Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

news.slashdot.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 623 posts

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

#191

Post by eckza »

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…

That all sounds nice, but the fact of the matter is that Richard Stallman is one of the few anchors left, keeping the Overton window of the politics of software from falling all of the way into the ocean.

Personally, I used to think that Stalmman was a crank. And as time passed, and as I watched some of his prophecies come true and as I noted ways in my own life in which my own devices became harder to use, and my own data became harder to store and retrieve in the ways that I wanted to - I began to change my mind.

Without that irascible, loud-mouthed, doom-sandwich-board-wearing maniac... who else would exist at the intersection of "knows enough to know what he's talking about to speak with authority" and "has nothing left to lose"?

My advice to anyone reading this is to not be so quick to "solution" on his behalf, or to reason against his ideas, in advocacy of a more "moderate" approach.

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

#192

Post by filmgirlcw »

snvzz wrote: post #111
mr_johnson22 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real surprise is that Stallman restrained himself from telling the dev that having children is unethical.

He can actually keep on topic when it comes to free software. Yet GNU and FSF aren't everything RMS is, so he has his own personal website. I would assume you've learned about his views on having children there.

His comments about children were actually expressed in a GNU mailing list, but sure, move those goal posts.

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

#193

Post by [deleted] »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #142
starwind wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you just compare Stallman and the FSF to the Abolitionist movement, and paid software to slavery?

Why is it that people on the modern internet seem unable to grasp the concept of an analogy? Two things don't have to be exactly as bad as each other to be analogous circumstances. You are supposed to apply to same chain of logical reasoning to the two situations. Just expressing faux outrage with a "How dare you compare these two things" isn't actually defeating the argument in any way.

[deleted]

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

#194

Post by umbcorp »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #56

It won’t be major exaggeration to say that FSF and Stallman are irrelevant in 2022 and not much different from any other radical left group, struggling even to make sense for majority of people. The idea of completely free software where user could control the source code is an obsolete ideal. Not because it’s unviable economically, but because the size and complexity of modern software is far beyond the ability of i…

Ubuntu, debian, armbian etc all have pipelines, build processes to create an image file where the users can install. The processes where one can compile/build/package are already there (signing the image might require more steps with access to keys). Documentation and the tooling for such processes can be improved and made more user friendly.

With the evolving supply chain attacks, US Government advised companies to better understand their software supply chains. With transparent and repeatable builds this goal would be much more simple using the approach documented above.

We can innovate on more ideas for making more transparent software. We can have signed dependencies, pre-built trusted (signed, hashes) dependency chains.

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

#195

Post by nine_k »

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…

To everyone who says that Stallman isunrealistic. We have plenty enough realistic people, right on this forum, and across the world.

It may be useful to listen to a person who sounds unrealistic, but also proved to be right on some pretty important issues, like DRM and the cloud.

It does not mean we should immediately switch away from anything proprietary. But it does mean it's worth being aware.

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

#196

Post by stakkur »

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…

The problem is in the question: the game dev wants to know how to reconcile ethics and his desire to make money from making games. Stallman is saying “it’s not my job to help solve your dilemma.” And he’s right. If I ask a doctor ‘how can I eat french fries and still lose weight”, the doctor will say “you can’t, and I can’t help you resolve your dilemma. What you’re doing is unhealthy”.

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

#197

Post by linuxhansl »

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…

I think it's important to take a hard line here. Otherwise in the future we are not going to own any of the devices we buy.

We're almost there with our phones. At least on Android one can install 3rd party apps.

So I think RMS is spot on.

I like to own my device. Write, compile, and install software of my choosing on it, without some company getting into the way of that.

Companies want to control and monetize every possible use of our devices. We can't let that happen unchecked.

The again, in reality I take a less idealistic stance:

- I accept that the BIOS, drivers for the graphics card and the wifi chip are - for the time being - proprietary.

- For everything else I see absolutely no reason why I should use any closed source software.

- My OS is open source, all applications are open source, all games I (occasionally) play are open source.

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

#198

Post by User23 »

adwn wrote: post #163
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hyperbole doesn't help. Stallman would not tell you that you need to starve in the streets. He is well away that most programmers get paid at least median income, and often much more, and they are normally people who can make choices in their lives, few of which will involve starving in the streets. You don't have to agree that the choices are attractive to acknowledge that they do not need to include starving in…

> He is well away that most programmers get paid at least median income, and often much more Yes, by working on unfree software , an occupation which he uncompromisingly condemns. Programmers working exclusively on free software would be earning much, much less on average.

You can make a lot of money writing free software at whatever FAANG is called now. I mean sure the source is never distributed because the binaries aren’t either, but it does meet the definition.

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

#199

Post by TideAd »

andai wrote: post #160
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…

When you buy a game from Jason Rohrer, you get the source code too. (It's also on GitHub.) What you're actually buying is an account on the official multiplayer server (which is also open source). I thought this was a really interesting model. Maybe it wouldn't work so well with singleplayer games. However, there's a similar example with the sprite editor / animation software Aseprite, which is open source but you ha…

There might be 1% of the population with the expertise to build it from source, and even most of them would prefer to just pay $15.

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

#200

Post by riffraff »

csdreamer7 wrote: post #155

Around the 8 and 9 min mark RMS talks about old hardware losing software support, like 32 bit systems. I am a kernel developer and the kernel removes code for a lot of older systems all the time (often lesser known 32bit ARM systems). Phoronix reported that 5.18 removed the Andes NDS32 CPU arch code. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-51... The reason they do this is because a lot of these syst…

I think the point is not that kernel devs (or whoever) will support obsolete platforms, but that users of those platforms can keep using the kernel if they want and are willing to put in the effort to maintain it.
Post reply on HN