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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

• 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.
    • charcircuit 5y ago
      It's not like permissive licenses are a crazy hard concept to figure out. It's not like Fermat's last theorem where there is a large challenge in discovering a proof. Sure it may not be labelled as "Open Source", but there would be something similar. Also I believe there is a good chance that software would be more free due to copyleft licenses potentially not gaining momentum.
      • jrm4 5y ago
        They're not hard, and I think Stallman et al figured them out way long ago, and they are why they created free software. Roughly, "permissive" ends up meaning "bad faith actors are permitted to take advantage of others' spirit of sharing."
  • rnd0 5y ago
    Open Source in the OSI sense of the term was created as a reaction to the Free Software movement so I'm guessing probably not. It's more likely that we'd have the situation we had with UNIX; incompatible forks tied to incrutable hardware drivers that no one can fix with a zillion different combinations so that when you sat down at a terminal you had no idea what to do -thanks to people being able to take the BSD/MIT software and create their own contrarian forks. GNU wasn't innovative because it was free, or even because it's source was free. It was innovative because it forced people to play nice. The UNIX Wars demonstrated how well people play with others when left to their own desires (not at all).
• alanbernstein 5y ago
  I like to think that a goal does not necessarily need to be achievable in order to be valuable.
  • jrm4 5y ago
    Correct, this is why I relatedly believe the Linux Desktop is actually a ridiculously huge success. I don't compare it by percentage of market share, I compare it do "how garbage would desktops be if Linux wasn't around to provide useful pressure?"
    • giantrobot 5y ago
      > I compare it do "how garbage would desktops be if Linux wasn't around to provide useful pressure?" In what world does Linux on the desktop provide "useful pressure" to anyone? The only Linux "desktop" that has provided any pressure on the desktop to Microsoft and Apple is ChromeOS. ChromeOS is decidedly not a "Linux desktop". If Google flipped ChromeOS to Fuchsia tomorrow it would provide the same pressure with zero Linux.
      • bscphil 5y ago
        I mean, there's an argument to be made that Android / ChromeOS / Fuchsia wouldn't exist without Linux either (i.e. not exist as they are or in some similar open source variation). They don't stand quite as independently as you suggest here.
        • giantrobot 5y ago
          The comment I replied to was specifically about Linux on the desktop, not Linux in general. I didn't claim Android etc wouldn't exist without Linux. Linux on the desktop is just irrelevant to commercial desktop OSes. Microsoft, Apple, and Google don't care one iota about the latest updates to GNOME or KDE. Third parties don't care about the Linux desktop either. If Linux is even considered it's a distant third place. If Electron dropped Linux support tomorrow a good number of applications would drop Linux support the next day. Even the likes of Valve supporting Linux is more of a hedge against Microsoft than anything compelling about desktop environments on Linux.
• Beltalowda 5y ago
  I don't really see how this is valuable, and I see a lot of ways in which this is harmful to the cause. It's not explaining the message very well, it's actively turning people off, and it's preventing some free software from being as useful as it could be. You can keep long-term goals in mind while also working towards smaller short-term goals. Almost every political party and lobby organisation in the world is doing exactly that. Here Stallman again rails against Ubuntu. Okay, maybe Ubuntu isn't perfect, but s/Microsoft windows/Ubuntu/ would be quite an improvement, and especially since the 100% free/libre stuff he recommends are caveated to hell it's the only pragmatic/realistic option there is right now – not necessarily Ubuntu itself, but some distro which includes the same firmware, nVidia drivers, and such. And if a lot of people are actually running Ubuntu/Linux you end up having a lot more leverage. By focusing only on the endpoint you're actually doing more short-term thinking rather than playing the long game.
  • colordrops 5y ago
    The cause would likely not exist or at least be much weaker if not for Stallman and the FSF and GNU. Ubuntu isn't going to stop what they are doing because of Stallman's ideas. Love your username btw.
