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James Gosling on Richard Stallman [video]

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Re: James Gosling on Richard Stallman [video]

#51

Post by ryanobjc »

djsumdog wrote: post #30
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #5

What is it, a next generation of #metoo movement? Crowds of developers who were (allegedly) wronged 30+ years ago will come forth with their accusations?

There has been a lot on RMS recently with his various resignations, but this seems to be an older issue that's been known for a while. I am against call-out culture in general (people should be evaluated on their whole and not be told to resign over singular events) -- and there is stuff we can debate about RMS's behavior over time and everything -- but I have a feeling this issue is independent. If we're talking abo…

You think RMS isn't being evaluated on his whole?

The accusations are various, serious, and have been out of sight and out of mind until now.

The problem with calls to "evaluate people on their whole" is that it allows people to get away with serious crimes only to be forgiven because they did something nice later on. People have a moral problem with this.

Re: James Gosling on Richard Stallman [video]

#52

Post by clSTophEjUdRanu »

craigsmansion wrote: post #27

> I found these two guys who ran this little company called Unipress, it was literally two guys in a garage, and I said, "Look, this needs to be free for universities and not ridiculous for everybody else." Gosling sold them Gosling emacs. Before that he apparently "distributed it freely with no copyright notice." Although Gosling wrote Gosling Emacs, it was based on the plans he and Richard Stallman had developed fo…

Yeah, they were going to sell it as a small business. Gosling said that once RMS found out he freaked and ripped out any copyright headers and released as is for free.

Then IBM and DEC used RMS Emacs with their machines to which the two guys sued and won but they didn't kill RMS Emacs so it was a "Pyrric victory." In court the source code for both was the same and RMS had even forgotten to replace a few of the original copyright headers.

Re: James Gosling on Richard Stallman [video]

#53

Post by ryanobjc »

TheNorthman wrote: post #35
namirez wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> developers who were (allegedly) wronged 30+ years ago I listened to it and didn't hear the story of a developer whining about being wronged 30 years prior. The guy says clearly that he wanted to move on from Emacs. On the other hand, it's the story of an alleged source code theft and copyright violation. I hope the story is false but I don't think it's irrelevant because 30 something years have passed.

Is there anyway he can get the stolen items back though? He should either go to the police and request them to help him get the stolen items back. Or maybe talk to his insurance company, they might help to compensate him for the loss. But a helpful idea; if they've stolen something and then put copies of that on a website that is freely accessible, I would suggest just copying it, so that both him and they have the s…

So, I'm downvoted you because I don't think you're contributing quality (You slag Gosling as 'some older individuals' who 'don't [understand] modern technology')

Either that or your comment was made in bad faith. I really can't tell, but come on, the problem is that Gosling doesnt understand how digital tech can make copies of data?

Re: James Gosling on Richard Stallman [video]

#56

Post by trn »

lliamander wrote: post #39
kragen wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fen Labalme did confirm Stallman's claim, but could not find the email; remember this is in the days of backups on 9-track tapes, and he was looking for an email he had presumably deleted several years earlier. > It's important here to note that Stallman does not claim it was his own brainchild, and did give Gosling credit. This is true in a very limited way, but by itself it is a very misleading partial truth. Stall…

> Fen Labalme did confirm Stallman's claim, but could not find the email; remember this is in the days of backups on 9-track tapes. Ah, good to know, thanks! > This is true in a very limited way, but by itself it is a very misleading partial truth. Stallman gave Gosling credit for Gosmacs, not for EMACS. > Stallman had been working on EMACS on ITS on the PDP-10 for years before Gosling started writing his version, bu…

Multics Emacs was the second Emacs to be implemented in Lisp, not the first. The first was Lisp Machine Emacs, known as EINE, (EINE Is Not Emacs) from 1977, while Multics Emacs is from 1978.

(See also rms’ acknowledgement in the footnotes of the transcript of his speech to the International Lisp Conference of 28-OCT-2002.)

Re: James Gosling on Richard Stallman [video]

#58

Post by esotericn »

flowerlad wrote: post #38

It is a bit late to be arguing about the IP in Emacs. Only 4.5% of developers use Emacs today. More than 50% use VSCode. See https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#technology-_-...

4.5% of developers is a bloody enormous number.

Hundreds of thousands, perhaps half a million.

I'd imagine it's fewer than that, but still, that really is a big deal.

Re: James Gosling on Richard Stallman [video]

#59

Post by trn »

lliamander wrote: post #39
kragen wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fen Labalme did confirm Stallman's claim, but could not find the email; remember this is in the days of backups on 9-track tapes, and he was looking for an email he had presumably deleted several years earlier. > It's important here to note that Stallman does not claim it was his own brainchild, and did give Gosling credit. This is true in a very limited way, but by itself it is a very misleading partial truth. Stall…

> Fen Labalme did confirm Stallman's claim, but could not find the email; remember this is in the days of backups on 9-track tapes. Ah, good to know, thanks! > This is true in a very limited way, but by itself it is a very misleading partial truth. Stallman gave Gosling credit for Gosmacs, not for EMACS. > Stallman had been working on EMACS on ITS on the PDP-10 for years before Gosling started writing his version, bu…

Also see https://lobste.rs/s/uwvpl1/110_days_early_multics_emacs_hist... if you'd like an easy way to use Multics Emacs.

Re: James Gosling on Richard Stallman [video]

#60

Post by xnyan »

saul_goodman wrote: post #37
smcl wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold up, is there something wrong with: 1. the #metoo movement 2. the idea that someone would want to tell their side of a famous story ? Even ignoring the above (though I hope you're not insinuating some issue with #1) this is a few minutes, roughly halfway through ~6 hours of video. It's not like Gosling has set out to make a hit-piece on RMS

Uh, yes, there is something very wrong with #1. Certainly exposing bad actors is good. But making all men the enemy is even worse and that's what that movement turned into. And anyone who thinks this RMS story is casually coming up now by random chance is naive. Stallman is under active attacked and the storm has not finished raging. You can disagree on whether it's deserved, but it's VERY old news that was done with…

All men are the enemy of the #metoo movement? If your going to speak in a hyperbolic way, it makes me want to dismiss what you say as an emotional reaction rather than one based in fact.

"And anyone who thinks this RMS story is casually coming up now by random chance is naive"

Do you have any evidence of this, or is this something you feel to be true?

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