6 ms·

While RMS has undoubtedly contributed much to the FOSS community, he seems to undermine some of his core points with trivial matters. For example, his piece "R

While RMS has undoubtedly contributed much to the FOSS community, he seems to undermine some of his core points with trivial matters. For example, his piece "Reasons not to use Facebook"[0] contains some great points, but I find them undermined by the unnecessary usage of the word "useds" Similarly, this seems like an extremely trival case to "exercise my authority over Glibc very rarely" as he puts it. [0]: https://stallman.org/facebook.html https://stallman.org/facebook.html

drb91 8y ago
I'm not sure I follow. What's wrong with his term? Either people get what he's writing, and the term is irrelevant, or they don't get what he's writing, in which case I doubt that it would be because they were so distracted by a single word they couldn't focus on anything he's writing at all. So you just don't like the term. This is fine! But you've failed to make any point.
- Jasper_ 8y ago
  Writing an essay to persuade someone means talking to them on their terms. If you start off with the "Micro$oft"s and the "Windoze"s you're going to lose the people you want to reach, especially when it reeks of childish namecalling.
  - drb91 8y ago
    > Writing an essay to persuade someone means talking to them on their terms. If you start off with the "Micro$oft"s and the "Windoze"s you're going to lose the people you want to reach, especially when it reeks of childish namecalling. I can't say I'm mourning the loss of people who think it's childish, or that it's a bad thing--at most it's a silly distraction. If you care, why don't you rewrite his stuff to be more friendly? I'm gonna go ahead and guess he licenses his content liberally. I gotta say, his essays don't come across as intending to be generally persuasive, and I'm not sure how you could come to that conclusion. His audience is fundamentally one that self-selects to think for themselves, and his diction is one way of achieving that. What you are suggesting is making a non-compromising person into a compromising person, which we have far too many of already.
    - Jasper_ 8y ago
      I have different opinions than RMS; that should hardly come as a surprise. As a former Linux and GNOME developer, I don't believe the FSF, the GNU project and RMS have chosen effective ways to communicate their talking points. The final straw came when me and a colleague were discussion the implementation details of Linux kernel features on a mailing list that happened to include RMS, and he came in to correct me about how it's called the "GNU/Linux Operating System", and wouldn't listen to us when we told him that, no, we are very specifically talking about Linux in this case.
    - RIMR 8y ago
      Nobody is arguing against his right to publish whatever sensationalist, childish, ad-hominem riddled nonsense he wants to. We're just arguing that for such a great FOSS leader, he sure publishes some sensationalist, childish, ad-hominem riddled nonsense. His writing style is absolutely awful, and reeks of selfrighteousness. He's within his rights to keep writing that way, and I'm within my rights to call him out for being ineffective and narcissistic writer.
    - kelnos 8y ago
      > I gotta say, his essays don't come across as intending to be generally persuasive That's a weird argument to make. Why write them at all, then? RMS has a long history of trying to persuade people of the benefits and virtues of Free Software; his writing on related topics is obviously meant to persuade, at least how I see it. I agree with the parents' point: if the intention is to persuade, then the words used matter. It might seem dumb to you that some word choices will turn people off, but that's irrelevant. What's important is the actual outcome of "did you persuade someone or didn't you?" That's literally the only question that matters. And if a writer doesn't believe that, then, frankly, they're a poor steward of the advancement of their cause. > His audience is fundamentally one that self-selects to think for themselves, and his... diction is one way of achieving that. It sounds like you're equating "being a 100% emotionless robot" with "people who think for themselves". I'm getting a bit tired of people who think it's possible to remove all emotion from every argument. Sure, some people can do that, but the vast majority of people cannot. And I don't really assign a value judgment to either kind of person... but I can certainly tell you which kind I think are more fun to be around.
