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Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

• MilnerRoute 5y ago
  It looks like Lunduke just cut-and-pasted all the quotes that Slashdot published (presumably their transcription from the FSF's audio file) on Saturday. https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/04/16/238221/richard-stallman-calls-for-software-package-systems-that-help-maintain-your-freedoms https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/04/16/238221/richard-stal... https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/04/16/238221/richard-stallman-calls-for-software-package-systems-that-help-maintain-your-freedoms https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/04/16/238221/richard-stal...
  • throwaway81523 5y ago
    Thanks for posting those but for the first of your two links, I think you meant: https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/04/16/2154203/richard-stallman-speaks-on-the-state-of-free-software-and-answers-questions https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/04/16/2154203/richard-sta... That is, are two different slashdot posts about the different aspects of the talk, and the above link is to the earlier of the posts.
    • dang 5y ago
      Ok, we've changed the URL above to that link from https://lunduke.substack.com/p/richard-stallman-the-state-of-the https://lunduke.substack.com/p/richard-stallman-the-state-of.... Thanks to both of you! We want original sources here. From the HN guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html): "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." (For the purposes of that guideline, copying and pasting someone else's work counts as 'reporting on'.)
      • WoodenChair 5y ago
        I think you got this one wrong. The original posted URL was: https://lunduke.substack.com/p/richard-stallman-the-state-of-the https://lunduke.substack.com/p/richard-stallman-the-state-of... The grandparent comment says that Lunduke ripped off Slashdot. I don't see that. There is one quote that's the same and several that I see that are different. You claim you changed it to the original source... the original source would be the Libreplanet link here: https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/the-state-of-the-free-software-movement/ https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/the-state-of-t... So both Lunduke and Slashdot are posting news about LibrePlanet and it's not clear one ripped off the other, other than having one quote that's the same. It seems like you went with the above commenters without investigating. I have no affiliation with Lunduke. I'm not a paid subscriber to his journal, I just get it by email sometimes.
        • pvg 5y ago
          The quotes overlap just about completely, they aren't offered with any additional analysis so the 'original source' of both the curation and transcription is really those slashdot comments. There's no 'ripping off' mentioned.
        • MilnerRoute 5y ago
          All the other quotes are from Slashdot's second story (which preceded Lunduke's) https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/04/16/2154203/richard-stallman-speaks-on-the-state-of-free-software-and-answers-questions https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/04/16/2154203/richard-sta...
• chrisseaton 5y ago
  > Instead of telling you what the program means, it tells you what the program is permitted to mean. Hmm that's insightful.
  • auggierose 5y ago
    I am looking forward to that book, but I don't expect too much from it. After all, he basically says, I don't like abstraction. Let's see if the result is worth specialising his book to GCC.
• thematrixturtle 5y ago
  Sounds like Stallman's standard stump speech to me?
• dddnzzz334 5y ago
  His new book seems interesting.
  • copperx 5y ago
    Absolutely. I thought that was the most interesting part.
• Tao331 5y ago
  Important bit of state from the Show-Don't-Tell Department: > “Due to unforeseen technical difficulties, RMS gave his talk over audio only.”
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • BashiBazouk 5y ago
    I was checking in every once in a while when it was live once the video crapped out. I popped in and he was trashing Zoom, which I found a tad ironic...
    • teddyh 5y ago
      I can, even without having heard it, assure you that he wasn’t disparaging the technology of Zoom.
      • BashiBazouk 5y ago
        Not anymore than any other technology he disparages: it's proprietary and steals your information, which is all likely true. But if he is using open source free software as a replacement, shouldn't he have tested and fixed said software? Isn't that his entire shtick? High minded ideals are great and all but at the end of the day the software needs to work and on that day it did not...
        • teddyh 5y ago
          > But if he is using open source free software as a replacement, shouldn't he have tested and fixed said software? You can’t put the onus on him to personally write and fix all software he uses. He has written quite large amounts of software, so I’d say he’s done more than his share. He is still, if only tangentially, involved in some software, and you could perhaps reasonably criticize him if he were using, say, Emacs to do his presentation, and there was a bug preventing him.
• CoolGuySteve 5y ago
  > But typically these games are not solitaire; you're playing with other people. And using a non-free program together with other people? That's particularly bad. Because it means that those people are pressuring each other to keep running that non-free program. I wonder what Stallman would say about anticheat software. Even people who don't care in the slightest about free software think anticheat is detestable. But without it, there's a client-side arms race against the server code which is a different kind of metagame than most players would want.
  • Arainach 5y ago
    >Even people who don't care in the slightest about free software think anticheat is detestable. [[Citation Needed]]. Trying to play a multiplayer game that doesn't implement effective anticheat is miserable. The arms race is unfortunate but 100% understandable, and I wouldn't play any game that doesn't implement some form of it.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • nighthawk454 5y ago
      Bit of a false dichotomy. Detesting anticheat doesn't mean you support none (and therefore enjoy rampant cheating). More probably, the point here is most anticheats are very invasive and harmful to privacy, while also degrading game performance and often being ineffective at preventing cheaters.
      • TulliusCicero 5y ago
        > More probably, the point here is most anticheats are very invasive and harmful to privacy, while also degrading game performance and often being ineffective at preventing cheaters. [Citation needed] at the last part. Of course they're not gonna prevent 100% of cheaters, but I have doubts that they don't do anything.
        • 5y ago
• cmeacham98 5y ago
  > “Well, first of all, I don't think there's anything bad about playing a game. Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it. I get that Stallman's shtick is being as hardline as possible about free software, but it really feels like sometimes this hurts the free software movement. Imagine trying to bring in a normal, non-technical person who plays video games as one of their hobbies (describes a lot of my friends at least), and they see this quote. Immediately, it feels bullshit and dumb to them - non-free games (which make up 99.999% of the market) are "harmful for them"? It's hard enough for me (a trusted friend) to explain the free software movement to them after seeing stuff like this, imagine a random person just stumbling upon it. And yes, every community has their super-idealistic members that make extreme hyperbolic statements, but the problem is that Richard Stallman is one of the most influential and respected members of the movement (and the founder of it!). Sometimes I feel like we could get a lot more done for free software with a tiny bit of pragmatism - for example, in the video game space, pushing for Valve to open source the Steam client, which feels like the most likely high-impact goal to push for rather than the lost battle of trying to change the entire industry at once.
