131–140 of 236 posts
Stallman on Android: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.htm...
This article doesn't seem to give any examples of specific predictions Stallman made that have turned out to be correct. All the article seems to be saying is that Stallman seemed paranoid, and present events seem to justify paranoia. (Incidentally, people always feel that.) Can anyone give some examples of specific predictions Stallman made that seemed surprising at the time, but that have come true? I'm not saying…
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This is exactly who I mean. People seem to have short memories. "A Nobel Peace Prize winner?" For doing what exactly? This actually makes me question the entire Nobel Peace Prize program.
It was questionable when Henry Kissinger won it.
This article doesn't seem to give any examples of specific predictions Stallman made that have turned out to be correct. All the article seems to be saying is that Stallman seemed paranoid, and present events seem to justify paranoia. (Incidentally, people always feel that.) Can anyone give some examples of specific predictions Stallman made that seemed surprising at the time, but that have come true? I'm not saying…
However, I think it's mostly just the general point that Stallman makes about free software (the 'prediction' is just that this is important). At the risk of hypothesizing how this point is relevant: freedom to modify software is an inalienable right, which increases the chances of people not taking advantage of other people with technology. Not in any absolute sense (it only increases the chances). But it just makes coming up with solutions to centralized, non-democratic uses of technology (SOPA, etc.) a lot more easy.
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From what I understand, RMS has spent a large fraction of his working life in the last 20 years traveling the world to speak to people about free software. He could be dismissed as too extreme, but dismissing him as someone who hasn't fought for his beliefs is way off. His speaking schedule is often published in the FSF newsletter; he appears to speak to a group about free software around once per week.
That's just it, he spoke about free software, not these larger issues. And getting people to adopt free software is an orthogonal issue. Even if GPL software had 99% market share in the US, and everyone in the country were running the same kind of computer as Stallman, the government could still step in and pass all kinds of draconian laws. Getting regular people to adopt the GPL ethos is fine, but if the ethos doesn…
What's larger than freedom?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I understand, RMS has spent a large fraction of his working life in the last 20 years traveling the world to speak to people about free software. He could be dismissed as too extreme, but dismissing him as someone who hasn't fought for his beliefs is way off. His speaking schedule is often published in the FSF newsletter; he appears to speak to a group about free software around once per week.
That's just it, he spoke about free software, not these larger issues. And getting people to adopt free software is an orthogonal issue. Even if GPL software had 99% market share in the US, and everyone in the country were running the same kind of computer as Stallman, the government could still step in and pass all kinds of draconian laws. Getting regular people to adopt the GPL ethos is fine, but if the ethos doesn…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He co-authored a license that anyone can use to share software, prose, and other copyrightable material. That license, and others derived from it, are at the root of most non-proprietary software and many types of user-created content. Using the internet means you've used software that likely could not have been created without such licenses. Wikipedia is another example of something using a license derived from the…
Yes, but what has he done that has been directed towards US laws, regulations, and policies, to protect the right to read?
You see, the GPL takes the copyright system and turns it on its head. That's why it is named a copyleft license, an obvious pun.
How does it do that? Well, copyright prevents distribution. The GPL rides this restriction and says that you may not distribute GPL-licensed software unless (1) you distribute it with no extra restrictions + (2) the distributed binary is either accompanied by source-code or the source-code is available on request. The GPL COULD NOT demand this if it weren't for the copyright law and in regards to freedom / protecting users rights, it works out great because nobody can abuse the GPL without legal repercussions.
It's actually beautiful if you think about it and innovative - it enabled open-source / free software to really disrupt the software industry, creating the equivalent of the public commons. And this movement went viral and moved to books, music and movies. And this would have happened without the GPL, but on a much lower scale. The GPL is the spark that started the fire.
BTW - to change the world you don't need to change the laws. The alternative is to make them obsolete and technology has a habit of doing that ;-)