Eric Raymond: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters • Hacker News Board

Re: Eric Raymond: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters

#111

Post by einhverfr » Tue, Jun 12, 2012, 12:47 AM UTC

raganwald wrote: post #83

cwp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The difference between RMS and ESR is one of kind, not one of degree. Both the free software movement and the open source movement believe that open system are good, and the more open they are the better they are. The difference is in their answer to the question of "why?" RMS and his adherents believe in inalienable human right to tinker, and consider limitations to that right, such as closed source technology,…

The difference between RMS and ESR is one of kind, not one of degree Yes. RMS is concerned with morality, ESR with practicality. Also yes, for some definition of “practicality.” The open source movement is just as ardent, just as committed and just as "extreme" as the free software movement, but more successful. I don’t know how to measure commitment, but I agree that the open source movement is more successful in th…

I go back and forth on how helpful RMS is. On one hand, where would we be without the GCC? This is something he helped get going.

On the other, I see him as someone who misinterprets a bunch of things because it is convenient for him politically to do so. The two examples are what happens when you dynamically link GPL software to proprietary software (static linking is arguably a bigger deal with the GPL v3 than the GPL v2), and taking extreme positions as to what the GPL versions require of developers bridging proprietary and GPL software.

The second is his view of what the BSD license allows and he makes false claims here he bases his view that the BSD and GPL v3 licenses are compatible on. The BSD license probably does not allow sublicensing in the opinion of most lawyers I have talked to (Eben Moglen being the sole exception!) and so if relicensing/sublicensing is a requirement for compatibility with the GPL v3, the BSD license is incompatible but the MIT license is compatible. Last I discussed this with Moglen he seemed to think it was safe just because the BSD author would lack standing or on other technical grounds. Every other lawyer I have talked to says "don't assume it's safe to take BSD code and add license restrictions without first making significant changes" (this is also the Software Freedom Law Center's official recommendation also) something the GPL v3 explicitly requires. (The counter-argument is that everyone involved in drafting the GPL v3 believed it to be compatible with the BSD license and this was a goal so BSD compatibility should be read into the license. This was what Richard Fontana argued when I brought this up on the OSI email lists).

I actually still use the GPL v2 and BSD licenses almost exclusively, and RMS is a big part of the reason I won't consider upgrading to the GPL v3.

Re: Eric Raymond: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters

#112

Post by kijin » Tue, Jun 12, 2012, 1:08 AM UTC

bluekeybox wrote: post #73

cstross wrote: post #38

We need people like RMS. He marks one side of the Overton Window framing the debate on freedom and software. (Overton window: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window ) This doesn't mean he's right but what he does is necessary . If he didn't exist we'd need to invent him (or someone like him). (Oh, and he is indeed a fanatic, but of the pacifist variety -- not the kind who's interested in killing people to enforc…

Except: (1) Politics and public debate is multidimensional and not a single axis with a clear "left" and "right" as people sometimes mistakenly imagine; multiple and different extrema are possible. (2) On the axis where RMS appears to stand, I do not believe his position to be the most extreme one possible. (3) Just the way most people fail to understand that politics is multidimensional, without broad knowledge, the…

If you think of the Overton Window as a multidimensional space with multiple axes, RMS does occupy a location close to (although perhaps not exactly at) one or another edge of it. Regardless of whether he is wrong or right, he has done a great deal of work stretching the edges of, and drawing attention to, the part of the Overton Window that he occupies. In fact, it's the whole point of the Overton Window argument that even wrong views can often be useful in the grand scheme of things. So I don't think your exceptions to GP's argument are valid.

Also, lots of people have hopelessly romantic views about the group to which they belong (or used to belong). At least in that respect, RMS is not unique at all. But the fact that he falls prey to this common error is not very relevant when we ask whether it is indeed "evil" to make proprietary software, or any other current issue that RMS rants about. (We don't evaluate Peter Thiel's startup advice on the basis of his odd philosophical commitments, do we?)

Re: Eric Raymond: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters

#113

Post by raganwald » Tue, Jun 12, 2012, 1:10 AM UTC

pjscott wrote: post #97

jgon wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am going to simply go by what ESR himself says, which is that his wife is a lawyer and so she goes and works every day which funds his ability to stay at home and write blog posts about the intellectual inferiority of black people and how the poor deserve no government help. No I am not making this up.

