I dislike the idea that every single leader in the world must only conduct themselves according to Dale Carnegie, as it were. There is an over-abundance of people doing just that, and judging from this post and many of the comments, a lot of people seem to want others to conform to that sort of uniform "persuasive" behavior. I'm not saying it isn't effective, but surely not everybody needs to do that. Isn't there room in this big world for a few genuine personalities?
Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter
61–70 of 210 posts
Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for making that point. I want to make perfectly clear that I have a tremendous amount of respect for RMS and everything that he's done. By no means would I recommend that he compromise his ideology or 'go corporate.' All I'm saying is: almost everybody at his talk (already a self-selecting group) was put off by the tone and extremist nature of his delivery. His message got lost, and that sucks - it's an import…
But his eccentricity and radicalism are what made the fsf and gnu possible in the first place. Anyone with his skills in the 70s turned into a millionaire by the end of the 80's. Instead he decided to lock himself up and write emacs, gcc, glibc etc and give them away for free living on donations and minimum wage freelancing. The thing is that you can't call him on his eccentricity and radicalism when this is exactly…
I dunno. Couldn't you use that same sort of logic to argue against criticizing any great/commendable person? We shouldn't criticize them because those character traits are part of the reason they accomplished these other things over here.
Then again, maybe the criticism they've received all along has helped to drive them to those successes, so we actually should be criticizing them...
Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter
#63I really don't think the signs that are used to illustrate this article are comparable. The Kindle/Swindle sign isn't making up a new name for the Kindle. It is saying that this thing in the sign is a swindle. You shouldn't buy it because it makes false promises. If a person made up a sign with a bottle of Coke and put "Tastes Great" beneath it, that person wouldn't be calling Coke "Tastes Great".
Sure, it's negative advertising, but that doesn't put it on the level of Lyndon Larouche advertising. It might be on the level of the people who called Microsoft M$ on Slashdot 15 years ago, but I don't really think it is. I didn't see the talk, so I don't know if he called it a swindle during the talk but if he did, then I would put the remark in the latter category.
I'm even less sure what the objection to the other sign is. Is it the word "sins"? They want you to go to their website to see the things that they don't like about Windows 7. Mainly, I would guess, in the way that it restricts your freedom. What is a short word that is less incendiary that means things-I-don't-like-about-a-thing-that-restricts-my-freedom?
Finally, "baby steps"? In this day and age? I've used almost exclusively free software for over ten years. It's really not that hard. I prefer it. So start using free software or don't. I don't care. But don't pretend it's a big hassle that someone told you that you should.
(To be clear, I'm not a total apologist for RMS. He has said some distasteful things about women and from what I hear his hygiene isn't the greatest either.)
Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter
#64I dislike the idea that every single leader in the world must only conduct themselves according to Dale Carnegie, as it were. There is an over-abundance of people doing just that, and judging from this post and many of the comments, a lot of people seem to want others to conform to that sort of uniform "persuasive" behavior. I'm not saying it isn't effective, but surely not everybody needs to do that. Isn't there roo…
Sure there's room, but the thesis is that rms' personality does disservice to his cause. He is willing to email documents around to collaborate using Free Software, but he's not willing to market effectively.
Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter
#65A few points i would like to remind everyone who criticizes rms. 1) rms is a radical guy. You cannot change that. He fights for what he thinks is right. He is not the kind of person you can ask to censor himself. If he thinks u.s goverment is to blame for 9/11, no matter how saying it in a lecture seems childish, he will say it. If you invite rms for a lecture, he is coming with his radicalism. That is to be expected…
> he [...] wrote gcc
it's a fair assumption to believe that most or his code was rewritten (hey, since gcc 1.x we've had several major versions, plus the egcs merger, etc.)
this can't be outlined strongly enough.
Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter
#66> When we asked, you mentioned that you do not write much code anymore.
This may be partly why he seems out of touch with programmers.
Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter
#67A few points i would like to remind everyone who criticizes rms. 1) rms is a radical guy. You cannot change that. He fights for what he thinks is right. He is not the kind of person you can ask to censor himself. If he thinks u.s goverment is to blame for 9/11, no matter how saying it in a lecture seems childish, he will say it. If you invite rms for a lecture, he is coming with his radicalism. That is to be expected…
> The point is, these days, most people involved in open source community, do not even care about free software and the freedom it offers. Being involved in open source seems to be mainly a thing to put on the CV. And often, people who start or run an "open source" software product are co-directors of a consulting company, or else employees bound by non-compete clauses, charge out as much as possible for as little as…
Full Disclosure: I work for Google. The opinions stated here are my own.
I respectfully disagree. Often the consulting company is a very valid way to pay for the development of the Open Source Software. It's a practical way to do OSS and still make a living. That in no way detracts from the usefulness of the Open Source development Model or the freedom of that software.
Google's SOC is primarily a way find and incent good developers. It helps to expand the pool of hirable talent. In our Chicago office we've hired our fair share of former GSOC alumni. We don't limit the applications to any class of project so while some of the work may indeed be useful to us commercially, a lot of it isn't.
As far as gaming search engine results and changing api's I'm not even sure where you're going with that one?
I'm sure you have valid examples of badly done open source but painting the whole class of software with that same brush is a mistake.
Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the spokesperson for the Vegetarian Society was trying to persuade others to become vegetarian by branding all farmers "murderers" and engaging in ridiculous rhetoric, I think other vegetarians might be concerned that their message wasn't being conveyed appropriately and was alienating them from the mainstream, thereby resulting in fewer vegetarians.
I can't tell if you are being facetious, but the main argument for vegetarianism is that "meat is murder."
I have been told that the primary reason is that killing animals is morally wrong, not that it is in any way comparable to murder. I have never met an vegetarian so extreme to tell me that animals (we eat) are people.
Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter
#69I don't think this guy gets it. Clearly, he has drawn the line at "proprietary software is fine, as long as it's useful to me". To RMS, though, that's not where the line is: he simply refuses to use software he can't tweak or audit. That's not like calling Obama Hitler or saying global warming is a scientific fraud. It's just an ideology, like not driving a car or only eating foods that don't come from animals. Nothi…
His personal refusal isn't even part of the letter or in any way criticized.
Nothing wrong with that and the letter makes that pretty clear. It's about persuasion and spot on when it comes to that.
Re: Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the spokesperson for the Vegetarian Society was trying to persuade others to become vegetarian by branding all farmers "murderers" and engaging in ridiculous rhetoric, I think other vegetarians might be concerned that their message wasn't being conveyed appropriately and was alienating them from the mainstream, thereby resulting in fewer vegetarians.
I can't tell if you are being facetious, but the main argument for vegetarianism is that "meat is murder."
"... tasty, tasty murder" is how the t-shirt ends, I believe. That is basically the point. "meat is murder" is so far over the line it's laughable to most people who aren't vegetarians.