5 ms·

Seems to me that without the programmers who went the commercial route (Gates et al), computers wouldn't be as widely used and his impact wouldn't be as big. Or

by derwiki 17y ago

Seems to me that without the programmers who went the commercial route (Gates et al), computers wouldn't be as widely used and his impact wouldn't be as big. Or that someone else wouldn't have stepped up in his absence. And statements like those quoted in the article seem just a wee bit overdramatic.

flatline 17y ago
Stallman is nothing if not dramatic;) I have trouble imagining that computers would not be as widely used today, not without corporate backing and innovation, but without the kinds of hijinks that have kept the Wintel near-monopoly in place for so long. It was a bunch of hackers, not suits, who started the personal computer revolution.
- CamperBob 17y ago
  There's no way in hell every Tom, Dick, and Harry would have their own 3000 MHz computer if it weren't for that Wintel near-monopoly, though. Wintel doesn't get the credit they deserve. Everybody running Linux on anything faster than an 80386 owes Bill and Andy lunch, at least.
  - anonjon 17y ago
    maybe Andy, i am not sure about Bill.
  - _delirium 17y ago
    I'm not sure that's true, though it's a counterfactual so hard to prove either way. I think without Wintel, probably we would've had more competition and innovation in the area, and cheaper/faster machines. There was plenty of speeding up and broadening of home-computer access before Wintel came on the scene, with competition between Amiga, Atari, Apple, etc. And even in Wintel, innovation sped up noticeably once AMD managed to temporarily break Intel's stranglehold, and inject a bit of competition into the x86 market.
    - wisty 17y ago
      Keep in mind, it was Wintel that locked us into a single CPU platform. Otherwise we'd be on ARM by now.
      - iuguy 17y ago
        Not so in China: http://lemote.kd85.com/ http://lemote.kd85.com/ And indeed, looking forward: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ARM-Atom-Netbooks,7242.html http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ARM-Atom-Netbooks,7242.html
    - chbarts 17y ago
      > I think without Wintel, probably we would've had more competition and innovation in the area, and cheaper/faster machines. Maybe. Or maybe we'd just have locked on to CP/M-86 and Digital Research, which was just as tied to x86. However, it's impossible to tell if someone like Gates would have risen to the top. Gary Kildall was not Bill Gates and, for that reason among others, Digital Research never became Microsoft. Corporate culture and philosophies matter.
  - donaq 17y ago
    Everybody you mentioned has already bought them lunch several times over, CamperBob. The problem is that they keep asking for more of our lunch money.
    - flatline 17y ago
      Innovators - really any business providing a product or service that's of some value - deserve to get paid. Competitors, however, deserve to be treated fairly, which Intel and Microsoft both have a track record of not doing. They have both done a lot of incredible work over the years but IMO their reputation is tarnished, and people like RMS, while they may at times sound crazy, have done a lot of good for businesses and hobbyists alike.
  - apotheon 17y ago
    Even if hardware performance didn't improve as much as it has (and that's a really big if), it would have improved. Software might not have eaten up all the performance profits, either, though. Overall, we might have had more clock cycles free and gotten things done more quickly with whatever hardware we had.
  - krschultz 17y ago
    In an alternate world where Windows wasn't dominate, we probably wouldn't have been locked into x86, and you are right, we wouldn't have 3000 MHz machines, but we probably would have BETTER machines since x86 sucks so hard.
rbanffy 17y ago
> programmers who went the commercial route (Gates et al) It's a false dichotomy. There is no need to imprison (as Stallman would say) the user and disrespect his rights (at least to use, understand, improve) in order to be commercial. What "Gates et al" have done is to bind their users through the software they use to manage their lives and jobs, ensuring long-term prosperity through technological dependency. The folks at Red Hat, Canonical and MindTouch (just to name a few I have in my head right now) are every bit as serious as Microsoft when it comes to be commercial and to be paid for their work. The main difference being they show much more consideration towards their users and customers.
- apotheon 17y ago
  I agree. I also believe that the "Stallman or nothing" suggested by so many of his fans is a false dichotomy. You don't need to be rabidly communistic about software to oppose the "imprisoning" influence of corporate software vendors, after all.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    No, you don't. And there are certainly some pressures not to do so, but, in the end, it's a rights issue - your right to control the tools that everyday grow more and more indispensable to participate in society and to protect your privacy. But this attitude, of sacrificing "just a little" here and there for more convenience is not healthy either. And then there is another false idea: Free Software is not about Communism. Communism is about the collective ownership of scarce resources. Free Software is the realization that software (as ideas and knowledge) are infinitely abundant.
    - apotheon 17y ago
      The Stallman/FSF conception of "free software" is about communism, though. You don't need to give everything away for everything to be free. A copyfree license (BSD license, MIT/X11 license, OWL, et cetera) is just as much a "free software" license as a copyleft license, but doesn't make developers beholden to other developers and to the code itself. Rather, it makes the code beholden to developers and users, without making developers and users beholden to other developers and users. The truth of the matter is that we're probably going to continue to see an increase in corporations using the GPL and (more to the point) other mutually incompatible copyleft licenses, because copyleft licenses can be extremely valuable for those who want to maintain control of the codebase while still getting the benefits of open source software, thus providing a way to sucker competitors into supporting your software "product" while still keeping an anticompetitive advantage by way of the MySQL AB business model and other ways to combine the GPL with proprietary licensing for market domination profit. So, in summary . . . yes, it's true that "free software" in general isn't necessarily communistic or socialistic, but copyleft licensing in particular does bear a striking resemblance to various principles of communism and socialism. Just like communism and socialism, it also tends to get co-opted by market dominating monopolists and their ilk.

by derwiki 17y ago

flatline 17y ago

Stallman is nothing if not dramatic;) I have trouble imagining that computers would not be as widely used today, not without corporate backing and innovation, but without the kinds of hijinks that have kept the Wintel near-monopoly in place for so long. It was a bunch of hackers, not suits, who started the personal computer revolution.

