3 ms·

There's a lot about Stallman I admire, and a lot I dislike. In his case, I have no qualms with the title Doctor, given that his work is more than sufficient to

There's a lot about Stallman I admire, and a lot I dislike. In his case, I have no qualms with the title Doctor, given that his work is more than sufficient to have an earned doctorate at many (most? all?) universities. Does he really need to defend a dissertation to be acknowledged as an expert in the CS field? The dissertation is a filter to ensure you know what you're talking about and have earned the title. In Stallman's case, his professional work speaks for itself. His work is the research and dissertation.

leephillips 6y ago
A dissertation is not “a filter to ensure you know what you're talking about”. It is supposed to be an original piece of research that advances the state of knowledge. I am aware of Stallman’s inspiring promotion of freedom and his creation of useful, and widely used, tools, such as emacs. But I don’t know very much about him, really, or his work. What contribution did he make to research?
- bitL 6y ago
  He had some high impact papers while at MIT. He could have used those to get PhD at any top 100-500 university easily.
- ARandomerDude 6y ago
  Think about the time in which emacs was written though. In 1985 it was absolutely ground-breaking, and has stood the test of time. I've seen PhD dissertations approved at reputable schools for reimplementing Apache Storm badly. And emacs is one example of a lot of really valuable contributions to the state of the art Stallman has made. Honestly, his political fame is the least interesting thing about his career, in my opinion. Disclaimer: I'm not a fanboy and I use vim. :-)
  - leephillips 6y ago
    Point taken. I have no doubt that he could have earned a PhD if he had wanted to bother. But since he didn’t, the use of the title does not accord with custom. Not important, but he brought it up and we're talking about it.
- tjr 6y ago
  https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6255 https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6255
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  PhD and Doctor degrees are sometimes just handled out to important inventors without bothering them to write and defend a thesis. At least it happened in Soviet Union with some researchers. For example, see 1935 thesis details. https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD,_%D0%98%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD_%D0%9F%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

leephillips 6y ago

A dissertation is not “a filter to ensure you know what you're talking about”. It is supposed to be an original piece of research that advances the state of knowledge. I am aware of Stallman’s inspiring promotion of freedom and his creation of useful, and widely used, tools, such as emacs. But I don’t know very much about him, really, or his work. What contribution did he make to research?

bitL 6y ago
He had some high impact papers while at MIT. He could have used those to get PhD at any top 100-500 university easily.
ARandomerDude 6y ago
Think about the time in which emacs was written though. In 1985 it was absolutely ground-breaking, and has stood the test of time. I've seen PhD dissertations approved at reputable schools for reimplementing Apache Storm badly. And emacs is one example of a lot of really valuable contributions to the state of the art Stallman has made. Honestly, his political fame is the least interesting thing about his career, in my opinion. Disclaimer: I'm not a fanboy and I use vim. :-)
- leephillips 6y ago
  Point taken. I have no doubt that he could have earned a PhD if he had wanted to bother. But since he didn’t, the use of the title does not accord with custom. Not important, but he brought it up and we're talking about it.
tjr 6y ago
https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6255 https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6255
Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
PhD and Doctor degrees are sometimes just handled out to important inventors without bothering them to write and defend a thesis. At least it happened in Soviet Union with some researchers. For example, see 1935 thesis details. https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD,_%D0%98%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD_%D0%9F%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]