Time to fork the FSF • Hacker News Board

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#241

Post by tallanvor » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 6:58 PM UTC

tychobrahe wrote: post #217

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software is not more important than life. // How about freedom? Is freedom from, for example, capitalist overlords more important than life? People give their lives for freedom all the time. > A great man has died, and all RMS can think about is what this means for the Free Software movement? // Meh. I don't see the problem with someone who didn't know Steve Jobs personally simply addressing how a change in leaders…

Ever heard of "blame the game, not the player"? Trying to put all the blame on Steve Jobs' shoulder, right after his death, is horrendous. Steve Jobs wasn't the enemy of freedom RMS paints him as. That he personally wrote letters against DRM on media-stores and against the closed-platform called Flash asking everyone to favor HTML5 made much much difference in those two specific areas than most things Stallman did la…

I actually agree with Stallman, not because I believe everything has to be FOSS, but because I believe users should have the freedom to make their own decisions about how they use their devices, and that's something that Apple products work hard to remove - case in point, their refusal to allow Flash to run on iOS. They may not want it there and HTML5 may be the better choice in the long run, but they are denying users the option to decide for themselves.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#242

Post by sharmajai » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 7:15 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #230

sharmajai wrote: post #221

Fuck you RMS. I have been and still am a staunch believer in open source, but when I read comments like this from the person who's motto once was that everybody writing software should contribute the source back to the community, not because it delivers better software (due to the more eyeballs resulting in fewer bugs), but because it results in moving software forward quickly by virtue of helping each other out, I a…

>If you think Steve's products hamper your freedom Try and explain how to boot a MacBookPro from USB stick to someone, and compare that to booting almost any other computer. Or explain how to dual boot a Mac with OSX and Linux, vs anything else with Windows and Linux.

I have heard of many googlers, who use Ubuntu on their macbooks. Besides that is an ability which is not a prerequisite for majority of the computer users. Look I am a Ubuntu (not on a macbook though) user myself, and being a developer love the freedom that it provides, but we have to remember that everybody's requirement of freedom is different, for vast majority of the users freedom means, freedom from spending hours to tinker with something to make it work, things should just work for them, and Steve provided that kind of freedom.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#243

Post by burgerbrain » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 7:17 PM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #209

burgerbrain wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US-centric? They're both US companies .

The iTunes Store is available in many countries around the world. The Amazon Music store isn't.

I am aware.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#244

Post by coffeeaddicted » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 7:24 PM UTC

tallanvor wrote: post #241

tychobrahe wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever heard of "blame the game, not the player"? Trying to put all the blame on Steve Jobs' shoulder, right after his death, is horrendous. Steve Jobs wasn't the enemy of freedom RMS paints him as. That he personally wrote letters against DRM on media-stores and against the closed-platform called Flash asking everyone to favor HTML5 made much much difference in those two specific areas than most things Stallman did la…

I actually agree with Stallman, not because I believe everything has to be FOSS, but because I believe users should have the freedom to make their own decisions about how they use their devices, and that's something that Apple products work hard to remove - case in point, their refusal to allow Flash to run on iOS. They may not want it there and HTML5 may be the better choice in the long run, but they are denying use…

Stallman doesn't even want that users know about that option. From Wikiquote: "The Adobe flash plug-in is non-free software, and people should not install it, or suggest installing it, or even tell people it exists."

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#245

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 8:40 PM UTC

sgentle wrote: post #21

I don't get it, personally. Yes, Stallman's a loon - although as an aside I think that every good movement needs its loons. Who's going to say "you know what? I believe in Free Software so much that I will use nothing else, and publicly and harshly declare that anyone doing otherwise is a moron and a traitor to the future of humanity"? Anyone who is willing to sacrifice the usefulness of the last 30 years of propriet…

[deleted]

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#246

Post by endgame » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 8:41 PM UTC

Oh, give it a rest already. rms was actually pretty tactful. Did people actually read what he wrote?

> Nobody deserves to have to die - not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#247

Post by julian37 » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 9:00 PM UTC

gbog wrote: post #187

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…

> All progress depends on unreasonable men. This is a very bold generalization grounded on nothing. Once we had rational discussions here.

GP is presumably referring to George Bernard Shaw's use of the term. "Reasonable people," wrote Shaw, "adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people."

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#248

Post by the_mat » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 9:21 PM UTC

Many of the comments following that story are deranged, and I mean that in the strongest sense of the word. "Software extremists" like that really exist? There are people who honestly think Steve Jobs was evil? And most disturbingly, there are people who will flat out bash on the reputation of someone who so recently died? Wow. Just wow.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#249

Post by lhnn » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 9:39 PM UTC

loso wrote: post #240

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'…

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…

Really, RMS being a dick keeps you from using, developing, and supporting free software?

Your level of support is not that great, then.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#250

Post by akmiller » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 10:01 PM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #14

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'…

While I don't always agree with RMS, I think he truly believes everything he says. I don't think the same of Fred Phelps. I long ago reached the conclusion that he tries to say the most inflammatory thing possible wether he really believes it or not. I have no idea why, but I believe he has some other agenda than just the condemnation of homosexuality. I've even almost seriously entertained the idea that he is a clos…

Fred Phelps is a lawyer and they simply do the things they do to get a violent reaction out of people so that they can then sue those individuals. It's simply about making money in one of the most scummy way possible (far worse than patent trolls even). I thought this was pretty common knowledge but judging by the comments under your post I guess not.

EDIT: With that being said, RMS and Phelps are nothing at all alike. RMS truly believes what he says and that his beliefs are right. Phelps is just an ass trying to elicit violent responses to get money out of people already dealing with horrible tragedies.