7 ms·

RMS, to some extend, is like the pope. He often says strange things, where many people do not instantly agree. But he won't change his message just to please yo

by geff82 10y ago

RMS, to some extend, is like the pope. He often says strange things, where many people do not instantly agree. But he won't change his message just to please you, which is what we are used to get from most people, especially politicians. You can count on him and his, at heart, very humanist views. I recently was at one of his keynotes, and we all, including me, could only laugh at his over-and-over usage of words like "the Amazon Swindle" or Service-as-a-Software-Substitute (for SaaS). The "problem" with him, while he sometimes sound ridiculous, he makes me think and sense stuff I otherwise wouldn't have a critical look at. I'd say he does good (to the world) - while not caring if his recipe tastes well.

bobwaycott 10y ago
I had never heard of Service-as-a-Software-Substitute, but I think it makes a lot of sense.
- viraptor 10y ago
  It's not even wrong or bad. It's pretty much what it is in some of the SaaS cases. (those that only operate on your data)
vacri 10y ago
The problem is that saying "Swindle" instead of "Kindle" works when he's talking to people who already agree with him, but is seen as adolescent crap by people who don't agree with or don't understand his message. It's preaching to the choir. "Digital Restrictions Management" is a good semantic switcheroo, but "Swindle" is just name-calling. I've read his reasons for it, but really, it just makes it harder for people "outside the choir" to hear his message.
- xiaoma 10y ago
  He's not trying to be the bridge. He is the standard bearer. In the 90s, others such as ESR and Linus were the bridges. Stallman has always been the idealist who will hold firm to his ideal. Back in the day, like you, I thought he was extreme and kind of silly. ESR had a far more socially acceptable and commercially palatable message (which is pretty shocking in retrospect, considering the direction his writing and politics have taken). Nearly 20 years later, it's clear that Stallman is almost certain to be a historical figure remembered hundreds of years from now. His older "crazy" pieces like The right to read look more prophetic by the day. If nothing else, his utter disregard of popular views has made him free to speak truths that others can't.
  - vacri 10y ago
    Holding firm to your ideal includes getting your message across effectively. If you want social change, which Stallman does, you have to 'preach beyond the choir'. I don't think Stallman's positions are silly. A touch extreme, but I generally agree with them. I just think his name-calling runs counter to what he wants to achieve.
    - jdietrich 10y ago
      RMS isn't writing for a general audience, he is writing for us. We hackers can spread the word in a palatable manner; RMS's job is to hold us to account, push us to the highest standards of ethical conduct and hold a mirror up to our hypocrisies. The world needs pragmatists, but it needs zealots too.
      - rimantas 10y ago
        Maybe to you, not to me. And I have doubts about the highness of his ethical standards.
      - stephenr 10y ago
        > RMS isn't writing for a general audience, he is writing for us. People who already agree with him? Great way to spread his message huh? > RMS's job is to hold us to account, push us to the highest standards of ethical conduct For certain (i.e: his) values of "ethical conduct", obviously. > The world needs pragmatists, but it needs zealots too And apparently a lot of people need a messiah to follow. If you need someone to "push you to the highest standards of ethical conduct", I'd like an hour of your time to explain how not giving all your money and assets to me, is completely unethical.
  - ppopoff 10y ago
    > Nearly 20 years later, it's clear that Stallman is almost certain to be a historical figure remembered hundreds of years from now. Hyperbole much? He's not going to be forgotten, but... RMS is a hacker icon, but he's a bit obscure outside the community. RMS is legit hating on Facebook here but there's no Hollywood movie about RMS. Zuckerberg is a household name. I'll agree that RMS has done more net good thank Zuckerberg, but who is more likely to show up in a textbook a hundred years removed at this rate?
- kartickv 10y ago
  It also invites retaliation, like "freetard", which drags the level of the debate down to school kids taunting each other on the playground.
- creatonez 10y ago
  Honestly, appearing crazy is how stallman attracts his audience. He's the center of a pretty radical social movement, all he needs to do is preach to his fans and his supporters do the persuasion to "normal people". A few years passes, and literally 90% of what he's said becomes true. He gets his credibility from his predictive powers, not necessarily being mature and put together. His article on trusted computing (where he calls it treacherous computing) that he wrote a few years back is extremely accurate to the current state of computing.
  - stephenr 10y ago
    > A few years passes, and literally 90% of what he's said becomes true. He gets his credibility from his predictive powers, not necessarily being mature and put together. His article on trusted computing (where he calls it treacherous computing) that he wrote a few years back is extremely accurate to the current state of computing. >> In fact, it is designed to stop your computer from functioning as a general-purpose computer. Every operation may require explicit permission. Please tell me how that is even remotely accurate? Who is producing a computer that requires explicit permission from the mothership to do anything? >> Proprietary programs will use this device to control which other programs you can run, which documents or data you can access, and what programs you can pass them to. Please tell me which programs are being distributed that prevent other programs from running and/or opening documents? >> These programs will continually download new authorization rules through the Internet, and impose those rules automatically on your work. Please tell me which programs download “rules” from an internet source, and then prevent you from accessing your own files because of said “rules” ? >> Of course, Hollywood and the record companies plan to use treacherous computing for Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), so that downloaded videos and music can be played only on one specified computer. Sharing will be entirely impossible, at least using the authorized files that you would get from those companies. First off: digital music has gone entirely the opposite direction. When introduced, basically all major digital music used DRM, it’s now the norm that music is distributed DRM-free. Movies do have DRM, yes, but I’m not aware of any digital service that limits you to a single device, and its definitely not the norm. >> You, the public, ought to have both the freedom and the ability to share these things. Why, exactly? I don’t like the way DRM hurts honest consumers either, and I don’t think ultimately it’s going to achieve the results the industry want, but I understand why they’re trying to do it. >> There are plans to use the same facility for email and documents—resulting in email that