  • dangom 5y ago
    Stallman has a vision that you and I should be typing our comments and playing our games from machines that are under our control, i.e., whereby we can inspect and modify all of the code that is running on them. That is not the case, and all Stallman is saying, is that this is bad for us. The Free Software Foundation was founded in 1985. From there since Free Software has only lost ground. I don't think Stallman would agree that "lack of pragmatism" is really what's stopping things from changing for better.
    • worik 5y ago
      > From there since Free Software has only lost ground No it has not. I exclusively use Free Software outside my working life (for my sins, developing iOS software with Swift. A bit like Linux in 1997 - it mostly works)
    • TulliusCicero 5y ago
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
  Stallman reminds me of a character in a Greek tragedy. He ends up bringing in the very thing he is fighting against. He makes GPL to give users control over programs. Companies end up using GPL software to power server side software which ends up giving users even less control than proprietary on-device software. He makes GCC to break free of vendors dominating compiler development. IBM(through Redhat) ends up being the major GCC contributor. He is worried that companies will use their proprietary software that is sold in exchange for money to maximize revenue by squeezing users. Companies and up using open source software to create proprietary services that are sold in exchange for attention, and to maximize revenue optimize for “engagement” which is now tearing society apart. Most computer users are using proprietary systems, but now they are cheaper to build thanks to open source software. Who had/has more control over their data, a Windows 95 user running Microsoft Office on a PC, or a modern Chromebook user running Google Docs? The later incorporates a lot more open source software.
  • omoikane 5y ago
    Related, the reason why Clang was created is because GCC was specifically made to prevent it from being used with non-free software. You can find that quote around 3:17 of this talk: https://youtu.be/NURiiQatBXA?t=185 https://youtu.be/NURiiQatBXA?t=185 It turned out to be easier in the long run to write a compiler from scratch, than to work with GCC.
  • celeritascelery 5y ago
    And related to that I find that free-software focus often misses one of the biggest issues of our day; privacy. I care much more about software privacy then I do about software freedom (though I still want both). But when the FSF was founded the internet didn’t exist (so privacy was not as much a concern) and they have never brought that under their umbrella. Even though they are very related concepts.
  • jcelerier 5y ago
    On the other hand it's 2022 and my GNU/Linux/KDE system is very close from 100% free software, and allows to do pretty much anything I want - audio and video creation and editing with Kdenlive, LMMS, Ardour, writing and typesetting (I mostly use LaTeX but LibreOffice works well enough to be used in most of the administration of my country - I'm nearly 30 and have had the luck of almost never having been exposed to MS Office either in school or professionaly), making presentations (I use QML but there's LO, Beamer or whatever Markdown or JS presentation framework of the day), browsing the web with firefox, managing and processing RAW pictures with Darktable, and then there are entire toolchains and development tools which are more than competitive with proprietary alternatives... and I forget a ton of things. I am thankful every day of being able to live in the world where this is possible and having been able to do so from a quite young age - at first because when I was a kid my parents did not have the money to buy any software at all so learning how to use free software & systems has quickly been a necessity, and now because I know that whenever there's a bug somewhere in the stack I have good chances of being able to peek at the exact issue and if not fixing it myself, at least reporting it to the person who most likely wrote the code almost directly .
• doener 5y ago
• jrm4 5y ago
  I really think far too many people are missing why Stallman and the FSF are so valuable. It's not that everyone should behave exactly like them; it's that they provide a useful extreme endpoint such that there can exist a reasonable "Overton Window" of Free/Open Source/ Whatever Software. I 100% support what they do and preach knowing FULL well I will likely never 100% do as they recommend. That's not actually a big problem.
  • charcircuit 5y ago
    Open source would still exist without Stallman and the FSF. There is a practical benefit to open source software and calling people / companies evil / unethical for not open sourcing everything is not as helpful as the FSF may think.
    • jrm4 5y ago
      Considering Stallman's Free Software predates "Open Source" I'm not sure it actually would, or if it did, it would likely be less free. And again, helpful to whom? Yes. Stallman's no diplomat or ambassador, but that's not the job he's trying to do.
      • orionblastar 5y ago
        Free software is not no cost, it is free as in freedom. Didn't the FSF sell SunOS and Solaris free software when they first started out? It could be sold for the cost of maintenance or supporting the free software, which the user doesn't always get. With Microsoft and Apple the software is commercial and not free, but they do a good job of handholding the customer and working through bugs and technical issues over the phone.
      • analog31 5y ago
        Free software also predates "free software." People circulated programs within the science and hobbyists communities, as early as those communities existed. And before there was software, the ham radio community thrived on shared and published designs. With that said, I appreciate what Stallman has done, if nothing else, to shine light on what freedoms we're giving up, and on the contrasts between the different free and non-free models that are in use today.
• thraway3837 5y ago
• ivan_gammel 5y ago
  It won’t be major exaggeration to say that FSF and Stallman are irrelevant in 2022 and not much different from any other radical left group, struggling even to make sense for majority of people. The idea of completely free software where user could control the source code is an obsolete ideal. Not because it’s unviable economically, but because the size and complexity of modern software is far beyond the ability of individual users to reason about it based just on the source code and without any augmentation. Software is no longer result of work of a small village of intelligent individuals, it’s a product of a large and diverse society and other norms and customs should support our freedoms. Free software as an idea did exist only to check the corporations and the governments and to ensure they do not violate other rights. In our society an ordinary person does not do that themselves, this task is usually delegated to various institutions. In information society we need to establish such institutions for the software products and services and not limit it to the code only. FSF got the problem statement right, but their solution was naïve and is now de facto not working.
  • m463 5y ago
    I believe the GPL is Stallman's most lasting accomplishment and IMHO it's doing just fine. It allows all kinds of projects, big and small, to flourish like hardy organisms even in 2022. Stallman and the FSF help encourage and motivate its use.
    • ivan_gammel 5y ago
      Question: what is the share of software products released and used under GPL? What good do they do exactly to non-technical users, compared e.g. to Apache license or commercial no-cost licenses? There are obviously some successes, but in general GPL license is not popular - overwhelming majority of the software is not released under GPL and sometimes never released to the public.