You might as well be making up the part about black people. I checked, and ESR's actual argument is that black people have a lower average IQ than caucasians even after adjusting for things like socioeconomic status and childhood nutrition, that this IQ difference has significant effects on the observed distributions of things like income and crime, and that these same statistics prove that racial discrimination agai…

From time to time I go slumming and read the kind of thing Mr. Raymond has written, things like:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4278

He quotes something which appears to be backed up by statistics, then carries off into some social speculation. He rails against “political correctness” muzzling the truth. I have read similar things from people who feel a need to “have an honest conversation about the actions of Israel in the Middle East.” And like wise from people who can cite in detail the various horrors inflicted by the legal system against men who are tricked or trapped into biological paternity. All quite possibly true facts to share, of course.

It’s a massive Ad Hominem on my part, but I can’t help but wonder when I read such passionate words, “Why is this person fixated on this particular topic?” We all have our passions, some of us have crusades. What compels a programmer to take it upon himself to fight the injustice of a society that walks on eggshells about the various differences between the “races?”

I’m not going to say he’s a racist. I’ll say instead he’s a man fixated on race. And I’ll wield the Ad Hominem hammer again and suggest, although he may be a pragmatic voice for the open source movement, where society is concerned he comes across as every bit as fanatic as his accusations.

Re: Eric Raymond: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters

#114

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Jun 12, 2012, 1:10 AM UTC

dpark wrote: post #22

einhverfr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some areas where open source software is the norm: 1) Web servers 2) compilers for UNIX and embedded application development 3) ISP infrastructure I am sure there are plenty of others. My business is trying to bring LedgerSMB to this area regarding mid-range accounting and ERP. Open source can be effectively monatized in more ways than proprietary software. As LedgerSMB 1.4 comes along we'll be shifting from consulti…

Not coincidentally, those are also areas where there's basically no longer any profit to be made. No one makes money selling web servers or compilers for Unix, because it's not possible to compete on price with "free". The businesses that make money from open source typically do so by selling something else on top. Google doesn't sell open source. They sell services. Red Hat doesn't sell open source. They sell suppor…

Too: proprietary solutions cannot (at a sustainable price point) compete with the quality of free.

As someone noted -- there's a development model which shares the load among many eyes, and produces higher quality work as a result.

There are a few other mechanisms at work, but the upshot is that for utility, and even a fair amount of specialized software, there's no longer a marketplace for the software itself.

Re: Eric Raymond: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters

#115

Post by jebblue » Tue, Jun 12, 2012, 1:22 AM UTC

I'd say he is very passionate but not sure fanatic is accurate.

Re: Eric Raymond: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters

#116

Post by zem » Tue, Jun 12, 2012, 1:35 AM UTC

cwp wrote: post #76

cstross wrote: post #38

We need people like RMS. He marks one side of the Overton Window framing the debate on freedom and software. (Overton window: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window ) This doesn't mean he's right but what he does is necessary . If he didn't exist we'd need to invent him (or someone like him). (Oh, and he is indeed a fanatic, but of the pacifist variety -- not the kind who's interested in killing people to enforc…

No. The difference between RMS and ESR is one of kind, not one of degree. Both the free software movement and the open source movement believe that open system are good, and the more open they are the better they are. The difference is in their answer to the question of "why?" RMS and his adherents believe in inalienable human right to tinker, and consider limitations to that right, such as closed source technology,…

one of the most striking examples of this is rms's objection to a modular gcc. modularity is a technically superior solution, and would have been supremely useful in supporting a larger ecosystem of development and analysis tools (e.g. ides, automated refactoring, source-to-source translators, etc), but would also have made it easy to build proprietary systems that could remain closed while using modules from gcc.

the current groundswell of clang adoption has revealed just how many people wanted a good, free, modular c++ compiler, but by rms's principles, making gcc serve their purposes would have come at too high a cost.

Re: Eric Raymond: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters

#117

Post by uvdiv » Tue, Jun 12, 2012, 1:35 AM UTC

pjscott wrote: post #43

pvarangot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you familiar with his views about Islam or Homosexuality? Those seem pretty fanatical to me, they are completely biased and downright offensive and illiterate. He equates homosexuality with paedophilia, denies HIV is the sole cause of AIDS and believes in a conspiracy to hide the true causes, and calls for the murder of religious leaders of the middle east equating them with animals. I tried multiple times to dis…

I dislike seeing someone's name smeared in a vague way. A bit of googling brought up the essay you mentioned regarding homosexuality, pederasty, and pedophilia: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=26 (Vagueness, begone!)

