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He serves an important purpose. He lays forth a philosophical framework for software freedom, and makes predictions that people don't take seriously and gives a
by orblivion 10y ago
He serves an important purpose. He lays forth a philosophical framework for software freedom, and makes predictions that people don't take seriously and gives advice that nobody would ever practically follow. He also has this annoying habit of being right in the end. He represents an ideal we'll never reach, but we should always aim back toward.
- ploggingdev 10y ago> He also has this annoying habit of being right in the end I'm not familiar with his predictions, so can you give a few examples.
- danieldk 10y agohttps://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html This seemed like a far-fetched dystopia when I first read it. Now, Kindle et al. are not far away from this. I also remember reading some piece from Stallman on software patents, from the eighties or early nineties. Well before software patent trolls, etc.
- vic-traill 10y agoThis. Very much echoes my thoughts when I first read Right to Read, which I believe was at a job I left early 2000, so sometime before that. And then the scenario stated becoming, if not true, the a helluva lot closer. And the irony of Orwell books being removed remotely from Kindle's in 2009 [0] was evident and tied into the dystopia feel of it all. [0] http://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html?_r=0&referer= http://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18...
- blakeyrat 10y agoThe first patent troll was around in 1879: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/11/05/the-original-patent-troll.aspx http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/11/05/the-origina... Yeah, it wasn't a software patent, but. It's not hard to see something that's happened before and "predict" it could happen again.