Emacs Virgin thing: http://opensourcetogo.blogspot.com/2009/07/emailing-richard-...
This is the first I've heard of this incident, and I find the comments on that post shocking. That so many people can take RMS's side on that issue is appalling.
Time to fork the FSF
231–240 of 340 posts
Re: Time to fork the FSF
#232If it were RMS who had died, I wonder what Steve Jobs would have said.
Re: Time to fork the FSF
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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?
Nerd doesn't mean smart. Nerd refers to a particular kind of obsessive skill in a narrow field.
People with laser-like obsessions tend to have poor social skills, whether they are programmers or otakus.
Re: Time to fork the FSF
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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 n…
"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."
Steve Jobs has said many times that if he and Apple had not done the things they did, some other person or company -- within a short time period, would have done them.*
If you respect what he's done, then presumably you would respect his beliefs about how important he or Apple actually were.
* http://www.npr.org/2011/10/06/141115121/steve-jobs-computer-...
Re: Time to fork the FSF
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
So Steve Jobs was a watered-down moderate?
No - my point is that RMS isn't.
I should have been clearer. If it's inevitable that the influence of someone like RMS will wane because he's an uncompromising advocate, doesn't that suggest that Steve Jobs' influence would have waned as well?
My point is that someone's relevance depends on much more than if a majority of people find their views acceptable. Steve Jobs oversaw products that people loved by uncompromisingly advocating improvements on the status quo in design, while RMS uncompromisingly advocates something that, for many people in the world's present state, is impractical.
Re: Time to fork the FSF
#236Much worse will be written about RMS when he dies and many will applaud what is written, never mind their contributions to technology had the same scale of impact on society... It's all in the perspective.
Re: Time to fork the FSF
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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.
> 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. Speaking as one of millions of pleasant, sensitive nerds, I find this offensive.
Millions? I doubt that.
There are socially sensitive nerds, but "pleasant" usually describes their SELF-image, not the view that others have of them.
Usually nerds like you describe are socially anxious and attempt to "take care" of everyone around them by conforming to their expectations and desires. Normal people actually find it exhausting to hang out with socially anxious "nice guy" nerds.
Also, almost all "nice guys" have a lot of repressed anger and rage from trauma in the past. The "nice guys" have repressed it and so are not aware of it, but others see the anger, usually manifesting as cynicism, sarcasm, or passivity.
Anyway true pleasant, sensitive people are rarely also described as nerds. They'd be described as socially comfortable, pleasant, emotionally sensitive, and intelligent.
"Nerd" would not enter the description unless there is some amount of social anxiety, awkwardness, or intense need for external validation.
Re: Time to fork the FSF
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. This is such an overstatement. What makes you so sure that Jobs had a positive influence on the world? You can't tell if in his absence something better would evolve. Not all his ideas were originall nor all the inventions were his o…
I think it's pretty telling that tablet computers have existed for ... what, 15 years? And that tablet computing didn't take off with consumers until iPad. I think that's a fine example of how Steve influenced a change in the world. The Average Person has no concept of How Things Could Be Better. They just take what's available, get the job done, take their paycheck and live their lives. iPad seems to be the first ti…
>I think it's pretty telling that tablet computers have existed for ... what, 15 years? And that tablet computing didn't take off with consumers until iPad. I think that's a fine example of how Steve influenced a change in the world.
Consider that for most of these 15 years, the hardware wasn't good enough for mass appeal. The combination of a CPU powerful enough to render video and to support custom apps written in a high-level language, the RAM, the screen technology and the battery able to sustain all these for many hours didn't exist until probably 2006 or so.
Re: Time to fork the FSF
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey, NH, I'm not the poster, but why is this being down voted? Linux being easier to use and easier to maintain isn't something we all could benefit from? And for fucks sake, don't say "it's FUD". I had a hard time installing drivers for an NVidia graphic card this month in Ubuntu's latest stable version, running in Dell workstation. I could even put out some videos. I'm tired of people who had difficulties with Linu…
Did you contact Nvidia for support? That driver you were installing was proprietary software delivered by the vendor. Why are you blaming the free software for it not working?
Nope, I didn't. Actually the issue was getting the correct packages from apt-get. DLL hell all over again. In the end I simply formatted the machine with a non-stable version and the drivers installed as expected. Easy peasy.
EDIT: But that wasn't the point. The point is that those kinds of problems still happen with Linux, but only sometimes, with specific distros in specific gear, but when they don't happen (such as with Ubuntu 99% of the time) Linux gets praise and adoption from non-techies.
Re: Time to fork the FSF
#240I 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'…
When I first saw the post by RMS, I tried to hold back my initial desire to simply post "He's an asshole". I tried to take the emotion away from it but found that I couldn't. I couldn't find the right words so I posted nothing.
You posted my exact feelings in a more intelligent way than I ever could have.
RMS and people like him in the free software community is why I have never 100% committed to a free software way of doing things. I do a lot of development in Linux but I do just as much in Windows. Even though I contribute to the open source world in my own small way and see the importance of it, I find myself caring less and less about the philosophy behind it, At least when it comes to the zealots that are involved.
We all know that both Apple and Microsoft have pulled asshole moves before. But I can't help thinking that zealots like RMS would do the same thing if the FSF was in control.