      • csdreamer7 5y ago
        > Question: what is the share of software products released and used under GPL? What good do they do exactly to non-technical users, compared e.g. to Apache license or commercial no-cost licenses? Apache and commercial no-cost is not the same. If the vendor decides to cut support for a piece of software and introduce something new, bloated and costs more. I have the choice to hire a programmer to maintain the current thing with GPL and Apache if it is worth it. That is a very important benefit, I have the choice, many business owners do not understand that, but the IT people they hire do and can use that to protect their employer (and their jobs) from exploitative practices. The GPL ensures it stays that way years down the road while Apache suffers from the MIT issue Stallman had when he maintained a Lisp system on his own. His competitor took his MIT licensed code and did not give back. Those 'no-cost' licenses often become cost and very-costly in the future if they become popular enough with future versions. As for the software products: they are still very common. Look at Flatpak or Snap stores. Krita made quite a bit of money on the Microsoft store believe it or not. Paid for and free Linux distro products dominate the server market that run Linux and GPL userland tools. Some Apache licensed web components (Grafana) is moved over to the AGPL.
• xiphias2 5y ago
  ,, Macintoshes are moving towards being jails, like the iMonsters. It's getting harder for users to install even their own programs to run them.'' I feel this all the time, especially on my iPad Pro: I'm buying much more idevices than before, because I don't like the direction Windows has taken, and Apple gets always the newest TSMC slots (I buy the newest products from TSMC, they just happen to be made together with Apple).
  • GoblinSlayer 5y ago
    Reminds me of "I, robot": to provide public safety, just throw everyone in jail.
    • pygy_ 5y ago
      They're soft... Had they been looking into definitively getting rid of un happiness, they would have killed everyone ASAP.
      • chha 5y ago
        Already been done: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile_(Doctor_Who) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile_(Doctor_Who)
  • smackeyacky 5y ago
    It amazes me that the very first personal computer I had was effectively useless without being able to write your own software. It wasn"t an Apple ][ but they encouraged software development, it was a huge part of 8 bit culture. 40 years later, trying to get something running on a modern Mac is painful, and they gatekeep it with Xcode and a variety of user hostile features. They have become what they despised in that 1984 commercial. It makes me just a little angry. No wonder people are so nostalgic for 8 bit stuff.
    • joosters 5y ago
      40 years later, trying to get something running on a modern Mac is painful Right click on app, select ‘open’. If you get a prompt warning about an unknown developer, pick the option to run the app anyway. Getting angry about a prompt that you only ever see once (it won’t prompt you again) seems extreme.
• tambourine_man 5y ago
  > Due to unforeseen technical difficulties, RMS gave his talk over audio only I’m all for free software but that’s hilarious and symptomatic.
  • fsflover 5y ago
    AFAIK it was the problem with his Internet speed, not with software. He had the video stream in the beginning, but it was lagging.
• jhatemyjob 5y ago
  Took me a while to find the audio feed: https://media.libreplanet.org/mgoblin_media/media_entries/2730/rms-2022-state-of-the-free-software-movement.medium.webm https://media.libreplanet.org/mgoblin_media/media_entries/27...
• whowe1 5y ago
  I always appreciate people that live by their principles but some of this stuff is downright comical! Making other people buy things online for you to avoid using non-free javascript?! Lol
  • forgotmypw17 5y ago
    I kind of do this. I avoid using currency and have no credit cards but once in a blue moon need to buy something from online.
    • ad404b8a372f2b9 5y ago
      How do you function without currency? That is wild.
      • forgotmypw17 5y ago
        I started at being all-currency, the typical job-apartment-cat type scenario, and I gradually found replacements for each things I needed to function, sometimes with an uncomfortable transition in between. If you want details, there are some in my comment history.
      • forgotmypw17 5y ago
        Just wanted to follow up on your comment and link to a few older comments where I expand on how I do this. The basic premise is that I try to live off of society's excesses without pulling new things out of the supply chain. So I tend to sleep in public spaces, eat food that's left over from others, wear hand-me-down clothes or "shop" in free stores, and so on. When I need to travel, I ask around for someone driving the same way. For a few areas of my life, I still need new things, such as web hosting, occasional bus ticket, etc. For this, I allow others to interface with the currency system for me, and contribute to them in other ways, such as helping them with whatever they need help with. As far as the bigger picture, I contribute by constantly looking for and doing things which need help doing, such as: cleaning up trash where it's not cleaned up, lending an ear to someone who needs to talk, teaching what I know to others, and so on. I really resonate with the Steve Jobs quote that everything (man-made) around us was created by someone who had less knowledge and understanding of the world than we do today (because they did it in the past) and there's every reason to believe that each of us can do better if we put our mind to it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30321009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30321009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30043346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30043346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30042841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30042841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30043104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30043104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30042864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30042864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30043130 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30043130
• orionblastar 5y ago
  Locked down PCs and Macs. AMD and Intel and Apple are making security in their CPUs to lock down the computer. This locks out libre Operating systems like Linux from installing on them. It limits what the user can install and locks down the OS so it can only be installed from an official source not compiled from a tarball or downloaded off the Internet. I found that part of his speech to be interesting.
• bumblebritches5 5y ago
• bumblebritches5 5y ago
• creativemonkeys 5y ago
  In my experience, the American society places a high value on 'balance' - from "checks and balances" to balanced individuals, to balanced meals, to balancing criticism with some praise first, etc. When this balance is off, most people's innate reaction is to reject the imbalanced person, and by extension, their ideas, regardless of any objective measure of the value of those ideas. Being direct creates an imbalance, for example when one describes an issue or person purely from a negative point of view, regardless of whether all of it is actually true. Most people will innately attempt to say something positive about that same person to restore some sort of balance to the discussion. Generalizations are also an example of imbalance, with people typically having a strong reaction to it, even though I think most people would agree that if 97 times out of 100 something is true, it's safe to say that thing is true. Lastly, as a special case of generalizations, taking an absolute stance is also seen as imbalanced, and therefore bad, because, I assume, most things in life aren't black and white - there's lots of gray areas, so it's pragmatic to start out assuming that in actuality there's a gray area with any issue. This is all to say that Stallman doesn't speak in a balanced way, which is why I think his speeches and ideas do not appeal to the American audience, or any other audience that places a higher value on balance than on the actual ideas. If he were able to convey those same ideas in a less absolutist, more nuanced and more pragmatic manner, I think he, as a person, would be more appreciated in the US and perhaps people would listen more closely to what Stallman has to say. I've lived in several other countries, particularly in Europe, and generalizations, absolute positions and speaking in a direct manner are all generally appreciated by the society there, or at the very least it's tolerated much better and won't get you dismissed right away (since that's how most people speak). At the end of the day, I personally think Stallman is right. When I look at what he says, I see a non-compromising idealist who places more value on truth, and how things "ought to be", than on pleasantries and gray areas, and that's a difficult sell to the American audience. When I focus on his content with the understanding that he's converting gray into either black or white, I see a dreamer and a believer in a utopian society. I too would like to live in a world where all software is FOSS and we all write FOSS code that runs on FOSS hardware, but I recognize that's a dream. It shouldn't stop us from trying to make that dream a reality though.