disappears in two weeks, or documents that can only be read on the computers in one company. Where, what plans? Also, for certain types of sensitive business documents, that sounds like exactly the behaviour a reasonable person could understand the use for - encryption and privacy is a huge fucking issue right now, can you honestly tell me you don’t see why it would be an advantage to have the OPTION to say “this document can only be read by the physical devices I approve”? >> Imagine if you get an email from your boss stating a policy that is illegal or morally outrageous, such as to shred your company's audit documents, or to allow a dangerous threat to your country to move forward unchecked. Today you can send this to a reporter and expose the activity. With treacherous computing, the reporter won't be able to read the document; her computer will refuse to obey her. Where does this happen? I’ve seen email security systems, where a software component requires mail to have a security classification, and only mail below a certain classification can be sent the world, higher classifications could have requirements such as destination WAN links to use, or destination domains etc, but this was 100% a software (Outlook + Exchange when I saw it) solution, it was not in any way related to TPM/etc and it didn’t prevent the obvious things like “print this email to a pdf” etc. >> Word processors such as Microsoft Word could use treacherous computing when they save your documents, to make sure no competing word processors can read them. Today we must figure out the secrets of Word format by laborious experiments in order to make free word processors read Word documents. If Word encrypts documents using treacherous computing when saving them, the free software community won't have a chance of developing software to read them—and if we could, such programs might even be forbidden by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. So we’ve gone from absolute “X will happen” into “Y could happen”, where Y is in fact the opposite of something that has happened. >> Programs that use treacherous computing will continually download new authorization rules through the Internet, and impose those rules automatically on your work. If Microsoft, or the US government, does not like what you said in a document you wrote, they could post new instructions telling all computers to refuse to let anyone read that document. Each computer would obey when it downloads the new instructions. Where. Where on planet earth is there a word processor that sends every word you type to POTUS for approval. The Hunger Games is more believable than some of this stuff. And finally, we get to the part that is accurate: >> As of 2015, treacherous computing has been implemented for PCs in the form of the “Trusted Platform Module”; however, for practical reasons, the TPM has proved a total failure for the goal of providing a platform for remote attestation to verify Digital Restrictions Management. Thus, companies implement DRM using other methods. At present, “Trusted Platform Modules” are not being used for DRM at all, and there are reasons to think that it will not be feasible to use them for DRM. Ironically, this means that the only current uses of the “Trusted Platform Modules” are the innocent secondary uses—for instance, to verify that no one has surreptitiously changed the system in a computer. >> Therefore, we conclude that the “Trusted Platform Modules” available for PCs are not dangerous, and there is no reason not to include one in a computer or support it in system software. So basically, the stuff where hardware and software companies wanted to devise a way to protect the integrity of software against malicious attacks, is pretty much exactly what happened, and all the shit RMS claimed would happen, either didn’t happen, or the opposite happened. So, tell me again how this article is “extremely accurate”?
stephenr 10y ago
> RMS, to some extend, is like the pope. Except, the current pope has made statements that show more flexibility to adapt to reality, regarding topics such as the bing bang/creationism, gay marriage, apologising to the gay community and other marginalised groups, etc. I am in no way religious. At all. Not the slightest bit. I am 100% convinced I could have a meaningful, pleasant conversation with the Pope. I am positive we would find a middle ground to chat over coffee, for example. I am 100% convinced I could not do the same with Stallman. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, his general demeanour seems to be "Listen up chumps, I know what I'm talking about, if you don't agree with me, it must be because you're too stupid.". He shows no ability to accept an alternative viewpoint.
- geff82 10y ago
  Just as the pope would not find atheism an acceptable attitude, RMS would not find non-free-software or software that takes away rights to your devices and data acceptable. From what I found, it is very well possible to discuss a lot of broader topics with RMS. He seems to be very open to cultures and revolutionary ideas and can discuss them from various viewpoints if he is in the mood. He also has ideas (e.g. copyright on films) where he suggests stuff, but is open to discussion and ideas. Today, essentially all software runs on his ideas. Gnu/Linux is at the heart of Android, most (home)routers, the vast majority of webservers. The "hacker" community here at HN is full of knowledge about *Unix systems, that nowadays are full of GNU software. He is awkward a lot of times, but essentially, by being so, he (in conjunction with Linus) won over the world.
  - stephenr 10y ago
    > Just as the pope would not find atheism an acceptable attitude Except...: > "God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience. Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience." That is a direct quote, from an article titled "Pope Francis assures atheists: You don’t have to believe in God to go to heaven" http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-assures-atheists-you-don-t-have-to-believe-in-god-to-go-to-heaven-8810062.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-... Hence my original point. The current pope, has made more efforts to reach out to people outside his own faith, with a reported 1.2 billion followers, than Stallman has. Stallman's ideas in general should be easier to 'sell' to people too - they don't rely on faith. > He seems to be very open to cultures and revolutionary ideas Unless that idea is, I want to release the code that I've written, under a license that lets anyone else do whatever the fuck they want with it. > Today, essentially all software runs on his ideas. I think there are a very large number of developers - both open source and commercial - that would disagree with that statement. > Gnu/Linux is at the heart of Android No, Linux, the Kernel is at the heart of Android. They specifically don't use the GNU userland environment. > he (in conjunction with Linus) won over the world. You seem to be painting Linus and RMS in the same light there, which they very much are not. Linus views Open Source as the best way to get great software. RMS views copyleft as the only way to get morally acceptable software, and cares more about preventing companies from making a profit than he does about the actual result.

