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Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

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

#571

Post by forclarity »

paddy_m wrote: post #477
KennyBlanken wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

You're likely aware, but I wanted to take this opportunity to surface that a lot of the coverage of his comments on Minsky and Epstein was misleading if not malicious.

Notably, articles from Vice and The Daily Beast accused him of defending Epstein and asserting that victims were willing, and both of those accusations are false, as can be reasonably discerned from careful reading of the quotes that appear in the articles themselves. Rather, Stallman defended Minsky and said that victims probably appeared to Minsky to be willing even if they were being coerced out of his sight.

In addition to any judgement we're applying over his choice of whether to talk about it in the first place, we should be sure we're judging him for what he said (which I do believe deserves criticism) and not for what some people want to pretend he said.

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

#572

Post by jrm4 »

colordrops wrote: post #64
jrm4 wrote: post #36

I really think far too many people are missing why Stallman and the FSF are so valuable. It's not that everyone should behave exactly like them; it's that they provide a useful extreme endpoint such that there can exist a reasonable "Overton Window" of Free/Open Source/ Whatever Software. I 100% support what they do and preach knowing FULL well I will likely never 100% do as they recommend. That's not actually a big…

> "tying people down, strapping them into their chairs so that they can't do anything that hurts themselves -- makes things worse, not better." Stallman could have been talking about censorship and deplatforming here and it still would have made sense. His (and my) generation seem to care a lot more about idealistic freedoms than we do now as a society.

Yeah, I can't cosign this at all. "Censorship" is no worse now than it has been at least my entire life (I'm in my 40s) -- what's happening is that when the left was silenced by the right, they called it "market forces" or "culture" and now that it's somewhat reversed they're getting all butthurt and believing that everything is going against them.

But in neither case do I believe that "the government is colluding to eliminate first amendment rights" which I believe is a reasonably specific definition of censorship. This is just culture culturing.

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

#573

Post by pjmlp »

prmoustache wrote: post #524
pjmlp wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not enough, hence why it was acquired and eventually killed, regardless of how Red-Hat might justify their decision.

Care to explain which was killed? Neither centos nor redhat.

CentOS, have you missed the news?

Yeah there is CentOS Stream now, but that isn't what freeloaders want.

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

#574

Post by fsflover »

jdbernard wrote: post #558
fsflover wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. However they do have a good reason for that now: https://forums.puri.sm/t/i-mx-8m-quad-availability-and-price... .

Right, and I'm actually still OK with it. This was always a "it would be really nice if this was a thing" play on my end. Just calling out that it's not really the option that the parent post implied.

It's not an option to immediately use the phone, but it's an option to support the change.

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

#575

Post by feanaro »

Jarwain wrote: post #295
feanaro wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 'freedom' to inspect the code that runs on your computer is useless without both the freedom to see what happens upstream, and also some level of trust or confidence that the service you're using really isnt doing something nefarious. How is such freedom useless? I keep hearing this argument, yet I still run a significant portion of software locally and have no plans of replacing that with services, given they…

It's not freedom in general that's useless, but specifically freedom when that software relies on an upstream service to do things. Your argument sounds like it is against the use of software that requires such an upstream service in the first place, which is a fair stance to take. The Problem is when that upstream service is Necessary for whatever you are trying to do. Like in circumstances where interaction and col…

That is partially my argument, but not entirely. I'm rather arguing that even if you're using upstream services, you still want to have full and total control and ownership of the device you're using the upstream service from.

In fact, I find it a total jump in logic and a fallacy to conclude that I don't want or need freedom on my own device just because I'm a heavy user of upstream services. How does that even remotely follow?

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

#576

Post by feanaro »

simonh wrote: post #369
car_analogy wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not freedom in general that's useless, but specifically freedom when that software relies on an upstream service to do things. Until that service (such as a bank) decides that your rooted, user-controlled phone is no good, and forces you to use one controlled by the manufacturer, if you want access to your bank account.

If you want access from an app on your phone yes, not just to have access. The fact is it’s not just us that are stakeholders in the devices we carry. Our mobile network provider is a stakeholder, the manufacturer is a stakeholder, our bank is a stakeholder. This is why e.g. we don’t have unlimited rights over the bank cards or those access code generator devices some banks used to issue. If you want to use your phon…

The bank and the game are far less important than me retaining full control of a general-purpose computing device and sensor that I keep by my side for a majority of the time and trust in the most intimate parts of my home. This is also a fact.

If the bank and the game cannot function in this reality, then the only solution is for them to provide separate devices for me to interface with them.

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

#577

Post by Beltalowda »

tjader wrote: post #431
Beltalowda wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What am I supposed to say to that? Proprietary software is not slavery, or even anywhere close to it, even if we accept the argument that it is unethical. I find this entire analogy unhelpful.

The point is not to compare proprietary software to slavery. The point is that Stallman does not find proprietary software bad for the user, he finds it morally wrong . That means in this case it doesn't make sense to complain and argue about his answer to the developer, as his answer makes perfect sense given his premises. If you want to disagree with his advice, you have to disagree with his moral position on propr…

> Expecting Stallman to help someone make money with proprietary software is like expecting a vegan advocate to help someone kill cows more humanely.

Many vegans are actually doing exactly that: enacting laws to improve the living conditions of animals. In the Netherlands we have the "party for the animals" in parliament for that. While their long-term goal is the elimination of meat, they also realize this is not realistic/practical in the short-term for various reasons. In the meanwhile they've been fairly successful in putting the topic of animal suffering on the agenda, making meaningful proposals to improve things, and hopefully coming closer to the long-term goals

I happen to be vegan (well, mostly anyway). Yes, you have the "extreme" vegans you might encounter on occasion, which me and my vegan friends tend to dislike as well, but most are significantly more pragmatic than you might think. It's just that you hear less from them as they're not as "loud".

