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

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

#711

Post by johnnyanmac » Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 5:03 PM UTC

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #697

toyg wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how often the GPL is used in new projects and how often MIT or alike. That's strictly about businesses not willing to give back in the way the GPL forces you to. It's nothing to do with how RMS behaves.

No, that's not what it is about. I certainly don't choose permissive licenses based on how RMS behaves (that would be stupid), but I also don't choose them because I think businesses shouldn't give back. I choose permissive licenses because I believe that the GPL is hypocritical in claiming to be about freedom, yet placing limits on the freedom of those who use the code. I believe that freedom must include the freedo…

>I believe that freedom must include the freedom to do even those things I disagree with personally.

In an ideal world sure. But I'm guessing Stallman made this license precisely so people can't "do whatever they want", which from a business standpoint is taking that code, modifying it in-house, and closing it off. Prevent a tragedy of the commons, so to speak.

Stallman didn't approach this as some idealist of "we make great code and everyone will share and progress society". Partly because tbf: open source was a lot harder to doiin his time. He came from an angle of trying to combat proprietary software. That's why he didn't make the MIT license (even if it preceded him, I'm not sure).

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

#712

Post by Aspie96 » Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 5:06 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #394

onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you start reading some more accurate history of famous people in the past you will find out that pretty much everybody did things that today would get you canceled. Nobody is perfect. World is moved forward by imperfect people that are able to do something productive for the society.

> today would get you canceled I hate that word. It's not being "cancelled". It's being called out for being a jerk, and it's past overdue we did that. For the Stallman case the impact of "cancellation" was probably 0, anyway.

The word "cancelled" is often used by plenty of people who "cancel" people, by happily claiming that someone is "cancelled".

The issue isn't just being "called out for being a jerk". It's one thing to call someone a jerk. It's another thing to be entirely unwilling to look at facts objectively, to reason about them, to listen to those defending the person and yet throw wild allegations, as well as vilifying anything an anyone that is in any way close to that person.

Nobody is actually concerned about "cancelling" just because people call each other "jerks". You can call me a jerk if you want. I won't feel cancelled.

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

#713

Post by johnnyanmac » Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

lib-dev wrote: post #661

hutzlibu wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soo, assuming I build something like Minecraft, something that made the developer millions (I think over 100) via the conventional way. And your proposal for how to make money with such a moneymaker game and the GPL is eventually down the years take on donations and talk at conferences? Was that irony? Then I missed it. Because the context was someone above claimed that it is only the stupid lawers fault, that compan…

If you don't like the idea, you don't have to do it. I mean you're making games. There's not much money in that to begin with.

>I mean you're making games. There's not much money in that to begin with.

I know you mentioned Minecraft, but it's not 2010 anymore. That "poor" indie creator sold off the game for 2.5b dollars and it seems like he still got the short end of the stick given how big the game is.

I'm fine with open source games, but the fact of the matter is that mods need a community and community is hard to build. If you're trying to replicate MC's success, note that it also wasn't made with modibility Orr convinent licenses in mind. You gotta make something appealing first and then you can futz about with nodding support if people bite.

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

#714

Post by Aspie96 » Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

kypro wrote: post #420

Ensorceled wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Norman Finkelstein (blacklisted from Academia for his work relating to the Israel/Palestine conflict) He wasn't "cancelled" for being "woke", that's straight up political fallout for going up against Israeli interests. > Richard Stallman (made to resign from his positions at MIT and FSF due to comments relating to Marvin Minsky and Jeffrey Epstein) He's back at FSF. Clearly not "cancelled" as evidenced by this enti…

Cancelled is probably the wrong word. I think what the other commenter meant was that the moral reputation of individuals tends to decline with time since what is considered moral is relative to a given society and a given period of time. It's very hard to name a historical figure who lived prior to the 1900s who didn't express something racist, sexist or homophobic for example. Similarly, even people who were in the…

> Even people who are obviously anti-racist like Justin Trudeau used to believe black face was acceptable until very recently, for example.

To the extent to which "black face" just means for a white person to play a black character, they were entirely right in thinking so. All actors play things they are not.

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

#715

Post by Thoreandan » Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 5:13 PM UTC

toasteros wrote: post #663

jll29 wrote: post #187

I wish RMS all the best for his health, a long and happy life. I also know that if he reads this, it will be from an Emacs mail client on his dusty ThinkPad in text mode (no X11 or Wayland) by sending a URL to a service he wrote that will email him the Web page back - a clean process without any using any tainted proprietary software. He only ever exchanged one sentence with me when we had dinner together with other…

He uses X11 sometimes! I couldn't quite tell what the DE was, but it might have been XFCE. He found it easier to show us comics in X11 than in textmode emacs, so he swapped to the desktop to do that. This was close to midnight in London when I was helping him get his stuff back to his accommodations (his bag is frikkin HEAVY). He needed to rest for a minute, and he whipped out his laptop to laugh at comics he'd writt…

As far as I've seen X11 has always been considered Free without-strong-copyleft by rms/GNU.

