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Time to fork the FSF

larrythefreesoftwareguy.wordpress.com

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Re: Time to fork the FSF

#31

Post by drzaiusapelord »

tlrobinson wrote: post #11
josephg wrote: post #6

I'm aware of Stallman's advocacy on free software issues, but (completely honest question), what else does the Free Software Foundation do ? Software is at a point where its basically impossible to make anything useful without opensource software. Proprietary code is a minority in my stack both as a developer and as a user. Proprietary software is often good before opensource software is good, but consistently openso…

They've won that battle, but not the war. Servers, databases, frameworks, languages, etc are often open source, but the majority of applications are not.

That's the problem, you're the problem if you refuse to accept that the best solution is going to be the freedom for people to sell commercial closed software as well as use open software. The idea that this is a war is exactly why RMS is wrong. The idea that we must win it and we must make everyone use the new hot open license is wrong.

The idea should be to encourage people to use open licenses, and to promote the good of open licenses, not declare war on everything and become some bitter asshole neckbeard when you see guys like Jobs doing well with a slightly different approach.

The FSF doesn't do much. They're little more than negative campaigners "Windows 7 Sins" etc. I'm not sure what its purpose or real world effect is other than to scare middle management from FOSS as much as possible. Stick vs Carrot. FSF is all stick and people have noticed.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#32

Post by gonzo »

_delirium wrote: post #16

If you want an advocacy organization with a better ear for public sensibilities and business, that's what the Open Source Initiative was designed for, wasn't it? Why not join them instead of starting yet another organization?

No. OSI was Eric's attempt to hijack the work of RMS. Eric is no better than, and in many ways, much worse than, RMS.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#33

Post by spacemanaki »

zalew wrote: post #2

so... it's perfectly ok to publish tons of linkbaits about 'how steve jobs changed my life' even if they are vague and repetitive boring opinions, but nobody can state his negative views on this occasion. gimme a break. death is sad, but it's good that there are people who had decided to stay out of this bubble.

Mike Daisey in the NY Times was far, far more eloquent and actually in some ways, even more bitingly critical of Jobs than Stallman:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/opinion/jobs-looked-to-the...

But he was also basically respectful.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#34

Post by learc83 »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #18
learc83 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Naww, he's just a zealot. The history of religion is the history of zealotry, as well as oppression and violence. Funny how you think he must be an atheist, when he fits the religious zealot profile to a 't.' Phelps fits the character of so many religious leaders who have millions of followers and millions of dollars. Phelps' big issue is that he's poor at monetizing his crazy, unlike other successful bigots like Fal…

Most zealots have a strong conviction, and will do whatever is necessary to further their cause. Sometimes what they deem necessary is shocking to the rest of us.

However, Phelps "ministry" seems to exist, simply to shock. He's like the one dimensional villain who is evil for the sake of being evil.

Since his public persona seems like a fictional character, I assume he is one.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#35

Post by learc83 »

kristopolous wrote: post #25
learc83 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Some think he's just a novel con-artist: 1. http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/gro... 2. http://kanewj.com/wbc/ Looks like it equates to fairly decent take-home pay given that he probably works far less than the 2080 full time hours a year for it. And remember, it's a church, so it's all tax free.

Now that I believe.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#36

Post by drzaiusapelord »

learc83 wrote: post #34
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naww, he's just a zealot. The history of religion is the history of zealotry, as well as oppression and violence. Funny how you think he must be an atheist, when he fits the religious zealot profile to a 't.' Phelps fits the character of so many religious leaders who have millions of followers and millions of dollars. Phelps' big issue is that he's poor at monetizing his crazy, unlike other successful bigots like Fal…

Most zealots have a strong conviction, and will do whatever is necessary to further their cause. Sometimes what they deem necessary is shocking to the rest of us. However, Phelps "ministry" seems to exist, simply to shock. He's like the one dimensional villain who is evil for the sake of being evil. Since his public persona seems like a fictional character, I assume he is one.

>He's like the one dimensional villain who is evil for the sake of being evil.

That's how I see the Pope or your typical small town preacher, yet I believe their sincerity. I'm not sure why you get to sit there and decide who is sincere and insincere without any proof. They are Christians, they follow scripture, they have opinions and audience. They're not con men, they are simply misguided and in IMHO evil because its impossible to have a non-evil religion. At the end of the day, believing woo that justifies your biases is evil.

Phelps is just a Christian. Accept it. Move on.

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#37

Post by 24bit »

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo.

You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them.

About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward.

And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world - are the ones who do!

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#38

Post by divtxt »

spacemanaki wrote: post #33
zalew wrote: post #2

so... it's perfectly ok to publish tons of linkbaits about 'how steve jobs changed my life' even if they are vague and repetitive boring opinions, but nobody can state his negative views on this occasion. gimme a break. death is sad, but it's good that there are people who had decided to stay out of this bubble.

Mike Daisey in the NY Times was far, far more eloquent and actually in some ways, even more bitingly critical of Jobs than Stallman: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/opinion/jobs-looked-to-the... But he was also basically respectful.

EDIT: Already it's own post now: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3084961

Wow! Easily the best Steve Jobs article I've read this week!

For me, this paragraph captures it all:

I spoke with a man whose right hand was permanently curled into a claw from being smashed in a metal press at Foxconn, where he worked assembling Apple laptops and iPads. I showed him my iPad, and he gasped because he’d never seen one turned on. He stroked the screen and marveled at the icons sliding back and forth, the Apple attention to detail in every pixel. He told my translator, “It’s a kind of magic.”

Re: Time to fork the FSF

#40

Post by keyist »

RMS has the FSF and Defective By Design sites as soapboxes if he wished to gain more attention from Jobs's death. This was a post on his political notes page. He did nothing to publicize it.

He didn't post to aggregators or tweet to ask for upvotes (technically it was posted on his Identi.ca account which is linked to his political notes feed, but it got no special treatment).

If some major sites hadn't picked up on it and provided the publicity, most readers would never know. So RMS wrote a politically incorrect opinion on his personal page. Can we move on now?

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