5 ms·

This is THE Richard Stallman. He would be fascinating to hang out with and hear his thoughts.

ghaff 7y ago
It isn't, at least for me specifically. I don't much care being lectured at. That said, and although I think he takes a lot of things too far, I also think that (in general) it's useful to have someone articulating one far pole of the debate about user freedoms. I suppose the counter-argument is that extremism causes some people to tune out entirely but I don't really buy that's the case here.
jsgo 7y ago
I'm kind of torn. I think he's interesting and has interesting views, but they don't really align with my own (generally). He's way more absolutist than I am though: I'm fine with Apple/Microsoft/etc. from a cost vs value perspective. He trends more towards the "the software isn't free so the software isn't good to use" line. There have been some take downs he's done that were either spot on at the time or later showed themselves to have been almost prophetic, so I think credit must be given there.
sdegutis 7y ago
You can email him, he responded within days every time I've ever emailed him.
Pfhreak 7y ago
What a strange thing to say. It seems like Rich Stallman would be the first person to voice an opinion against celebrity culture.
airforce1 7y ago
I mean yeah he's famous, but has he actually made anything useful or interesting? I did a quick search and it seems like his main claim to fame is copyleft activism/zealotry as well as some obscure OS I've never heard of called "GNU Project" which, as far as I can tell, nobody uses (presumably because it is in the same vein as TempleOS).
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Have you heard of the numerous projects licensed under the GPL? Stallman personally worked on Emacs, GCC, and GDB.
- npmaile 7y ago
  well the linux kernel is compiled with the gnu compiler project, so literally everyone uses it if they connect to the internet or have an android phone.
- RadiozRadioz 7y ago
  I honestly can't tell if you're joking. GNU software comprises a large amount of most major OSs with the Linux kernel.
- hylaride 7y ago
  Most of linux's userland is GNU, including the well-used bash,gcc,grep,tar,ls,etc (it's why he rather annoyingly insists on people calling it GNU/linux). So to say nobody uses it is very, very false. Nobody uses the GNU kernel HURD, which is what you're thinking of. That being said, he's a very eccentric person and his contributions to computing in the last 20ish years have been minimal. GCC has been losing market share to llvm and bash to zsh/fish. You could also argue that had he never created GNU, BSD would be where linux is today and we'd be just as well, if not better, off.
  - nocman 7y ago
    bash losing market share to zsh/fish? That seems like a pretty huge stretch to me. Yeah there may be a few people here and there that change their default shell to zsh or fish, but I don't see it happening in large swaths. Is there some big pocket of Linux users doing this that I am unware of?
    - hylaride 7y ago
      For shell scripting, no bash is still very much the champion there. For interactive shells, I'm seeing very high usage for zsh (mostly due to oh-my-zsh) and a handful of fish users. Essentially lots power terminal users.
_Donny 7y ago
His pedantic personality is unbearable to me. He held a talk at my university recently. During the QA, every time a student asked RMS a question, he would spend 2 minutes correcting the formulation of the question, and then dismissing the actual question with a snarky remark. For instance, one student asked something about RMS being the "CEO" of FSF, followed by snarky remarks by RMS that "FSF is not a company and that he is actually the president". (I might remember wrong, but it was something along those lines) I understand and respect him and his beliefs, but his personality just annoys me.
- guenthert 7y ago
  RMS might appear a bit difficult at times, but I don't think that was a good example. Other left-leaning founders of public benefit organizations might be mildly insulted by being called CEO as well.
Balgair 7y ago
I've gone to a fair few lectures by Stallman and got to hang out and chat with him afterwards. 1) He is really serious about his crummy coffee. Like, he was brewing a pot on stage as he was talking at like 9pm. Like, a Walmart brand drip coffee maker, none of this french-press stuff. 2) He has a really bad 'dead fish' handshake. Like, Really bad. 3) He is SUPER dedicated to what he does and that is super admirable. I wish his vision of software and hardware was the default idea, not the corpo-spy state that we have eneded up with. That world would be a lot better. But it's asking far to much of people with only an 8th grade reading level. 4) He actually is really cool to hang out with and talk to. However, he is for more matured and knowledgable people. He kinda talks over the new CS peeps and really doesn't have time for them and their questions. He's not a professor and that shows. 5) Unsupprisingly, he's not good with millenial/gen-z women. Some of it is that he's from a different generation and he hasn't been in the same world as them, some of it is the sterotype that he is a nerdy, doughy, Linux guru. He could be better, but he's not as bad as a Google exec. by any means. 6) All the lecutres I went to where he was speaking were amazing and have really shaped a lot of my brain around software and what it is. Time very well spent.

