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>" Torvalds rejects the goal of freedom for software users, and when people attribute the development of GNU/Linux to him, he uses his influence to lead them to

>" Torvalds rejects the goal of freedom for software users, and when people attribute the development of GNU/Linux to him, he uses his influence to lead them to devalue their own freedom. Giving the GNU Project equal mention will help give us equal influence to counter that." As someone who isn't intimately familiar with the open source or free software world, what does that mean? I thought Stallman and Torvalds were both the good guys. This makes them sound like mortal enemies.

svlla 16y ago
It means that Stallman likes being disgruntled even when the stakes are so low. Stallman calls BSD advertising clauses "obnoxious"[1] but apparently his obnoxiousness over similar issues of attribution and influence are righteous. Lulz. [1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html
- gnufreex 16y ago
  Stallman doesn't force anyone to attribute him. If he wanted to force, he would put that in GPL. Read last few questions in GNU/Linux naming FAQ http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#force http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#force
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
callumjones 16y ago
They are, but Stallman believes he is the "gooder" guy. Stallman's approach to software is to make it free and open at all costs where Linus is more concerned about accessibility of his software to consumers and developers.
adolfojp 16y ago
RMS is an idealist. Torvalds is more of a pragmatist. Quote from Linus: There are "extremists" in the free software world, but that's one major reason why I don't call what I do "free software" any more. I don't want to be associated with the people for whom it's about exclusion and hatred. And another one Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested. 99% of that I run tends to be open source, but that's my choice, dammit.
- svlla 16y ago
  idealist or totalitarian?
- bane 16y ago
  RMS is an idealist. Torvalds is more of a pragmatist. and pragmatists ship.
  - lambda 16y ago
    Emacs never shipped? GCC? GNU Make? glibc? GNU binutils? Bash? GNOME? The only really significant project from GNU that never shipped was the kernel. And Hurd wasn't RMS's project; it was just the project that got the GNU label. He shipped plenty of code in his day.
    - maxharris 16y ago
      But what a critical thing that kernel is! With Stallman running the show, you'd still be waiting for HURD. No Tivo, no Android, no drivers, routers, etc. (I suppose they'd all be running FreeBSD, though. But the point remains - it wouldn't be Stallman that did it, and that really pisses him off.) Also, can you really think of him honestly as the driving force behind GNOME? He had something to do with initiating it over the Qt licensing tiff, but I don't think he did a hell of a lot else for it. Edit: Software isn't "free" if only experts can use it, or if what it does is a decade behind the current technological standard. And what usability there is in "free" software is more than offset by being years behind commercial software in features. Take, for example, my iPhone. It has zero learning curve, yet it is loaded with awesome advanced features. I'm actually free to enjoy my life by virtue of having such convenient, well-designed software and hardware that I never have to futz with. Retina display? Front and back-facing camera? HDR photos? Video recording/chat? Music whenever I want, with controls on my earbuds? Awesome battery life? Slim design so it fits in my pockets? It's all there, and I've had it for eight months. I have the freedom to enjoy all this great stuff with an iPhone, but none of that freedom if I limit myself to the tiny world of "free" software. But GNU acolytes say that this isn't the kind of freedom they mean. What then, do they mean? Why does Apple (or to a lesser extent, Google, Microsoft, etc.) have these kinds of features, but GNU does not? I think the difference is that I'm talking about enjoyment and freedom in reality, not RMS's Platonist/ascetic make-believe world.
icarus_drowning 16y ago
This seems terribly pernicious to me. Indeed, Stallman's arguments about the "GNU/Linux" terminology have always struck me as a rather naked form of question-begging designed not to make an argument, but to assume that he's already won it. That he is so insistent that everyone use his terminology merely illustrates that he is often not interested in making arguments so much as forcing everyone else to accept his conclusions.
billmcneale 16y ago
Stallman hates Linus with the force of one hundred novas. It's not really personal, he just hates it that Linux became so popular and 1) didn't give credit back to himself and the FSF (something that's not so clearly justified IMO) and 2) his own baby, HURD, never got traction. At the end of the day, Stallman is only interested in one thing: getting the glory. Not even the FSF, just himself. He's a lunatic, just ignore him.
mpk 16y ago
> This makes them sound like mortal enemies. That makes it sounds more dramatic than it is. Stallman is an idealist and attaches moral value to the licensing of code. Torvalds is an engineer and just wants to ship code. His license of choice matches his model for doing this. Basically Stallman is ideologically opposed to the existence of proprietary software and Torvalds is fine with a mixture of free/open software mixed with proprietary software. The two of them are often mentioned together because the largest results of their labours (the GNU userland and the linux kernel) are combined to form 'linux based distributions', generally just referred to as 'Linux' (or 'GNU/Linux' as Stallman insists, because he justifiably wants some more public recognition of the impact of his project even if that just isn't the way things work). Considering their differences and the way in which their works are combined it shouldn't be that surprising that there's some friction and snarky comments that spill out from time to time.
- baddox 16y ago
  I can't find consistency in Stallman's idealism. It seems that he's against proprietary software, yet is completely fine with legal protection for intellectual property rights. The GPL is a copyright. The GPL, just like any copyright, limits certain freedoms of the users of the software. Does Stallman have some idealogical problem with the public domain?
  - alanstorm 16y ago
    I'm not speaking for Stallman of GNU here, this is pure conjecture based on too many years of following these discussions. The "problem" with public domain software, (and BSD/MIT) style licenses, is people can take that code, make changes, and seal it back up into proprietary binaries where users lose access to the source code. The ideal world that the Richard Stallman character wants is one where if you're using something that was built with code, you have access to that code, and can't be stopped from using that code. Everything that people in the GNU camp do is towards that goal. Their choice to assert a GPL copyright (or copyleft, if you want to get really hippie) is a pragmatic one, because they recognize that the power dynamics of business lead companies to stop sharing most of what they're working on.
  - 16y ago

