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Time to fork the FSF

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Re: Time to fork the FSF

#201

Post by raganwald »

orblivion wrote: post #197
raganwald wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Stallman DOES have taste. He lacks a design aesthetic, but that is not synonymous with taste. Taste is about having an internally consistent means of making choices. The reason people say Microsoft had no taste is that they never said no, they bolted any old thing onto the side of Windows, there never really has been a sense that Windows is this and this but not that. Stallman has an extremel sharp sense of…

I wasn't even talking about aesthetics. I was talking about the sort of taste it takes to say "no" to expressing your opinion in an entirely frank manner at certain times.

Ah! I get that. +1! In my circle, that use of the word “taste” is almost always a negative, as in “Reg made a tasteless joke” but certainly it can be used positively, as in, “Reg’s commentary on admiring Steve but not deifying him was in good taste even if I don’t agree with it.”

I was mixed up by the comparison to Bill Gates, who I don’t see as being tasteless in speech but whose company I used to view as being tasteless in design.

But you are absolutely using the word appropriately, whether I agree or disagree with the proposition that Mr. Stallman’s commentary on Steve Jobs was tasteless.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#202

Post by ordinary »

0x12 wrote: post #151
aaronmorey wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When a user installs Linux and can't get her brand new graphics card to work, she doesn't care whose fault that is. When the brightness adjustment keys don't work, all I think is "crap, my computer does not work".

The vast majority of people are like that; my use of the first person singular was not an accident, I count myself among them. It's not a matter of assigning blame, it's a matter of recognizing reality.

For Linux to take over the consumer desktop market, it doesn't just need to be as easy to install and maintain as Windows or OSX; it needs to be significantly easier. That is the hole a "Steve Jobs of free software" could fill.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#203

Post by mentat »

forensic wrote: post #83
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…

>horrendously, gratuitously crass and offensive way. And? It's rms. He's the biggest nerd in the world. Nerds are expected to be horrendously, gratuitously crass, offensive and insensitive of people's emotions. This is like being mad that the sky is blue. Pointless outrage.

So smart necessarily means socially incapable? Haven't we had enough of this generalization yet?

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#204

Post by Jarred »

I agree with forking the FSF, but not just having someone whose nice is necessary. It needs to be led by someone who gives a damn about user experience. This is an issue with not all open source applications, but many. It is getting better, but I still prefer Windows or OS X to using Gnome, KDE. I've never needed to use any of the bundled software with Ubuntu (except the settings apps, gedit, and Firefox). It can't just be about open-source alternatives, because most people don't care if something is open or closed source, they care if it gets the job done well.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#205

Post by marshray »

rimantas wrote: post #128
marshray wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that Apple restricts the applications that it "allows" to run on users' iOS devices to the point that programming language interpreters were effectively banned until about a year ago, now they're merely severely restricted. Users of iOS devices are effectively prevented from running GPL apps because of the restrictions Apple is putting on other peoples' code on users' devices. It's not just agains…

> It's an attack on all software developers. I am a software developer and I don't think I am under any attack. Heck they gave me one more platform to develop for. And there is lots of open source code written for it already.

Just curious: Have you actually developed an app for that platform?

Did you submit it to the review process?

Was it approved or rejected?

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#206

Post by akg0 »

cookiecaper wrote: post #84
drivingmenuts wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't about OS X. This is about Stallman being effective as the leader of the FSF, which apparently he feels entitles him to say any damn thing he wants, regardless of how tasteless it is. That's not the mark of a leader. That's the mark of a self-inflated ass.

I didn't find it tasteless. Is it really such a criminal thing to say that you are glad Jobs's influence is gone? Can't reasonable people disagree on that point? People totally go overboard wrt Steve Jobs, as they do his company, Apple. RMS comes from a time when computers were generally open for tinkering, and Apple strove to make its products impenetrable lest Jobs' pain-stakingly "perfected" designs be gaudied up…

I don't think it was anywhere near offensive, but once people start loudly complaining about how offended they are, the conversation inevitably focuses on their feelings instead of our freedoms.

In the end, they will win. Either RMS will tone down to focus on the "real" stuff, or he won't, and his influence will wane in favor of more widely-acceptable voices. In this as in many other parts of life, watered-down moderates will be the only ones able to maintain relevance, and uncompromising advocates will be marginalized.

It's just how humans are.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#208

Post by EiZei »

dbbo wrote: post #13

At the risk of getting repetitive: I think rms was speaking strictly from a utilitarian perspective-- that is, Jobs' absence is overall a good thing for the FOSS movement (even though that might not actually be true, unless Cook is more committed to FOSS than Jobs). I can see how some find his statement tactless, but I'm not offended by it because Jobs was not an important person in my life. That doesn't mean that hi…

Strictly from an utilitarian perspective RMS should keep his big fat mouth shut when someone -especially somebody as popular as Jobs - dies.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#210

Post by burgerbrain »

Fice wrote: post #165

As I said already, today's hacker culture is crippled. So called "hackers" here have lost their principles, forgotten the value of freedom, worship the wrong idols. How come an entrepreneur be a hero much more important than any of the researchers who pioneered the modern computer technology? How can the man who worked against the values and principles of the hacker ethic be an idol for so many hackers? There is no r…

The title "Hacker News" is a lure designed to draw more people in. It would be best if this place went back to it's old and far more honest name "Startup News".
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