6 ms·

Metacomment: a few years ago anything by RMS would have been jumped on within minutes of posting with lots of comments against him and his principles. Is he no

Metacomment: a few years ago anything by RMS would have been jumped on within minutes of posting with lots of comments against him and his principles. Is he now being looked at in a different light by the wider software development community?

cpach 10y ago
I don’t have any stats to back this up, but my impression is that most software developers doesn’t care that much about the FSF and RMS. Lots of people use free/libre software, of course. It’s kinda hard to avoid these days :)
twblalock 10y ago
I work at a startup that uses a lot of open-source software. I would be willing to bet that fewer than 25% of my colleagues know who RMS is.
danso 10y ago
Not sure what timezone you're in but it's about 4AM US Eastern time.
- willvarfar 10y ago
  Hmm, I asked since my mental model of the 'programming community' that I osmosify by reading comments on these kind of websites detects a slight shift on the RMS popularity front over the last year or so. I feel he's coming in from the cold a bit. I am mostly browsing HN during my european daytime. Lots of people seem to comment on stories during my daytime. Do you mean his detractors are predominantly American? Do you think they have a particular political allegiance too?
  - cocotino 10y ago
    I think people are just tired of criticising him. I personally am against him, but it bores me to discuss the same stuff all over again, especially when it's "meta" as you say and can be deemed off topic. (Not from the US)
    - ajsalminen 10y ago
      I'm not sure the sort of low-brow comments that have been common deserve to be called "criticising".
  - danso 10y ago
    I was merely referring to the assumption that the majority of HN users are located in the US: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3298905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3298905 Even if things have changed such that only a third of HN users are in the US, that's still a lot of people sleeping. Though I suppose I am implying that more of RMS's detractors are from the US. On one level, it wouldn't surprise me. Even though RMS's reputation is global, most of his writings are in English, and his homepage is currently focused on North-America-centric topics: https://stallman.org/ https://stallman.org/ But I'm going to make a guess that HN is still busiest when America is busiest, judging by the time frequency of submissions currently in the /new section, as compared to what it will look like at 9am east coast time.
taneq 10y ago
There's only so many times you can say "wow, that guy is such a nutjob" before it gets old and you stop bothering. I think free software as a concept is great, but everything I've ever read from RMS sounds psychotic.
- JohnStrange 10y ago
  That's weird, I have the exact opposite impression. Are you sure we're talking about the same guy? Everything I've ever read or heard from RMS sounded extremely consistent, logical, common sense and down to the earth to me. I always thought that people don't like him because he's stating some inconvenient truths about proprietary software and because they are pissed that they cannot use GPL'ed software for their closed-source, proprietary products. To me, RMS is basically a modern reincarnation of Socrates.
  - wiz21 10y ago
    The fact you don't understand the other guy shows that RMS is about politics muuuuuuch more than about software
bdcravens 10y ago
Years ago HN had a higher percentage of Slashdot refugees or whatever you want to call them, where what I'd call hard-nosed OSS was part of the dialog and the arguments were fresh. These days, there's many who see him less as a controversial figure within "their" community, and more of a crazy old guy with extremist views.
- kiba 10y ago
  The crazy old guy who turned out to be right when people do get screwed over. What he's good at doing is pointing out that certain things are not in our interest.
  - cocotino 10y ago
    Everybody knows he's right. The question is not whether he's right, but whether it matters.
    - wiz21 10y ago
      Yep, damn right. That's why it's so important that RMS says free software is political. As an ideology, it always matters as long as you like it. People care about free software as much as they care about politics : only a few know enough to make a difference...
- cageface 10y ago
  The more time goes by the less crazy he seems. His goals may not be realistic but his predictions about the dangers of dependence on commercial software have been vindicated in many instances. And things might get much worse still if the trend towards authoritarian leadership in Western countries continues.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
    A bit nit-picky, but RMS is perfectly fine with commercial software (software that is sold for money), he objects to proprietary software (software that you cannot read and modify the source code of). Freeware is not commercial, but proprietary. When you buy a Linux distro CD, that's commercial, but might be non-proprietary (depending on the distro).
Sylos 10y ago
Snowden's NSA revelations, Microsoft strongarming Windows 10 onto users, the increasing unavoidability of anything Google, Facebook continuing to be Facebook, copyright-laws being abused for all kinds of bullshit etc. These all have validated what RMS has been saying for years, and you actually have to be quite ignorant at this point to just dismiss his viewpoint.