- vkou 8y ago
  > Either people get what he's writing, and the term is irrelevant, or they don't get what he's writing People are emotional animals. When trying to persuade them, disregard this fact at your peril.
- scrollaway 8y ago
  > in which case I doubt that it would be because they were so distracted by a single word they couldn't focus on anything he's writing at all Well, you'd be wrong then. It's like people writing "Micro$oft". No I can't focus on anything you're writing after you use terms like that because I'm picturing an immature child. And why would I listen to an immature child's arguments? Put it this way, it's like giving a talk with your fly open. Your fly being open is technically irrelevant to the entire talk you're giving, but that's still going to distract people from the content. (Or, in the case of Richard Stallman, eating stuff from your foot. No I'm not making this up; google it, I won't link it here.) I hugely respect what Stallman has done, in the past, for free software in general but I have a hard time believing that he is a net positive today. Between "free software champions" being associated with someone who's extremely antisocial, and his refusal of pragmatism, it's hard not to be grossed out. I know that the "Stallman attitude" has been a serious roadblock to getting people to adopt free software in general: I've very often seen people get turned off from talking about open source, for fear of dealing with someone who insists on prefixing GNU/ to everything, and scoffs at any license that isn't GPLv2.
  - _sdegutis 8y ago
    In other words the character of a person affects the weight of their arguments. That’s pretty fundamental to society but not acknowledged a lot in the tech world, especially when eccentricities are involved. We like to pretend that life is a meritocracy where we’re all judged solely on our contributions but that’s emphatically not how life works. We can’t change the human nature and the nature of social signaling no matter how hard we close our eyes and wish.
    - scrollaway 8y ago
      Yeah precisely. drb91's feigned confusion at how people are not ignoring an arrogant approach at argumentation may simply be an attempt at focusing on the "meat" of the argument rather than the wrapping. Noble, but ultimately incorrect. The argument isn't made to only one person, it's meant to be spread to the general population, and almost nothing from Stallman can really be shared with the general population because his ideas are wrapped really, really badly. I just want to make it clear: acknowledging the reality of this doesn't mean you endorse it. One of the most magical things on the internet is the meritocratic aspect of it. It just doesn't translate to real life. I know a lot of my guildmates from the very early WoW days would have been baffled to learn their raids were led by a 14 year old child. I also know I've seen similar experiences reflected on this forum (people recounting being treated as equal peers by others, despite their very young age, different genders, different religions etc). All this is possible because those differences don't come up in a limited context where you, for example, don't see each other face to face. I love that, and I wish it were like that everywhere. But it's not, and if you want your message to be heard, you can't eat your footstuff in public.
- RIMR 8y ago
  It's kind of like when someone tries to talk politics, but they can't stop using terms like "libtards" or "conservatards" to belittle their ideological opponents. They can't effectively communicate their actual message to you because they're too busy denigrating everyone who hypothetically disagrees with them. By referring to Facebook users as "Useds", he's trying to belittle anyone who happily uses Facebook by suggesting that they're just a hapless pawn of a megacorp. That is a terrible way to convince someone that they ought to rethink their Facebook use - it just makes anyone currently using Facebook without worry ignore you because you're being condescending to them. And just because RMS is massively influential on the world of FOSS doesn't mean that his political musings get a pass for being childish and one-sided.