by geff82 10y ago

bobwaycott 10y ago

I had never heard of Service-as-a-Software-Substitute, but I think it makes a lot of sense.

viraptor 10y ago
It's not even wrong or bad. It's pretty much what it is in some of the SaaS cases. (those that only operate on your data)

vacri 10y ago

The problem is that saying "Swindle" instead of "Kindle" works when he's talking to people who already agree with him, but is seen as adolescent crap by people who don't agree with or don't understand his message. It's preaching to the choir. "Digital Restrictions Management" is a good semantic switcheroo, but "Swindle" is just name-calling. I've read his reasons for it, but really, it just makes it harder for people "outside the choir" to hear his message.

xiaoma 10y ago
He's not trying to be the bridge. He is the standard bearer. In the 90s, others such as ESR and Linus were the bridges. Stallman has always been the idealist who will hold firm to his ideal. Back in the day, like you, I thought he was extreme and kind of silly. ESR had a far more socially acceptable and commercially palatable message (which is pretty shocking in retrospect, considering the direction his writing and politics have taken). Nearly 20 years later, it's clear that Stallman is almost certain to be a historical figure remembered hundreds of years from now. His older "crazy" pieces like The right to read look more prophetic by the day. If nothing else, his utter disregard of popular views has made him free to speak truths that others can't.
- vacri 10y ago
  Holding firm to your ideal includes getting your message across effectively. If you want social change, which Stallman does, you have to 'preach beyond the choir'. I don't think Stallman's positions are silly. A touch extreme, but I generally agree with them. I just think his name-calling runs counter to what he wants to achieve.
  - jdietrich 10y ago
    RMS isn't writing for a general audience, he is writing for us. We hackers can spread the word in a palatable manner; RMS's job is to hold us to account, push us to the highest standards of ethical conduct and hold a mirror up to our hypocrisies. The world needs pragmatists, but it needs zealots too.
    - rimantas 10y ago
      Maybe to you, not to me. And I have doubts about the highness of his ethical standards.
    - stephenr 10y ago
      > RMS isn't writing for a general audience, he is writing for us. People who already agree with him? Great way to spread his message huh? > RMS's job is to hold us to account, push us to the highest standards of ethical conduct For certain (i.e: his) values of "ethical conduct", obviously. > The world needs pragmatists, but it needs zealots too And apparently a lot of people need a messiah to follow. If you need someone to "push you to the highest standards of ethical conduct", I'd like an hour of your time to explain how not giving all your money and assets to me, is completely unethical.
- ppopoff 10y ago
  > Nearly 20 years later, it's clear that Stallman is almost certain to be a historical figure remembered hundreds of years from now. Hyperbole much? He's not going to be forgotten, but... RMS is a hacker icon, but he's a bit obscure outside the community. RMS is legit hating on Facebook here but there's no Hollywood movie about RMS. Zuckerberg is a household name. I'll agree that RMS has done more net good thank Zuckerberg, but who is more likely to show up in a textbook a hundred years removed at this rate?
kartickv 10y ago
It also invites retaliation, like "freetard", which drags the level of the debate down to school kids taunting each other on the playground.
creatonez 10y ago
Honestly, appearing crazy is how stallman attracts his audience. He's the center of a pretty radical social movement, all he needs to do is preach to his fans and his supporters do the persuasion to "normal people". A few years passes, and literally 90% of what he's said becomes true. He gets his credibility from his predictive powers, not necessarily being mature and put together. His article on trusted computing (where he calls it treacherous computing) that he wrote a few years back is extremely accurate to the current state of computing.
- stephenr 10y ago
  > A few years passes, and literally 90% of what he's said becomes true. He gets his credibility from his predictive powers, not necessarily being mature and put together. His article on trusted computing (where he calls it treacherous computing) that he wrote a few years back is extremely accurate to the current state of computing. >> In fact, it is designed to stop your computer from functioning as a general-purpose computer. Every operation may require explicit permission. Please tell me how that is even remotely accurate? Who is producing a computer that requires explicit permission from the mothership to do anything? >> Proprietary programs will use this device to control which other programs you can run, which documents or data you can access, and what programs you can pass them to. Please tell me which programs are being distributed that prevent other programs from running and/or opening documents? >> These programs will continually download new authorization rules