Richard Stallman's Computer Setup • Hacker News Board

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#41

Post by iso8859-1 » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 6:20 PM UTC

nabilt wrote: post #35

I am curious to know what cloud services he uses if any. I'm researching alternatives to proprietary/hosted software for some of my important data so I can avoid the privacy and security issues. Some of the services I would like to replace are GMail/Calendar/Contacts, Lastpass, RescueTime. Any suggestions?

I don't really think he uses any, that would be kind of against the whole concept, since all those cloud providers have their own API.

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#42

Post by brudgers » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 6:21 PM UTC

>"Once or twice or maybe three times a day I connect and transfer mail in and out. Before sending mail, I always review and revise the outgoing messages. That gives me a chance to catch mistakes and faux pas."

I consider that a practice worthy of adoption.

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#43

Post by onli » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 6:21 PM UTC

sek wrote: post #6

Well, not the best way to expand your horizon. When he would use things like the iPad from time to time, he would understand that convenience is the biggest threat to open source. Nobody cares how free Stallman's device really is. When he would speak for better open source devices, he would actually make progress. Right now is Shuttleworth advancing the free software movement to be accessible for everyone. Reminds me…

>When he would use things like the iPad from time to time, he would understand that convenience is the biggest threat to open source.

I remember him saying that. Sorry, about FOSS, of course.

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#44

Post by ebiester » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 6:28 PM UTC

lazerwalker wrote: post #24

thurn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and Facebook would never exist the way they do today without the free software movement. Both of them rely on a huge stack of open-source technology. Stallman's ideas are what makes it possible for a college kid to run a web startup today essentially for free.

I think sek's post was more along the lines of "but what has he done for me lately?" Right now, for every piece of open software that has enabled all kinds of world-changing good things, there's a dozen situations where open software is not a viable solution when compared to the closed alternatives for a wide variety of reasons, unless you're explicitly choosing to use only open software as a show of support for an i…

Someone needs to set the edge of the Overton window.

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#45

Post by waferbaby » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 6:32 PM UTC

kayoone wrote: post #2

This has been on here a couple of times already. I respect his Setup, but i think if your not the founder of the Free Software Movement, this is a bit extreme ;)

That's what I thought, that it's been posted before.

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#46

Post by xorglorb » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 6:34 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #37

pooriaazimi wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But... (open source != FSF) Stallman's ideas are what makes it possible for a college kid to run a web startup today essentially for free. With lots and lots of limitations the GPL license imposes on him... I think the world would be a better place with less GPL and more BSD/Apache/... - He did great things, but many of his ideas are old and frankly, ridiculous. I submitted this link a while back that has a great dis…

What limitations does the GPL license place on a web startup? AGPL, yes, but GPL?

If you ever license a product to another company (ie. GitHub FI), you have to be GPL compliant.

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#47

Post by jorgecastillo » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 6:38 PM UTC

rudiger wrote: post #15

You have to give the guy some credit; Stallman believes in the free software movement, fights for it, and refuses to compromise his rights or values.

Don't take this the wrong way but I personally feel that the GPL is not a free software license, I feel it's a community software license. BSD is a free software license, BSD code is truly yours, you want to create a proprietary fork you can do it, you want to create a GPLed fork you can do it, you want to expand the BSD code base you can do it. One thing I really love about BSD licensed code is that I feel like I own it, best of all this doesn't stop anyone else from feeling the same.

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#48

Post by pooriaazimi » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 6:40 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #37

pooriaazimi wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But... (open source != FSF) Stallman's ideas are what makes it possible for a college kid to run a web startup today essentially for free. With lots and lots of limitations the GPL license imposes on him... I think the world would be a better place with less GPL and more BSD/Apache/... - He did great things, but many of his ideas are old and frankly, ridiculous. I submitted this link a while back that has a great dis…

What limitations does the GPL license place on a web startup? AGPL, yes, but GPL?

Read the linked HN discussion (and also the original FreeBSD.org article). As an example, You can't (technically) use GPL'd code inside your iOS application.

GPL is not the greatest license, that's why they created LGPL (to remove some of its stupid restrictions) and even that wasn't enough...

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#49

Post by noarchy » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 6:43 PM UTC

schraeds wrote: post #9

why-el wrote: post #3

It's awesome how small this entry is compared to what other developers would describe as their setup.

He isn't a developer, he is a front man for a decades old movement.

How do you define "developer"? The man has certainly written his share of code, and has contributed it to the community. I don't know how he has made his living, over the years, but I bet he's been paid to develop at some point.

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#50

Post by JoshTriplett » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 6:43 PM UTC

Sadly, this didn't actually provide the details of the most interesting bit of this setup: a separate system that receives URLs via email and emails back a text version of the webpage, which allows integrating browsing into an almost entirely offline batch-processing setup.