CamperBob 17y ago
There's no way in hell every Tom, Dick, and Harry would have their own 3000 MHz computer if it weren't for that Wintel near-monopoly, though. Wintel doesn't get the credit they deserve. Everybody running Linux on anything faster than an 80386 owes Bill and Andy lunch, at least.
- anonjon 17y ago
  maybe Andy, i am not sure about Bill.
- _delirium 17y ago
  I'm not sure that's true, though it's a counterfactual so hard to prove either way. I think without Wintel, probably we would've had more competition and innovation in the area, and cheaper/faster machines. There was plenty of speeding up and broadening of home-computer access before Wintel came on the scene, with competition between Amiga, Atari, Apple, etc. And even in Wintel, innovation sped up noticeably once AMD managed to temporarily break Intel's stranglehold, and inject a bit of competition into the x86 market.
  - wisty 17y ago
    Keep in mind, it was Wintel that locked us into a single CPU platform. Otherwise we'd be on ARM by now.
    - iuguy 17y ago
      Not so in China: http://lemote.kd85.com/ http://lemote.kd85.com/ And indeed, looking forward: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ARM-Atom-Netbooks,7242.html http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ARM-Atom-Netbooks,7242.html
  - chbarts 17y ago
    > I think without Wintel, probably we would've had more competition and innovation in the area, and cheaper/faster machines. Maybe. Or maybe we'd just have locked on to CP/M-86 and Digital Research, which was just as tied to x86. However, it's impossible to tell if someone like Gates would have risen to the top. Gary Kildall was not Bill Gates and, for that reason among others, Digital Research never became Microsoft. Corporate culture and philosophies matter.
- donaq 17y ago
  Everybody you mentioned has already bought them lunch several times over, CamperBob. The problem is that they keep asking for more of our lunch money.
  - flatline 17y ago
    Innovators - really any business providing a product or service that's of some value - deserve to get paid. Competitors, however, deserve to be treated fairly, which Intel and Microsoft both have a track record of not doing. They have both done a lot of incredible work over the years but IMO their reputation is tarnished, and people like RMS, while they may at times sound crazy, have done a lot of good for businesses and hobbyists alike.
- apotheon 17y ago
  Even if hardware performance didn't improve as much as it has (and that's a really big if), it would have improved. Software might not have eaten up all the performance profits, either, though. Overall, we might have had more clock cycles free and gotten things done more quickly with whatever hardware we had.
- krschultz 17y ago
  In an alternate world where Windows wasn't dominate, we probably wouldn't have been locked into x86, and you are right, we wouldn't have 3000 MHz machines, but we probably would have BETTER machines since x86 sucks so hard.

rbanffy 17y ago

> programmers who went the commercial route (Gates et al) It's a false dichotomy. There is no need to imprison (as Stallman would say) the user and disrespect his rights (at least to use, understand, improve) in order to be commercial. What "Gates et al" have done is to bind their users through the software they use to manage their lives and jobs, ensuring long-term prosperity through technological dependency. The folks at Red Hat, Canonical and MindTouch (just to name a few I have in my head right now) are every bit as serious as Microsoft when it comes to be commercial and to be paid for their work. The main difference being they show much more consideration towards their users and customers.

apotheon 17y ago
I agree. I also believe that the "Stallman or nothing" suggested by so many of his fans is a false dichotomy. You don't need to be rabidly communistic about software to oppose the "imprisoning" influence of corporate software vendors, after all.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  No, you don't. And there are certainly some pressures not to do so, but, in the end, it's a rights issue - your right to control the tools that everyday grow more and more indispensable to participate in society and to protect your privacy. But this attitude, of sacrificing "just a little" here and there for more convenience is not healthy either. And then there is another false idea: Free Software is not about Communism. Communism is about the collective ownership of scarce resources. Free Software is the realization that software (as ideas and knowledge) are infinitely abundant.
  - apotheon 17y ago
    The Stallman/FSF conception of "free software" is about communism, though. You don't need to give everything away for everything to be free. A copyfree license (BSD license, MIT/X11 license, OWL, et cetera) is just as much a "free software" license as a copyleft license, but doesn't make developers beholden to other developers and to the code itself. Rather, it makes the code beholden to developers and users, without making developers and users beholden to other developers and users. The truth of the matter is that we're probably going to continue to see an increase in corporations using the GPL and (more to the point) other mutually incompatible copyleft licenses, because copyleft licenses can be extremely valuable for those who want to maintain control of the codebase while still getting the benefits of open source software, thus providing a way to sucker competitors into supporting your software "product" while still keeping an anticompetitive advantage by way of the MySQL AB business model and other ways to combine the GPL with proprietary licensing for market domination profit. So, in summary . . . yes, it's true that "free software" in general isn't necessarily communistic or socialistic, but copyleft licensing in particular does bear a striking resemblance to various principles of communism and socialism. Just like communism and socialism, it also tends to get co-opted by market dominating monopolists and their ilk.