through the Internet, and impose those rules automatically on your work. Please tell me which programs download “rules” from an internet source, and then prevent you from accessing your own files because of said “rules” ? >> Of course, Hollywood and the record companies plan to use treacherous computing for Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), so that downloaded videos and music can be played only on one specified computer. Sharing will be entirely impossible, at least using the authorized files that you would get from those companies. First off: digital music has gone entirely the opposite direction. When introduced, basically all major digital music used DRM, it’s now the norm that music is distributed DRM-free. Movies do have DRM, yes, but I’m not aware of any digital service that limits you to a single device, and its definitely not the norm. >> You, the public, ought to have both the freedom and the ability to share these things. Why, exactly? I don’t like the way DRM hurts honest consumers either, and I don’t think ultimately it’s going to achieve the results the industry want, but I understand why they’re trying to do it. >> There are plans to use the same facility for email and documents—resulting in email that disappears in two weeks, or documents that can only be read on the computers in one company. Where, what plans? Also, for certain types of sensitive business documents, that sounds like exactly the behaviour a reasonable person could understand the use for - encryption and privacy is a huge fucking issue right now, can you honestly tell me you don’t see why it would be an advantage to have the OPTION to say “this document can only be read by the physical devices I approve”? >> Imagine if you get an email from your boss stating a policy that is illegal or morally outrageous, such as to shred your company's audit documents, or to allow a dangerous threat to your country to move forward unchecked. Today you can send this to a reporter and expose the activity. With treacherous computing, the reporter won't be able to read the document; her computer will refuse to obey her. Where does this happen? I’ve seen email security systems, where a software component requires mail to have a security classification, and only mail below a certain classification can be sent the world, higher classifications could have requirements such as destination WAN links to use, or destination domains etc, but this was 100% a software (Outlook + Exchange when I saw it) solution, it was not in any way related to TPM/etc and it didn’t prevent the obvious things like “print this email to a pdf” etc. >> Word processors such as Microsoft Word could use treacherous computing when they save your documents, to make sure no competing word processors can read them. Today we must figure out the secrets of Word format by laborious experiments in order to make free word processors read Word documents. If Word encrypts documents using treacherous computing when saving them, the free software community won't have a chance of developing software to read them—and if we could, such programs might even be forbidden by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. So we’ve gone from absolute “X will happen” into “Y could happen”, where Y is in fact the opposite of something that has happened. >> Programs that use treacherous computing will continually download new authorization rules through the Internet, and impose those rules automatically on your work. If Microsoft, or the US government, does not like what you said in a document you wrote, they could post new instructions telling all computers to refuse to let anyone read that document. Each computer would obey when it downloads the new instructions. Where. Where on planet earth is there a word processor that sends every word you type to POTUS for approval. The Hunger Games is more believable than some of this stuff. And finally, we get to the part that is accurate: >> As of 2015, treacherous computing has been implemented for PCs in the form of the “Trusted Platform Module”; however, for practical reasons, the TPM has proved a total failure for the goal of providing a platform for remote attestation to verify Digital Restrictions Management. Thus, companies implement DRM using other methods. At present, “Trusted Platform Modules” are not being used for DRM at all, and there are reasons to think that it will not be feasible to use them for DRM. Ironically, this means that the only current uses of the “Trusted Platform Modules” are the innocent secondary uses—for instance, to verify that no one has surreptitiously changed the system in a computer. >> Therefore, we conclude that the “Trusted Platform Modules” available for PCs are not dangerous, and there is no reason not to include one in a computer or support it in system software. So basically, the stuff where hardware and software companies wanted to devise a way to protect the integrity of software against malicious attacks, is pretty much exactly what happened, and all the shit RMS claimed would happen, either didn’t happen, or the opposite happened. So, tell me again how this article is “extremely accurate”?

