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Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

richard.stallman.usesthis.com

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Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#81

Post by fragsworth »

Czarnian wrote: post #67
ldesegur wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Richard Stallman is to software what Jean-Paul Sartres was to philosophy during his time and still now. JPS like RMS was living through his convictions and ideas to the point of refusing the Nobel prize because it would have tinted his motivations. RMS would do the same without any questions. Don't get them wrong: these people are not fanatic, they are just living and breathing a cause they started for a good reason.…

Don't get them wrong: these people are not fanatic, they are just living and breathing a cause they started for a good reason. AKA Fanaticism. He's become an inflexible, computerized hermit. His dogmatic adherence to a demonstrably untenable principal of "freedom" has relegated him a permanent state of pre-1995 digital stasis. He's not principled, he's dogmatic. At best, he's a cautionary tale demonstrating the state…

> At best, he's a cautionary tale demonstrating the state of the world if he had his way.

How do you know what the state of the world would have been if he had his way? All you know is his state in our current world, which is vastly different from a world with nothing but free software. You think hardware manufacturers wouldn't use free software if that was all that existed?

You have no idea what the world of technology would look like if we had nothing but free software. And neither do I, and neither does Richard Stallman. But we do suspect it would be better. At the very least, don't discount the possibility.

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#82

Post by xiaomai »

noarchy wrote: post #49
schraeds wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I read an interview with him many years ago in which he said he can't do much programming anymore due to painful arthritis.

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#83

Post by pooriaazimi »

dalke wrote: post #70
pooriaazimi wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iOS example was just to name one of many limitations of using GPL code. > Enough for whom? Microsoft? No, for developers themselves. Dynamic vs. static linking mess etc. > ...some people do not have "allow companies to benefit from my work without giving back anything in return" as their top priority. But in reality, that doesn't happen a lot - to name a few on top of my head: Webkit, PostgreSQL, Minix, LaTeX, Mo…

I know all of these regarding software which is deployed on someone else's hardware (iOS, embedded, etc); I wanted to know why the GPL is a problem for someone doing a web startup, which is the original point you made.

Nowadays most web startups don't do just web clients, they tend to create native clients for each platform. A web startup for sharing photos will fail on iOS if they provide only a web app. And even if you're creating just a web client, AGPL might still bite you.

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#84

Post by kprobst »

kprobst wrote: post #7
mino wrote: post #5

Not a very appealing setup in 2012.

Not a very appealing setup, period.

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought I was on HN but it seems I wondered into Reddit or Slashdot. Let me amend my point of view: "I loooove Richard Stallman and I totally dig his choice of computing platform. I would never dare to say otherwise"

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#85

Post by wbkang »

jrockway wrote: post #59
there wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He probably e-mails his assistant to do it, just like he speaks out against cell phones but will just ask to borrow someone else's. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/10/27/rms-cell-phones Edit: according to http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html he does use normal web browsers from time to time and even has a Twitter account for posting comments on websites. For text articles, his script probably just runs s…

RMS said he would ask someone nearby for a phone, not necessarily a cell phone. Landline phones don't use software, they're a microphone connected to some wires. But you can't exactly carry one around with you. Not sure why John Gruber cares about this, but...

Landlines definitely use proprietary software for switching. It really isn't just wires connected together.

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#86

Post by mike-cardwell »

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.

He has to compromise at some point. He can refuse to stick non-free software on his computer, but he can't refuse to benefit from the use of non-free software in the computers of the cars and planes that he uses for travel, and he can't refuse the non-free software that was used in the manufacture of many of the products he uses every day.

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#87

Post by pjscott »

syawaworht wrote: post #68
ldesegur wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Richard Stallman is to software what Jean-Paul Sartres was to philosophy during his time and still now. JPS like RMS was living through his convictions and ideas to the point of refusing the Nobel prize because it would have tinted his motivations. RMS would do the same without any questions. Don't get them wrong: these people are not fanatic, they are just living and breathing a cause they started for a good reason.…

I don't mean to belittle RMS's achievements, but as a general point, I don't think that simply adhering to conviction is courageous. It's the easy way out. It's the way that doesn't address the greys in reality, for the sake of simplicity of what you believe in. You are not tested in your decisions, because you have already refused to make any.

How does that not count as a decision?

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#88

Post by nknight »

asto wrote: post #18
Argorak wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practically? No. From the ultra-geek perspective? Yes.

What sort of ultra-geek uses that sort of setup? The current generation of that notebook has a processor that runs at less than 1GHz! The only reason he gets away with it is that he mostly does mail on emacs from console. It's too minimalist for any present day software development work

I could do 99% of my job effectively on a ~200MHz Pentium with maybe 64MB of RAM. About the only thing that would really bite me is the occasional need to help the client team, which often means booting Windows in a VM and replicating their comparatively bloated development environment.

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#89

Post by jshen »

Czarnian wrote: post #67
ldesegur wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Richard Stallman is to software what Jean-Paul Sartres was to philosophy during his time and still now. JPS like RMS was living through his convictions and ideas to the point of refusing the Nobel prize because it would have tinted his motivations. RMS would do the same without any questions. Don't get them wrong: these people are not fanatic, they are just living and breathing a cause they started for a good reason.…

Don't get them wrong: these people are not fanatic, they are just living and breathing a cause they started for a good reason. AKA Fanaticism. He's become an inflexible, computerized hermit. His dogmatic adherence to a demonstrably untenable principal of "freedom" has relegated him a permanent state of pre-1995 digital stasis. He's not principled, he's dogmatic. At best, he's a cautionary tale demonstrating the state…

" he's a cautionary tale demonstrating the state of the world if he had his way."

Almost all of the things you consider modern in the computer world are built on top of his creations. OS X, google, facebook, HN, etc ... all built on the foundation RMS laid. Without his creations we would be closer to your idea of a "pre-1995 digital stasis"

Re: Richard Stallman's Computer Setup

#90

Post by keenerd »

Czarnian wrote: post #75
jrockway wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS said he would ask someone nearby for a phone, not necessarily a cell phone. Landline phones don't use software, they're a microphone connected to some wires. But you can't exactly carry one around with you. Not sure why John Gruber cares about this, but...

These days, if you ask someone for a phone and you are more than a few feet away from a landline, you're asking for a cell phone. To say otherwise is being disingenuous. To me, it demonstrates a far less altruistic motivations.

> To me, it demonstrates a far less altruistic motivations.

He does not have a problem with cell phones. He has a problem with the fact that if you use the same cell phone repeatably, you give up a large portion of your privacy though all the meta-information that can be collected.

To make a simple analogy: RMS's cell phones complaints are the same as his compaints about the CharlieCard system that lets you pay for rides in the MA public transit system.

If someone gets your card, they can find when and where you entered/exited trains. So RMS uses a card swap system where a pool of people exchange cards. This muddies the waters enough to make tracking your movements much harder.

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