Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

gnu.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 426 posts

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#331

Post by linuxftw »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #151
linuxftw wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have the source material, why don't you quote it directly. Since we're talking about the recent email thread, then you'd know RMS didn't start that conversation, so you can't blame him for injecting the discussion anywhere.

RMS has no children. RMS is not trained/educated in child development or child care. RMS is entitled to his own opinion, however he has no basis for an informed opinion. RMS shit the bed more than one time on the subject of children. RMS has had the protection of others for too long. His backward opinions on children over many years caught up with him. RMS has done great things for free software but that does not giv…

You didn't add anything to the discussion here, you just parroted talking points.

> If RMS stuck to his area of expertise we would not be having this conversation.

Show me where he didn't?

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#332

Post by TulliusCicero »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #321
TulliusCicero wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you believe he has alienated more women from FOSS than he has inspired people to contribute to it? If I save a hundred lives as a doctor and then murder one person, does the calculus go in my favor?

Mortality from smallpox vaccine was small, but not zero.

Yes, but that's an inadvertent side effect of an otherwise-beneficial treatment. 'Murder' implies explicit intent.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#333

Post by TulliusCicero »

ralfd wrote: post #295
TulliusCicero wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you believe he has alienated more women from FOSS than he has inspired people to contribute to it? If I save a hundred lives as a doctor and then murder one person, does the calculus go in my favor?

> If I save a hundred lives as a doctor and then murder one person, does the calculus go in my favor? It can be. A sharpshooter killing a terrorist and saving 100 lives would be lauded as a hero.

Don't be obtuse, I said murder, not kill. Of course there are some justified instances of killing.

Again, if you save a bunch of lives, but then murder someone in cold blood, does the fact that you saved way more than you murdered mean that society ought to look past the murder? After all, your net contribution is very positive!

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#334

Post by TulliusCicero »

madacoo wrote: post #299
TulliusCicero wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubtful. Racism is way down since it became completely socially unacceptable to support among most social groups. This reminds me of The Racist Tree: https://lardcave.net/text/the_racist_tree.html > By Alexander Blechman > Once upon a time, there was a racist tree. Seriously, you are going to hate this tree. High on a hill overlooking the town, the racist tree grew where the grass was half clover. Children would vis…

I think you've conflated online downvoting behaviours with real life social conformity pressures, each of which probably have quite different effects on the propogation/extinction of certain beliefs.

IRL ones are probably stronger, but they still look fairly similar to me.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#335

Post by denton-scratch »

malvosenior wrote: post #30
jnwatson wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So just because he happens to be the president of an organization means he can’t defend his colleague on an unrelated private message board? The chilling effect of such a policy essentially means that all advocacy groups must be led by slick marketing politicians, always on-point and on-brand, even if off camera.

If he’s defending his colleague having sex with a 17 year old who had been trafficked for sex since she was 15, then yes I don’t think any president of an organization should do that.

In point of fact, nobody has accused Minsky of having sex with the girl. Well, not anybody who could know. Someone who was there has stated specifically that Minsky turned her down. AFAIK nobody (who could know) has contradicted that.

RMS was simply saying that bullshit was being perpetrated in that CSAIL mailing list, about his dead friend and colleague. If Minsky had been alive, no doubt he'd now be suing.

RMS has been traduced by Selam Jie Gano, Vice and TechCrunch, and goodness knows how many others (the bullshit and distortions seem to be everywhere). I regret that FSF have accepted his resignation; I am now resigning my membership of the FSFE.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#336

Post by ralfd »

foldr wrote: post #308
ralfd wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think RMS argument is wrong here though? Why? Age of consent in my (European) country is 16. Do you think we are all rapists here? And looking up the law 14 is permissible (with a few caveats), even if the other person is over 21. In the United States it depends on the state. So Minsky would have done a horrible rape crime in the US Virgin Islands (age of consent 18), but in Massachusetts (age of consent 16) .…

I don't see how what you're saying is relevant. RMS said that the age was a "minor detail". He didn't make any claim about what the age of consent should be. Given his previous comments, one suspects he doesn't think there should be one: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20Jun...

He said age "17 or 18" is a minor detail, which from my perspective, coming from a country which has an age of consent under both, I agree.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#337

Post by orangeshark »

lbj wrote: post #281
Avamander wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But noone is forcing you to make software libre, with or without asking money for it.

Thankfully no force. Its just his philosophy

You can sell your free software, RMS even encourages it. The reason a lot of the software is gratis is to lower the barrier to use and spread the software. This makes sense if you want to quickly spread an operating system composed of free software. Unfortunately that has become the default for most free and open source software, even for many proprietary software these days.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#338

Post by lostjohnny »

flatb wrote: post #311
lostjohnny wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it okay for someone to murder a person if they saved more than one life before ? Murder is a crime. Where is the crime here? It is ok to let go a "fuck you" if that persons did good before.

> Where is the crime here? The analogy is between a good thing not cancelling out a bad thing. The police are not involved. There isn't a crime. He has been pressured for making people very uncomfortable in pursuit of his sexual interests, which is a perfectly good reason to reprieve someone. He has been accused, by several independent parties, of, among other things: -Asking female coworkers to lay down topless on a…

> He has been accused, by several independent parties, of, among other things:

Who, exactly?

> -Asking female coworkers to lay down topless on a mattress in his office. > -Threatening a colleague to kill himself if he/she didn't go on a date with him.

Sooooo, your entire analysis is based on legends circulating since the 90s about a weird man who was even told to be scared by plants?

For reference, Thomas Lord, creator of GNU arch (think about Git before Git), who worked for FSF for a long time said

    One remarkable thing about the FSF at that time, when we worked out of dinky spare offices on the campus of MIT, was the degree of participation by women. In the tiny society that was then the FSF, women were more prominent than I had seen in Silicon Valley, or acadamia prior. 


    p.s.: In the closet-sized "office" Bushnell, McGrath, and I shared for a time we did have some spider plants as part of a running silly joke. They did not actually scare RMS away **OF COURSE** and he usually had helpful criticism and advice of our efforts, from my point of view.
> -Posting up signs in his workplace along the lines of "Knight for Justice (Also: Hot Ladies)".

Can you tell an inside joke when you see one?

p.s. all of us have being young and done some innocent stupid shit, the kinds young people do, like having stupid signs on the door. It doesn't make any of us a criminal.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#339

Post by foldr »

ralfd wrote: post #336
foldr wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how what you're saying is relevant. RMS said that the age was a "minor detail". He didn't make any claim about what the age of consent should be. Given his previous comments, one suspects he doesn't think there should be one: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20Jun...

He said age "17 or 18" is a minor detail, which from my perspective, coming from a country which has an age of consent under both, I agree.

I don't understand what he means by that. If there is an age of consent, then some people will be under it by a year. What is the alternative? In your country, there are also people a year under the age of consent. Whether not someone is above the age of consent cannot possibly be considered a "minor detail" in determining whether or not they consented.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#340

Post by ben509 »

egdod wrote: post #285
ben509 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pretty much every reasonable person Reasonable is subjective.

No, it isn’t. The “reasonable person” standard in lots of laws exists exactly because we can agree on it as an objective standard.

We don't agree what it actually is, though.

In practice, the "reasonable person" standard is achieved by asking a jury. In a jury, the members apply their life experiences to the case they're deciding and then persuade each other to reach a unanimous conclusion. That's an entirely subjective process, and if you repeat it with another jury you can get the polar opposite answer.

Post reply on HN