Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#1

Post by AlexeyMK » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 8:59 PM UTC

Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter
alexeymk.com

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#2

Post by sliverstorm » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 9:27 PM UTC

On the flipside, if Stallman was less crazy I wouldn't have my second-favorite comic strip of all time:

http://xkcd.com/225/

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#3

Post by microtonal » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 9:30 PM UTC

Years back, I used to be an FSF member. Not that I liked the GPL much (in fact, I mostly use the Apache License), but they raised important issues, and had a track record of investing into fine software (GNU) that I benefitted from a lot.

However, their campaigns were getting so off-target, that much of my sympathy dwindled, and I ended my membership. Childish 'anti' advertising, such as 'BadVista' and DDoSing Apple's genius bars (gee, that's will convince anyone who was visiting an Apple Store) only made the whole free software movement look bad, childish, and unsocial. To this day, they seem to put their energy into almost hilarious campaigns (Windows 7 sins? Seriously?).

This open letter is on the mark, their current course only marginalizes the FSF and part of the FLOSS community. Whatever happened to relying on your own strengths, rather than caricaturizing the competition?

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#4

Post by michaelpinto » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 9:44 PM UTC

If Stallman wasn't a crazy hippy he wouldn't have been into this cause years before even the first dot.com boom. It's unfair for someone to insist that a visionary go corporate all these years later because you feel uncomfortable. If you want to be the next generation spokesman than become that, but don't waste time trying to make a zebra shed his stripes.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#5

Post by fluidcruft » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 9:47 PM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #3

Years back, I used to be an FSF member. Not that I liked the GPL much (in fact, I mostly use the Apache License), but they raised important issues, and had a track record of investing into fine software (GNU) that I benefitted from a lot. However, their campaigns were getting so off-target, that much of my sympathy dwindled, and I ended my membership. Childish 'anti' advertising, such as 'BadVista' and DDoSing Apple'…

I am also a lapsed member exactly for the same reasons. The camp makes it impossible to spread the word (for example by linking to their site) because I feel like the cheesiness of the presentation would reflect poorly on me. Frankly they look like a bunch of clowns. Which is unfortunate. I do think they are entitled to their own flair and personality. Thankfully the GPL website is less polarizing. The free software manifesto is great and it isn't packaged in a cloak of easily-dismissed looniness.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#6

Post by AlexeyMK » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 9:53 PM UTC

michaelpinto wrote: post #4

If Stallman wasn't a crazy hippy he wouldn't have been into this cause years before even the first dot.com boom. It's unfair for someone to insist that a visionary go corporate all these years later because you feel uncomfortable. If you want to be the next generation spokesman than become that, but don't waste time trying to make a zebra shed his stripes.

Thanks for making that point. I want to make perfectly clear that I have a tremendous amount of respect for RMS and everything that he's done. By no means would I recommend that he compromise his ideology or 'go corporate.'

All I'm saying is: almost everybody at his talk (already a self-selecting group) was put off by the tone and extremist nature of his delivery. His message got lost, and that sucks - it's an important message.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#7

Post by smellyboy » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 9:57 PM UTC

Whilst I'm against negative campaigning, rms has been and still is the consciousness of free software. We would be in a very bad place if not for him. yeah sometimes he's a dick, but then we all are.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#8

Post by emilsedgh » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 9:58 PM UTC

A few points i would like to remind everyone who criticizes rms.

1) rms is a radical guy. You cannot change that. He fights for what he thinks is right. He is not the kind of person you can ask to censor himself.

If he thinks u.s goverment is to blame for 9/11, no matter how saying it in a lecture seems childish, he will say it.

If you invite rms for a lecture, he is coming with his radicalism. That is to be expected. You cannot invite rms and expect steve jobs.

2) rms is a practical guy. stop acting like he's a mad man who knows nothing. He started GNU, wrote emacs, glibc, gcc and probably others. He created the concept of free software and wrote a license as good as GPL to defend it.

He also managed to gather a community around this very crazy idea of free software.

3) rms doesnt want people only to use free software. he wants people to value their freedom, and as a result of that, use free software.

It doesnt really matter if whole world uses android instead of ios. The point is, these days, most people involved in open source community, do not even care about free software and the freedom it offers.

Most people are interested in technological advancements or affects of an open source project on market. None of them are concerns for rms.

And, what i said above is just what i interpreted from his actions and are not facts.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#9

Post by elwin » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 9:59 PM UTC

I hear this opinion a lot, and I think it slightly misses the point. The open-source world already has plenty of socially conventional advocates promoting their products. If the FSF became an ordinary open-source software promoter, it wouldn't have nearly as much influence as, say, the Ubuntu marketing team.

But there aren't many organizations trying to derive software principles from objective logic instead of subjective cost-benefit analysis, who insist that freedom and controlling your own computing is not just another feature but a vital issue. RMS may not convert many Windows users, but he does come up with valuable insights. If no one else is going to be a vocal, uncompromising advocate for software users, I can cringe through Windows 7 Sins and jokes about letting presidents drown.

Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter

#10

Post by Typhon » Sat, Apr 23, 2011, 10:03 PM UTC

Can somebody tell me when exactly did Stallman say that someone who used proprietary software was a hater of freedom ? In the last interview I read, he seemed able to understand that almost nobody would go as far as him on the side of software freedom.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/031411-richard-stallma...