cpach 10y ago

I don’t have any stats to back this up, but my impression is that most software developers doesn’t care that much about the FSF and RMS. Lots of people use free/libre software, of course. It’s kinda hard to avoid these days :)

twblalock 10y ago

I work at a startup that uses a lot of open-source software. I would be willing to bet that fewer than 25% of my colleagues know who RMS is.

danso 10y ago

Not sure what timezone you're in but it's about 4AM US Eastern time.

willvarfar 10y ago
Hmm, I asked since my mental model of the 'programming community' that I osmosify by reading comments on these kind of websites detects a slight shift on the RMS popularity front over the last year or so. I feel he's coming in from the cold a bit. I am mostly browsing HN during my european daytime. Lots of people seem to comment on stories during my daytime. Do you mean his detractors are predominantly American? Do you think they have a particular political allegiance too?
- cocotino 10y ago
  I think people are just tired of criticising him. I personally am against him, but it bores me to discuss the same stuff all over again, especially when it's "meta" as you say and can be deemed off topic. (Not from the US)
  - ajsalminen 10y ago
    I'm not sure the sort of low-brow comments that have been common deserve to be called "criticising".
- danso 10y ago
  I was merely referring to the assumption that the majority of HN users are located in the US: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3298905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3298905 Even if things have changed such that only a third of HN users are in the US, that's still a lot of people sleeping. Though I suppose I am implying that more of RMS's detractors are from the US. On one level, it wouldn't surprise me. Even though RMS's reputation is global, most of his writings are in English, and his homepage is currently focused on North-America-centric topics: https://stallman.org/ https://stallman.org/ But I'm going to make a guess that HN is still busiest when America is busiest, judging by the time frequency of submissions currently in the /new section, as compared to what it will look like at 9am east coast time.

taneq 10y ago

There's only so many times you can say "wow, that guy is such a nutjob" before it gets old and you stop bothering. I think free software as a concept is great, but everything I've ever read from RMS sounds psychotic.

JohnStrange 10y ago
That's weird, I have the exact opposite impression. Are you sure we're talking about the same guy? Everything I've ever read or heard from RMS sounded extremely consistent, logical, common sense and down to the earth to me. I always thought that people don't like him because he's stating some inconvenient truths about proprietary software and because they are pissed that they cannot use GPL'ed software for their closed-source, proprietary products. To me, RMS is basically a modern reincarnation of Socrates.
- wiz21 10y ago
  The fact you don't understand the other guy shows that RMS is about politics muuuuuuch more than about software

bdcravens 10y ago

Years ago HN had a higher percentage of Slashdot refugees or whatever you want to call them, where what I'd call hard-nosed OSS was part of the dialog and the arguments were fresh. These days, there's many who see him less as a controversial figure within "their" community, and more of a crazy old guy with extremist views.

kiba 10y ago
The crazy old guy who turned out to be right when people do get screwed over. What he's good at doing is pointing out that certain things are not in our interest.
- cocotino 10y ago
  Everybody knows he's right. The question is not whether he's right, but whether it matters.
  - wiz21 10y ago
    Yep, damn right. That's why it's so important that RMS says free software is political. As an ideology, it always matters as long as you like it. People care about free software as much as they care about politics : only a few know enough to make a difference...
cageface 10y ago
The more time goes by the less crazy he seems. His goals may not be realistic but his predictions about the dangers of dependence on commercial software have been vindicated in many instances. And things might get much worse still if the trend towards authoritarian leadership in Western countries continues.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
  A bit nit-picky, but RMS is perfectly fine with commercial software (software that is sold for money), he objects to proprietary software (software that you cannot read and modify the source code of). Freeware is not commercial, but proprietary. When you buy a Linux distro CD, that's commercial, but might be non-proprietary (depending on the distro).

Sylos 10y ago

Snowden's NSA revelations, Microsoft strongarming Windows 10 onto users, the increasing unavoidability of anything Google, Facebook continuing to be Facebook, copyright-laws being abused for all kinds of bullshit etc. These all have validated what RMS has been saying for years, and you actually have to be quite ignorant at this point to just dismiss his viewpoint.