I hope he got paid well for that talk, it was probably his last paid speaking engagement.
My Talk at Microsoft
131–140 of 248 posts
Re: My Talk at Microsoft
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
You sure that's not just for GPL? I worked at a place that had a strict no-GPL policy due to the legal risks of non-compliance. LGPL and MIT software was fine though.
"The legal risks of non-compliance" are the exact FUD the old Microsoft spread. If someone doesn't follow the GPL then they don't have a right to reproduce the software and can be liable for copyright infringement, which is the same as any software license proprietary or otherwise. That someone wouldn't be liable if they distribute the source for their modifications doesn't increase the risk, it decreases it by provi…
It is way, way, way easier to ensure that you follow a commercial license.
Re: My Talk at Microsoft
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is server site rendering, use whatever you want to generate an html file and send it to the browser, most websites can do this (blogs,news, forums) then the small interactive interactions you can make them in JS using GPL/BSD whatever.
> then the small interactive interactions you can make them in JS With JS enabled any site could potentially run non-free code so this has no benefits. As far as I can tell the proposed solution wasn't to develop some tech that ensures (somehow) that all functionality JS provides is transferred to something "free-only" but rather to give up that functionality entirely. That's not a solution, that's just running away…
Sometimes there is no practical solution, and running away is the pragmatist approach
Re: My Talk at Microsoft
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The legal risks of non-compliance" are the exact FUD the old Microsoft spread. If someone doesn't follow the GPL then they don't have a right to reproduce the software and can be liable for copyright infringement, which is the same as any software license proprietary or otherwise. That someone wouldn't be liable if they distribute the source for their modifications doesn't increase the risk, it decreases it by provi…
It is way, way, way easier to ensure that you follow a commercial license.
Commercial licenses are long and frequently contain terms that are unintuitive or ambiguous which are trivial to violate when most of the employees using the software aren't aware they exist.
And the easiest way to violate them is simply to have installed more copies than you're licensed for, which is an issue the GPL doesn't have.
Re: My Talk at Microsoft
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are plenty of people that work on OpenSource at corporations. Linux Kernel is a widely known example, but not the only one. Further, there are funding models that do not require "donations" to fund libre software, "Free" does not mean free in cost, it means freedom. Some options include 1. Paid Binary Dististrbution 2. Support Agreements 3. Priority Features 4. Customization 5. Hosting / SaaS 6. Paid documentat…
Open source software isn't necessarily free software. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
Yes, but that is unrelated to his post, in fact he said precisely that the "free" is about freedom.
Re: My Talk at Microsoft
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most unreasonable people are useless though. There's only a small subset who drive progress.
And RMS much definitely is part of this smaller subset.
My old boss at MIT worked with RMS and he said that everyone hates him. Never helping anyone, always getting into stupid autistic arguments with people. He said that RMS rarely did any real work and that everyone hated him and tried to avoid him as much as possible. My boss said that RMS once started yelling at him because he said “bless you” after RMS sneezed. Of course this is all anecdotal, but RMS strikes me as a profoundly annoying and useless person.
Moreover, I don’t even like the idea of the GPL. Other licenses are better, but still suboptimal in regards to freedom. Real freedom is the public domain. In fact, all of my open source software is released under the public domain.
Re: My Talk at Microsoft
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of non-free software is written in Javascript and runs on webpages. If you want to avoid using non-free software you have to disable Javascript on many websites. Ideally the Javascript would be freed, but making it optional might be a more feasible goal.
I've always been a bit confused by this take, because the most likely alternative to having proprietary code in the front-end is to have proprietary code in the back-end. It's not clear to me why I shouldn't tolerate closed-source Javascript that I can nonetheless inspect, archive, and edit on my own machine, but I should tolerate a closed-source SaaS backend that I can't inspect, archive, or edit. Of course propriet…
Javascript in the browser is practically compiled binary software at this point. You can't realistically inspect or edit 99% of what you're running since it's fully minified and obfuscated. And that's even more the case with WASM.
Re: My Talk at Microsoft
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of non-free software is written in Javascript and runs on webpages. If you want to avoid using non-free software you have to disable Javascript on many websites. Ideally the Javascript would be freed, but making it optional might be a more feasible goal.
I think this is a really weird reductionist take. Yes, if you don't run code, you also don't run nonfree code, but I'm skeptical that that "make people run less code" should be a goal of a free software movement...
You can't know before loading a page whether it'll load non-free code. Browsers don't have a mechanism for telling you what license governs the code, and figuring out what license blocked JavaScript uses is a fair bit of work, especially since most pages use multiple JavaScript files, and which flies are downloaded may change from page to page.
Even if nearly everyone uses GPL for their JavaScript, you still need to go through this process for every site that may use non-free software, which is a royal pain.
Perhaps a "better" solution is to fight to have browsers check the license of JavaScript before loading it (either prompt the user, or have a browser setting for acceptable licenses), but that's a much harder battle than promoting JavaScript-less web pages, especially since the user has control of blocking JavaScript today.
Re: My Talk at Microsoft
#139> I resisted Steve Jobs's snow job in 1989 or 1990; I am no easy mark for those who want me to change my views. Why do people still prop this insufferable person up? Interacting with everyone like an angsty teen is no way for anyone who considers themself a professional to publicly talk. IMO FOSS is where it is today more despite Stallman than because of him. Being an asshole isn't necessarily a sign of being a savan…
> Edit: Just a reminder that, only a week ago, this man was fired for using a technology forum to defend a 74 year old man having sex with a 17 year old prostitute on pedophile island. You're spreading lies, whether or not you're aware of it. The man has resigned (most likely being forced out) for being pedantic about an accusation about a 74 year old man, that allegedly - and in fact not at all, if the actual witnes…
Wow, you are completely wrong on that. RMS was so blatantly wrong that even he had to back track on his views.
Re: My Talk at Microsoft
#140What did we trade Stallman for, hypothetical competent women?
Can someone flag this ?