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Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

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Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#231

Post by loup-vaillant »

rimantas wrote: post #197
loup-vaillant wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want my freedom to use whatever I choose: […] proprietary, […] whatever, […] So you want the freedom to lose your freedom, for a short term benefit. Make no mistake: you are not as free to stop using that proprietary software as you might think. Most proprietary software strongly encourage you to stick with them, and make switching difficult. The best examples I have in mind are operating systems and office suite…

Most proprietary software strongly encourage you to stick with them, and make switching difficult. The best examples I have in mind are operating systems and office suites. I don't have such experience. There was a time I was juggling Windows and Linux at work using OS X at home. Now I mostly deal with OS X and Linux on servers. Neither did I have a problem with office suites. I am MS Office free, OpenOffice free. If…

"You" in my parent post wasn't referring to you, Rimantas, specifically. You Rimantas (and I) are a lucky, tiny minority. You give away no freedom because you pay very close attention to not being locked in.

Most people aren't as cautious.

The company I work in currently have to buy and use MS Word 2003 because the government agencies it deals with want .doc, period. The sysadmins are forced to use windows because that's what most people use, and they just won't switch. (And we're a tech company, so imagine the others.)

Inertia is enormous. People tend to stick with whatever they started with (Blender vs 3DsMax is a good example). Proprietary formats and non standard APIs make it worse.

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#232

Post by btilly »

alextgordon wrote: post #31
hugh3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is the other goalpost? Are they equally necessary?

Organisations like the Business Software Alliance ( http://www.bsa.org/ ) are the closest I can think of to a pro-proprietary advocacy group.

That would be a goalpost on the opposite end of the field, not the same goal.

An example of an opposite goalpost on the same end as RMS might be Bruce Perens.

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#233

Post by loup-vaillant »

cschwarm wrote: post #193
loup-vaillant wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want my freedom to use whatever I choose: […] proprietary, […] whatever, […] So you want the freedom to lose your freedom, for a short term benefit. Make no mistake: you are not as free to stop using that proprietary software as you might think. Most proprietary software strongly encourage you to stick with them, and make switching difficult. The best examples I have in mind are operating systems and office suite…

Slave owners universally don't want to be slaves, thus it's immoral. Buyers and sellers of proprietary software don't have no problem buying and selling proprietary software from others, thus it's NOT immoral.

You're supposing total information. You're supposing that no one can be screwed unaware.

Actually, most people don't know a thing about the issues around proprietary and free software. If they did, I am confident that most (more than 50%) would rather buy free software.

Now of course those who sell proprietary software happily buy proprietary software: they often don't have a choice. They can't use GPL software. They can however, use BSD licensed software. And I bet they prefer that over proprietary products.

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#234

Post by btilly »

statictype wrote: post #153
avar wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bill and Melinda Gates have done tremendous good in the world, and anyone who thinks otherwise is either crude or uninformed. Their foundation has done a lot of good, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Why does it have all that money in the first place? Well, mostly because Microsoft managed to work itself into a monopoly position with dirty tactics, and the proliferation of their own proprietary file formats. This…

I'm surprised at how high your comment is rated. Bill Gates didn't become rich because Microsoft managed to work itself into a monopoly position with dirty tactics. The whole problem people have with Microsoft is that they abused their monopoly in one area to gain a foothold in another! They already had a virtual monopoly on desktop computers. How did they get there? By having smart people and making really good soft…

Microsoft got into its initial monopoly position because of an "interesting" deal with IBM. Specifically Microsoft got a contract with IBM to deliver a product, turned around and bought the product from another company that had already developed it, and then delivered that to IBM. Microsoft then hired the person who developed said product because they didn't actually have the expertise to support it themselves. See http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa033099.htm for confirmation.

About charity, Microsoft may have improved, but a few years ago standard operating procedure was for the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to tie charitable work to large Microsoft purchases. If a government bought from Microsoft, the foundation would come in and start providing assistance. If the government went to Linux, the foundation would pick up and leave.

The use of this tactic has left me with a bad impression of said foundation, despite all of the unquestioningly good work they do. (They may have gut this out more recently. I no longer pay attention to Microsoft now that it is clear that they aren't going to be able to destroy the parts of the IT world that I care about.)