    • Beltalowda 5y ago
      > The cause would likely not exist or at least be much weaker if not for Stallman and the FSF and GNU. Sure, but that was back in the 80s and this is now. That someone had a lot of good ideas and did good work 35 years ago doesn't mean they're not hampering it today. I once worked for a business where the owner worked very hard to build things up (or so I heard), but when I worked there all he really used his business for was to show his boyfriends around to impress them or something; I rarely saw him. That's all fine, except that the business was directionless and basic stuff wasn't getting done (like, say, my employment contract). Eventually there was a bit of an intervention and he was ousted (his dad also owned part of the company), which was badly needed because he was really running things in to the ground, in spite of having built it up in the first place. > Ubuntu isn't going to stop what they are doing because of Stallman's ideas. No, but the FSF could be promoting Ubuntu instead of railing against it. If I'm interested in Free Software and find the FSF website then all I get are unpractical solutions. But what the FSF really should be doing is lobby this kind of thing with governments, schools, corporations and such.
• FpUser 5y ago
  I do not always like FSF and Stallman and their policies. Still I am in complete agreement that they do provide enormous value to the software world in and to the betterment of our lives in general.
• colordrops 5y ago
  > "tying people down, strapping them into their chairs so that they can't do anything that hurts themselves -- makes things worse, not better." Stallman could have been talking about censorship and deplatforming here and it still would have made sense. His (and my) generation seem to care a lot more about idealistic freedoms than we do now as a society.
  • orionblastar 5y ago
    Censorship and deplatforming are ways of making the competition shut up. If someone has a different opinion than you do, they should have free speech to say it. Within reason of course, nobody wants Nazis or Pedophiles to spread their opinions because they are obscene. This is why Musk is trying to buy out Twitter, and he is trolling them with his wealth. Don't forget removal from the APP Store or blocked by proxies. Information still wants to be free, not stifled by tyrants just for being different opinions than the shareholders have. Remember there is a reason why people want to root their phone, they want the freedom to install any app they wish to install. The more it gets locked down, the more people are going to find ways to unlock it. Instead of deplatforming and censorship, ratings should be used instead for people to decide what they are going to read.
    • laverya 5y ago
      > nobody wants Nazis or Pedophiles to spread their opinions because they are obscene. I want both sets of people to expose their views to the public. Disgusting though these views may be, it is safer for society if individuals are able to check and decide that someone else's views are reprehensible. If the people are merely told such by authorities, with the "offending" content immediately removed, then the authorities have enormous power to expand the definition of "offending" when it pleases them to do so.
      • GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
        People aren’t ironclad in their current views of right and wrong for all topics, its possible to convince people of really anything with enough exposure
• na85 5y ago
  • jrm4 5y ago
    I honestly can't conceive of what this "Serious FSF" that you imagine would look like? Meaning, I can't think of any similar "movement" that succeeds by having a camera-friendly diplomatic leader -- unless you're thinking about going "full politics?" There's no "vegan leader person" or "financial literacy leader person" or "animal cruelty leader person," etc. Not even "environment person," though you do get your occasional Greta Thunberg or Al Gore, but that's different from what you're saying here.
    • na85 5y ago
      >I honestly can't conceive of what this "Serious FSF" that you imagine would look like? Well mostly it would look like an FSF that doesn't eat toejam on camera, and instead of giving the same tired lecture about the 4 freedoms, they actually go out and do productive things like put on workshops for college students to install trisquel or whatever. Instead of wasting countless hours sponsoring dumb stuff like the GNU Name System they could be writing open wifi/bluetooth stacks that support more than 802.11g, since connectivity is usually the #1 reason people won't run fully-free stacks on their laptops (or at least it's a big reason I won't), or if not that then how about getting governments to run Linux and helping them do so? They could operate a consultancy to bring in some operating income. >Meaning, I can't think of any similar "movement" that succeeds by having a camera-friendly diplomatic leader -- unless you're thinking about going "full politics?" Are you unaware that the Free Software Movement is a political movement first and foremost? People think it's a technical thing but technical excellence has always been secondary to political/ethical purity for GNU/FSF as evidenced by things like HURD and gnutls. >There's no "vegan leader person" or "financial literacy leader person" or "animal cruelty leader person," etc. Not even "environment person," Look, if you're not going to argue in good faith then don't bother replying further. Those movements all have have multiple organizations working towards somewhat-common goals. Those individual orgs do indeed have leaders and by and large they're not toejam eaters.
