Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement • Hacker News Board

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#471

Post by phkahler » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

ineedasername wrote: post #425

jasoneckert wrote: post #384

From reading the other comments here, I understand that it's easy to pick something RMS said and say "Yeah, right..." But you have to keep in mind that RMS advocates the free software philosophy - the complete left end of the software spectrum - the white angel on your shoulder (not the red devil on the other). And while I find some of his points too radical to implement practically in my own situation, I believe it'…

I wouldn't describe the most extremist viewpoint on most matters as a white angel. Extremism tends to turn off some people from the cause when it looks somewhat irrational. Telling people they're bad and shouldn't play non-free videogames certainly isn't going to help things much. If you make someone who would otherwise be on your side feel guilty everytime they pick up a controller to unwind at the end of the day, t…

IMHO there is nothing irrational about RMS position, but it is often impractical. That means we need to push harder in his direction because it shouldn't be a practical impossibility to do what he advocates. That difficulty is exactly the problem his crusade is fighting against.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#472

Post by sneak » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

yesenadam wrote: post #264

waplot wrote: post #235

till this day, i still don't know what RMS's agenda is. can someone enlighten me?

Have a look around on the GNU site. He's a great, inspiring writer. e.g. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/essays-and-articles.html

Not his philosophy; that is abundantly clear.

I too am completely at a loss for what his actual agenda is.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#473

Post by schuyler2d » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:36 PM UTC

ineedasername wrote: post #425

jasoneckert wrote: post #384

From reading the other comments here, I understand that it's easy to pick something RMS said and say "Yeah, right..." But you have to keep in mind that RMS advocates the free software philosophy - the complete left end of the software spectrum - the white angel on your shoulder (not the red devil on the other). And while I find some of his points too radical to implement practically in my own situation, I believe it'…

I wouldn't describe the most extremist viewpoint on most matters as a white angel. Extremism tends to turn off some people from the cause when it looks somewhat irrational. Telling people they're bad and shouldn't play non-free videogames certainly isn't going to help things much. If you make someone who would otherwise be on your side feel guilty everytime they pick up a controller to unwind at the end of the day, t…

It's not extremism -- it's representing a value -- of being able to access, learn, and change the code that we run and use to improve our lives.

One perspective would say "RMS/Free-software advocates are saying only free games should be played" -- but another is:

"If we want to have access to the code for the games we play (as a value), what economic, legal and technical infrastructure (rather than depending on current copyright, DRM, etc) do we need?" If that's something we want, how do we advocate for it?

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#474

Post by sleepymoose » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

jasoneckert wrote: post #384

From reading the other comments here, I understand that it's easy to pick something RMS said and say "Yeah, right..." But you have to keep in mind that RMS advocates the free software philosophy - the complete left end of the software spectrum - the white angel on your shoulder (not the red devil on the other). And while I find some of his points too radical to implement practically in my own situation, I believe it'…

As someone who has heard the name but never looked into his message until now, is Stallman always so gung-ho on "All software should be free software"? Specifically, when I hit his comments regarding video games, I was quite shocked. "Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it.", if that's the case, then is any entertainment that comes at a monetary fee bad? How ahout proprietary software for niche fields? Perhaps I need to do some more research on his stance, but from this article it seems that he doesn't believe that the software industry should exist (using industry defined as "a sector of economy").

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#475

Post by sneak » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

kmeisthax wrote: post #161

>Some important packages are now distributed only through their non-freedom-respecting package system Wait, why is Ubuntu's package manager "not freedom respecting" but dpkg is? I thought snap was licensed under GPLv3. >It should be illegal to sell a computer that doesn't let users install software of their own from source code. Agreed, but this is such a low bar that even iOS meets it. Apple has never attempted to r…

> Agreed, but this is such a low bar that even iOS meets it. Apple has never attempted to restrict users' ability to compile and run source code. In fact, for almost a decade now the automatic signing in Xcode will sign and provision your compiled code, even if you didn't have a verified and paid-up developer account.

The first two sentences are false.

Apple only lets iOS run signed apps. Self-built apps must be signed, and online signatures are provided from Apple. They can stop at any time. These apps will also not stay running 24/7, forcing you into Apple services if you want basic functions like messaging notifications.

You need to identify yourself to Apple (even without a paid developer account) to get an Apple ID to be able to request signatures to run those compiled programs.

