281–290 of 426 posts
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If you invent a great piece of software, you need to be paid for the time you put into making it. If your only play is a license deal or such, open source will kill your business. Or turn it into something that RMS agrees with. But it wont be "your" business.
But noone is forcing you to make software libre, with or without asking money for it.
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> It's more like the notion of open source, where the source may be viewable but isn't necessarily available for redistribution. I think you misunderstand the distinction between open source and free software. Open source software also needs to be available for redistribution. The main practical difference is Free Software also requires that if you make any changes to the software, those changes must _also_ be releas…
No, you are thinking of copyleft software. "Free software" means the same thing as "open-source software". See for instance this GNU page where permissive licenses like the MIT license are also described as "free software licenses": https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
"The term “open source” software is used by some people to mean more or less the same category as free software. It is not exactly the same class of software: they accept some licences that we consider too restrictive, and there are free software licences they have not accepted. However, the differences in extension of the category are small: nearly all free software is open source, and nearly all open source software is free."
In particular, he notes the example of DRM software. DRM software can be distributed under an open-source licence, but by design and in practice it serves to restrict the freedoms of its users, not to enhance them.
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I don't think it is even worth focusing in on specific issues; throwing mud at Stallman's character is post-hoc rationalisation for a situation created by thoughtcrime. Even if the mud sticks, the major problem is that Stallman was forced to resign after what appears to be (from public info) a moral panic. People acting on moral panics is really bad; good process is slow process. There are real complaints about Stall…
I don’t mean to quibble and I really want to strsss this next point: I’m absolutely as lost as we all seem to be regarding how some people in our communities should be dealt with. I don’t yet know how we’ll choose to handle them. But anyway, using the term “thoughtcrime” feels incredibly disingenuous and could easily be misconstrued as intentionally inflammatory. Obviously you wouldn’t be intentionally inflammatory o…
Fork. See the glimpse project. If it's more inclusive, it will naturally accumulate all alienated contributors.
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"Horrible" is sometimes subjective. There are things that pretty much every reasonable person would agree are horrible.
> pretty much every reasonable person Reasonable is subjective.
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Gavin McInnes is really a misogynist and founder of Vice. She's really building weapons for the US department of defense. I'm not doing anything, just doubting of her qualities as a spoke person of a movement that targeted RMS for no reason other than ignorance (taking for granted that there isn't anything else behind it) If we can doubt Stallman as a leader, we can as well doubt Selam G. And I'm saying it because sh…
I understand ignoring her goes counter to your notion of justice, and this is somehow fair play. You have every right to doubt her, but you should realise it doesn't matter. No matter how much doubt you could reveal about her person, you will never see a headline: "MIT alumna found to be axe-murderer, RMS cleared and re-instated as FSF president". She doesn't matter, and any attack on her will be seen as petty at bes…
I don't care about being being popular.
And I don't even care of being judged by internet nobodys, I'm over 40, I've grown some skin for teenager's shitty destructive behaviour.
I care about not covering facts.
She'll be paying for what she did in the future.
That's for sure, I would never trust at my job someone who leaks information like some sort of enemy spy.
Stallman has a reputation, she doesn't.
Alan Turing was incarcerated for being gay, after all he did for his country.
At least Stallman roams free (for now).
But I've canceled my yearly donation to FSF and I encourage everyone I know to do the same.
It was (physically) a drop in the ocean to help them doing the right thing, not what is popular at the moment.
And I did it despite disagreeing with Stallman on different points, I knew it was for a good cause, now I don't care if they burn in hell, they're just like Google or Apple to me.
If they can't defend their most honorable member, they can't defend anybody.
If they prefer to be on the side of those building killing machines, it's their right.
But they've become useless.
If they had some self respect, they would shutdown the FSF for good.
> Any effort expended on her could have been expended on dispelled one of the falsehoods being propagated about rms.
I did it on several occasions.
And I'll keep doing it.
The two things are not at odds, I can do both.
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Scientist or capitalist, can't be both.
Sure, because only a capitalist would want to live somewhere or have something to eat /s
To clarify, I'm not saying it makes you a bad person if you choose to eat. Just not a scientist. There's a reason we give professors tenure.
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> The four freedoms are truly revolutionary and have grown on me over the years. If he had been a bit more focussed and perhaps even a little pragmatic it wouldn't be hard to view him as a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates like figure. If he had been a lot more pragmatic, he probably could have put the whole free software thing on hold for 20 years, and been one of the early microcomputer billionaires either alongside Jobs an…
> If he had been a lot more pragmatic, he probably could have put the whole free software thing on hold for 20 years, and been one of the early microcomputer billionaires I think you're mistaken about the chances of becoming that wealthy. If anything, I'd guess it's more likely now than decades ago. Planning what to do after becoming a billionaire is akin to spending your lottery jackpot before winning it.
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> For a user who is not a software developer, For a reader who is not a journalist, what is the value of free speech? Is there one?
The day a journalist loses free speech is the day a reader loses it too. So the value is the same for both.
Devil's advocate: The journalist loses his job and livelihood. I had nothing to say anyways. Clearly to him it had much more value.
I obviously agree that free speech is valuable for everyone (and so is free software), but how do you best explain why?
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The assumption that those who care about treating others decently can not at the same time be good technologists speaks volumes.
I still have to testimony an useful contribution (or proof of donation) from those attacking open source projects for not using gender neutral pronouns. I'm not young anymore, in my 40s, but I have hope that in the next 40 years some of them will stop being a dick and do actual work. It's never too late to change.
It ain't gonna happen. This is the struggle of every single generation.