  - amyjess 8y ago
    > By referring to Facebook users as "Useds", he's trying to belittle anyone who happily uses Facebook by suggesting that they're just a hapless pawn of a megacorp. That is a terrible way to convince someone that they ought to rethink their Facebook use - it just makes anyone currently using Facebook without worry ignore you because you're being condescending to them. Adding to that, if someone persists in calling me names for using a product they don't like, I can safely conclude that they are not my ally and that they do not have my best interests at heart. As a satisfied Facebook user, I interpret RMS's rant as him personally declaring that I am his enemy. I have no desire to support him, his projects, or anything he has to say. In fact, I'm likely to oppose everything the FSF does on general principle. I decided a long time ago that if I publish the code to any of my personal projects, I won't use any GPL libraries, and the code will be under the MIT or Apache2 licenses and not any GPL variant. After seeing RMS continue to go off the deep end, I'm specifically going to find a license that's subtly nonfree, and if not I'll make one.
    - Sacho 8y ago
      Just to be clear, this isn't sarcasm? The use of this word caused you to ascribe to him a multitude of opinions that can not be derived from his arguments, which has led you to boycott any project he's been associated with? And Stallman is the unstable one here?
- smsm42 8y ago
  The wrong is an obnoxious manner of redefining communication protocols (in this case, language) in order to support the premise that the author is always right. In this example, the premise is that Facebook users (standard and accepted term) do not derive any benefit from Facebook but are only exploited by it. This is obviously false, since if people did not derive any benefit from it, they would not voluntarily flock to it in millions. But by refusing to even admit this possibility and constantly hammering this mistake into the reader, Stallman tries to reinforce his (weak) point by repetition, not relying on cognitive facilities of the reader being enough to get this point without it being repeated 60 times. I don't know about you, but for me it's annoying and obnoxious when even true point is repeated to me 60 times through a short text. Even more annoying if the point itself is so trivially weak.
zeth___ 8y ago
Here is a mantra every programmer should repeat every morning: >RMS was right. It doesn't matter what the topic, or how insane what he says sounds. He is always right and you're just not developed enough to understand why that's the case.
- komali2 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure this is sarcasm. I really hope it is anyway, because otherwise it stinks of "long live the king"
  - ayrx 8y ago
    If you look at his other comments in this I’m not sure it’s sarcasm.
- yongjik 8y ago
  Poe was right! * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
- lovich 8y ago
  There is no god but FOSS and rms is his prophet? This sounds like a religious argument on your end
- RIMR 8y ago
  I bet RMS would have something really heated to say about blindly following a leader's every word. Unless of course that leader is him, in which case his narcissistic side will gladly welcome it
- geofft 8y ago
  A couple of questions for you: 1. What OS / distro do you use? 2. Do you have automatic updates enabled? 3. Do you use info pages in preference to man? 4. Do you use LibreJS? 5. Why did you link me to a YouTube video elsewhere in the thread? Did you wish for me to run non-free JavaScript?
timb07 8y ago
"While RMS has undoubtedly contributed much to the FOSS community" RMS would vehemently disagree with you: he founded the Free Software community, and has nothing to do with Open Source Software.