Just because they hand out free temporary keys does not mean you aren't inside a jail.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#476

Post by seba_dos1 » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:40 PM UTC

SkyBelow wrote: post #446

Shoue wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or take the AGPL, for instance, sponsored by now-defunct startup Affero. There are many people (myself included) who believe the AGPL is a restriction on use, freedom 0, because it prevents you from using AGPL software in certain contexts where the requirements cannot be fulfilled. > The GPLv2 itself starts by saying, "To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions" - there is a coherent political view that t…

>There will _always_ be such restrictions. For an extreme, but derived from the same philosophical core, example: the act of murder is an individual freedom, but it imposes on other peoples' freedoms. So we have to make a choice between which freedom is more important: that of the person whose life is at risk, or that of the person who wants to take lives. The formal concepts are referred to as negative liberty (free…

I don't think that's the answer provided by anarchists. As far as I understand it, most anarchistic ideas explicitly rely on communities being able to stop you from doing harm. Anarchism is pretty far from libertarian views on individual freedom.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#477

Post by paddy_m » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:43 PM UTC

KennyBlanken wrote: post #81

cmeacham98 wrote: post #8

> “Well, first of all, I don't think there's anything bad about playing a game. Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it. I get that Stallman's shtick is being as hardline as possible about free software, but it really feels like sometimes this hurts the free software movement. Imagine trying to bring in a normal, non-technical person who plays video games as one of their hobbies (describes…

Many gamers deeply resent the gaming industry and they are at least a "warm" audience. Microtransactions, DRM that imposes a significant performance penalty, single player games that refuse to work if not online (or worse, have multiplayer aspects required to progress in the game, but servers get shut down), massive pre-order hype-trains for games that turn out to be hot messes, games purposefully turned into grind-f…

I agree, Stallman is an incredibly poor leader and holds back the free software movement, FSF, and FSF projects at this point. It's not just that I disagree with his absolutist view on free software, he holds back the movement from achieving the goals that he espouses.

As a product manager he has done a poor job. For years he prevented GCC from moving to a simpler more modular architecture because he said that would make it easier to build non-free software on top of it. In the meantime Clang implemented this modular architecture and started taking market share from GCC. Years later GCC moved to a modular architecture anyway because Stallman finally blessed it. At the same time he prevented emacs from officially embracing better integration with Clang and Clang style compilers that provide a richer debugging and syntax checking experience. He did this because GCC didn't support the same experience. Eventually (after years) emacs did integrate with Clang and GCC style syntax facilities.

He made similar stalling moves preventing the adoption of git for emacs (and other FSF projects). First he pushed Arch, the he forced repositories to migrate to BZR after git had clearly won the version control battle (I'm fuzzy, but emacs moved to BZR around 2009-2011). Finally he conceded and emacs moved to git in 2014. After emacs migrated to git he used the emacs mailing list asking for simple git support that he would have understood if he hadn't remained purposefully ignorant about the VCS.

The FSF still revolves around Stallman and he hasn't done much work to find and promote a successor to himself to lead the organization. He is a poor steward of his own movement.

There were also his comments about Minsky and Epstein. He is entitled to his opinions, but as a leader of an important org with such stringent beliefs, delving into other topics was a distraction for the org. Being a leader requires focus and direction, inviting controversy with comments on unrelated current events is the opposite of focus.

In total I think that a lot of Stallman's actions have more to do with his ego and self importance than advancing the free software movement.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#478

Post by gjm11 » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:48 PM UTC

jasoneckert wrote: post #384

From reading the other comments here, I understand that it's easy to pick something RMS said and say "Yeah, right..." But you have to keep in mind that RMS advocates the free software philosophy - the complete left end of the software spectrum - the white angel on your shoulder (not the red devil on the other). And while I find some of his points too radical to implement practically in my own situation, I believe it'…

Surely the "red revil" would be these guys https://www.freebsd.org/ who, while certainly not having the exact same philosophy as RMS's, share a fair amount with it...

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#479

Post by zach_garwood » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:48 PM UTC

sleepymoose wrote: post #474

jasoneckert wrote: post #384

From reading the other comments here, I understand that it's easy to pick something RMS said and say "Yeah, right..." But you have to keep in mind that RMS advocates the free software philosophy - the complete left end of the software spectrum - the white angel on your shoulder (not the red devil on the other). And while I find some of his points too radical to implement practically in my own situation, I believe it'…

As someone who has heard the name but never looked into his message until now, is Stallman always so gung-ho on "All software should be free software"? Specifically, when I hit his comments regarding video games, I was quite shocked. "Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it.", if that's the case, then is any entertainment that comes at a monetary fee bad? How ahout proprietary software for…

He's using free as in free speech, not free as in free beer.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#480

Post by agalunar » Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:51 PM UTC

sleepymoose wrote: post #474

jasoneckert wrote: post #384

From reading the other comments here, I understand that it's easy to pick something RMS said and say "Yeah, right..." But you have to keep in mind that RMS advocates the free software philosophy - the complete left end of the software spectrum - the white angel on your shoulder (not the red devil on the other). And while I find some of his points too radical to implement practically in my own situation, I believe it'…

As someone who has heard the name but never looked into his message until now, is Stallman always so gung-ho on "All software should be free software"? Specifically, when I hit his comments regarding video games, I was quite shocked. "Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it.", if that's the case, then is any entertainment that comes at a monetary fee bad? How ahout proprietary software for…

"Free" here does not mean "free of charge", it means "libre" (guarantees the four essential freedoms [1]). The common quip is "free as in freedom, not as in free beer".

[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html#four-freedoms