• noobermin 5y ago
  I'll go ahead and shoot. The fact that this topic would be off-topic is just not true as the person speaking is in fact rms. Does this mean he is recuperated now? Everyone was calling him a pedophile and the FSF lost a lot of contacts over him being re-appointed. What does this mean then? Tbh, I was curious what happened since last year and I didn't realize at the time he was somewhat apologetic, and honestly, it is hard for me to determine a lot of the veracity of the claims around him at the time and more so now. That said, as a leader of FSF and the free software movement, is he now recuperated, because his reputation since this episode, due to the truth or not, is pretty bad now and his being seen as a continuing leader of the movement could be seen as a liability. Should he be recuperated or should he not be?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • thinkingemote 5y ago
    Interesting question, and the discussion does still need to be had. Let me try to give some insights: The FSF today has the highest membership it has ever had. Most new members joined in support of RMS last year in defence of the attacks on his reputation. The Foundation is doing very well now. One interesting (and little discussed) theory about the attack on RMS that I heard was that it was also an attack on the Free Software and the FSF as a kind of coup and championed by people working from and benefiting from the chip makers, corporations and manufacturers. Now there's is some evidence for that the majority of attackers were from that group, however I suspect it's more likely a correlation between the new kind of professional cultural standard of Silicon Valley highly paid technologists and their income sources, than any coordinated attack on Free Software in principle. There was some a relation between the more lax Open Source developers and the anti-RMS stance seen in previous times, but I think, again, it's not some conspiracy to take down Free Software but rather a relationship between the more pragmatic Open Source developers being able to work for the Silicon Valley industry and becoming part of that culture.
  • xunn0026 5y ago
    I see it the other way around. The "movement" does not exist without RMS. FSF itself is pretty woke nowadays so they have diluted and taken their mission in another direction. As for the RMS attacks, he did the heresy of thinking out loud on a private mailing list which do-gooders promptly leaked and framed. Your whole question is silly. He's not 'recuperated' since there's no authority to decide this. It's kinda hard when you replace institutions for woke mobs.
• wetpaws 5y ago
  Ten years ago I thought Stallman was a well meaning, but a bit cranked fanatic. Nowadays, I realize he was right all this time and we been blind.
• boneitis 5y ago
  Half an hour through the ~90min presentation, I was wondering about speech-to-text solutions out there to really skim through it. For anyone else who would similarly like to be able to skim through a transcription: https://pastebin.com/Fgrh68WY https://pastebin.com/Fgrh68WY Ran it through the Goog's speech to text. It's a quick paste of the raw pass, with no clean-up, although I added a couple of timestamps. Some irony in the choice of transcription engine, I know. I was mostly attracted to the OP's coverage of the upcoming "GNU C manual" publishing, and if anyone knows anything more about it, I'd love to hear it. With the light digging I've done so far, I'm not sure if it's supposed to be the same GNU C manual as listed at https://www.gnu.org/software/gnu-c-manual/ https://www.gnu.org/software/gnu-c-manual/ for which the latest revision was published in '16.
  • tjr 5y ago
    I was the main author on the manual you linked to. In 2012, Stallman contacted me about his new book, and with that forthcoming, I thought it made no sense for me to spend much more time on mine. So I never got quite finished it, and did only a few minor bug fix releases since then. I did not know it was going to be ten years until his came out! In any case, I did help him a bit on the new one, but not very recently. The main text, last I saw it, certainly spoke to the GCC dialect of C, and included some GCC historical footnotes, but the description he gave of the book sounds like he must have added even more GCC-specific content since I last saw a draft.
    • boneitis 5y ago
      Wow, I'm star-struck by the reach of HN. Thank you for the tidbit!
• MichaelMoser123 5y ago
  Did he say anything about cloud providers/the SaaS loophole? I mean they do anything with GPL licensed software, as distribution does not happen. The AGPL addresses this issue, but it does not seem to be used much. https://www.whitesourcesoftware.com/resources/blog/the-saas-loophole-in-gpl-open-source-licenses/ https://www.whitesourcesoftware.com/resources/blog/the-saas-...
  • GoblinSlayer 5y ago
    There's FSF's article on SaaSS. It's more about lending hardware resources. You wouldn't download a computer.
• csdreamer7 5y ago
  Around the 8 and 9 min mark RMS talks about old hardware losing software support, like 32 bit systems. I am a kernel developer and the kernel removes code for a lot of older systems all the time (often lesser known 32bit ARM systems). Phoronix reported that 5.18 removed the Andes NDS32 CPU arch code. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-518-features&num=1 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-51... The reason they do this is because a lot of these systems can break as the internal kAPIs change all the time and the users will not know since the embedded custom distro of software + kernel is not upgraded. Support can be broken for these arches for years until someone gets these systems second hand and posts about them, but may not care to fix it or it is cheaper to replace it. RMS calls this a major issue, specifically 32-bit support in Ubuntu. I do not agree. My last 32 bit computer died a long time ago after the battery died years ago. It was a Gateway so getting replacement parts would be difficult. I also was never able to get it to run Linux. Aside from my brother-in-law finding his old laptop no one I know uses 32 bit computers (well except for myself with my Pi Zero: ARM v6, which I used once). It just feels like the wrong battle to pick when Linux's biggest competitor is forcing practically all PCs to use a bootloader signed with their key. Major vendors can choose to refuse to allow users to install their own key. They are already locking CPUs (Ryzens) to their brand of motherboards with a builtin fuse provided by AMD. He of course talks about it-it just feels like the 32 bit part distracts from it.
  • enneff 5y ago
    Stallman is not a pragmatic guy. He picks all battles related to free software simultaneously.