drb91 8y ago

I'm not sure I follow. What's wrong with his term? Either people get what he's writing, and the term is irrelevant, or they don't get what he's writing, in which case I doubt that it would be because they were so distracted by a single word they couldn't focus on anything he's writing at all. So you just don't like the term. This is fine! But you've failed to make any point.

Jasper_ 8y ago
Writing an essay to persuade someone means talking to them on their terms. If you start off with the "Micro$oft"s and the "Windoze"s you're going to lose the people you want to reach, especially when it reeks of childish namecalling.
- drb91 8y ago
  > Writing an essay to persuade someone means talking to them on their terms. If you start off with the "Micro$oft"s and the "Windoze"s you're going to lose the people you want to reach, especially when it reeks of childish namecalling. I can't say I'm mourning the loss of people who think it's childish, or that it's a bad thing--at most it's a silly distraction. If you care, why don't you rewrite his stuff to be more friendly? I'm gonna go ahead and guess he licenses his content liberally. I gotta say, his essays don't come across as intending to be generally persuasive, and I'm not sure how you could come to that conclusion. His audience is fundamentally one that self-selects to think for themselves, and his diction is one way of achieving that. What you are suggesting is making a non-compromising person into a compromising person, which we have far too many of already.
  - Jasper_ 8y ago
    I have different opinions than RMS; that should hardly come as a surprise. As a former Linux and GNOME developer, I don't believe the FSF, the GNU project and RMS have chosen effective ways to communicate their talking points. The final straw came when me and a colleague were discussion the implementation details of Linux kernel features on a mailing list that happened to include RMS, and he came in to correct me about how it's called the "GNU/Linux Operating System", and wouldn't listen to us when we told him that, no, we are very specifically talking about Linux in this case.
  - RIMR 8y ago
    Nobody is arguing against his right to publish whatever sensationalist, childish, ad-hominem riddled nonsense he wants to. We're just arguing that for such a great FOSS leader, he sure publishes some sensationalist, childish, ad-hominem riddled nonsense. His writing style is absolutely awful, and reeks of selfrighteousness. He's within his rights to keep writing that way, and I'm within my rights to call him out for being ineffective and narcissistic writer.
  - kelnos 8y ago
    > I gotta say, his essays don't come across as intending to be generally persuasive That's a weird argument to make. Why write them at all, then? RMS has a long history of trying to persuade people of the benefits and virtues of Free Software; his writing on related topics is obviously meant to persuade, at least how I see it. I agree with the parents' point: if the intention is to persuade, then the words used matter. It might seem dumb to you that some word choices will turn people off, but that's irrelevant. What's important is the actual outcome of "did you persuade someone or didn't you?" That's literally the only question that matters. And if a writer doesn't believe that, then, frankly, they're a poor steward of the advancement of their cause. > His audience is fundamentally one that self-selects to think for themselves, and his... diction is one way of achieving that. It sounds like you're equating "being a 100% emotionless robot" with "people who think for themselves". I'm getting a bit tired of people who think it's possible to remove all emotion from every argument. Sure, some people can do that, but the vast majority of people cannot. And I don't really assign a value judgment to either kind of person... but I can certainly tell you which kind I think are more fun to be around.
vkou 8y ago
> Either people get what he's writing, and the term is irrelevant, or they don't get what he's writing People are emotional animals. When trying to persuade them, disregard this fact at your peril.
scrollaway 8y ago
> in which case I doubt that it would be because they were so distracted by a single word they couldn't focus on anything he's writing at all Well, you'd be wrong then. It's like people writing "Micro$oft". No I can't focus on anything you're writing after you use terms like that because I'm picturing an immature child. And why would I listen to an immature child's arguments? Put it this way, it's like giving a talk with your fly open. Your fly being open is technically irrelevant to the entire talk you're giving, but that's still going to distract people from the content. (Or, in the case of Richard Stallman, eating stuff from your foot. No I'm not making this up; google it, I won't link it here.) I hugely respect what Stallman has done, in the past, for free software in general but I have a hard time believing that he is a net positive today. Between "free software champions" being associated with someone who's extremely antisocial, and his refusal of pragmatism, it's hard not to be grossed out. I know that the "Stallman attitude" has been a serious roadblock to getting people to adopt free software in general: I've very often seen people get turned off from talking about open source, for fear of dealing with someone who insists on prefixing GNU/ to everything, and scoffs at any license that isn't GPLv2.
- _sdegutis 8y ago
  In other words the character of a person affects the weight of their arguments. That’s pretty fundamental to society but not acknowledged a lot in the tech world, especially when eccentricities are involved. We like to pretend that life is a meritocracy where we’re all judged solely on our contributions but that’s emphatically not how life works. We can’t change the human nature and the nature of social signaling no matter how hard we close our eyes and wish.
