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Forty years of GNU and the free software movement

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Re: Forty years of GNU and the free software movement

#71

Post by Aleklart »

sbuk wrote: post #47
psychoslave wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s see. On the one hand you have people motivated by the ideal of software "developed specifically for the sake of users' freedom". On the other hand you have dystopian corporate whose biggest dream is slave labor and locked-in cash cows from which value is drained 'til the last drop. There is no tactic for obtain reconciliation of two world views in direct and systematic opposition. If engaging in a tactic lead t…

> "On the other hand you have dystopian corporate whose biggest dream is slave labor and locked-in cash cows from which value is drained 'til the last drop." An therein is the problem I, and I know many others, have with the FSF and it's followers. This language is just not compelling - in fact, it's a massive turn off, even if you think it's true. This comes off as the ravings of a crackpot! Consider "On the other h…

[flagged]

Re: Forty years of GNU and the free software movement

#72

Post by red_admiral »

sbuk wrote: post #55
shrubble wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many women don't want to be around nerds. It's really that simple.

And what is the reason for that?

There is a theory by Simon Baron-Cohen that autistic people have "extremely male brains". I dislike this formulation myself - I think he's confusing the proxy for the root cause, which is that autistic people have extremely _systematising_ brains. (And yes, "autistic" and "nerd" are not synonyms, I know.)

But psychology does acknowledge that an interest in people vs systems/things is one of the most pronounced measurable and replicable sex differences; depending on who you ask this might apply to babies from the day they were born, as measured by the time they spend looking at a photo of a face vs. one of some building blocks.

(Note, the research is about _interests_, not _abilities_. Big difference.)

If you plot people on a people/things interests scale, you might see a male cluster, a female cluster, and if you zoomed in, a "nerd cluster" a bit beyond the normal male cluster.

Female nerds and women with autism do exist, and as far as I can tell, they fit in just fine into any "nerdspace" that does not single them out based on their sex/gender or act too sexist. (Personally, I find the label "extremely male brain" particularly uncharitable for women with autism.) But they are numerically a minority.

Re: Forty years of GNU and the free software movement

#73

Post by safety1st »

red_admiral wrote: post #49
safety1st wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS has been subjected to a defamatory smear campaign which has falsely accused him of being transphobic, sympathetic to pedophiles and hostile to women. The attacks targeting him have largely come from people who aren't involved in free software and in some cases not even involved in the tech industry. While his behavior has been awkward at times he is absolutely none of these things and he deserves respect for his…

I'm not sure about transphobic, as that allegation did not come up when the original "package" that led to RMS' resignation was published. It could be that new evidence has come to light since, or it could be that the allegation of transphobia is unfounded. Some of the original allegations that I think are proven correct are that RMS: - defended Marvin Minsky on a mailing list when Minsky was accused of sex with an u…

Please read claims 1-5 on this page. I could rehash them but the page does a better job with these issues than I would:

https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-agai...

Regarding the "Cult of the Emacs Virgin" issue, here is Stallman's statement about it: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-women-list/2009-Novemb... - this was a reference to the Cult of the Virgin Mary. Along with references to the "Church of St. IGNUtius" he was parodying what he saw as cult-like elements of Christianity. Because Mary was female, he referenced females.

When he was informed in 2009 that some women found this joke offensive, he changed it to be gender neutral, because as he said in 2009, and continues to say today, he supports involving women in free software as much as possible.

Stallman has a long history of advocating for womens' rights and it's unfortunate for all women that a few women have decided to attack a supporter of womens' rights over a joke that probably didn't make anyone bat an eyelash when he first started using it. Standards have changed today, but he amended the joke 14 years ago....

Nadine Strossen's comments really hit the nail on the head about how poisonous this inability to forgive people for awkward statements made almost 20 years ago (and later recanted or apologized for) has become. If people on the other side are not allowed to apologize, reform and join your team, how do you ever win? If you brand them as enemies for life, short of your movement imprisoning, exiling or killing them, how does society as a whole ever make progress?

Re: Forty years of GNU and the free software movement

#74

Post by zelphirkalt »

red_admiral wrote: post #60
severus_snape wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and then others came along GPL came after MIT ( https://nitter.net/humphd/status/1112747178685026304 ) > and it's a genuine improvement How?