stephenr 10y ago

> RMS, to some extend, is like the pope. Except, the current pope has made statements that show more flexibility to adapt to reality, regarding topics such as the bing bang/creationism, gay marriage, apologising to the gay community and other marginalised groups, etc. I am in no way religious. At all. Not the slightest bit. I am 100% convinced I could have a meaningful, pleasant conversation with the Pope. I am positive we would find a middle ground to chat over coffee, for example. I am 100% convinced I could not do the same with Stallman. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, his general demeanour seems to be "Listen up chumps, I know what I'm talking about, if you don't agree with me, it must be because you're too stupid.". He shows no ability to accept an alternative viewpoint.

geff82 10y ago
Just as the pope would not find atheism an acceptable attitude, RMS would not find non-free-software or software that takes away rights to your devices and data acceptable. From what I found, it is very well possible to discuss a lot of broader topics with RMS. He seems to be very open to cultures and revolutionary ideas and can discuss them from various viewpoints if he is in the mood. He also has ideas (e.g. copyright on films) where he suggests stuff, but is open to discussion and ideas. Today, essentially all software runs on his ideas. Gnu/Linux is at the heart of Android, most (home)routers, the vast majority of webservers. The "hacker" community here at HN is full of knowledge about *Unix systems, that nowadays are full of GNU software. He is awkward a lot of times, but essentially, by being so, he (in conjunction with Linus) won over the world.
- stephenr 10y ago
  > Just as the pope would not find atheism an acceptable attitude Except...: > "God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience. Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience." That is a direct quote, from an article titled "Pope Francis assures atheists: You don’t have to believe in God to go to heaven" http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-assures-atheists-you-don-t-have-to-believe-in-god-to-go-to-heaven-8810062.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-... Hence my original point. The current pope, has made more efforts to reach out to people outside his own faith, with a reported 1.2 billion followers, than Stallman has. Stallman's ideas in general should be easier to 'sell' to people too - they don't rely on faith. > He seems to be very open to cultures and revolutionary ideas Unless that idea is, I want to release the code that I've written, under a license that lets anyone else do whatever the fuck they want with it. > Today, essentially all software runs on his ideas. I think there are a very large number of developers - both open source and commercial - that would disagree with that statement. > Gnu/Linux is at the heart of Android No, Linux, the Kernel is at the heart of Android. They specifically don't use the GNU userland environment. > he (in conjunction with Linus) won over the world. You seem to be painting Linus and RMS in the same light there, which they very much are not. Linus views Open Source as the best way to get great software. RMS views copyleft as the only way to get morally acceptable software, and cares more about preventing companies from making a profit than he does about the actual result.