people asking for sideloading are proprietary software vendors and not users.

I know I'm just one data point, but I'm a user who wants sideloading.

> Being as vehemently opposed to proprietary software as RMS is means that he's actually on Apple's side of that debate, even though Apple is "the enemy" so to speak.

No he isn't. He's always in favor of users being in full control of their own devices, even if that control allows them to install proprietary software onto them.

> The comments about Macs being more locked down I don't entirely understand. Apple's bent over backwards to keep a working owner override on Macs

They're slowly boiling the frog, like with removal of kexts. I'd bet money that within 10 years, you won't be able to disable SIP on the newest Macs anymore.

> with the only downside being that it requires a locked-down boot chain

Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

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

#184

Post by lumost »

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…

Honestly, the public interest in the free software movement was always about developers not wanting to jump through N legal/business hoops to use software or figure out how something worked. The most aggressive licenses helped this for a time by forcing corporations to participate. The software industry without open-source is like Automotive Engineers not seeing how cars work.

The other stuff seems kinda BS.

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

#185

Post by Karrot_Kream »

t-3 wrote: post #114
TulliusCicero wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's extremely dogmatic, and so far his movement really doesn't seem to be working? Hard to way how much of that is his fault, though.

I'm interested in what you would consider success in the free software movement? GPL'd software is everywhere , Linux is a household name, proprietary competitors have been consistently overshadowed and made irrelevant. We are nowhere near a 100% free software world, but it's far better than 10 or 20 years ago, let alone 30+.

The FSF has been chronically incapable of doing anything about SaaS. What good is GPL software if I'm forced to use an opaque version of it in a device out of my control to do my business? The FSF made the AGPL as a stopgap but it's been an unpopular license.

So no, the world just moved proprietary software to the cloud with parts spun-off and GPLed on paper.

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

#186

Post by rnd0 »

Beltalowda wrote: post #24
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 shuttin…

>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.

This is probably one of the best critiques of his approach (and by extention the FSF) I've read. Very true, and it is a tremendous waste.

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

#187

Post by krick »

thebigman433 wrote: post #132
orionblastar wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Censorship and deplatforming are ways of making the competition shut up. If someone has a different opinion than you do, they should have free speech to say it. Within reason of course, nobody wants Nazis or Pedophiles to spread their opinions because they are obscene. This is why Musk is trying to buy out Twitter, and he is trolling them with his wealth. Don't forget removal from the APP Store or blocked by proxies.…

Elon Musk is buying Twitter to increase his wealth, mindshare, and influence. He does not actually care about free speech, and its naïve to think that he is buying the platform for "altruistic" reasons. He is also the lead of a company that has seemingly fired an employee for posting about their publicly available features, and is also facing one of the biggest labor lawsuits ever in the state of California. He is a…

Eh, I'm equally suspicious of everyone who speculates about "what Musk is doing". I think your post is spot-on about what he's NOT doing, but as to what he IS doing… how can you possibly know, what his true intentions are? I, for one, strongly suspect he's not even buying Twitter at all: he's just playing with the share prices to dump his 9% with a nice profit (as he always does). But I also guess he has a solid plan whichever way it goes. What actually IS his plan, if he's going to make Twitter private? I have like 10 versions of what it might be, and I don't expect that even one is close. But then, again, I don't really expect he is going to buy it anyway, so…

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

#188

Post by systemvoltage »

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…

> Sometimes I feel like we could get a lot more done for free software with a tiny bit of pragmatism

This is wrong and disastrous. We need mostly pragmatism, may be a tiny bit of free-spirit and idealism.

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

#189

Post by ryan_lane »

Gollapalli wrote: post #136
thebigman433 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk is buying Twitter to increase his wealth, mindshare, and influence. He does not actually care about free speech, and its naïve to think that he is buying the platform for "altruistic" reasons. He is also the lead of a company that has seemingly fired an employee for posting about their publicly available features, and is also facing one of the biggest labor lawsuits ever in the state of California. He is a…

He built huge amounts of wealth by building rocket ships and electric cars because he's worried about the earth becoming uninhabitable and thinks we need to be an interplanetary civilization. This is a dude who's dedicated his entire life to (in his mind) save all of humanity from certain doom. I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that it's all just exploitation.

He bought both of those companies. It's a bit disingenuous to say he built them.

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

#190

Post by rnd0 »

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…

>The Free Software Foundation was founded in 1985. From there since Free Software has only lost ground.

Are you joking? This was before my time, but there once was a time when you would not only have to pay for development tools, but pay for them seperately. Want a compiler? $500, please. Want something like Bison? Fork a few hundred. Want an assembler? Another few hundred. etc.

There have been setbacks, and it does look like the tide is turning towards everything becoming closed again but it's untrue to say that Free Software has "only lost ground" since 1985 -hell, GCC didn't even come out until what, 1987, 1988 or so?

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