3 ms·

One of the stories I remember reading that motivated RMS to start free software is how the printer driver was buggy and there was no recourse to it. 40 somethin

One of the stories I remember reading that motivated RMS to start free software is how the printer driver was buggy and there was no recourse to it. 40 something years later, we are still facing the same problem - my printer ink costs 100x the actual cost and it doesn’t print in black if one of the color runs out. similarly the reason clang, llvm exists is due to extreme restrictions on how the gnu toolchain can be used. In a free country FSF has full freedom to push for their agenda but at the same time, don’t take my freedoms to pay for and use non-free software because that just works better for me.

Guthur 6y ago
I thought that it's just that gnu compiler was a large complex legacy code base that was hard to abstract and LLVM had the benefit of a clean slate and goal. How was the GNU aspect a blocker for a compiler tool chain?
- NateEag 6y ago
  IIRC, RMS has repeatedly blocked attempts to make GCC a more modular tool out of fear it would then be put to use in proprietary systems.
  - Guthur 6y ago
    Just read some of history. I don't really personally have much of an opinion either way but objectively I feel RMS was foreseeing the sort of issues ElasticSearch and co are finding. You can decide that GPL is too restrictive and give up more of your rights over the software. And it can bring short term gain, I honestly believe ES has to contribute some of it's success to being open source, but in the long run you might find you don't like the consequences.
- grumbel 6y ago
  People wanted to export the AST and other stuff from GCC so they could use it in other tools (e.g. syntax highlighter, code search, etc.). But by including that functionality GCC would open itself up to be used by proprietary tools, as the GPL doesn't protect the output of a program, it only protects the program code itself, so RMS was against it. It's somewhat similar to the reasoning in why Linux doesn't have a stable driver API, offering one would remove the need to include drivers in the kernel and putting them under the GPL.
DreamScatter 6y ago
Buy a black and white printer separate from a color printer, black and white printers are cheaper.

Guthur 6y ago

I thought that it's just that gnu compiler was a large complex legacy code base that was hard to abstract and LLVM had the benefit of a clean slate and goal. How was the GNU aspect a blocker for a compiler tool chain?

NateEag 6y ago
IIRC, RMS has repeatedly blocked attempts to make GCC a more modular tool out of fear it would then be put to use in proprietary systems.
- Guthur 6y ago
  Just read some of history. I don't really personally have much of an opinion either way but objectively I feel RMS was foreseeing the sort of issues ElasticSearch and co are finding. You can decide that GPL is too restrictive and give up more of your rights over the software. And it can bring short term gain, I honestly believe ES has to contribute some of it's success to being open source, but in the long run you might find you don't like the consequences.
grumbel 6y ago
People wanted to export the AST and other stuff from GCC so they could use it in other tools (e.g. syntax highlighter, code search, etc.). But by including that functionality GCC would open itself up to be used by proprietary tools, as the GPL doesn't protect the output of a program, it only protects the program code itself, so RMS was against it. It's somewhat similar to the reasoning in why Linux doesn't have a stable driver API, offering one would remove the need to include drivers in the kernel and putting them under the GPL.

DreamScatter 6y ago

Buy a black and white printer separate from a color printer, black and white printers are cheaper.