7 ms·

Free Software truly does deserve better than RMS. The guy is just about the least-suited person to being a spokesman (or any public figure) I've seen. As a ha

Free Software truly does deserve better than RMS. The guy is just about the least-suited person to being a spokesman (or any public figure) I've seen. As a hacker and behind-the-scenes guy, sure. But his complete lack of tact, social skills, and presentability makes him more harmful than helpful as a figurehead.

calibraxis 15y ago
[There goes my karma...] Since a lot of people here seemed to have an emotional reaction to Jobs' passing, I had no desire to say anything here. But now the topic is Stallman, and for whatever reason, people are wanting to discuss his comments. I (and probably most people I know) don't think Stallman's comments are a big deal. Steve was known for acting cruelly to people; apparently acted like a sociopath. If he treated people like shit when he was alive, then it's not the end of the world when someone says a few less-than-respectful things about him when he's gone. When confronted with the death of someone he disliked, I doubt Steve would be so sentimental. (At least not inwardly.)
- ugh 15y ago
  The problem is that Stallman is a very public spokesperson for free software and he does an absolutely terrible job. It’s impossible to ignore the effects he has in his role and they are terrible.
  - dman 15y ago
    I am yet to see a press release saying a company decided to go closed source because they disagree with what Richard Stallman says. Can you point to any specific examples where Richard Stallman and his views have pushed a project that was on the open source path into the closed source direction.
    - ugh 15y ago
      Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that keeping existing open source projects open source is all Stallman wants. Do you honestly believe that his comments help push for more free software? I don’t.
      - dman 15y ago
        I dont claim to know what Richard Stallman wants or what effects his words have.
        ugh 15y ago
        What?! I think Stallman has always been pretty clear about what he wants. It’s not clarity that he lacks as a spokesperson.
        dman 15y ago
        Your original post had - "It’s impossible to ignore the effects he has in his role and they are terrible.". You failed to cite a single effect let alone it being terrible. I merely asked you to point out things that you think are hard to miss but that I dont know about at all. I think that claiming to know what someone else wants falls in the same category as speaking on their behalf - something that should only be done in very limited circumstances.
    - chc 15y ago
      "The open source path" includes many steps before you actually see any source from people. Once they've released source, it's a little late to go back. But they might be turned away from going through the trouble and risk of releasing source in the first place if they perceive that Richard Stallman is the type of person they'd be appeasing. But more to the point, Stallman does not just want open-source software. He wants free software, and just based on my informal observations, his ideas of free software seem to be losing traction these days. Yeah, there's a lot of open-source software, but BSD, Apache, MIT and other open-source-but-not-free licenses are taking the lion's share. Even among projects that do use GPL, they mostly seem to prefer v2 rather than the more-free GPL3 and AGPL.
      - icebraining 15y ago
        BSD, Apache and MIT are all Free licenses, even by Stallman's viewpoint. They're just not copyleft. He thinks the Open Source movement misses the point, but he has no problems accepting their software as Free.
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    Anyone more competent as a spokesperson for the FSF... would not be. It is the sort of position that can only be publicly lead by someone who is more than a little eccentric. Anyone else would not be able to walk their own walk.
  - borism 15y ago
    free software isn't a religious movement like Stallman would like it to be. it's just a social concept (one of many) of how we humans should organise our interactions with regards to software. I believe it's an useful concept and probably so do you. For god's sake, we don't need a spokesperson!
  - Confusion 15y ago
    Why do you feel he does a terrible job? Does the Tea party do a terrible job? Does Dawkins do a terrible job? Did Marx, Nietzsche, Augustine, ... do terrible jobs? I don't doubt you can think of awesome people that others think are doing -- or did -- terrible jobs. I'm glad someone says the things he says and I think it would be a loss if nobody said these things anymore. He's as much a visionary as Steve Jobs was, only his vision does not get carried out be a multi-billion dollar company, so he needs to keep spreading it with his mouth. He doesn't care about selling the vision, because that doesn't work in a world where many people believe Ayn Rand is someone with deep insight in how the world could and should be organised.
    - ugh 15y ago
      I’m not so much talking about content but about delivery and style.
  - pjscott 15y ago
    Richard Stallman does an excellent job of defining what it means to be a free software radical. He makes the rest of us look far more moderate and reasonable by comparison, which is a very valuable thing.
- jacobolus 15y ago
  Arrogant? For sure. Narcissistic even? perhaps. Sociopath? Give me a fucking break.
  - bryanlarsen 15y ago
    I think he meant psychopath rather than sociopath. It's been hypothesized that many great CEO's are psychopathic. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-som...
    - kragen 15y ago
      "Sociopath" is the new term for "psychopath", more or less. The differences are hairsplitting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Psychopathy_vs._sociopathy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Psychopathy_vs._soc...
  - chugger 15y ago
    If they've got anything to say to Steve they should've said it to HIS FACE when he was alive. RMS is a low life pig and a coward and I won't be surprised if people piss in his grave after he dies a lonely death.
    - bryanlarsen 15y ago
      You can say a lot of things about RMS, but coward is not one of them. RMS has been saying very public things about Apple for almost 30 years. If he met Steve Jobs in person, he would not have hesitated to say much, much worse.
    - Confusion 15y ago