They were /not/ in favor of the proprietary Motif desktop environment, nor the (at the time, non-FLOSS Qt library dependent) KDE (C++) environment, hence the FSF creating the GNOME (C) environment. "...GNOME and KDE will remain two rival desktops, unless some day they can be merged in some way. Until then, the GNU Project is going to support its own team vigorously. Go get ’em, gnomes!"

https://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/stallman-on-qt-the-gpl-...

Related - the BSD License:

> ...a quote directly from Bostic himself. I asked him about it, after reading this FSF page: "People sometimes ask whether BSD too is a version of GNU, like GNU/Linux. The BSD developers were inspired to make their code free software by the example of the GNU Project, and explicit appeals from GNU activists helped persuade them..."

http://techrights.org/o/2020/09/15/rmsf/

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

#716

Post by johnnyanmac » Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #631

lib-dev wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know how you might make money. You build a game. Maybe its fun and ripe for mods like minecraft. Open source it under GPL. Build a community of hackers/gamers who want to learn and collaborate. Have an awesome collection of mods for your game. Once you build a name for yourself, take donations or release a new game or talk at conferences.

Soo, assuming I build something like Minecraft, something that made the developer millions (I think over 100) via the conventional way. And your proposal for how to make money with such a moneymaker game and the GPL is eventually down the years take on donations and talk at conferences? Was that irony? Then I missed it. Because the context was someone above claimed that it is only the stupid lawers fault, that compan…

I also hate the "make a name for yourself" angle. I guess even amongst programmers there will be people "working for exposure".

Nah, by that point I may as pitch to some billionaire studio and make a hefty salary that way. Or you know, sell your IP for actual millions if it's that valuable. If "exposure" is the alternate currency I'll happily sell out. I'm not my game IP.

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

#717

Post by Aspie96 » Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 5:16 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #387

op00to wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

> From what I gather the big thing is that he's basically very misogynistic. > And I've seen very little that can disclaim that.

Hang on, no. It's those that claim that someone is misogynistic (let alone very misogynistic) that has the burden of showing that the accused has hatred or prejudice against women, not on others to disclaim it.

If, to that, we add the absolute vilification against anyone trying to defend the accuse, then the allegations can't be evaluated properly in such an environment and deserve nothing but dismissal.

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

#718

Post by rpeden » Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 5:19 PM UTC

Pannoniae wrote: post #511

rpeden wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that many users do like the changes, and you just aren't one of them? I first used desktop Linux in 1996 and liked it well enough. I remember using GNOME 2 and Xfce around 2010ish and liking both of them well enough, too. And they're still around if I want to use them. But honestly? I don't use them because I like modern GNOME better. I use it every day, everything just works, and I like it more t…

Yes, I have, but fundamentally, using old stuff is usually quite hard. If I could revert to it, it would be great, but those are usually not too compatible with today's technology. I use those despite their horrible UI, not because of their horrible UI.

I respect that, and I hope my question didn't seem like criticism.

I suppose we're fortunate that options like Xfce and MATE are around, but I can relate re: compatibility. Truthfully I'd be just as happy with MATE as with GNOME 3.x, but last time I tried I ran into issues with high DPI and mixed DPI and didn't want to invest time trying to get it all working to my satisfaction.

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

#719

Post by johnnyanmac » Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #591

asrt wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy made GCC and Emacs. GCC in particular has shaped how most software has been compiled for decades. His operating system, GNU, is the de-facto UNIX implementation and runs many critical systems around the world. Anyone who claims that the guy is unlikeable has never truly bothered to hear him speak and isntrad relies on what they've been told by malicious actors. Stallman doesn't attack other people or ideolog…

"If anything his biggest mistake was using Linux as a kernel for people decided to call the GNU operating system "Linux" and it eventually took most of the funding and development away from the OS and its ideology." Well, what other kernel could he have used instead? Hurd? And linus is writing code till today and activly leading the developement. What relevant contributions did RMS made, since gcc and emacs? So do yo…

>What relevant contributions did RMS made, since gcc and emacs?

Let's be fair here: stall man's last technical contributions were when he was Linus's current age. Some people will code to their deathbed but I don't think that is a requirement to properly champion tech. He's more than paid his dues there.

Tech is relatively young and Stallman is one of the oldest living people left. Older than Gates, older than Jobs if he was still alive today. I see Linus less as a comparison so much as a torch Stallman's generation passed on.

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

#720

Post by bigstrat2003 » Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #711

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not what it is about. I certainly don't choose permissive licenses based on how RMS behaves (that would be stupid), but I also don't choose them because I think businesses shouldn't give back. I choose permissive licenses because I believe that the GPL is hypocritical in claiming to be about freedom, yet placing limits on the freedom of those who use the code. I believe that freedom must include the freedo…

>I believe that freedom must include the freedom to do even those things I disagree with personally. In an ideal world sure. But I'm guessing Stallman made this license precisely so people can't "do whatever they want", which from a business standpoint is taking that code, modifying it in-house, and closing it off. Prevent a tragedy of the commons, so to speak. Stallman didn't approach this as some idealist of "we ma…

I realize all that. I disagree with it (or else I would be using the GPL), but that really wasn't my point. My point is that there exist people who use permissive licenses because it fits their ideals better, not because they are corporations trying to capture profit.