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At the risk of sounding dumb, who is r0ml? Googling him I find some Pycon videos, and apparently he's worked in various software managerial positions for large

At the risk of sounding dumb, who is r0ml? Googling him I find some Pycon videos, and apparently he's worked in various software managerial positions for large banks and consultancies, but I feel like I'm missing some context as to why he feels so strongly about this - did he used to be a FOSS cheerleader who saw some kinda light, or a contributor to a large FOSS project or something? From my lowly software developer POV, I've never been a software manager for a large bank, so my POV is rather different to the author's I'm assuming... ...I started my attempt to get into software dev by learning .NET because it was dominant in my local market - but this was in the days when Microsoft didn't believe in you having the source code, and everyone used a decompiler (I think it was Reflector?) to figure out what was happening in the code that the documents didn't capture. Then I was hired by a Java shop and holy shit, having the source on hand, it was like crack, I could understand what was going on, and why shit was breaking, so much easier. And while I never got into the politics of FSF, GPL v1 and v2 have been, IMO, a massive boon to being able to dive deep and understand, and reasonably often contribute a fix to, your dependencies. Yep, you don't need those particular licences for that, many others will cover it, but it feels to me, as someone who got into coding in the 90s, that the FSF's approach led the way. And while most vendors have realised the same (making the source code available only increases developer engagement) I feel we need either the FSF, or something like it, to keep advocating for their position at one extreme of the spectrum, simply if it drags vendors towards them. I still struggle periodically with non-FOSS code, and what really gives me the shits is when it's closed source that's built on top of open source. Looking at you AWS Glue, pretty much a wrapper around Apache Spark, but no source code between the pretty Python layer and the mysterious Java blob that then leads to Spark, coupled with absolute shit docs. And on a personal note, I don't think advocating for the ability to modify your own devices (the focus of GPL v3) has become any less important as time goes on, in fact, it's even more important, look at the bullshit companies like John Deere etc. are pulling.

the_af 6y ago
> At the risk of sounding dumb, who is r0ml? To be honest, in this article he seems to be playing the role of a garden variety troll. Look at his reply in the comments section of his article, where someone questions the "L" in FLOSS meaning "Liberal" like he claims: > "Good catch. Some people who use FLOSS mean "Libre". But, as Humpty Dumpty would say: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean". So I mean Liberal. Similarly, are people seriously saying that "free software" doesn't mean "software you don't have to pay for?" Tell me this isn't a trollish answer, complete with non sequitur about free software. We're giving too much credit to this person. There is a valid conversation to be had about users rights and freedom, about FSF leadership, etc, but this isn't it. This is just some random person vying for attention.
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  Yeah, the "Libre" vs. "Liberal" thing was very odd, especially as I've never, ever, ever, seen anyone use FLOSS to mean anything other than "Free/Libre OSS". I just wondered what his open source credentials were, so to speak, I mean, his Github is okay looking I guess? Just the comments about his speeches at OSCON sounded like he's a heavy hitter in this area.
- jaywalk 6y ago
  > "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean" Well then it's impossible to have a serious discussion with you. If you're going to take standardized definitions and change them on a whim, then we don't even have any common ground.
  - the_af 6y ago
    I think it's more or less an admission that the author of TFA is trolling. He's not interested in serious discussion, he just wants to ruffle feathers, and picked just the right moment for this. I mean, just look at the image he chose for his article. Look at all the misdirection about "Liberal" vs "Libre", the unsupported assertions that open sourcing a library makes it worse, and the self-aggrandizing. This article isn't an attempt at honest discussion. It's flamebait.
darksaints 6y ago
> At the risk of sounding dumb, who is r0ml? At the risk of breaking the rules here, he is an absolutely narcissistic nobody. He hasn't done anything special in his career, has no claim to fame, and has no meaningful level of influence in his field... but is willing to gaslight his readers into thinking it just to entertain his own ego. Biggest red flag: he calls himself a software architect, which seems to be the preferred title for narcissistic software charlatans. Unfortunate really... that label is a pretty good description of what some software engineers actually do, but it has been appropriated by weasels.

the_af 6y ago

> At the risk of sounding dumb, who is r0ml? To be honest, in this article he seems to be playing the role of a garden variety troll. Look at his reply in the comments section of his article, where someone questions the "L" in FLOSS meaning "Liberal" like he claims: > "Good catch. Some people who use FLOSS mean "Libre". But, as Humpty Dumpty would say: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean". So I mean Liberal. Similarly, are people seriously saying that "free software" doesn't mean "software you don't have to pay for?" Tell me this isn't a trollish answer, complete with non sequitur about free software. We're giving too much credit to this person. There is a valid conversation to be had about users rights and freedom, about FSF leadership, etc, but this isn't it. This is just some random person vying for attention.

EdwardDiego 6y ago
Yeah, the "Libre" vs. "Liberal" thing was very odd, especially as I've never, ever, ever, seen anyone use FLOSS to mean anything other than "Free/Libre OSS". I just wondered what his open source credentials were, so to speak, I mean, his Github is okay looking I guess? Just the comments about his speeches at OSCON sounded like he's a heavy hitter in this area.
jaywalk 6y ago
> "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean" Well then it's impossible to have a serious discussion with you. If you're going to take standardized definitions and change them on a whim, then we don't even have any common ground.
- the_af 6y ago
  I think it's more or less an admission that the author of TFA is trolling. He's not interested in serious discussion, he just wants to ruffle feathers, and picked just the right moment for this. I mean, just look at the image he chose for his article. Look at all the misdirection about "Liberal" vs "Libre", the unsupported assertions that open sourcing a library makes it worse, and the self-aggrandizing. This article isn't an attempt at honest discussion. It's flamebait.

darksaints 6y ago

> At the risk of sounding dumb, who is r0ml? At the risk of breaking the rules here, he is an absolutely narcissistic nobody. He hasn't done anything special in his career, has no claim to fame, and has no meaningful level of influence in his field... but is willing to gaslight his readers into thinking it just to entertain his own ego. Biggest red flag: he calls himself a software architect, which seems to be the preferred title for narcissistic software charlatans. Unfortunate really... that label is a pretty good description of what some software engineers actually do, but it has been appropriated by weasels.