  - scrollaway 8y ago
    Yeah precisely. drb91's feigned confusion at how people are not ignoring an arrogant approach at argumentation may simply be an attempt at focusing on the "meat" of the argument rather than the wrapping. Noble, but ultimately incorrect. The argument isn't made to only one person, it's meant to be spread to the general population, and almost nothing from Stallman can really be shared with the general population because his ideas are wrapped really, really badly. I just want to make it clear: acknowledging the reality of this doesn't mean you endorse it. One of the most magical things on the internet is the meritocratic aspect of it. It just doesn't translate to real life. I know a lot of my guildmates from the very early WoW days would have been baffled to learn their raids were led by a 14 year old child. I also know I've seen similar experiences reflected on this forum (people recounting being treated as equal peers by others, despite their very young age, different genders, different religions etc). All this is possible because those differences don't come up in a limited context where you, for example, don't see each other face to face. I love that, and I wish it were like that everywhere. But it's not, and if you want your message to be heard, you can't eat your footstuff in public.
RIMR 8y ago
It's kind of like when someone tries to talk politics, but they can't stop using terms like "libtards" or "conservatards" to belittle their ideological opponents. They can't effectively communicate their actual message to you because they're too busy denigrating everyone who hypothetically disagrees with them. By referring to Facebook users as "Useds", he's trying to belittle anyone who happily uses Facebook by suggesting that they're just a hapless pawn of a megacorp. That is a terrible way to convince someone that they ought to rethink their Facebook use - it just makes anyone currently using Facebook without worry ignore you because you're being condescending to them. And just because RMS is massively influential on the world of FOSS doesn't mean that his political musings get a pass for being childish and one-sided.
- amyjess 8y ago
  > By referring to Facebook users as "Useds", he's trying to belittle anyone who happily uses Facebook by suggesting that they're just a hapless pawn of a megacorp. That is a terrible way to convince someone that they ought to rethink their Facebook use - it just makes anyone currently using Facebook without worry ignore you because you're being condescending to them. Adding to that, if someone persists in calling me names for using a product they don't like, I can safely conclude that they are not my ally and that they do not have my best interests at heart. As a satisfied Facebook user, I interpret RMS's rant as him personally declaring that I am his enemy. I have no desire to support him, his projects, or anything he has to say. In fact, I'm likely to oppose everything the FSF does on general principle. I decided a long time ago that if I publish the code to any of my personal projects, I won't use any GPL libraries, and the code will be under the MIT or Apache2 licenses and not any GPL variant. After seeing RMS continue to go off the deep end, I'm specifically going to find a license that's subtly nonfree, and if not I'll make one.
  - Sacho 8y ago
    Just to be clear, this isn't sarcasm? The use of this word caused you to ascribe to him a multitude of opinions that can not be derived from his arguments, which has led you to boycott any project he's been associated with? And Stallman is the unstable one here?
smsm42 8y ago
The wrong is an obnoxious manner of redefining communication protocols (in this case, language) in order to support the premise that the author is always right. In this example, the premise is that Facebook users (standard and accepted term) do not derive any benefit from Facebook but are only exploited by it. This is obviously false, since if people did not derive any benefit from it, they would not voluntarily flock to it in millions. But by refusing to even admit this possibility and constantly hammering this mistake into the reader, Stallman tries to reinforce his (weak) point by repetition, not relying on cognitive facilities of the reader being enough to get this point without it being repeated 60 times. I don't know about you, but for me it's annoying and obnoxious when even true point is repeated to me 60 times through a short text. Even more annoying if the point itself is so trivially weak.

zeth___ 8y ago

Here is a mantra every programmer should repeat every morning: >RMS was right. It doesn't matter what the topic, or how insane what he says sounds. He is always right and you're just not developed enough to understand why that's the case.

komali2 8y ago
I'm pretty sure this is sarcasm. I really hope it is anyway, because otherwise it stinks of "long live the king"
- ayrx 8y ago
  If you look at his other comments in this I’m not sure it’s sarcasm.
yongjik 8y ago
Poe was right! * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
lovich 8y ago
There is no god but FOSS and rms is his prophet? This sounds like a religious argument on your end
RIMR 8y ago
I bet RMS would have something really heated to say about blindly following a leader's every word. Unless of course that leader is him, in which case his narcissistic side will gladly welcome it
geofft 8y ago
A couple of questions for you: 1. What OS / distro do you use? 2. Do you have automatic updates enabled? 3. Do you use info pages in preference to man? 4. Do you use LibreJS? 5. Why did you link me to a YouTube video elsewhere in the thread? Did you wish for me to run non-free JavaScript?

timb07 8y ago

"While RMS has undoubtedly contributed much to the FOSS community" RMS would vehemently disagree with you: he founded the Free Software community, and has nothing to do with Open Source Software.