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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]

#621

Post by lostapathy »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #484
borbulon wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're right, but the fact that Stallman is 70, and "under chemo," and still giving talks would suggest that whatever chemo he's under is relatively easy on his body.

Most chemo nowadays will make you feel sick for a day or two, but they also usually give you something to manage the symptoms. If it had been a few days since his last dosage, he was probably feeling decent all other things considered. Radiation therapy, on the other hand, is still being burned alive from the inside out, and even opioids are insufficient most of the time. My dad tried to ration my mom's painkillers d…

Modern management of side effects can help a lot, but it's not a surefire thing for any given patient on any given chemo.

When I did chemo, I had cycles with 5 days on - and I couldn't do anything useful during that week, or most of the next week. It was, truly, an awful experience. I completely understand and respect how some people can decide treatment isn't worth it and surrender to the disease.

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

#622

Post by _ea1k »

Qwertious wrote: post #593
lproven wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android is not proprietary. https://source.android.com/ That makes it rather easier...

You linked to AOSP, not Android. AOSP doesn't have things like the Google Play Store; the shipped image is substantially different and isn't necessarily open-source just because it contains open-source components - Windows contains BSD networking code but that doesn't make Windows open-source.

Sure, but the vast majority of those mods and alternative distributions are based on the sources that are available.

It is a bit like a Linux distro running Steam. Yeah, there are proprietary bits, but the FOSS part naturally happens on the FOSS parts.

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

#623

Post by vinceguidry »

colordrops wrote: post #499
Gigachad wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s commonly said that his inspiration was from wanting to improve a printer driver but couldn’t because it was proprietary. I feel like back in the day there would have been so many easy wins for modifications. Like how people used to root Android to add screenshot capability. These days modern software is so extremely sophisticated and refined that I can’t think of anything I could improve for say iOS. Still love…

People are still rooting Android and adding thousands of modifications to it.

You don't root OSes, you root devices. I learned that the hard way when I got a Samsung Z-Fold 4 and learned that the US version isn't rootable.

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

#624

Post by saalweachter »

DonHopkins wrote: post #540

Here's what another great free software project leader Ton Roosendaal said about his experience with cancer, the lessons he learned, and the implications on leadership continuity of free software projects, in his 2020 BlenderCon closing address. Richard Stallman has certainly been successful inspiring Ton and others to do great work and carry the flame! I hope he has access to excellent healthcare, and is as lucky as…

> This is only 15 years old. This treatment for people with this kind of leukemia.

Hank Green, the YouTuber, said that the thing he didn't appreciate until he had cancer was, how much you want the 40-year-old treatment and not the cutting edge treatment, because the 40-year-old treatment means that you have a cancer which is well understood and very treatable.

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

#625

Post by falcor84 »

causi wrote: post #598
sodality2 wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not say it's all doom and gloom. I just founded a FOSS/Linux club at my university. There are going to be some kids who are so interested in technology that they go down a rabbit hole of different communities, open source included. I definitely agree that the general trend towards less advanced technology will harm that though (some 18yo's don't even know how files work because they just use Mac's Finder), bu…

The whole "charging for distribution is fine but charging for development is wrong" thing is what keeps me well away from any kind of involvement with FOSS groups.

I don't believe anyone ever said that you can't charge for development. The only issue is that you're not allow allowed to limit people's right to distribute it. Once you already developed it and have given access to one person, it's up to them whether to pass it forward.

It's just like if you tell someone a joke. You can still claim credit for coming up with it, but not to stop its propagation.

In particular, you can still make money as a developer by asking for it upfront, whether from an employer, or patrons, or early access, or whatever model. Similar to how Netflix might pay someone upfront to develop a stand-up comedy special

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

#627

Post by trealira »

Gigachad wrote: post #501
ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might not be considering personal bugfixes (X interaction is great for the common denominator, annoying to me), long-term support (I want to use my device securely in 2045), or custom features (I want to be able to do X, but only 0.001% of people care so Apple doesn't). I use Android, so I can't be more specific. I have heard the unverified complaint that Apple sometimes slows down old devices as new ones…

I don't really understand this. You plan to single handedly replace the entire OS and security teams to maintain the OS on your phone for a decade? How will you update the kernel when the proprietary driver blobs stop being maintained?