      I don't doubt they've met each other on several occasions and that RMS has told Steve to his face that he disagreed with him. They moved in a lot of overlapping circles and RMS is many things, but certainly not a coward or a hypocrite. He has always put his money where his mouth is.
    - 15y ago
- deleted 15y ago
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- mbreese 15y ago
  Jobs was a notoriously private person, so I'm fairly confident saying that if you didn't know him personally, you aren't qualified to guess how he'd react to the death of someone. My guess is that he'd be quite reflective on the concept of death, but then again, I'm not qualified to speculate either.
- kprobst 15y ago
  > Steve was known for acting cruelly to people; apparently acted like a sociopath Stallman is also a sociopath by your definition then; remember his comments in some mailing list when someone announced they had had a child. There are plenty of other examples. Richard Stallman is an asshole. A brilliant and useful asshole, but an asocial asshole incapable of basic empathy nonetheless. I don't admire either of them (though I'd give more credit to Stallman for fighting the good and difficult fight all these years), but it seems to me that Stallman's supporters behave exactly the way they claim Jobs' supporters do - by eulogizing and finding excuses for the ugly sides of their heroes and claiming "the others" are a cult. History is full of brilliant and useful assholes. both Jobs and Stallman should be given their rightful due and called on their failings. But neither of them should be casting aspersions about the other (not that Jobs can do that anymore). At some level they are fundamentally the same.
  - jimktrains2 15y ago
    >remember his comments in some mailing list when someone announced they had had a child. I can't find that comment:(
    - Aga 15y ago
      Here you go! http://www.art.net/Studios/Hackers/Hopkins/Don/text/rms-vs-doctor.html http://www.art.net/Studios/Hackers/Hopkins/Don/text/rms-vs-d...
      - jimktrains2 15y ago
        I'm not sure whether to laugh or grimace.
maximusprime 15y ago
He's also an extreme fundamentalist. I don't think he knows what 'compromise' or 'real world' mean. He lacks taste, class and humanity.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- jsavimbi 15y ago
  Exactly. There is no difference between either the Phelps or the Stallman message. Insane fundamentalists looking to draw attention to themselves and their ideals through an offensive message when they know that the community is experiencing an emotional event together. It's akin to car-bombing a funeral; something only really insane or angry people do. And last time I checked, Stallman doesn't have much to be angry about.
  - rdouble 15y ago
    There is no difference between either the Phelps or the Stallman message. There... uh.. seems to be a lot of difference between "god kills soldiers because gay people exist" and "software should be free." Even though his quip about Jobs's death was tacky, I'm still gonna give RMS more points than the Westboro Baptist Church.
    - jsavimbi 15y ago
      > Even though his quip about Jobs's death was tacky There's a big difference between being tacky out of ignorance and immaturity and deliberately hurtful in a public forum with a measured audience. Coupled with a sense of timing and purpose, any sane and intelligent person would be able to make that distinction. And much like a car-bomber at a funeral, what sets Stallman aside from the rest of us is the opportunistic cowardice with which he operates. If he truly felt harmed by Steve Job's actions whilst living, why didn't he make a case for him to die sooner rather than waiting for his death to be fait accompli?
      - 15y ago
naner 15y ago
It is kind of hard to oust a figurehead if he is also the founding father. Perhaps the FSF likes his uncompromising views. (Think of PETA and their crazy-ass leadership.) Also this isn't new behavior. Stallman has been like this his whole life. People are hitting back in this case because it is about Steve Jobs.
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  >People are hitting back in this case because it is about Steve Jobs. I'm hitting back because it's just another in a very long line of events that suggests Stallman is something other than a 'people person'. I've made the point before that I thought he was a poor choice to speak for the FSF, and was downvoted for it, iirc. I don't think what he said about Jobs was that bad, but I think he showed incredibly poor judgement as a public figure in saying it. It's indicative of a lack of suitability for the role he's chosen.
andos 15y ago
That's why Linus, not Stallman, is the first name that comes to my mind when I think about FOSS. He's headstrong, sometimes a bit mean, positively pragmatic but also handsome, and -- oddly -- very likable. He's a bit like Steve Jobs, in a twisted way.
- maximusprime 15y ago
  He definitely has charisma. I remember seeing a video of him and Stallman on stage, and Linus' kid comes on stage and starts playing with Linus while Stallman is ranting about freedom.
  - listic 15y ago
    This one? Stallman receiving Torvalds award at LinuxWorld conf 1999 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDxMJQLXmBE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDxMJQLXmBE
chugger 15y ago
RMS: the guy who doesn't have what it takes to finish GNU even after 27 years.
- astrodust 15y ago
  They finished the "Not Unix!" part, but then they have to go and do the remaining GNU part. Since it's recursive, this could take a while.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  What would it even mean to "finish GNU"? That doesn't make any sense.
  - chugger 15y ago
    the OS/kernel
    - jrockway 15y ago
      If you want GNU/Hurd so much, why don't you start working on it?
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      RMS has stated publicly that GNU Hurd has been significantly deprioritized for some time due to the introduction of Linux. Specifically noting that the deficiencies Linux suffers would not be resolved by the completion of GNU Hurd. On the other hand, a friend of mine does use GNU Hurd on one of his machines. He's a little loopy though.
    - chugger 15y ago
      Sure. deprioritized. Whatever. HURD blows.
      - burgerbrain 15y ago
        "HURD blows." Be careful, I think you just agreed with RMS there. ;) On a more serious note, you seem to be doing some pretty heavy trolling today. Why don't you step back from the computer and go get some air? Life is good.

