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Time to fork the FSF

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Re: Time to fork the FSF

#151

Post by 0x12 »

aaronmorey wrote: post #92
sliverstorm wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ironic- it would seem to be RMS who is getting carried away. A great man has died, and all RMS can think about is what this means for the Free Software movement? To me, this discredits him more than anything I have ever heard him say. Software is not more important than life. Disclaimer: Actively avoids Apple products

I think this is a microcosm of a problem I've seen in the open source area in general... a preference for code over people. Open source software won't take over by being 1.86x faster and using a totally sweet heap sort algorithm. I'm a geek and I find that kind of thing interesting at an intellectual level, but it doesn't make me want to spend an entire Saturday trying to get Linux to recognize my sound card. "Normal…

> but it doesn't make me want to spend an entire Saturday trying to get Linux to recognize my sound card.

Stuff like that is FUD though, linux sound support is pretty good these days and the amount and variety of devices supported dwarfs the best the commercial world has to offer. In general, Linux support of legacy devices is amazing.

Newly minted hardware without a factory supported driver is a different kettle of fish but you can't really blame the Linux driver writers for that, they need information to work with and if manufacturers are not going to supply that info it needs to be painstakingly recovered, which is not always possible and almost always incomplete to some extent.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#152

Post by fletcher »

What Stallman said is just, analytically speaking:

1) I don't like when people die.

2) But this happened to Steve Jobs, unfortunately.

3) However from my point of view he was doing so much damage to the world of software that this is a good thing. Not the fact he died but the fact that we no longer have his influence.

Note: I don't agree. But I don't think it should be a problem to say the above.

It is like if you are the leader of a movement against the practice of killing whales, and there is one guy that kills 100,000 whales every year. If he dies you can legitimately say: "I'm sorry he died, but this is a good thing for whales".

He used the wrong words, the wrong time, and so forth, but the concept is nothing of extraordinary from his point of view. It is important to have the freedom of saying what we want.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#153

Post by pushingbits »

cookiecaper wrote: post #114
jpadvo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not at all with his opinion. It is that he expressed it in a horrendously, gratuitously crass and offensive way. Here is a transliteration into humane language of what he said: "My heart goes out to Steve Jobs' family in their time of grief. And my heart also goes to the millions of people who looked up to him as an icon and inspiration. But we need to not get so carried away honoring the dead that we fo…

>Maybe RMS sees a subtle distinction between death and gone-ness in his head. But I promise you that people in grief see absolutely no distinction between the death and the loss of the person they mourn. It is not legitimate for the mass of HN to be "in grief" because of Steve Jobs's death. You may be sad, but certainly no grieving period should be necessary for strangers. Stallman was not overtly disrespectful imo,…

>It is not legitimate for the mass of HN to be "in grief" because of Steve Jobs's death. You may be sad, but certainly no grieving period should be necessary for strangers.

When was this decided? And by who? Did I miss a memo?

I've never owned an Apple product in my life, but the computers I have used, the smartphone I own, the tablet I will eventually get, the world I will live in 20 years from now, probably would not exist if it wasn't for Steve Jobs.

The world has lost an exceptional human being, and along with him, we have lost a chunk of the future he would have created if he'd lived longer.

So who's deciding how we are to legitimately feel about that?

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#154

Post by wazoox »

cookiecaper wrote: post #42
leot wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but RMS is simply wrong, here. Jobs has put great software into more hands than RMS ever did. Jobs might well have (indirectly) had an even more positive influence on FOSS by spreading BSD. (I'm not saying that there isn't a ton of FOSS out there in lots of hands -- but RMS isn't responsible for its being there in the same way Jobs is responsible. Jobs is responsible for the iPhone. RMS isn't responsible for And…

RMS makes no comment about "great software" in the post. He says that Jobs "made computers as a jail 'cool'" (paraphrase), and I think to a great extent that's true -- Apple has always been the most aggressively locked-down computer maker. Although OS X uses several open-source internals and although Apple even maintains some of these (including very important ones, like CUPS and X), they are still in some ways the m…

> le has always been the most aggressively locked-down computer maker.

Actually this isn't the case. Back in Apple II times, they provided the most hacker-friendly, fully documented hardware and software, together with the built-in rom assembly listing. But this was Woz' creation (über-hacker par excellence), not Jobs'.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#155

Post by wazoox »

mkup wrote: post #150

I think RMS is doing perfect trolling to get more attention to his GNU/FSF/commie stuff. The net effect is the people talking about RMS, about FSF and GNU. More people get to know about this stuff, more people get involved. Just a little trolling replaces zillions of bucks spent on advertising, PR etc. Commies don't have money to pay, so they must troll. --- Just don't spread this hype and don't feed the troll.