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#235

Post by gizmomagico »

rbanffy wrote: post #200
bandushrew wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont know whether they 'oppose' the software ideals that stallman stands for or not. I agree very strongly with Stallman and the points he regularly makes regarding the dangerous of proprietary software, and I am very grateful for the things he has done to push his ideals and to increase awareness of the issues and dangers surrounding copyright abuse and the freedom of software users. I also create and sell proprie…

> I disagree with him that it is immoral to do so Agreed. I won't go as far as he does, but I thank him for making a stand. As far as the user makes an informed choice, I am not against selling proprietary software. Still, God kills a kitten every time a proprietary license is sold.

Still, God kills a kitten every time a proprietary license is sold.

Even if it's your startup selling it?

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#236

Post by tvon »

stoney wrote: post #182
tvon wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is pretty active in OSS for someone you'd call the polar opposite of RMS.

But Open Source!=Free Software, as I'm sure RMS would point out if he was reading this. Apple do contribute to open source software, but you certainly don't have freedom when using their products, which is what RMS is all about.

Very good point. Apple uses OSS for the sake of creating better software, not because they believe in any FSF ideals.

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#237

Post by gizmomagico »

vorador wrote: post #168
tvon wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is pretty active in OSS for someone you'd call the polar opposite of RMS.

Oh, yes, they're active, but only in their interest. You won't see apple freeing the source of cocoa...

Or Big Brother freeing the source to their Ad-magic.

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#238

Post by rbanffy »

gizmomagico wrote: post #235
rbanffy wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I disagree with him that it is immoral to do so Agreed. I won't go as far as he does, but I thank him for making a stand. As far as the user makes an informed choice, I am not against selling proprietary software. Still, God kills a kitten every time a proprietary license is sold.

Still, God kills a kitten every time a proprietary license is sold. Even if it's your startup selling it?

Even if it's my grandma's startup selling it. Even if it's the girl scouts selling it.

Seriously, when your user knows and willingly enters what has a good chance of becoming an abusive relation (depending on your upgrades, being unable to migrate their data, forcing you to support ancient versions because they don't have the money to upgrade), I believe it's fine.

But I would prefer another model.

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#239

Post by tzs »

patrickaljord wrote: post #128
Aaronontheweb wrote: post #60

"I faced the same question at the beginning of the GNU Project. I decided that I would rather do something good with no monetary reward than profit by mistreating people." Thank God Stallman helped all of those sick kids with Malaria in Africa with by giving them GIMP and GCC. Way better than the billions of dollars and thousands of vaccinations Bill and Melinda Gates gave to them. In all seriousness, if we're going…

> Thank God Stallman helped all of those sick kids with Malaria in Africa with by giving them GIMP and GCC. >Way better than the billions of dollars and thousands of vaccinations Bill and Melinda Gates gave to them. RMS and the free and open source community have given way more billions of dollars and jobs that Gates ever has. Let me explain. Many governments have switched to Gnu/Linux and are saving billions of doll…

The link you cite for your numbers does not support your numbers. In fact, the link has almost nothing to do with what you are citing it for. Did you by any chance paste in the wrong link?

Re: Richard Stallman answers Reddit's top 25 questions.

#240

Post by tzs »

patrickaljord wrote: post #167
rick888 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Many governments have switched to Gnu/Linux and are saving billions of dollars each year for the last ten years such as Brazil" It's funny how you can make the argument about money that "would have been spent". Many open source zealots (and Stallman himself) talk about how the software industry can't equate piracy to dollars people would have spent. Why should this be any different? Software licenses are also a very…

> It's funny how you can make the argument about money that "would have been spent". It's still billions of saving that are not being used in taxes/licensing and being used for doing actual things for the public which is the job of the government and yes, that includes health, employment, education among other things. > Microsoft brought computers in every home and made computers "interesting". No, the internet did.…

> This is real proof, real benefit no matter how much you want to deny it and it's way bigger than all of Gates billions put together because once spent they won't be there unlike Gnu/Linux and Free Software which will benefit the world for many many generations to come.

The Gates Foundation vaccination programs are expected to save 7.6 million children's lives over the next 10 years. You don't think 7.6 million children living who would have otherwise died isn't a benefit that will last for many generations?

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