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> And yes, I have a PhD, on which I worked for 11 years, at great cost to myself and my family. Stallman's work hasn't entailed great effort, long years, and c

by vacri 11y ago

> And yes, I have a PhD, on which I worked for 11 years, at great cost to myself and my family. Stallman's work hasn't entailed great effort, long years, and costs to himself and loved ones? As you say, a PhD is more about elbow-grease than intellect, but Stallman has that in spades - not only about the philosophy he espouses, but also that he personally created so much of the GNU environment that we take for granted these days. The work Stallman has done in his field exceeds that required of a PhD, and he has spent decades defending his thesis - and not just to experts in the field, but laypeople as well. When push comes to shove, 'doctor' functionally means 'a master the field'. Stallman definitely is that. I think if you want to argue against honorary PhDs based on workload and execution, Stallman is not someone you would want to draw attention to. Otherwise you're basically arguing that the important part is the piece of paper and the process of red-tape, not the accomplishment of mastery.

greendestiny 11y ago
Stallman deserves a real doctorate no doubt about that. He shouldn't be seen as the same as someone who happened to donate enough or be famous enough, he's done so much more. He shouldn't pretend he has an honour he hasn't earned either, that's just sad.
- vacri 11y ago
  This gets back to the OP's original point, the need for a differentiation between PhDs between "My accomplishment is name recognition" and "I have done the work, I just didn't fill out out an application form first".
  - reuven 11y ago
    I'm guessing that if Stallman were to approach most universities, and say that he wants to turn his life's work into a PhD dissertation, they would welcome him with open arms. Within months, at most, he would have the PhD. He has decided not to do this. Thus, he shouldn't claim the title.
reuven 11y ago
A PhD doesn't mean that you worked hard. It means that you have worked on research in a certain field, judged by the standards of that field. Believe me, those "standards" can be arbitrary, and they often involve a lot of red tape, politics, and insanity. But they exist, whether we like it or not. I think that Stallman could easily get a PhD in any of several disciplines, if he wanted to. One or more universities could (and should) have offered this option to him. But he has decided not to finish, and no university has decided to give him a PhD. Rather, they gave him an honorary PhD. There is a difference, and he should have the decency to recognize it as such. Life is about choices, including where you choose to put your time and money. Stallman has decided to put his time and money into free software. That's his choice, and it's a good one overall. But that doesn't automatically mean that he deserves to be praised as a PhD, or given the title "Doctor."
PvsNP_ZA 11y ago
I don't think Stallman would submit his work for a PhD, mainly because one's PhD work becomes the property of the university. It's against everything he stands for.
- misnome 11y ago
  That's the default, but usually can be negotiated with the university.
  - dalke 11y ago
    For specific examples, here's MIT's policy, from http://libguides.mit.edu/c.php?g=176367&p=1159444#13351783 http://libguides.mit.edu/c.php?g=176367&p=1159444#13351783 : > Who holds ownership of the copyright to my thesis? > In most cases the Institute will hold ownership of the copyright to a thesis. In general, students may retain ownership of thesis copyrights when the only form of support is from (1) teaching assistantships (the duties of which do not include research activities) and (2) NSF and NIH traineeships and fellowships (although the trainee or fellow may be required to grant certain publishing rights to NSF or NIH). See the current Specifications for Thesis Preparation for more details. > Students may request a waiver of the Institute’s copyrights by written application to the Institute’s Technology Licensing Office (NE25-230). Here's information about the copyright for a Harvard PhD, from https://www.physics.harvard.edu/uploads/files/grads/forms/umi_dissertation_publ.pdf https://www.physics.harvard.edu/uploads/files/grads/forms/um... : > You may choose either open access or traditional publishing. If you choose Open Access Publishing, the published version of your dissertation or thesis will always be available for free download to anyone who has access to the Internet. The Traditional Publishing option works on a standard copy-sales and royalty-payments model. We sell copies of your work (in any format) and pay royalties as described in the Publishing Agreement. Either option gets your graduate research out where other scholars can find and use it through the ProQuest® Dissertations and Theses (PQDT) database, subscribed to by more than 3000 libraries worldwide. Or to pick a non-Boston-area school, here are open access PhD these from Florida State - http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/etd/ http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/etd/ . Stallman has an honorary degree from the University of Glasgow. Pulling up the first PhD thesis from http://theses.gla.ac.uk/cgi/latest http://theses.gla.ac.uk/cgi/latest I see "Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author." The same is true from the couple of other theses I looked at. He also has an honorary degree from Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology. I pulled up three PhD thesis from http://www.kth.se/en/ict/forskning/ickretsar/publikationer/recent-phd-theses-1.395356 http://www.kth.se/en/ict/forskning/ickretsar/publikationer/r... . Two of them had a copyright statement by the PhD candidate, one had no explicit statement. So it's not the case that thesis copyright transfer is a major issue preventing Stallman from getting a PhD.
Guyag 11y ago
The second paragraph of the Wikipeda[1] article on honorary degrees covers this: With regard to the use of this honorific, the policies of institutions of higher education generally ask that recipients "refrain from adopting the misleading title" and that a recipient of an honorary doctorate's use of the title "Dr" before their name should be restricted to engagement with the institution of higher education in question and not within the broader community. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_degree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_degree
GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
"more about elbow-grease than intellect, but Stallman has that in spades" Technically a lot of it is sebum.