    • thawaya3113 5y ago
      Which is why he is so needed. Pragmatism will always gravitate towards the “middle”. But the middle can never be truly found by pragmatism unless it can see either extreme. Without Stallman, the closed software extreme has a ton of supporters (Microsoft, Apple, etc) but the free software extreme has almost none. What Stallman does is define the free software extreme which allows the pragmatists to find a much better middle than if he wasn’t pushing that boundary.
• kmeisthax 5y ago
  >Some important packages are now distributed only through their non-freedom-respecting package system Wait, why is Ubuntu's package manager "not freedom respecting" but dpkg is? I thought snap was licensed under GPLv3. >It should be illegal to sell a computer that doesn't let users install software of their own from source code. Agreed, but this is such a low bar that even iOS meets it. Apple has never attempted to restrict users' ability to compile and run source code. In fact, for almost a decade now the automatic signing in Xcode will sign and provision your compiled code, even if you didn't have a verified and paid-up developer account. The App Store rules about not executing code outside the app bundle also have exceptions specifically for apps that let users load apps from source. The whole debate people are having about sideloading is specifically about distributing binaries; not source - Apple's security model is that you don't get to do that unless they can review your app. While I would much rather have an iPad that Apple just lets me unlock and accept the risk of doing so, and I do not oppose sideloading... I must point out that much of the people asking for sideloading are proprietary software vendors and not users. Being as vehemently opposed to proprietary software as RMS is means that he's actually on Apple's side of that debate, even though Apple is "the enemy" so to speak. The comments about Macs being more locked down I don't entirely understand. Apple's bent over backwards to keep a working owner override on Macs, both for the operating system as a whole and individual apps. If you want to run an untrusted binary[0], you right click the app bundle, accept the risk, and continue on with your day. If you want to run a third-party OS, there's a process to do that. Apple even engineered cryptographic verification of the owner account so that, instead of just "turning off Secure Boot" like on PC, you actually sign the new kernel you want to run with your owner key and still have some level of verification that the kernel hasn't been changed behind your back. This is basically "everything the FSF wanted for Secure Boot a decade ago", with the only downside being that it requires a locked-down boot chain in order to provide security guarantees. >Well, first of all, I don't think there's anything bad about playing a game. Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it. Ehhhheheh... Modern game design has basically turned a lot of games into microtransaction pumps. This is a more complicated issue than just "proprietary bad", because proprietary games used to be far less harmful than they are now. You used to just be able to buy a game and enjoy it, despite it being chained to standard no-touchy copyright terms. Yes, you were running non-free software, but the usual proprietary harms did not apply as they did for other kinds of software. Now they do: games are constantly making excessive time or money demands before you can actually have fun with it and their developers are employing all sorts of psychological tricks to get people to overspend in them. [0] I do want to point out that codesigning and notarization on macOS was a lot easier to set up than a lot of people have made it out to be.
• eyelidlessness 5y ago
  > Well, first of all, I don't think there's anything bad about playing a game. Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it. I prefer the freedom to decide what’s good for me, and at least thus far have a better track record identifying what would benefit me than RMS has. I don’t even care about video games, my go to is still winmine.exe but who is anyone to tell me I shouldn’t enjoy that?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • vhgyu75e6u 5y ago
    He seems so out of touch with reality, advocating for everything being free open source, specially games would have stopped many of the now cultural references that exists. Making games is hard, making good games is harder and needs a team both motivated and financially compensated.
    • zufallsheld 5y ago
      RMS does not mean free as in free bear but as in Libre.
      • tluyben2 5y ago
        He sure does but that still would form many issues with compensation as we have seen, many times, with open source companies. Everyone shouts red hat or something but that’s one exception; most other people who make Libre software, die of hunger under a bridge, or, more likely, have a day time job and simply will drop the Libre project when things get too busy. This is why companies now go from Libre to something quasi Libre to try to make money. There are some Libre (supabase for instance) projects now getting fairly large amounts of VC cash to get going, but once they have to ‘stand on their own legs’ usually pattern emerge that are not Libre to pay back (provide ROI to) the investors and then some. I wish we would find a way to properly do this; I would insist on creating only Libre software, but for now, it is fairly random if it will make money while closed (saas) software is much more straight forward as in; if I have clients, I make money. With Libre software that I ask money for, I might have 100k stars and a lovely following while making no money at all.
• chrismsimpson 5y ago
  Another religious zealot pontificating over Easter
• okareaman 5y ago
  From what I can tell, RMS asserts we have the right to inspect the source code of the software that runs on our machines. What is the source of this right? Is it a universal human right? A self-evident inalienable right? Did RMS want to hack a printer one day and found he couldn't so he made up a right for us? Why are people who ship closed software evil? For someone who goes around moralizing and judging others, RMS always seemed to me on shaky ground. Does he have a better way for programmers to earn a living for their hard work besides writing closed software for companies to sell? He comes off to me as a crank and a scold on a power trip to control people.
  • betwixthewires 5y ago
    Well, the reasoning is that the machine is our property, our resources are used to run it, so we should be able to decide what runs on it. We can, of course, waive that right on a per case basis and run proprietary software, but we shouldn't, or at least we should be wary of it and avoid normalizing it. If you decide you will not run any software on your machine who's source is unavailable to you, that is your right. It's your property.
    • okareaman 5y ago
      Yes and if RMS doesn't like Apple Computers he doesn't have to use them. It's not his business if I decide Apple Computers are acceptable to me.
      • betwixthewires 5y ago
        Okay, but that's not his point. His point is companies that prevent you from running what software you want to run are violating the rights of people.
  • passivate 5y ago
    I don't know if you know this - all rights are made up. To the extent that we can convince others to adopt/agree to them, they can be considered universal, but otherwise they don't mean anything. It remains to be shown, but I would imagine plenty of people would be on-board with having the right to inspect inner workings of things they purchase - including firmware/software as most products have become heavily or completely reliant on software. I think there is a role for commercial proprietary software in our society and so I don't agree with the mission of FSF, but I respect anyone willing to fight for their beliefs.