If a farmer was to walk up to me and ask me "how can I improve the welfare of my animals in my factory farm?" then I'd do my best to make meaningful improvements, even though I think factory farming in general is unethical.

Now, back to Free Software: in broad lines I agree with Stallman, but just find his approach unhelpful, and I don't think that can just be hand-waved away with "but [he thinks] it's unethical".

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

#578

Post by ddingus »

maratc wrote: post #555
ddingus wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well let's break it down I am the ggp. I think this is a good conversation personally. Now, are you unconvinced that the act of cheating itself is a social problem? I did use course terminology, it could be a moral failing as well. I lump a lot of those under social. And that's to my detriment obviously. But let's sort that out. And then there's the part I'm convinced that I understand you on, and that is I believe o…

I don't disagree with your classification of cheating. I don't believe that technology is necessarily always a good fit for social problems. What I take issue with is a blunt dismissal of technology as a practical solution for social problems. Sometimes it's a good fit, sometimes it's a bad fit, sometimes it's the only solution we've got and the other solutions are either imaginary or worse ones.

Fair.

I was coarse. Reading through, I was able to see it

Life, people, come with a bazillion, edge, corner, intersection cases, right? I am moved by the likes of Lessig, RMS, others in that we are super complex! And computer tech right now is missing a couple big things!

Meaning and reasoning basically.

Context is hard.

In the "we just want to play on a fair field" context, of course! I get it. Tech can help with cheaters for sure, though I do think it is a temporary help at best. The really brilliant people with resolve get through and may well be as great of a gamer as they are cheater. The challenge, "real game" is what really gets them going.

One could say the same of a cartel leader, thief, and others who play this game of life in that way.

And we struggle with tech and law constantly!

There are parallels.

Poor law causes a lot of grief, wasted time, people enduring punishment that should not, and we have a process for that.

And it is a shitty process!

I would feel a lot better with a similar dynamic applied where we do reach for tech tools.

Another parallel: mandatory sentencing. We put people, many of whom are elected, others selected, who we believe worthy of judgement (And I know how debatable that all is, just roll with it for sake of discussion please!), into a position of real power, and we accept that because our lives are generally better for having done it.

Mandatory Sentencing is a mess. Now we basically take this complex human capable of judgement and boil it down to a more rule based thing not so unlike what computers would do. I am not sure that ever made sense. Whether it does is an interesting discussion, but what I really want to say here is more about where tech falls short and put some meat behind "social", as I should have done.

We are perhaps not so far apart on this. Seems my lazy comment got me a robust discussion I find far more worthy than the comment was!

Nice when that happens.

Circling back then, if I am to say anything, it is process which bothers me the most.

When we are really impacting people, ruining lives or changing them seriously, or improving them frankly, there are no do overs. Our time here is our time and taking that very, very seriously seems like it should matter a whole lot more than it often does with tech and social / society.

We are trending toward more bad fits than good in my view.

RMS, character that he is, absolutely does take it hard to an extreme. He should not have ruling power, but we need that voice, just as we need ours.

In that context, your push back was solid and for me useful and productive! I am better for having worked at this a bit. And these matters are important. Increasingly so.

I hope my attempt to clarify and back away from the worst of my thoughts here is similar for you.

We both are likely to come away from this tuned up a bit and better at the topic at the very least. (True for me)

Cheers and game on!

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

#579

Post by charcircuit »

belorn wrote: post #549
charcircuit wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with that implementation of server side movement it will still mess up by fake lag adding jitter. Player A may send 0:0, 0:1, -, -, -, 0:2 0:3 0:4 0:5 The location for 0:2 that B would have been wrong via your approach. If player A's actual location at 0:2 isn't about the same B will miss his shot.

With server side movement, player A do not send coordinates. The server does the movement of players. Imagine you are talking over the phone to someone who is driving, given them directions. That is server side movements. If you suddenly stop talking, the car doesn't just stop, nor does the traffic. All you have accomplished is that the driver is no longer getting any further instructions from you.

I wasn't talking about coordinates. Just commands attached to timestamps. If Player B shoots player B at t=5 and then Player A says they stopped moving at t=2, then Player B's shot will miss since they didn't know Player A had already stopped 3 seconds ago.

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

#580

Post by forgotmypw17 »

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #391
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of do this. I avoid using currency and have no credit cards but once in a blue moon need to buy something from online.

How do you function without currency? That is wild.

Just wanted to follow up on your comment and link to a few older comments where I expand on how I do this.

The basic premise is that I try to live off of society's excesses without pulling new things out of the supply chain. So I tend to sleep in public spaces, eat food that's left over from others, wear hand-me-down clothes or "shop" in free stores, and so on. When I need to travel, I ask around for someone driving the same way.

For a few areas of my life, I still need new things, such as web hosting, occasional bus ticket, etc. For this, I allow others to interface with the currency system for me, and contribute to them in other ways, such as helping them with whatever they need help with.

As far as the bigger picture, I contribute by constantly looking for and doing things which need help doing, such as: cleaning up trash where it's not cleaned up, lending an ear to someone who needs to talk, teaching what I know to others, and so on.

I really resonate with the Steve Jobs quote that everything (man-made) around us was created by someone who had less knowledge and understanding of the world than we do today (because they did it in the past) and there's every reason to believe that each of us can do better if we put our mind to it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30321009

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30043346

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30042841

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30043104

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30042864

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30043130

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