by vacri 11y ago

greendestiny 11y ago

Stallman deserves a real doctorate no doubt about that. He shouldn't be seen as the same as someone who happened to donate enough or be famous enough, he's done so much more. He shouldn't pretend he has an honour he hasn't earned either, that's just sad.

vacri 11y ago
This gets back to the OP's original point, the need for a differentiation between PhDs between "My accomplishment is name recognition" and "I have done the work, I just didn't fill out out an application form first".
- reuven 11y ago
  I'm guessing that if Stallman were to approach most universities, and say that he wants to turn his life's work into a PhD dissertation, they would welcome him with open arms. Within months, at most, he would have the PhD. He has decided not to do this. Thus, he shouldn't claim the title.

reuven 11y ago

A PhD doesn't mean that you worked hard. It means that you have worked on research in a certain field, judged by the standards of that field. Believe me, those "standards" can be arbitrary, and they often involve a lot of red tape, politics, and insanity. But they exist, whether we like it or not. I think that Stallman could easily get a PhD in any of several disciplines, if he wanted to. One or more universities could (and should) have offered this option to him. But he has decided not to finish, and no university has decided to give him a PhD. Rather, they gave him an honorary PhD. There is a difference, and he should have the decency to recognize it as such. Life is about choices, including where you choose to put your time and money. Stallman has decided to put his time and money into free software. That's his choice, and it's a good one overall. But that doesn't automatically mean that he deserves to be praised as a PhD, or given the title "Doctor."

PvsNP_ZA 11y ago

I don't think Stallman would submit his work for a PhD, mainly because one's PhD work becomes the property of the university. It's against everything he stands for.

misnome 11y ago
That's the default, but usually can be negotiated with the university.
- dalke 11y ago
  For specific examples, here's MIT's policy, from http://libguides.mit.edu/c.php?g=176367&p=1159444#13351783 http://libguides.mit.edu/c.php?g=176367&p=1159444#13351783 : > Who holds ownership of the copyright to my thesis? > In most cases the Institute will hold ownership of the copyright to a thesis. In general, students may retain ownership of thesis copyrights when the only form of support is from (1) teaching assistantships (the duties of which do not include research activities) and (2) NSF and NIH traineeships and fellowships (although the trainee or fellow may be required to grant certain publishing rights to NSF or NIH). See the current Specifications for Thesis Preparation for more details. > Students may request a waiver of the Institute’s copyrights by written application to the Institute’s Technology Licensing Office (NE25-230). Here's information about the copyright for a Harvard PhD, from https://www.physics.harvard.edu/uploads/files/grads/forms/umi_dissertation_publ.pdf https://www.physics.harvard.edu/uploads/files/grads/forms/um... : > You may choose either open access or traditional publishing. If you choose Open Access Publishing, the published version of your dissertation or thesis will always be available for free download to anyone who has access to the Internet. The Traditional Publishing option works on a standard copy-sales and royalty-payments model. We sell copies of your work (in any format) and pay royalties as described in the Publishing Agreement. Either option gets your graduate research out where other scholars can find and use it through the ProQuest® Dissertations and Theses (PQDT) database, subscribed to by more than 3000 libraries worldwide. Or to pick a non-Boston-area school, here are open access PhD these from Florida State - http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/etd/ http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/etd/ . Stallman has an honorary degree from the University of Glasgow. Pulling up the first PhD thesis from http://theses.gla.ac.uk/cgi/latest http://theses.gla.ac.uk/cgi/latest I see "Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author." The same is true from the couple of other theses I looked at. He also has an honorary degree from Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology. I pulled up three PhD thesis from http://www.kth.se/en/ict/forskning/ickretsar/publikationer/recent-phd-theses-1.395356 http://www.kth.se/en/ict/forskning/ickretsar/publikationer/r... . Two of them had a copyright statement by the PhD candidate, one had no explicit statement. So it's not the case that thesis copyright transfer is a major issue preventing Stallman from getting a PhD.

Guyag 11y ago

The second paragraph of the Wikipeda[1] article on honorary degrees covers this: With regard to the use of this honorific, the policies of institutions of higher education generally ask that recipients "refrain from adopting the misleading title" and that a recipient of an honorary doctorate's use of the title "Dr" before their name should be restricted to engagement with the institution of higher education in question and not within the broader community. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_degree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_degree

GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago

"more about elbow-grease than intellect, but Stallman has that in spades" Technically a lot of it is sebum.