• oefrha 5y ago
  Okay, honest question, other than this impossible-to-quantify symbolic value, did FSF make any meaningful contribution/impact over the past two decades? They kept preaching their maximalist philosophy which seems increasingly convincing almost no one; their old flagships kept chugging along, some (or the majority) of them gradually losing relevance, thanks in part to GPLv3; no new hotness is joining the GNU umbrella AFAIK; Savannah is completely irrelevant outside some GNU projects and is less usable than phpBB. Ironically, I guess the hostility of GPLv3 spurred the development and adoption of many permissive replacements, which is arguably an unintended contribution. And on the opposite end of people and companies wanting to be less permissive, they find even the least permissive GNU license inadequate, since they usually give zero shit about “freedom”, it’s financial contributions that they seek; so they’re moving to source available instead of copyleft.
  • PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    Not really a counter to anything you've said, but just wanted to note that after two decades of fighting open source licensing for their widely popular VST audio plugin API, Steinberg finally did release under the GPLv3.
    • KennyBlanken 5y ago
      And what did Stallman or FSF have to do with that? The FSF won't even defend GPL violations in court. Others have had to organize efforts to do so.
      • ekianjo 5y ago
        The gpl v3 would not exist unless they were there.
• starwind 5y ago
  > they provide a useful extreme endpoint such that there can exist a reasonable "Overton Window" of Free/Open Source/ Whatever Software Or, ya know, they could just stake out reasonable, nuanced positions that organizations could adopt or at least be a starting point for further developments
  • KennyBlanken 5y ago
    It's pretty hilarious seeing people suggesting that someone fundamentally unable to engage in empathy, perspective-taking, or second-order strategizing...is actually making some big-brain play to hold down the extremist end so that more moderate voices and exist. Stallman is infamous for his inability to recognize viewpoints other than his own as having worth or validity. He is literally incapable of such a big-brain plan because there's no way he could see a moderate position as valid.
    • lolinder 5y ago
      I don't think OP is suggesting that Stallman is doing it on purpose, just that Stallman's dogmatism may actually be beneficial in spite of itself.
    • jrm4 5y ago
      No. I also don't think Buddhist monks are strategizing a big-brain play to convert people to Buddhism. It's more hilarious to see people not getting the idea that this is just his thing and I admire it, even if I ain't doing it.
  • jrm4 5y ago
    I think this may have already been attempted, and you're perhaps underestimating the incentive and relative cheapness of large well funded companies (right now, literally the largest and most well funded) to insert their own agendas into visible movements like this (for better or worse, this is not much different from how "Open Source" came out of "Free Software.") In other words, the fact that you don't see these positions I think is a result of a mild "embrace, extend extinguish" and not "no one thought of this before."
• malthuswaswrong 5y ago
  That's a very diplomatic way to say he's crazy and people who put him on a pedestal are crazy for doing it; despite occasionally have a valid point. Also I agree 100%.
• chx 5y ago
  And I think far too many people are missing why Stallman should be, to use a popular term, cancelled. Toxic people shouldn't have a voice because then all sorts of people will decide to not get involved in a community where such people can be leaders. Trust me in this, I should know :(
  • jrm4 5y ago
    I do not trust you, and I also should know. "Cancelled" and "toxic" are vague terms that we really need to stop using, please use the more precise words you mean. Has he broken the law or been unforgivably abusive, etc? If so, say that. If not, stop throwing accusations.
  • buzzard1 5y ago
• systemvoltage 5y ago
  I reluctantly agree. While its great to have a reference point, there is a whole platoon of people who take this as a gospel. Speaking of gospel idiom, that's exactly what happened in the medieval churches – those who did not follow were ostrasized. So, let's keep pragmatism, reality and wisdom above idealism.
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