161–170 of 292 posts
This is one of the least crazy and nicest riders I've ever read.
The more common "policy" is for speakers to not list all these things in advance, but then threaten to pull out at the last minute when they find out they were paired with another keynote speaker they don't like, causing mad panics to smooth things over or find replacements.
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That fact is well known. If your university hired someone who only spoke Mongolian, would you be upset at the speaker, or the idiot who hired him?
If your university hired someone who only spoke Mongolian but spit in people's faces when they extended their hand for a handshake, would you be upset at the speaker or the idiot who hired him? RMS lacks basic social graces. He preaches to the choir but somehow still manages to piss them off with pedantic shit like GNU/Linux. Why doesn't he just copyright it so he can plaster the GNU logo all over everything and be d…
If their spitting was common knowledge, as RMS's eccentricities are, then yes. Of course I would be upset primary with whoever booked them...
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Are you going to argue that it is? Is GRUB merely a "tool" for booting your computer? Is libc a "tool" for exposing OS-provided functionality to software? Is GNOME a GUI "tool"?
Ok clearly you think the rest of your argument is obvious, but I'm going to be dense and say "yes", those are tools. Just as the Linux kernel is a tool for managing the various resources of the system. Maybe it's the word "merely" that's tripping things up, but I don't see how any of these things fail to fit the word "tool".
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How is that even somewhat ambiguous? Personal and, perhaps, skirting the outer edge of what a remarkably parochial person might regard as quirky, but he laid out a drink preference specific enough someone has a shopping list and doesn't have to guess. Which is what a rider is for. You don't even need to buy him tea; he explicitly says he always brings his own with him.
Well actually he does say that a supply of tea would be nice. I'm assuming he is not talking about his own supply.
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I've both planned some fairly large events with speakers and worked closely with well known but 'eccentric' personalities similar rms. It's really a mixed bag as to who is to blame. On the one had the committee coming up with this should have done some research (and asked themselves "why hasn't rms done any convocations before?"). I've known organizations entertaining the idea of rms as a keynote, and it almost immed…
It's really a mixed bag as to who is to blame. On the one had the committee coming up with this should have done some research (and asked themselves "why hasn't rms done any convocations before?"). I've known organizations entertaining the idea of rms as a keynote, and it almost immediately gets shot down by anyone how has actually watched him speak. Yeah. It seems like ordering squid at a restaurant: if you order sq…
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Actually, from my perspective as a contracts lawyer, this rider is far from what I would call clear. Like the GPL, it's a helpful document, and cheerfully neurotic, but it leaves lots of room for dispute and confusion. Specificity != clarity. Likewise, verbosity is not an indicator of a good contract. To the contrary.
That might be because as a lawyer you're biased to prefer form over intent. I'm sorry if this sounds nasty, it's not supposed to be though. People are different. GNU/Stallman goes to great lengths to describe where he is coming from so the reader can understand what the motivations behind his points are. It's not supposed to be a watertight contract between two parties with opposing agendas who are trying to outmaneu…
Most of the rider is crystal clear. It just gets hard to follow in areas such as the following:
A supply of tea with milk and sugar would be nice. If it is tea I really like, I like it without milk and sugar. With milk and sugar, any kind of tea is fine. I always bring tea bags with me, so if we use my tea bags, I will certainly like that tea without milk or sugar.
If I am quite sleepy, I would like two cans or small bottles of non-diet Pepsi. (I dislike the taste of coke, and of all diet soda; also, there is an international boycott of the Coca Cola company for killing union organizers in Colombia and Guatemala; see killercoke.org.) However, if I am not very sleepy, I won't want Pepsi, because it is better if I don't drink so much sugar.
In more concise (and readable) form: (1) milk and sugar is required, although he may not use it, and (2) Pepsi, not Coke.