It isn't, at least for me specifically. I don't much care being lectured at. That said, and although I think he takes a lot of things too far, I also think that (in general) it's useful to have someone articulating one far pole of the debate about user freedoms. I suppose the counter-argument is that extremism causes some people to tune out entirely but I don't really buy that's the case here.

jsgo 7y ago

I'm kind of torn. I think he's interesting and has interesting views, but they don't really align with my own (generally). He's way more absolutist than I am though: I'm fine with Apple/Microsoft/etc. from a cost vs value perspective. He trends more towards the "the software isn't free so the software isn't good to use" line. There have been some take downs he's done that were either spot on at the time or later showed themselves to have been almost prophetic, so I think credit must be given there.

sdegutis 7y ago

You can email him, he responded within days every time I've ever emailed him.

Pfhreak 7y ago

What a strange thing to say. It seems like Rich Stallman would be the first person to voice an opinion against celebrity culture.

airforce1 7y ago

I mean yeah he's famous, but has he actually made anything useful or interesting? I did a quick search and it seems like his main claim to fame is copyleft activism/zealotry as well as some obscure OS I've never heard of called "GNU Project" which, as far as I can tell, nobody uses (presumably because it is in the same vein as TempleOS).

saagarjha 7y ago
Have you heard of the numerous projects licensed under the GPL? Stallman personally worked on Emacs, GCC, and GDB.
npmaile 7y ago
well the linux kernel is compiled with the gnu compiler project, so literally everyone uses it if they connect to the internet or have an android phone.
RadiozRadioz 7y ago
I honestly can't tell if you're joking. GNU software comprises a large amount of most major OSs with the Linux kernel.
hylaride 7y ago
Most of linux's userland is GNU, including the well-used bash,gcc,grep,tar,ls,etc (it's why he rather annoyingly insists on people calling it GNU/linux). So to say nobody uses it is very, very false. Nobody uses the GNU kernel HURD, which is what you're thinking of. That being said, he's a very eccentric person and his contributions to computing in the last 20ish years have been minimal. GCC has been losing market share to llvm and bash to zsh/fish. You could also argue that had he never created GNU, BSD would be where linux is today and we'd be just as well, if not better, off.
- nocman 7y ago
  bash losing market share to zsh/fish? That seems like a pretty huge stretch to me. Yeah there may be a few people here and there that change their default shell to zsh or fish, but I don't see it happening in large swaths. Is there some big pocket of Linux users doing this that I am unware of?
  - hylaride 7y ago
    For shell scripting, no bash is still very much the champion there. For interactive shells, I'm seeing very high usage for zsh (mostly due to oh-my-zsh) and a handful of fish users. Essentially lots power terminal users.

_Donny 7y ago

His pedantic personality is unbearable to me. He held a talk at my university recently. During the QA, every time a student asked RMS a question, he would spend 2 minutes correcting the formulation of the question, and then dismissing the actual question with a snarky remark. For instance, one student asked something about RMS being the "CEO" of FSF, followed by snarky remarks by RMS that "FSF is not a company and that he is actually the president". (I might remember wrong, but it was something along those lines) I understand and respect him and his beliefs, but his personality just annoys me.

guenthert 7y ago
RMS might appear a bit difficult at times, but I don't think that was a good example. Other left-leaning founders of public benefit organizations might be mildly insulted by being called CEO as well.

Balgair 7y ago

I've gone to a fair few lectures by Stallman and got to hang out and chat with him afterwards. 1) He is really serious about his crummy coffee. Like, he was brewing a pot on stage as he was talking at like 9pm. Like, a Walmart brand drip coffee maker, none of this french-press stuff. 2) He has a really bad 'dead fish' handshake. Like, Really bad. 3) He is SUPER dedicated to what he does and that is super admirable. I wish his vision of software and hardware was the default idea, not the corpo-spy state that we have eneded up with. That world would be a lot better. But it's asking far to much of people with only an 8th grade reading level. 4) He actually is really cool to hang out with and talk to. However, he is for more matured and knowledgable people. He kinda talks over the new CS peeps and really doesn't have time for them and their questions. He's not a professor and that shows. 5) Unsupprisingly, he's not good with millenial/gen-z women. Some of it is that he's from a different generation and he hasn't been in the same world as them, some of it is the sterotype that he is a nerdy, doughy, Linux guru. He could be better, but he's not as bad as a Google exec. by any means. 6) All the lecutres I went to where he was speaking were amazing and have really shaped a lot of my brain around software and what it is. Time very well spent.