svlla 16y ago

It means that Stallman likes being disgruntled even when the stakes are so low. Stallman calls BSD advertising clauses "obnoxious"[1] but apparently his obnoxiousness over similar issues of attribution and influence are righteous. Lulz. [1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html

gnufreex 16y ago
Stallman doesn't force anyone to attribute him. If he wanted to force, he would put that in GPL. Read last few questions in GNU/Linux naming FAQ http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#force http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#force
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

callumjones 16y ago

They are, but Stallman believes he is the "gooder" guy. Stallman's approach to software is to make it free and open at all costs where Linus is more concerned about accessibility of his software to consumers and developers.

adolfojp 16y ago

RMS is an idealist. Torvalds is more of a pragmatist. Quote from Linus: There are "extremists" in the free software world, but that's one major reason why I don't call what I do "free software" any more. I don't want to be associated with the people for whom it's about exclusion and hatred. And another one Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested. 99% of that I run tends to be open source, but that's my choice, dammit.

svlla 16y ago
idealist or totalitarian?
bane 16y ago
RMS is an idealist. Torvalds is more of a pragmatist. and pragmatists ship.
- lambda 16y ago
  Emacs never shipped? GCC? GNU Make? glibc? GNU binutils? Bash? GNOME? The only really significant project from GNU that never shipped was the kernel. And Hurd wasn't RMS's project; it was just the project that got the GNU label. He shipped plenty of code in his day.
  - maxharris 16y ago
    But what a critical thing that kernel is! With Stallman running the show, you'd still be waiting for HURD. No Tivo, no Android, no drivers, routers, etc. (I suppose they'd all be running FreeBSD, though. But the point remains - it wouldn't be Stallman that did it, and that really pisses him off.) Also, can you really think of him honestly as the driving force behind GNOME? He had something to do with initiating it over the Qt licensing tiff, but I don't think he did a hell of a lot else for it. Edit: Software isn't "free" if only experts can use it, or if what it does is a decade behind the current technological standard. And what usability there is in "free" software is more than offset by being years behind commercial software in features. Take, for example, my iPhone. It has zero learning curve, yet it is loaded with awesome advanced features. I'm actually free to enjoy my life by virtue of having such convenient, well-designed software and hardware that I never have to futz with. Retina display? Front and back-facing camera? HDR photos? Video recording/chat? Music whenever I want, with controls on my earbuds? Awesome battery life? Slim design so it fits in my pockets? It's all there, and I've had it for eight months. I have the freedom to enjoy all this great stuff with an iPhone, but none of that freedom if I limit myself to the tiny world of "free" software. But GNU acolytes say that this isn't the kind of freedom they mean. What then, do they mean? Why does Apple (or to a lesser extent, Google, Microsoft, etc.) have these kinds of features, but GNU does not? I think the difference is that I'm talking about enjoyment and freedom in reality, not RMS's Platonist/ascetic make-believe world.

icarus_drowning 16y ago

This seems terribly pernicious to me. Indeed, Stallman's arguments about the "GNU/Linux" terminology have always struck me as a rather naked form of question-begging designed not to make an argument, but to assume that he's already won it. That he is so insistent that everyone use his terminology merely illustrates that he is often not interested in making arguments so much as forcing everyone else to accept his conclusions.

billmcneale 16y ago

Stallman hates Linus with the force of one hundred novas. It's not really personal, he just hates it that Linux became so popular and 1) didn't give credit back to himself and the FSF (something that's not so clearly justified IMO) and 2) his own baby, HURD, never got traction. At the end of the day, Stallman is only interested in one thing: getting the glory. Not even the FSF, just himself. He's a lunatic, just ignore him.

mpk 16y ago

> This makes them sound like mortal enemies. That makes it sounds more dramatic than it is. Stallman is an idealist and attaches moral value to the licensing of code. Torvalds is an engineer and just wants to ship code. His license of choice matches his model for doing this. Basically Stallman is ideologically opposed to the existence of proprietary software and Torvalds is fine with a mixture of free/open software mixed with proprietary software. The two of them are often mentioned together because the largest results of their labours (the GNU userland and the linux kernel) are combined to form 'linux based distributions', generally just referred to as 'Linux' (or 'GNU/Linux' as Stallman insists, because he justifiably wants some more public recognition of the impact of his project even if that just isn't the way things work). Considering their differences and the way in which their works are combined it shouldn't be that surprising that there's some friction and snarky comments that spill out from time to time.

baddox 16y ago
I can't find consistency in Stallman's idealism. It seems that he's against proprietary software, yet is completely fine with legal protection for intellectual property rights. The GPL is a copyright. The GPL, just like any copyright, limits certain freedoms of the users of the software. Does Stallman have some idealogical problem with the public domain?
- alanstorm 16y ago
  I'm not speaking for Stallman of GNU here, this is pure conjecture based on too many years of following these discussions. The "problem" with public domain software, (and BSD/MIT) style licenses, is people can take that code, make changes, and seal it back up into proprietary binaries where users lose access to the source code. The ideal world that the Richard Stallman character wants is one where if you're using something that was built with code, you have access to that code, and can't be stopped from using that code. Everything that people in the GNU camp do is towards that goal. Their choice to assert a GPL copyright (or copyleft, if you want to get really hippie) is a pragmatic one, because they recognize that the power dynamics of business lead companies to stop sharing most of what they're working on.
- 16y ago