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Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

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Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#601

Post by throwaway167 »

jraph wrote: post #334
Pannoniae wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Linux desktop is better than ever (in fact, I am switching to it the first time in a few days! I just need to setup some things first) Sadly, the enshittification has also taken over parts of the Linux desktop as well though. For example, the mobile-first, flat-everything user-hostile design. (like gnome) Dark themes were not common while skeuomorphism was mainstream, they are only in demand right now because vie…

I don't like Gnome so much, but enshittification is quite a strong word to qualify it. I'd prefer we reserved this word for when stuff gets worse because of money / investors, with incentives at odds with the user needs. I don't believe Gnome suffers from decisions that are bad because of financial incentives.

I quite like Gnome.

I also think enshittification is a strong word, and a wrong one.

Because praise the shit. Praise the choice of shit. You like your shit. I like my shit. I enjoy my Gnome shit, I enjoyed Gnome 2 shit but I love Gnome 3 shit. I don't like KDE shit. I can't remember how to spell XKFG shit because it's not big enough to fit in my memory.

It's all choice. And praise choice. I do like Gnome. If you want to keep running Gnome 1 like it's 1999, I'm sure there's a way to do that too.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#602

Post by neuromanser »

adingus wrote: post #509
hutzlibu wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We need absolutists like him who go to extremes and are known widely." But what is he known for, outside tech circles, if he is known at all? When you want to deliver a message, it matters a lot, how you deliver it.

Even as someone who has been a dev for 5 years I only know him as that gross guy who likes free software. Note that 'gross guy' is the main point here. He has failed to communicate any nuance to his message. Another person might have 80% the same opinion as him but be able to reach 200% of the people as him by way of not having such a bad reputation. If the free software 'movement' wants to move anyone they need to g…

> that gross guy who likes free software

He founded the idea of Free software. Him being "gross" is completely orthogonal. "I would have agreed with the guy who fought against slavery if he didn't pick his nose in public."

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#603

Post by PaulRobinson »

7e wrote: post #507
newscracker wrote: post #270

I hope he’s able to manage it well (since the prognosis is good) and is around for a lot longer. We need absolutists like him who go to extremes and are known widely. For a few moments, leave aside his personality and what people have said about his behavior or hygiene. If he hadn’t been there, our world would’ve been a lot different and a lot poorer. A visionary is what he was and is. While the Free part of FOSS is…

OSS predates GNU, and GNU's influence is waning. I wouldn't say Stallman's impact was that large. OSS was a thing before Stallman and will remain after Stallman.

OSS pre-dates GNU, sure.

But has any other license had the same impact as GPL?

Has any other set of OSS tools enabled so much as the GNU command line tools which were (and are) the foundation of Linux?

I put him up for the night once. I'm a BSD guy, ran the local FreeBSD society. He was pleasant enough about BSD we could hang out a bit. I know what my preferences are, but I'm not so arrogant as to believe I'm anywhere near in a majority, and his influence through his work (including GNU), is completely obvious. Without him, we'd all be paying Microsoft, Sun, IBM or HP through the nose for licenses to much worse technology than we have today.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#604

Post by jraph »

sdfghswe wrote: post #576
jraph wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. This is a very bad summary of what I carefully tried to make, that completely misses the point. I'm sorry I was not clear enough, but I'm afraid I won't be able to express myself better so I'll just leave it at that. You are free to make this point if you want, just don't make it look like it comes from me because it doesn't.

Cool I'll make the point then. I've learned about communism from two types of sources. Philosophy books and history books, and the takeaways are quite different.

Yes, so you conclude that theoretical communism leads to these horrible regimes.

It's a reasonable hypothesis, just not the only one.

This week I only saw white people in the streets. I could conclude all people walking in my city are white. But that's false.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#605

Post by tored »

yura wrote: post #435
tored wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is always good to remind yourself that the worlds largest spy company, Google, uses Free software to run much of it.

Your point being? I don't see how it's relevant that Google uses free software. RMS is probably happy that they do. Of course, they should stop spying on people, but I don't see how that's related to their use of free software.

Common argument from Free software advocates is that violation of user's rights is a consequence of proprietary software.

With Google you can even make an argument that they can violate more user's rights because of Free software.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against Free software per see, the topic is just more complex than what is presented.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#606

Post by Workaccount2 »

tekla wrote: post #564
adingus wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even as someone who has been a dev for 5 years I only know him as that gross guy who likes free software. Note that 'gross guy' is the main point here. He has failed to communicate any nuance to his message. Another person might have 80% the same opinion as him but be able to reach 200% of the people as him by way of not having such a bad reputation. If the free software 'movement' wants to move anyone they need to g…

Always good to know that the modern generation of devs are ok with discounting someones ideas because they are "gross". These "gross" people are the ones who made overpaid dev positions possible.

It's crazy to think how back in the day, software devs were basically hard science engineers, needing to be proficient in hardware and the nitty gritty of CPU architecture to be effective programmers. All so they could be paid $60-80k/yr in today's dollars for 50-60 hour work weeks.

Whereas nowadays you can do a few weeks of a javascript crash course and land a $100k job organizing text windows on a webpage for a few hours a week from your bedroom.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#607

Post by sdfghswe »

jraph wrote: post #604
sdfghswe wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool I'll make the point then. I've learned about communism from two types of sources. Philosophy books and history books, and the takeaways are quite different.

Yes, so you conclude that theoretical communism leads to these horrible regimes. It's a reasonable hypothesis, just not the only one. This week I only saw white people in the streets. I could conclude all people walking in my city are white. But that's false.

Counter example please?

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#608

Post by jodrellblank »

lelanthran wrote: post #282
calderknight wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume you're being ironic. One should listen to them. One should also be aware of the massive selection bias in views you're going to hear.

> I presume you're being ironic. > One should listen to them. > One should also be aware of the massive selection bias in views you're going to hear. And I presume that you feel the ones who died trying to escape would have a different opinion of communism than the ones who lived to produce your selection bias?

> "for many other people he represents a depostic regime that routinely violates human rights"

"The Democratic People's Republic of Murderistan is a human rights violating hellhole, so that's what you want whenever you say you support Democracy. There is no selection bias from people from there because they should know what Democracy is if anyone does".

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