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Richard Stallman spoke at Microsoft Research this week

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Re: Richard Stallman spoke at Microsoft Research this week

#101

Post by Wowfunhappy »

amenod wrote: post #68
ChrisSD wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that surprises people is not that Stallman went to Microsoft but that Microsoft invited him to talk. Back in the day Bill Gates would make signs to ward against evil if Richard "communist cancer" Stallman was anywhere near Redmond. How times have changed.

I am bit more cynical about this. Google and others have simply shown Microsoft how to make loads of money by opensourcing the project, while still keeping the upper hand on it. How to "opensource-but-not-quite-opensource" (Chrome/Chromium, Android/AOSP,...) the projects. Even Amazon didn't succeed in prying away Android from Google (Fire). So in my mind it's actually surprising that it took them so long to join the…

> Even Amazon didn't succeed in prying away Android from Google (Fire).

They didn't? Amazon's phone failed because it had no reason to exist—it was a new product in a crowded market and offered nothing unique. Nothing to do with Google or Android. Amazon's tablet line still uses their Android fork, and seems to be doing fine.

Re: Richard Stallman spoke at Microsoft Research this week

#102

Post by mark-r »

saalweachter wrote: post #64
jasongill wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His rider isn't really that bad, it's common sense stuff for someone who travels and does a lot of speaking engagements. All he really asks for at the event is some supplies to make tea and possibly 2 Pepsi's, which isn't exactly over-the-top

I don't know, man, the supplies needed to make 2 Pepsi's seem pretty intense.

It would be easier if Pepsi released the formula under GPL.

Re: Richard Stallman spoke at Microsoft Research this week

#103

Post by jamesponddotco »

bscphil wrote: post #97
toyg wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also people thinking an open license is a free-for-all. I put out some simple scripts some time ago to move data across a couple of sites, under MIT - super liberal license, “just keep the credits” and you can do anything you want. Simple, right? After a few years I checked the forks and the first (and often only) thing they were doing was to strip attribution everywhere. I mean, it’s github, you forked right fr…

> It’s also people thinking an open license is a free-for-all. I put out some simple scripts some time ago to move data across a couple of sites, under MIT - super liberal license, “just keep the credits” and you can do anything you want. Simple, right? This seems like a reasonable enough place to ask: if you have a project under MIT, and I pull a function out of one file to use in my project, where exactly do I owe…

I usually place it above the function.

Like this: https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/BJGhs8qGcr/

Re: Richard Stallman spoke at Microsoft Research this week

#104

Post by seamyb88 »

I am a huge fan of Stallman.He is as close to 100% correct on software ethics as anybody has ever been. His contribution to computing has been immense. However, in a world where your social status can go down easier than it can go up, I think it's nearly impossible for younger, non-established programmers to live by these rules. We should push society, and the powerful, towards FOSS. But until that happens, the individual will not have a chance.

Re: Richard Stallman spoke at Microsoft Research this week

#105

Post by ksangeelee »

ptah wrote: post #35

hmmm, maybe m$ has changed? i'll wait another 10 years or so to see if embrace and extend before i can answer that conclusively :)

Whether or not Microsoft has changed, I don't think this talk is has much bearing on that question.

I believe that Microsoft's foray into free and open-source software is simply a response to the increasing irrelevance of their operating system to many developers who no longer have any specific need for anything Microsoft has to offer.

Re: Richard Stallman spoke at Microsoft Research this week

#106

Post by rowanG077 »

de_watcher wrote: post #39
jimmaswell wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPL code is essentially "don't-touch-with-a-39-and-a-half-foot-pole source" to most people who want any control over their project or are developing in a professional setting.

You meant control over the users.

What? GPL forces SIGNIFICANTLY more control on users then for instance the MIT license.

Re: Richard Stallman spoke at Microsoft Research this week

#107

Post by bscphil »

jamesponddotco wrote: post #103
bscphil wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s also people thinking an open license is a free-for-all. I put out some simple scripts some time ago to move data across a couple of sites, under MIT - super liberal license, “just keep the credits” and you can do anything you want. Simple, right? This seems like a reasonable enough place to ask: if you have a project under MIT, and I pull a function out of one file to use in my project, where exactly do I owe…

I usually place it above the function. Like this: https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/BJGhs8qGcr/

That's what I've been doing. Hoping that satisfies my obligations under the license and makes most authors happy.

Re: Richard Stallman spoke at Microsoft Research this week

#108

Post by toyg »

dcolkitt wrote: post #77
toyg wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NT is not a bad OS, it makes some different tradeoffs than traditional POSIX systems and in some cases it’s objectively superior. It’s just the ecosystem on top that is a pile of flaming trash.

> it makes some different tradeoffs than traditional POSIX systems and in some cases it’s objectively superior. I'm curious if you (or anyone else) have examples here. I haven't touched a Windows system in nearly 20 years, so I'm genuinely curious.

Just the other day I ended up on this: https://speakerdeck.com/trent/pyparallel-how-we-removed-the-...

There is also that whole thing about kqueue/epoll vs Overlapped I/O which I think is pretty cool.

The more I read about Windows, the more I find the cool stuff is underneath, buried under a mountain of developer-hostile commercial choices, a philosophical rejection of the command-line that dates to the '90s, bad tacked-on security, sprawling and messy APIs, and a forever-incomplete UI wavering between garish and spartan. Once you get past all that (and all the terrible software built on top of it), NT is actually a very interesting system to play with.

Re: Richard Stallman spoke at Microsoft Research this week

#109

Post by pedrow »

teh_klev wrote: post #88
bubble_talk wrote: post #66

If Microsoft hadn't embraced open source around the time Satya Nadella took over, by now they would have probably imploded and become irrelevant (I mean in the sense of how Bing is more or less irrelevant to most website owners even though it apparently makes a lot of money). Its not as if they decided to open source Windows XP.

> If Microsoft hadn't embraced open source around the time Satya Nadella took over Microsoft were already well down the road to "embracing" open source before Nadella took over as CEO. The movement inside the company began around 2006 with folks like Scott Guthrie, Scott Hanselman, Phil Haack, Rob Conery and others pushing for more openness. Two open source licenses were created by Microsoft to accommodate such works…

Also don't forget Rob Mensching[0] in 2004.

[0]:http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2004/4/5/windows-installe...

Re: Richard Stallman spoke at Microsoft Research this week

#110

Post by mdturnerphys »

I attended this. Here are a few notes:

* This was organized like any other guest talk held at Microsoft Research, of which there are ~5/week, mostly by academic guests.

* His host was Microsoft's Chief Economist, Michael Schwarz. Michael did his PhD work on free software and got to know Stallman then.

* After hooking his computer up to the projector 10-15 minutes before the talk began he displayed a quite provocative political cartoon of his regarding the invasion of Iraq.

* As mentioned elsewhere he prefaced his talk with a number of requests for Microsoft.

* At one point he did state "Sometimes there is a use for windows."

* That statement was immediately preceded by "It's getting rather hot in here. Can we do something like adjust the temperature or open some windows?" :)

* Someone in Q&A questioned whether he would have come to Microsoft a few years ago and asked what has changed for him. He said he's just hadn't been invited and would have been happy to if he had been.

For those in the Seattle area, he appears to be speaking at the central branch of the Seattle library this afternoon: https://www.fsf.org/events/richard-stallman-free-software-an...

Related article from 2005: http://suseroot.com/rms.php (note well the date)

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