> GNU/FSF/commie stuff.

Bingo, you've just made some tasteless, insulting passing remark. Some sort of reverse-Godwin point. So much for not feeding the trolls.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#156

Post by Radim »

orblivion wrote: post #127
bcrescimanno wrote: post #3

I tweeted earlier that I see RMS as the Fred Phelps (Westboro Baptist Church) of Free Software. He may not have started out this way; but these days he's completely single issue. If you're not doing free software 100% his way; you not only disagree with him but you are actually evil. Not just free software; but free software as RMS defines it(see GNU/Linux) or you're wrong. He's so blinded by his own zealotry that I'…

The problem is, RMS is part Fred Phelps, but also part Jesus Christ because he sortof started this whole thing, if my understanding is correct. Just like you got to respect Steve Jobs' accomplishments despite his own personal failings, I think (granted to a lesser extent) we gotta hand it to RMS, despite being a tactless fanatic, his moral compass always steers us toward the ideal for Free Software. And I should note…

   I think (granted to a lesser extent) we gotta hand it to RMS
Why "to a lesser extent"?

I'm honestly curious because from my outsider's perspective (being affiliated with neither Apple nor FSF), RMS is vastly more admirable than CEO of a for-profit company.

The ability to cater to customers and sell them expensive products is precious and certainly good for the shareholders. And, to a lesser degree, even for the customers I guess... but why this worship and e-drama? How can turning huge profits be comparable to FSF's mission -- lofty even if you don't identify with it -- and why are non-shareholders so ecstatic about it? (leaving Job's death aside now, R.I.P. man)

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#157

Post by cookiecaper »

wazoox wrote: post #154
cookiecaper wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS makes no comment about "great software" in the post. He says that Jobs "made computers as a jail 'cool'" (paraphrase), and I think to a great extent that's true -- Apple has always been the most aggressively locked-down computer maker. Although OS X uses several open-source internals and although Apple even maintains some of these (including very important ones, like CUPS and X), they are still in some ways the m…

> le has always been the most aggressively locked-down computer maker. Actually this isn't the case. Back in Apple II times, they provided the most hacker-friendly, fully documented hardware and software, together with the built-in rom assembly listing. But this was Woz' creation (über-hacker par excellence ), not Jobs'.

Indeed. My reading is primarily that Jobs and Woz had an internal battle over the hackability of the Apple II and that Woz won out (as far as I'm aware, for unspecified reasons). Subsequent projects (Mac) have not followed the same pattern.

RMS's gripe with Jobs seems to be that he played a very active role in transforming computing from an open, academic activity based on information sharing to a completely proprietary profit center.

In the early 80s, some openness was expected. Releasing a computer without expansion slots then is like releasing a phone where you can't even replace your own battery now.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#158

Post by a3_nm »

bcrescimanno wrote: post #3

I tweeted earlier that I see RMS as the Fred Phelps (Westboro Baptist Church) of Free Software. He may not have started out this way; but these days he's completely single issue. If you're not doing free software 100% his way; you not only disagree with him but you are actually evil. Not just free software; but free software as RMS defines it(see GNU/Linux) or you're wrong. He's so blinded by his own zealotry that I'…

> Not just free software; but free software as RMS defines it

Trouble is, RMS is the guy who defined free software in the first place. If you want to do something else than what he intends, it's probably better to pick a different term.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#159

Post by cookiecaper »

microtonal wrote: post #137
burgerbrain wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs popularized the walled garden.

Jobs also brought DRM-free internet music stores to the masses.

Please dude. iTunes was very late to the game. eMusic? Most early music stores had no DRM.

Jobs leveraged the popularity of the iPod with iTunes (which, by the way, is not allowed to talk to any other program under normal circumstances) to make Apple a ton of money. As was the case with iPhone, Apple was big enough to force the hand of the industry-controlling posse into accepting things on its own terms. While they eventually rolled out DRM free, this should be a basic expectation and does not qualify Apple for bonus points. For years they sold exclusively DRM'd content while there were others attempting to make it on DRM-free platforms.

And by the way, afaik (not an iTunes user), television and movie content is still provided exclusively in DRM'd formats.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#160

Post by motters »

Although Stallman didn't use a great deal of tact in his statement I agree with his concern overall. Software should serve the user in accordance with the ideal of individual empowerment with technology and not become a sort of jail controlled by a central authority that you have to struggle to break out of. The problem of impersonal computing is by no means isolated to Apple though.
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