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One of my major issues with Stallman is his tendency to see things in black and white, and it's ironic he's now being sorted into the "bad person" bucket. In t

by klik99 6y ago

One of my major issues with Stallman is his tendency to see things in black and white, and it's ironic he's now being sorted into the "bad person" bucket. In truth, he's said some stupid things, some of the worst of which he's admitted he's wrong on, and others that he "lost the forest for the trees" and still doesn't see the larger perspective. I take everything he says with a grain of salt while acknowledging he's done a lot of good. Uncompromising voices are important for overall discourse, but those voices shouldn't be in positions of power.

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
This is actually a very interesting and dep topic. Stallman introduced ethics to the discourse about licensing. He also introduced free/proprietary software dichotomy, as the difference wasn't as clear cut in the past. Finally, he co-created the GPL as a way to express his ideals, and as a way to oppose other FS licenses like BSD. Already 25 years ago many people didn't like this attitude, and this is how the Open Source label was born. But deep down, can we really introduce ethics to the discourse? Is "proprietary software" really "immoral"? I had several discussions with RMS and while he admits some exceptions, his view is that it's basically a form of lack of freedom, hence unethical. This idea seems stupid today, but I think we no longer notice how much the world changed because of FLOSS. Today, if I don't like proprietary software, I can easily use Linux and not need anything. Thirty years ago the situation was very different, we had very little choice. Today we are spoiled with choice, so the point RMS was making might seem less relevant. In any case, recent decades brought another change that FSF still struggles with: the *aaS model which means Amazon takes anything they can, put it on their machines, make piles of money and rarely give anything back. No wonder companies like Elastic are pissed about it, but they can't do anything about it. And it doesn't look like the Aero GPL will solve the problem as it's simply way less popular than other licenses. But it seems like there are cases where ethics actually enters the licensing discourse and you can't avoid it.
isthisreality 6y ago
Is he uncompromising on the issues over which his position of power gives him considerable influence?

by klik99 6y ago

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago

This is actually a very interesting and dep topic. Stallman introduced ethics to the discourse about licensing. He also introduced free/proprietary software dichotomy, as the difference wasn't as clear cut in the past. Finally, he co-created the GPL as a way to express his ideals, and as a way to oppose other FS licenses like BSD. Already 25 years ago many people didn't like this attitude, and this is how the Open Source label was born. But deep down, can we really introduce ethics to the discourse? Is "proprietary software" really "immoral"? I had several discussions with RMS and while he admits some exceptions, his view is that it's basically a form of lack of freedom, hence unethical. This idea seems stupid today, but I think we no longer notice how much the world changed because of FLOSS. Today, if I don't like proprietary software, I can easily use Linux and not need anything. Thirty years ago the situation was very different, we had very little choice. Today we are spoiled with choice, so the point RMS was making might seem less relevant. In any case, recent decades brought another change that FSF still struggles with: the *aaS model which means Amazon takes anything they can, put it on their machines, make piles of money and rarely give anything back. No wonder companies like Elastic are pissed about it, but they can't do anything about it. And it doesn't look like the Aero GPL will solve the problem as it's simply way less popular than other licenses. But it seems like there are cases where ethics actually enters the licensing discourse and you can't avoid it.

isthisreality 6y ago

Is he uncompromising on the issues over which his position of power gives him considerable influence?