I apologize up front to those of you who take the following comments as me being purposefully obtuse. That's not my intent. I am not familiar with the intricate details of his message but on the surface it seems to me to be at odds, at some level, with the idea of it being ok to have a parrot as a pet. Software needs to be free or humans have a right to have free access to software but it's okay to keep a bird in a c…
(I'd elaborate but it's more fun just to refer you to RMS, who is completely correct on this subject. I didn't read the rest of his note, though, so he may be less correct on other subjects. ;)
Having said that: Just as birds are "meant" to fly around all the time, so are humans "meant" to spend most of their lives without sitting, run long distances across equatorial plains in bare feet, live in bands of perhaps a dozen or two individuals, teach their children how to find, identify, and possibly eat hundreds of varieties of wild plant, periodically endure starvation, cope with a wide variety of exciting parasites inside and out, and occasionally get attacked by wild creatures. And though at one time or another various people have become fanatical about recreating one (presumed) aspect of our early environment or another -- ranging from barefoot running to the "paleo" diet -- humans do in fact live full and happy lives in modern cities, or in the Arctic Circle. We're quite adaptive.
Parrots are also quite adaptive. Like dogs, their main concern is that they live just as the flock does. In a home the flock, of course, is you and any other creatures that happen to be around. Parrots are pretty happy so long as they're around people and doing what the people are doing. My parrot can fly, but does not do so often; when he is out of his cage, he generally flies only to get closer to me, and then only when I refuse to heed his calls to come closer to him.
But I agree that all parrots would be even happier living in flocks in outdoor flight cages, of a size ranging from eight feet wide to, well, infinity. So I don't encourage anyone else to acquire a pet bird, although I obviously endorse taking good care of the pet birds that already exist, like mine.
I apologize up front to those of you who take the following comments as me being purposefully obtuse. That's not my intent. I am not familiar with the intricate details of his message but on the surface it seems to me to be at odds, at some level, with the idea of it being ok to have a parrot as a pet. Software needs to be free or humans have a right to have free access to software but it's okay to keep a bird in a c…
I had a parrot once. I have the following to say: Parrots should never be physically confined, either by cages or (god forbid!) chains. If they like you, they will hang around you on their own accord. After a while they seem to regard some humans as family. Mine would follow my mom around like a dog. As far as I know, they do not surf wind drafts, but they do require exercise. Therefore, you should have an open space…
I will point out that, though letting your parrot out of the cage for indoor exercise is important -- and they do indeed love to climb around, so get a big ol' play gym with branches and little chains and stuff -- nobody in the (North American) pet-parrot literature recommends letting them outside. Indeed, letting a hand-raised parrot escape to the outdoors is a classic way to get them killed. They have no idea what to do out there, they often get lost or confused or stressed and fail to come home, even from the top of a tree right next door. And, obviously, there are a lot of dangers to a naive bird in a tree: Hawks, cats, other mammals, perhaps even snakes...
Now, obviously there are lots of places where wild parrots live outside by the thousand. And in the right climate even former pet birds can successfully transition back to the wild. (Even in North America: See The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, a great movie.) And if you had an originally-wild bird it's even less surprising that it managed to negotiate trips to the trees and back. But it's kind of fortunate that yours kept coming back.
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That might be because as a lawyer you're biased to prefer form over intent. I'm sorry if this sounds nasty, it's not supposed to be though. People are different. GNU/Stallman goes to great lengths to describe where he is coming from so the reader can understand what the motivations behind his points are. It's not supposed to be a watertight contract between two parties with opposing agendas who are trying to outmaneu…
At the end of the day, a contract doesn't replace a relationship. It just puts everyone on notice about what's intended. Most of the rider is crystal clear. It just gets hard to follow in areas such as the following: A supply of tea with milk and sugar would be nice. If it is tea I really like, I like it without milk and sugar. With milk and sugar, any kind of tea is fine. I always bring tea bags with me, so if we us…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok clearly you think the rest of your argument is obvious, but I'm going to be dense and say "yes", those are tools. Just as the Linux kernel is a tool for managing the various resources of the system. Maybe it's the word "merely" that's tripping things up, but I don't see how any of these things fail to fit the word "tool".
It would be easy to argue that most software fits the "tool" label. As far as I know, rms objects to describing GNU as a set of "programming tools" or "development tools" as he (reasonably, in this case, I think) finds those labels unfair. GNU software is required for any operating system using the Linux kernel, as far as I'm aware, and those systems are not limited to programming or development.