• gigatexal 5y ago
  lol why is Stallman on HN? He’s not relevant to anything anymore. His hardline stances on free software only aren’t practical. Also, as a person, he’s a bit creepy. I thought we as a community of open source folks moved on and chose better more practical champions. :shrug:
• Vladimof 5y ago
  First time I hear about https://libreplanet.org https://libreplanet.org
• waplot 5y ago
  > Now, more free games? It doesn't satisfy an urgent practical need, obviously... But the crucial thing is, free ones might make it easier for some people to say, 'Let's move off this non-free thing, and play a game that is free. So we can have the same pleasure, but without paying freedom as the price.'“ i'm sorry but i just can't read this without laughing. what does stallman think gamers are like? i can only imagine the average teenage gamer trying to get their friends to stop playing virtually every game on the market and instead play some obscure game and trying to teach them how to install gcc and git to get it running
  • DoingIsLearning 5y ago
    Just because it isn't realistic in today's AAA world doesn't mean the man is wrong. As a matter of principle he is right but for practical reasons increasing harder to apply.
    • TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
      Stallman is not right as a matter of principle. His vision of open computing is self-centred and user hostile. It's basically MIT CS Lab computing at scale. It's not even a new idea. Open source was a thing before Stallman - see for example DECUS tape sharing - and it will continue to be a thing long after him. But it's not enough. Genuinely open computing would make customisation and sharing available to everyone, not just tinkerers who know what a command line is. Modern FOSS is the exact opposite of open computing. Computing affordances are trapped inside an inaccessible technical monolith instead of an inaccessible corporate monolith. To most of the population there is zero difference between the two.
      • car_analogy 5y ago
        > Genuinely open computing would make customisation and sharing available to everyone, not just tinkerers who know what a command line is. ..you're blaming FOSS for not solving the "programming is hard" problem? > To most of the population there is zero difference between the two. Yes, if you ignore all the secondary and ecosystem effects, such as getting to use the resulting free software. I have not once looked at the source of the linux kernel, GNOME, KDE, or Firefox, yet I benefit enormously from the development method and spirit that gave birth to them. That is not zero difference.
• chmod600 5y ago
  Has RMS commented on the frame.work laptop?
• waplot 5y ago
  till this day, i still don't know what RMS's agenda is. can someone enlighten me?
  • yesenadam 5y ago
    Have a look around on the GNU site. He's a great, inspiring writer. e.g. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/essays-and-articles.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/essays-and-articles.html
    • sneak 5y ago
      Not his philosophy; that is abundantly clear. I too am completely at a loss for what his actual agenda is.
      • yesenadam 5y ago
        I never know what that means. People seem to only use it about people they don't like. Seems like Russell conjugation - I have a vision, you have plans, they have an agenda. What's your (actual) agenda? p.s. Thinking more about it, it doesn't seem a question that ever has an answer. Seems like it means something like "I don't like that person, what they believe, what they say or what they do. They're so different from me I can't believe they're for real. So I'm going to insinuate they're guided by some concealed nefarious scheme. I heard a right-wing person use the phrase and I thought it was a pretty cool and effective debate tactic. Makes me sound like I've easily seen through their amateurish attempt at deception." Please correct me if I'm wrong, and it's actually a genuine question.
        • sneak 5y ago
          Potential answers to "What is rms's agenda?": * spread his free software ethics philosophy to as wide an audience as possible * persuade nonfree software developers to produce free software instead * persuade software users to abandon use of nonfree software * persuade software users to use free software instead of nonfree software Think of it as a to-do list. What does rms want to happen as a result of his speaking? Education? Persuasion? Improved conditions for working software developers? Improved conditions for software end-users? What is he trying to accomplish? The majority of the things he says seem like compulsive statements based out of his (obviously steadfast and unwavering) belief that nonfree software is unethical. The fact is, though, that inanimate things cannot be unethical. Ethics is a matter of human behavior. So, does he want some or all of the following: * employees of companies that make nonfree software to quit? * owners/managers of companies that make nonfree software to dissolve their organizations? * owners/managers of companies that make nonfree software to make only free software instead? * owners/managers of companies that make nonfree software to set policies banning the use of nonfree software in their organizations? * people not in software to get into software to make more free software to make the world more ethical? * legislatures to ban companies like Google who exist only on the basis of extensive use of nonfree software? It's not really clear what he's asking, and of whom. Who's the audience, and what does he want them to do, or cease doing? Why does he want them to do (or stop doing) that? Why should they? If the answer to the last is "because of rms's ethics", then why should they adopt his ethical framework over their current one (where there's nothing wrong with producing, selling, or using nonfree software)? There are so many unanswered questions with rms.
• zzo38computer 5y ago
  > Ubuntu of course is a non-free distro, and I wouldn't recommend that anyone use it. I use Ubuntu because it came with the computer, although it is a old version, and I have removed many of the included packages. (If I was setting it up myself, then I might prefer one without systemd (and without Wayland, if possible); I would also need it to be based on free software, although I do not require that the package manager does not include non-free software, just that installing those packages must not be required.) > What's getting worse? Well, the libre-booted machines that we have are getting older and scarcer. Finding a way to support something new is difficult, because Intel and AMD are both designing their hardware to subjugate people. Yes, this is a problem (there are other problems with modern x86, and modern computers in general (e.g. USB and HDMI and UEFI), too). We will need better ones; I have many ideas about it, although none have been implemented (some other people also have some ideas that I think are good). > Well, first of all, I don't think there's anything bad about playing a game. Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it. ... But typically these games are not solitaire; you're playing with other people. Actually, many games are solitaire, or at least the ones that I play, are. However, emulated games are one case where I might use non-free software (although free software is still better for many reasons). > Now, more free games? It doesn't satisfy an urgent practical need, obviously... Well, there are people who write them (including myself), and there are many available. > Planned obsolescence causes a lot of waste. I agree; planned obsolescence is one of the bad ideas they have with many modern computers. They mention some problems, there. > Stallman announcing a Manual for GNU C Of course there is already a manual for GCC, but this look like a manual for learning programming in C, specific to GNU C. I think this is a good idea; the official standard is nonfree and contains many complicated and usually irrelevant stuff, so having a free manual will be an improvement, I think.
  • pxeger1 5y ago
    > without Wayland, if possible What's wrong with Wayland?
    • robonerd 5y ago
      Speaking for myself and my computer: 15-25% performance loss in games (OpenMW and Minecraft specifically) with no apparent upside. I use X11 kwin with compositing on a laptop with Intel graphics, I don't get any screen tearing with this configuration, so what's the point of Wayland?
• AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  The sad part of RMS being called a fanatic and unrealistic, is that the things he predicted about jailed hardware, software restrictions, and the like have steadily become more and more true. App stores, the m1 macs, etc. And all under the guise of "security". Meanwhile we experienced the mother of all "county password inspector" hacks last month.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• syntheweave 5y ago
  Stallman has basically served his purpose at this point. The path forward is not further awareness-building of Free Software, because everyone is in the orbit of GPL-licensed software now. It is a problem of creating economic incentives for a commons in computing technologies. Recall that the thing that kicked off the need for Free Software in the first place was the 1970's move to an enclosure of software under IP law to enable the existence of a "software industry" built on shrink-wrapped products. This move often comes in tandem with hostility towards users and non-repairability, but the underlying key point is that of ownership vs stewardship. What has made the OSS/free world work historically is a dependency on a few key organizations like the FSF or Red Hat that finagled some marginal and often self-interested incentives for the creation and maintenance of the software. Much of it had huge gaps in function or documentation that gave open source an elitist image, of the "we use it internally but we can't tell you how to set it up" sort. But more recently, we've see the rise of the Patreon developer, who can command some pretty big bucks by being a visible leader in a popular open project. You don't actually need a huge number of those to substantially propel projects forward, since if they do the job well, the drive-by contributors are much more effective, and more user issues get addressed. That is an example of how stewardship is starting to take over software. It is not an evenly distributed phenomenon, and brings certain inequities of its own, but there's some potential to devise better standard arrangements of this sort.
  • einpoklum 5y ago
    > The path forward is not further awareness-building of Free Software, because everyone is in the orbit of GPL-licensed software now. I'm not so certain. There has been a strong pull away from GPL software towards weakly-licensed software, which is difficult to resist. Hell, _I_ have not been able to resist, and my publicly-available software is 3-BSD-licensed. So, I would say that advocacy for GPL-style licensing and virally-FOSS software is still very much necessary. The same goes for many of the principles RMS argues for. > What has made the OSS/free world work historically is a dependency on a few key organizations like the FSF or Red Hat No. Since the software is free, we are not dependent on an organization maintaining it. Naturally, if the maintainer "drops" a piece of software, that is a problem and a challenge, but still. > Much of it had huge gaps in function or documentation that gave open source an elitist image Unlike commercial software, free software is unusable if Joe User can't it figure out themselves. So, without documentation and relative consistence of functionality - it's of very little public use. > we've see the rise of the Patreon developer, No, we haven't. What fraction of FOSS developer can use that as a living? I'd be surprised if it's 1 in 5,000. > who can command some pretty big bucks by being a visible leader in a popular open project. Again, very few projects are this bug. Most FOSS projects have a small number of users.
• tannhaeuser 5y ago
  Missing a reflection about how abundance of F/OSS has pushed us towards SaaS as one of the few places left to make a living from pure software dev, and the oligopolies arising out of it. What about Linux (Android) being used as the prime spyware vector, and Linux being used for cloud lock-in (k8s et al)? Also missing a discussion about the role of open standards as opposed to open implementations, such as POSIX/LSB, picture and A/V formats for personal storage and streaming, standards for messaging, and the absence of a GNU/Browser despite the presence of so-called web standards.
  • fsflover 5y ago
    > What about Linux (Android) being used as the prime spyware vector To deal with that, consider using GNU/Linux phone Librem 5 recommended by the FSF: https://www.fsf.org/givingguide https://www.fsf.org/givingguide. > and Linux being used for cloud lock-in What do you want to discuss here? There is always a possibility to use tools for the evil. Non-free software is used for that, too (much more).
    • jdbernard 5y ago
      I've been waiting for my Librem 5 (that I paid for) for four years...
      • fsflover 5y ago
        Same here. However they do have a good reason for that now: https://forums.puri.sm/t/i-mx-8m-quad-availability-and-prices-in-2022/17014 https://forums.puri.sm/t/i-mx-8m-quad-availability-and-price....
        • jdbernard 5y ago
          Right, and I'm actually still OK with it. This was always a "it would be really nice if this was a thing" play on my end. Just calling out that it's not really the option that the parent post implied.
• larodi 5y ago
  Back in the 90s in a country that had just changed from communist to democracy, Stallman really looked like a cool guy, a Robin Hood kinda guy. Because you know what - the communist block actually encouraged piracy, and this free software thing was top of the pops. And the idea of free software, how its created, used, etc... is in a way (to me)... very social, perhaps even very communist by its nature. Then the first photo I saw of Stallman made me wonder if perhaps he is some kind of Rainbow Gathering type of hippie. Well, fair enough - I appreciate the Rainbow Gathering myself, very liberating... but even there people know that free lunch does note exist. So the general question about free software is who pays for it. Who pays for the development. It seems that unless it is paid for by governments or universities, the math does not add. Then there is this lack of distinction of what is core package, and business application. Certainly some parts of a larger project may be open-sourced, and even made free, but some can not. So this generalization of "software" and "free" is at best very childish. Now don't get me wrong, we've all used pirated software around here, and also used free software, shareware, all kinds of it. And now some tens of years later people also are still very confused about how open source differs from free software. And some of the Richard Stallman fans are even more confused, since one of the major open source supporters in recent years is the once-perceived-very-evil Microsoft... The argument by some commenters here regarding the cloud lock-in is so valid. It is what we are facing as the biggest challenge - that we don't even see or touch the software that run the businesses anymore. Free or not. Is not on our premises. And least but not last - I'm more interested in having open access to data created with free/open software and standards alike. What good is a government running free software, when its output is closed, not searchable, not accessible by reasonable APIs? I mean - who cares what CSV, DOCX, SHP, PSDs were created with, if they value 100x the software used?
• rurban 5y ago
  Original transcript: https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/04/16/238221/richard-stallman-calls-for-software-package-systems-that-help-maintain-your-freedoms https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/04/16/238221/richard-stal...