calibraxis 15y ago

[There goes my karma...] Since a lot of people here seemed to have an emotional reaction to Jobs' passing, I had no desire to say anything here. But now the topic is Stallman, and for whatever reason, people are wanting to discuss his comments. I (and probably most people I know) don't think Stallman's comments are a big deal. Steve was known for acting cruelly to people; apparently acted like a sociopath. If he treated people like shit when he was alive, then it's not the end of the world when someone says a few less-than-respectful things about him when he's gone. When confronted with the death of someone he disliked, I doubt Steve would be so sentimental. (At least not inwardly.)

ugh 15y ago
The problem is that Stallman is a very public spokesperson for free software and he does an absolutely terrible job. It’s impossible to ignore the effects he has in his role and they are terrible.
- dman 15y ago
  I am yet to see a press release saying a company decided to go closed source because they disagree with what Richard Stallman says. Can you point to any specific examples where Richard Stallman and his views have pushed a project that was on the open source path into the closed source direction.
  - ugh 15y ago
    Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that keeping existing open source projects open source is all Stallman wants. Do you honestly believe that his comments help push for more free software? I don’t.
    - dman 15y ago
      I dont claim to know what Richard Stallman wants or what effects his words have.
      - ugh 15y ago
        What?! I think Stallman has always been pretty clear about what he wants. It’s not clarity that he lacks as a spokesperson.
        dman 15y ago
        Your original post had - "It’s impossible to ignore the effects he has in his role and they are terrible.". You failed to cite a single effect let alone it being terrible. I merely asked you to point out things that you think are hard to miss but that I dont know about at all. I think that claiming to know what someone else wants falls in the same category as speaking on their behalf - something that should only be done in very limited circumstances.
  - chc 15y ago
    "The open source path" includes many steps before you actually see any source from people. Once they've released source, it's a little late to go back. But they might be turned away from going through the trouble and risk of releasing source in the first place if they perceive that Richard Stallman is the type of person they'd be appeasing. But more to the point, Stallman does not just want open-source software. He wants free software, and just based on my informal observations, his ideas of free software seem to be losing traction these days. Yeah, there's a lot of open-source software, but BSD, Apache, MIT and other open-source-but-not-free licenses are taking the lion's share. Even among projects that do use GPL, they mostly seem to prefer v2 rather than the more-free GPL3 and AGPL.
    - icebraining 15y ago
      BSD, Apache and MIT are all Free licenses, even by Stallman's viewpoint. They're just not copyleft. He thinks the Open Source movement misses the point, but he has no problems accepting their software as Free.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  Anyone more competent as a spokesperson for the FSF... would not be. It is the sort of position that can only be publicly lead by someone who is more than a little eccentric. Anyone else would not be able to walk their own walk.
- borism 15y ago
  free software isn't a religious movement like Stallman would like it to be. it's just a social concept (one of many) of how we humans should organise our interactions with regards to software. I believe it's an useful concept and probably so do you. For god's sake, we don't need a spokesperson!
- Confusion 15y ago