No. They want iOS to be open source, because they want to be able to modify a few bits of source code and use their modified OS for their personal use, and then keep pulling updates from upstream forever after that. Like a small fork.

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

#628

Post by sokoloff »

pcl wrote: post #599
sokoloff wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything. He would sit behind me and dictate keystrokes (mostly driving emacs, of course) to do email, edit code, and generally operate the computer. I don't want to talk about someone else's medical situation, but I think it's well-enough-known that rms had a period of RSI so severe that he was barred from using a keyboard to let his wrists/hands recover. A few hours in a row of hearing and typing C-Space C-u 2 4…

Wow that must have been fascinating. Did you end up learning a ton of emacs-fu along the way, or did it sorta start to just flow through you? If I were in either of your shoes (sandals?) in that situation, I’m sure I would be super frustrated all the time. Impressive on both your parts.

I learned a lot, but I wish I could have gutted it out for longer in order to learn more about emacs and gcc internals. (I knew "we" were doing some maintenance on gcc because I remember asking questions about a comment that said "this is a win" and asking rms if we were working on gnu chess and him telling me that it was a compiler optimization. [Yeah, that's how amazingly skilled I was at the time.])

I ended up doing 4 sessions totaling about 10 hours and when I told him I was quitting, I was apologetic that I felt like I'd wasted his time quitting so soon after starting. His response I can remember to this day and it was something like "Don't worry about it; most people quit after the first session. You helped me out and we'll make sure you get your check."

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

#629

Post by sdfghswe »

jraph wrote: post #618
sdfghswe wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Riiiight. So would you agree with the statement that all attempts failed? You see, you're mockingly presenting me as simply going "never happened therefore can't happen". I would say that you're the extreme opposite where you're going "what happened doesn't matter, we learned nothing from it". You know, we can reason about the future past the data...? There's a reason why communism failed all attempts. That reason is…

> So would you agree with the statement that all attempts failed? Yes, to the extent there were none, really. And if we consider all the regimes calling themselves communism, yes, sure, failed in every possible ways too, of course. > you're mockingly No no no, I wouldn't dare making fun of you / mocking you. I have no interest doing so and I would not find this funny. I'm sorry I made you feel I'm mocking you, in any…

> You didn't address the hypothesis I exposed in my first comment and that I will restate: any regime calling themselves "communism" were set up by huge assholes using the noble name to call their totalitarian views.

Ok lets break it apart.

> any regime calling themselves "communism" were set up by huge assholes ( ... )

Agreed.

> ( ... ) using the noble name to call their totalitarian views.

Wrong. Research into the inner circle writing of Stalin show that he and the top people in the party believed themselves to be communists and doing the right thing for the ultimate goal of making the world communist. He wasn't just "using the noble name" (lol?). He behaved like a communist even when no one was looking as per the decisions he made even after attaining absolute power. I'd suggest you read Steven Kotkin's book "Stalin". Of course, if you dispute the expert take I'd have to ask for your credentials.

EDIT: bit frustrating to talk to someone whose starting point is "it's unknown if X" when X has been known for a long time. It's like, do your homework before coming in here. I'm out, good luck.

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

#630

Post by edanm »

vasco wrote: post #319
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.

I'd bet there will be a blockbuster movie about this guy within 10 years of him dying and it'll be in the pop culture, and maybe even stoke a temporary privacy / freedom focus for a while in common consciousness. Unfortunately the world doesn't know how to really appreciate people as much when they're alive for some personality types.

I think you're vastly over indexing in how many people in our circles know about him.

I'd bet less than 10% of professional developers could say who he is, and that a tiny portion of the population has any clue.

There are probably thousands of similarly important/influential people in various subfields that we have never heard of, because they're not our Subfield, and I highly doubt any of those would get a biopic.

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