3 ms·

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 kno

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
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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

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