  Why do you feel he does a terrible job? Does the Tea party do a terrible job? Does Dawkins do a terrible job? Did Marx, Nietzsche, Augustine, ... do terrible jobs? I don't doubt you can think of awesome people that others think are doing -- or did -- terrible jobs. I'm glad someone says the things he says and I think it would be a loss if nobody said these things anymore. He's as much a visionary as Steve Jobs was, only his vision does not get carried out be a multi-billion dollar company, so he needs to keep spreading it with his mouth. He doesn't care about selling the vision, because that doesn't work in a world where many people believe Ayn Rand is someone with deep insight in how the world could and should be organised.
  - ugh 15y ago
    I’m not so much talking about content but about delivery and style.
- pjscott 15y ago
  Richard Stallman does an excellent job of defining what it means to be a free software radical. He makes the rest of us look far more moderate and reasonable by comparison, which is a very valuable thing.
jacobolus 15y ago
Arrogant? For sure. Narcissistic even? perhaps. Sociopath? Give me a fucking break.
- bryanlarsen 15y ago
  I think he meant psychopath rather than sociopath. It's been hypothesized that many great CEO's are psychopathic. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-som...
  - kragen 15y ago
    "Sociopath" is the new term for "psychopath", more or less. The differences are hairsplitting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Psychopathy_vs._sociopathy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Psychopathy_vs._soc...
- chugger 15y ago
  If they've got anything to say to Steve they should've said it to HIS FACE when he was alive. RMS is a low life pig and a coward and I won't be surprised if people piss in his grave after he dies a lonely death.
  - bryanlarsen 15y ago
    You can say a lot of things about RMS, but coward is not one of them. RMS has been saying very public things about Apple for almost 30 years. If he met Steve Jobs in person, he would not have hesitated to say much, much worse.
  - Confusion 15y ago
    I don't doubt they've met each other on several occasions and that RMS has told Steve to his face that he disagreed with him. They moved in a lot of overlapping circles and RMS is many things, but certainly not a coward or a hypocrite. He has always put his money where his mouth is.
  - 15y ago
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
mbreese 15y ago
Jobs was a notoriously private person, so I'm fairly confident saying that if you didn't know him personally, you aren't qualified to guess how he'd react to the death of someone. My guess is that he'd be quite reflective on the concept of death, but then again, I'm not qualified to speculate either.
kprobst 15y ago
> Steve was known for acting cruelly to people; apparently acted like a sociopath Stallman is also a sociopath by your definition then; remember his comments in some mailing list when someone announced they had had a child. There are plenty of other examples. Richard Stallman is an asshole. A brilliant and useful asshole, but an asocial asshole incapable of basic empathy nonetheless. I don't admire either of them (though I'd give more credit to Stallman for fighting the good and difficult fight all these years), but it seems to me that Stallman's supporters behave exactly the way they claim Jobs' supporters do - by eulogizing and finding excuses for the ugly sides of their heroes and claiming "the others" are a cult. History is full of brilliant and useful assholes. both Jobs and Stallman should be given their rightful due and called on their failings. But neither of them should be casting aspersions about the other (not that Jobs can do that anymore). At some level they are fundamentally the same.
- jimktrains2 15y ago
  >remember his comments in some mailing list when someone announced they had had a child. I can't find that comment:(
  - Aga 15y ago
    Here you go! http://www.art.net/Studios/Hackers/Hopkins/Don/text/rms-vs-doctor.html http://www.art.net/Studios/Hackers/Hopkins/Don/text/rms-vs-d...
    - jimktrains2 15y ago
      I'm not sure whether to laugh or grimace.