• TheGigaChad 5y ago
• kkfx 5y ago
  There are two important point we can all see: desktop hw is more and more full of crappy firmware, more and more invasive, powerful in capabilities, out of our control etc AND there is a clear trend to converge toward the mobile world with is actually the worst IT world we have ever seen in closeness and surveillance terms. It's clear that in a not so far future having Windows ad EFI fw and a distro as a WSL application could be the sole choice for most. Similarly the packaging part: actual trend to "sell" containers, pre-build images is a clear trend toward a proprietary world sold as FLOSS just because somewhere there is some code available. Just consider this: we do not need snap, appimages, flatpack, docker images, ... we have cgroups if isolation is needed and we have NixOS/Guix System. Commercial software, OpenSource-enterprise etc need those tools. Try to imaging why observing how real FLOSS development model was there in the recent past, the role of packagers. Unfortunately most devs are born trained to proprietary development model sold as the best and sole paradigm, they can't even imaging something different than copy-cutting GAFAM models.
• jasoneckert 5y ago
  From reading the other comments here, I understand that it's easy to pick something RMS said and say "Yeah, right..." But you have to keep in mind that RMS advocates the free software philosophy - the complete left end of the software spectrum - the white angel on your shoulder (not the red devil on the other). And while I find some of his points too radical to implement practically in my own situation, I believe it's very important that we have someone like him in the tech world. As a result, whenever there is a RMS talk, I listen to it. And each time I gain new and valuable perspectives about free software that help guide future decisions.
  • synergy20 5y ago
    You're so correct, can't agree more. Nobody is perfect, focus on one's strength serves everyone better.
    • giraffe_lady 5y ago
      It's just... curious that you rarely see this kind of grace extended to other sorts of radicals and subversives. Not that it doesn't happen ever, but there seem to be certain subjects where we appreciate this role and others where we don't.
  • geofft 5y ago
    > But you have to keep in mind that RMS advocates the free software philosophy - the complete left end of the software spectrum I don't think this is true! There are notable portions of the free software community that are farther left (or whatever direction you may consider it to be) than Stallman and GNU. Debian, for instance, rejects the GFDL as a non-free license when the "invariant sections" or "cover texts" mechanisms are used. These are clauses that allow GFDL documents to include words or even entire chapters that cannot be modified or removed from copies of the document. Stallman uses this clause to include a section about the ethics of the free software movement in documents like the GCC manual. Now, explaining the ethics of the free software movement is of course an important cause. But the manner in which this is done - preventing the GCC manual, or portions of it, from being freely modified in its entirety, from being recombined freely with other documents or code with otherwise-compatible licenses - is, in the view of Debian and others, incompatible with the free software philosophy. This is a farther / more radical view. Stallman's view is that making some unmodifiable and unremovable sections in an otherwise-free work is an acceptable compromise. Debian's view is that there is no room for compromise. And Debian is an entire (and quite influential) Linux distribution. Or take the AGPL, for instance, sponsored by now-defunct startup Affero. There are many people (myself included) who believe the AGPL is a restriction on use, freedom 0, because it prevents you from using AGPL software in certain contexts where the requirements cannot be fulfilled. Suppose I find some AGPL code with a neat algorithm for a session cache, or something, and I want to incorporate that into a TLS library. There is absolutely no way to fulfill the AGPL's requirement to make source code available to users who interact with my code over the network. The clause triggers, because users are indeed interacting over the network, but since there's no TLS extension to offer source, I can't actually do so. This is, it seems to me, as much of a restriction on use as "You can't use this in commercial settings" or "You can't use this for military applications." There's a reason that even GNU still uses the GPL for much of its software - they know the AGPL would make lots of their code effectively unusable in contexts where it ought to be usable. Or, in the left-libertarian direction, consider the folks who want to abolish copyright entirely. The GPL fundamentally relies on copyright law, else it cannot have its particular effect over the MIT/BSD/etc. licenses where it requires redistributing source along with binaries. The GPLv2 itself starts by saying, "To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions" - there is a coherent political view that this is contradictory. There is certainly a popular view, popular among the BSDs and others, that those licenses are freer than the GNU ones. But there is also the farther and more radical view that even the MIT and BSD licenses are a compromise, and the goal should be questioning the validity of software copyrights the same way much of the free software community questions the validity of software patents. (In fact, among non-experts, you can find a very common view that because something is released to the public in certain ways it ought to be "public domain." The Berne rule of every creative work being automatically copyrighted isn't clearly obvious to the general public, and it's a relatively recent rule, too!) Stallman is influential, yes, and very passionate. But that's entirely different from him being all the way at the end of the range of discourse. It is worth listening to folks whose positions are less well-known but more radical.
• ineedasername 5y ago
  >Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it I'm all for free software and the less-free open source licenses out there, but the above sentiment is a form of fundamentalism that I think alienates people and makes them view FS as represent by RMS as extremist and somewhat irrational. We don't insist that all movies should be released with accompanying raw footage, or that authors should release all their drafts and editors' notes. These are basically the source code if those creative works. I know, the analogy isn't perfect, but I think it gets at some of the problems with taking this to an extreme.
  • dwringer 5y ago
    I think in that example the analogy might be more along the lines of studios who come down hard on fan fiction, forbidding it, versus those that allow it or even encourage or draw inspiration from it. Although my analogy falls short because even studios that don't allow fan fiction can't be as restrictive as most software, since everyone is still free to come up with fan fiction in the privacy of their own home. Not so with closed source software. Therein lies the fundamental difference with software: Movie intellectual property is all stuff that's right there, and the audience can see it. With software, the algorithms are often totally opaque to the user.
    • ineedasername 5y ago
      I'm not so sure. Movie aren't all there to see. A vast majority of work to get movies to look & sound like they do happen behind the scenes, off the set, in editing rooms where color corrections, sound effects, cgi, and countless other tweaks are made. That's as much the source code equivalent as the final product. The final product is more like a picture of (some) source code and UI rolled into one.
      • dwringer 5y ago
        Free software doesn't mean you get to see all the hard work that went into it, though, or that you get to see all the UML diagrams, or napkins, or other design documents. You might not even get all the supporting code, if it isn't required to build the software from the freely-released source (think about what kind of emacs configs developers might use in developing free software, but never release). That's not really what's at issue. Those things you mentioned behind the scenes of a film do not have ongoing side-effects on the audience. The hidden algorithms and obfuscated execution of non-free software do.
• bjourne 5y ago
  This is a pretty good way of describing what C programming is like: "It's not just that there are a lot of details in the C standard. It's written in terms of abstractions. Instead of telling you what the program means, it tells you what the program is permitted to mean."
• DonBarredora 5y ago
  This guy is and has always been a fanatic, and completely out of touch with reality.