Vile. `pvarangot' didn't exaggerate.

Re: Eric Raymond: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters

#118

Post by tytr » Tue, Jun 12, 2012, 2:03 AM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #5

jgrahamc wrote: post #2

"The problem with it is the same problem with messianic religions in general; for people who are not flipped into true-believer mode by any given one, it will come off as at best creepy and insular, at worst nutty and potentially dangerous (and this remains true even for people attached to a different messianic religion)." I fit into neither of the caricatures of either a 'true believer' or someone scared of RMS. I s…

>His 'fanatical' language of evil etc. is because he truly believes those things to be evil. Any fanatic truly believes themselves to be right. That said, I'm a free software advocate. I see where the guy is coming from. I agree on most points. The one that I absolutely cannot get behind is that not releasing the source is evil.

But then you have a corporation like Google adopting "Don't be evil" as its value statement.

It's obvious that software nerds do have some concept of "evil" as it applies to software, and they like to label things as "evil" or not.

Nerds believe the potential for "evil" exists through software. Even if they are not fanatics.

Re: Eric Raymond: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters

#119

Post by cpunks » Tue, Jun 12, 2012, 2:12 AM UTC

cwp wrote: post #76

cstross wrote: post #38

We need people like RMS. He marks one side of the Overton Window framing the debate on freedom and software. (Overton window: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window ) This doesn't mean he's right but what he does is necessary . If he didn't exist we'd need to invent him (or someone like him). (Oh, and he is indeed a fanatic, but of the pacifist variety -- not the kind who's interested in killing people to enforc…

No. The difference between RMS and ESR is one of kind, not one of degree. Both the free software movement and the open source movement believe that open system are good, and the more open they are the better they are. The difference is in their answer to the question of "why?" RMS and his adherents believe in inalienable human right to tinker, and consider limitations to that right, such as closed source technology,…

The differences between ESR and RMS are:

* RMS is technically competent. ESR is technically clueless. * ESR is more charismatic. He manages to convince people he's important. RMS has on charisma. * ESR will do everything he can do undermine RMS. It's a way of building himself up. RMS will do whatever he believes will further free software. They're both often wrong. * RMS's writings from the late nineties are prophetic. ESR's writings from the same period are, in retrospect, idiotic. * RMS created the whole movement. ESR did little bits of damage to it.

Re: Eric Raymond: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters

#120

Post by bluekeybox » Tue, Jun 12, 2012, 2:17 AM UTC

kijin wrote: post #112

bluekeybox wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except: (1) Politics and public debate is multidimensional and not a single axis with a clear "left" and "right" as people sometimes mistakenly imagine; multiple and different extrema are possible. (2) On the axis where RMS appears to stand, I do not believe his position to be the most extreme one possible. (3) Just the way most people fail to understand that politics is multidimensional, without broad knowledge, the…

If you think of the Overton Window as a multidimensional space with multiple axes, RMS does occupy a location close to (although perhaps not exactly at) one or another edge of it. Regardless of whether he is wrong or right, he has done a great deal of work stretching the edges of, and drawing attention to, the part of the Overton Window that he occupies. In fact, it's the whole point of the Overton Window argument th…

> But the fact that [RMS] falls prey to this common error is not very relevant when we ask whether it is indeed "evil" to make proprietary software, or any other current issue that RMS rants about.

I believe it is relevant when discussing RMS views. What you call "romanticism" of a group is only one of several possible romanticisms. There is also the romanticism of an individual, the romanticism of a family, the romanticism of a partnership etc. The point is that RMS was guided by a romanticism at the moment he was starting the GNU project as he himself described in the copy included with every Emacs install, and moreover his romanticism was of a very specific, (I believe) noninclusive and dysfunctional kind. This is rarely discussed for some reason, when even people who deep down disagree with RMS put on a guilty face and speak of the man as if he was just one of those rare idealists whom the world badly needs, and as if they do not dare to question his supposed integrity. This breeds orthodoxy besides other things because of which this thread is here.