maximusprime 15y ago

He's also an extreme fundamentalist. I don't think he knows what 'compromise' or 'real world' mean. He lacks taste, class and humanity.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
jsavimbi 15y ago
Exactly. There is no difference between either the Phelps or the Stallman message. Insane fundamentalists looking to draw attention to themselves and their ideals through an offensive message when they know that the community is experiencing an emotional event together. It's akin to car-bombing a funeral; something only really insane or angry people do. And last time I checked, Stallman doesn't have much to be angry about.
- rdouble 15y ago
  There is no difference between either the Phelps or the Stallman message. There... uh.. seems to be a lot of difference between "god kills soldiers because gay people exist" and "software should be free." Even though his quip about Jobs's death was tacky, I'm still gonna give RMS more points than the Westboro Baptist Church.
  - jsavimbi 15y ago
    > Even though his quip about Jobs's death was tacky There's a big difference between being tacky out of ignorance and immaturity and deliberately hurtful in a public forum with a measured audience. Coupled with a sense of timing and purpose, any sane and intelligent person would be able to make that distinction. And much like a car-bomber at a funeral, what sets Stallman aside from the rest of us is the opportunistic cowardice with which he operates. If he truly felt harmed by Steve Job's actions whilst living, why didn't he make a case for him to die sooner rather than waiting for his death to be fait accompli?
    - 15y ago

naner 15y ago

It is kind of hard to oust a figurehead if he is also the founding father. Perhaps the FSF likes his uncompromising views. (Think of PETA and their crazy-ass leadership.) Also this isn't new behavior. Stallman has been like this his whole life. People are hitting back in this case because it is about Steve Jobs.

redthrowaway 15y ago
>People are hitting back in this case because it is about Steve Jobs. I'm hitting back because it's just another in a very long line of events that suggests Stallman is something other than a 'people person'. I've made the point before that I thought he was a poor choice to speak for the FSF, and was downvoted for it, iirc. I don't think what he said about Jobs was that bad, but I think he showed incredibly poor judgement as a public figure in saying it. It's indicative of a lack of suitability for the role he's chosen.

andos 15y ago

That's why Linus, not Stallman, is the first name that comes to my mind when I think about FOSS. He's headstrong, sometimes a bit mean, positively pragmatic but also handsome, and -- oddly -- very likable. He's a bit like Steve Jobs, in a twisted way.

maximusprime 15y ago
He definitely has charisma. I remember seeing a video of him and Stallman on stage, and Linus' kid comes on stage and starts playing with Linus while Stallman is ranting about freedom.
- listic 15y ago
  This one? Stallman receiving Torvalds award at LinuxWorld conf 1999 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDxMJQLXmBE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDxMJQLXmBE

chugger 15y ago

RMS: the guy who doesn't have what it takes to finish GNU even after 27 years.

astrodust 15y ago
They finished the "Not Unix!" part, but then they have to go and do the remaining GNU part. Since it's recursive, this could take a while.
burgerbrain 15y ago
What would it even mean to "finish GNU"? That doesn't make any sense.
- chugger 15y ago
  the OS/kernel
  - jrockway 15y ago
    If you want GNU/Hurd so much, why don't you start working on it?
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    RMS has stated publicly that GNU Hurd has been significantly deprioritized for some time due to the introduction of Linux. Specifically noting that the deficiencies Linux suffers would not be resolved by the completion of GNU Hurd. On the other hand, a friend of mine does use GNU Hurd on one of his machines. He's a little loopy though.
  - chugger 15y ago
    Sure. deprioritized. Whatever. HURD blows.
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      "HURD blows." Be careful, I think you just agreed with RMS there. ;) On a more serious note, you seem to be doing some pretty heavy trolling today. Why don't you step back from the computer and go get some air? Life is good.