Let's say you want to develop software as a job, and make enough money to live. You also have the ethics not to go into the ad-supported track-everything mobile apps business. There is still good money to be made without selling your soul, but most of it is in the B2B not the B2C market. And there, you negotiate the terms of who owns what individually for each contract anyway, at least if you have any sense. The prob…

Copy-left licenses can work better for companies than non-copy-left licenses, if those companies are actually interested in improving the thing or creating the thing. They can release as GPL or AGPL and then profit from others contributing. If they released as MIT or other non-copy-left license, any competitor can use and modify without contributing back, which is the actual scenario any company should be afraid of. Copy-left actually helps companies that are not simply leeching.

Re: Forty years of GNU and the free software movement

#75

Post by ZoomZoomZoom »

I'd like just to say thanks for all the longstanding efforts of FSF and GNU. While one could debate minutiae to oblivion, it's hard to dismiss the core ideas, particularly in light of the continuous stream of facts and events that unequivocally validate the very real threats and maliciousness that this movement stands against.

Free Software in general contributes significantly to keeping the environment I live in more trustworthy, friendlier, and less threatening. That's no small feat and I can only express my sincere gratitude to everyone involved.

Re: Forty years of GNU and the free software movement

#77

Post by didntcheck »

eesmith wrote: post #58
red_admiral wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about transphobic, as that allegation did not come up when the original "package" that led to RMS' resignation was published. It could be that new evidence has come to light since, or it could be that the allegation of transphobia is unfounded. Some of the original allegations that I think are proven correct are that RMS: - defended Marvin Minsky on a mailing list when Minsky was accused of sex with an u…

I have not heard the transphobic claims either. I have come across multiple sources which describe Stallman's creepy behavior towards women, which I listed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21008835 . One of them worked in the same building as Stallman. She writes software under an open source license and co-organizes an open source conference, so definitely "involved in free software." You can't trust me thoug…

As is usually the case with these "sex pest" witch hunts, these claims require traversing several layers of hyperlinks and "someone told me" just to find a vague claim of "I just find him creepy (in a way that I can't describe!)", which seems to simply mean "dares to exist and talk while awkward and unattractive". Flirting is also not bad behavior, how else would relationships form without someone indicating interest first?

Nobody is denying that rms is an exceedingly eccentric person, often to the extent of rudeness, but this does not justify the serious insinuations of sexual harassment

Re: Forty years of GNU and the free software movement

#79

Post by zelphirkalt »

Osmose wrote: post #36

40 years on and they still seem to think giving talks and making free software is a suitable defense of Free Software. It's passive, and has fallen apart in the face of tech companies that actively use their free software tools to make closed source software that routinely violates user's rights. There's so much they _could_ be doing. Where's the grant program for startups working on free software? Where's their shop…

> The FSF never adapted once thought leading and making free alternatives stopped being enough to support the ideals of their movement. They just kinda exist now.

To their credit, free software exists and there are many high quality examples, that outshine proprietary or big corp tech, when in capable hands. Those can be used by anyone anywhere on the planet, without having to buy a license from a shady company. We have Blender, Inkscape, Emacs, GCC, Linux kernel, Guix, and great things like Syncthing or whole OS that run on free/libre software. I dare say even Gimp is a solid choice in the right hands for many purposes, while surely not without flaws. Such projects I count as successes of the free software movement.

It is not really, that the FSF (and the GNU project) does not help at all. Without them we would be off much worse by now. However, your points about what they could do additionally still stand and you raise some perhaps good ideas.

Re: Forty years of GNU and the free software movement

#80

Post by Affric »

noufalibrahim wrote: post #6

My earliest exposure to free software was via. GCC and Emacs. The early debates on Gnu/Linux, OSS vs. Free Software etc. were all things I imbibed back then. The ideological stand of the FSF was appealing to me when I was younger and really affected my outlook. Over the years, I can't help but feeling that while the FSF's core message is still relevant and true, their tactics have more or less pushed them outside of…

> their tactics have more or less pushed them outside of the mainstream conversation on technology.

They always have been on the outside. There has always been, and will always be, a concerted campaign by those who benefit from closed software against the FSF.

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