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I still remember exactly where I was when Steve Jobs died. I think it was because at that moment, I had a realization about him: that there was no other person

I still remember exactly where I was when Steve Jobs died. I think it was because at that moment, I had a realization about him: that there was no other person in recent memory who made such an impact on the everyday lives of people. He wasn’t some grand political figure that uplifted millions with inspiring rhetoric or an athlete that had achieved some amazing physical goal. But every single day, pretty much everywhere in the world, a sizable portion of humanity uses a device that he ultimately brought into being. And I thought that was pretty cool.

anthk 4y ago
What? Stallman alone changed the world 20 times more than Jobs. The indirect effects of GCC, Emacs, the FSF and GNU around Linux and servers are astounding. From Android's core to the 90% of the growth of companies on tech. And not just tech: physics, genomics... lots of them backed and helped with free software from GCC to Coreutils. At least to build and port BioPerl sucessfully. And, still, Perl's growth was closely bound to GNU and Linux. Libre software democratized the access to technology, science and free as in freedom books on lots of term and inspired parallel licenses for media and documents. In 1995 you would need to spend $300 dollars in books and $3500 in a proper workstation to run scientific software. Later, with GNU/Linux, the costs plummeted down. Today you have free compilers, free documentation and cheap NUCs to learn the basics on nearly any STEM career, at least if you can simulate it. You can even compose music and multimedia FFX with libre distros and DAW software. There are even neural network based translators with libre licenses and models. That's astounding.
- contingencies 4y ago
  You both have good points, and while Jobs' role in Apple's technology is clearly overstated he did create space for execution. I think more broadly the key point should be that we as creative technology participants can be somewhat objectively said to often have power to change the world in ways that few individuals in other walks of life can even dream of. Consider Library Genesis/Sci-Hub, Wikipedia, citizen science, instant messaging, online dating, torrents, Bellingcat, etc.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  Stallman isn't as celebrated as much as one might otherwise expect because he can be quite socially abrasive. There's also the controversies in the recent past. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Controversies Whilst Jobs was only human and there are plenty of anecdotes about negative personality traits in regard to how he treated others, he was definitely someone who knew how to work a room of average people rather than a room of neckbeards. For a further example of social abrasiveness within open source, look to Linus Torvalds. As with Stallman, a genuinely brilliant chap, but some people aren't meant to be in the public eye, they're people who are in their element behind-the-scenes. Software isn't very sexy. Curvy, pretty consumer hardware is something the average Joe can lust after. Ask the average Joe on the street if they know what Emacs or Linux is, but they'll know about consumer-oriented Apple products.
  - anthk 4y ago
    End of bullshit: https://stallmansupport.org/the-practice-of-ritual-defamation-laird-wilcox.html https://stallmansupport.org/the-practice-of-ritual-defamatio... Even women close to Stallman had to stop people like you defamating people.
- deafpolygon 4y ago
  > What? Stallman alone changed the world 20 times more than Jobs. I know I'm going to get downvotes for this; but I disagree. While Stallman played an important role in GNU and Libre software through his work at MIT and FSF, there were already like-minded people working towards the same thing. It's hard to say that Stallman single-handedly influenced things like that in history to that much impact, given how much impact Steve Jobs had on the personal computing space. Without Linux (Linus Torvalds), he may not have had much impact at all. Let's not forget: - Brian Reid who co-authored BSD Unix operating system under a permissive license, which used BCC (Berkeley C Compiler) - Bill Joy who co-founded Sun Microsystems - among contributions count NFS, Sparc, Java Who knows what would have arisen from that, had not Stallman had a fortuitous partnership with Torvalds? Would we be living in a world with OpenBSD rather than GNU/Linux?
  - anthk 4y ago
    Eh, GNU Coreutils were used by a huge margin over core Sun tools to do actual work. With the GNU utilities Sparc and Java wouldn't be as used as they were. Everyone and his aunt used GCC, Bash and GNU utilities. And Emacs. Even ksh form OpenBSD got autocompletion support. Some features are nice, I guess. And I use mksh myself on Hyperbola GNU/Linux, which mostly blends GNU's openness with BSD's KISS stance. No SystemD here, not even Pulse. Sndio, the same one as OpenBSD. On OpenBSD, I love their stance on security and correctness, and ofc I know about pledge(4) and unveil(4). that's why Hyperbola will rebase their Unix-like OS from OpenBSD (minus the blobs) with GNU addons.
    - bzzzt 4y ago
      > GNU Coreutils were used by a huge margin over core Sun tools to do actual work. Being more convenient doesn't quals changing the world... While Sun was hugely influential in the early days of the internet it's place could have been taken by a lot of other *nix vendors.
      - anthk 4y ago
        If you think GCC and coreutils didn't change the world and shaped the commercial Unixen themselves, think twice.
thefz 4y ago
Dennis Ritchie had a way larger impact than Jobs; yet he is not celebrated because he did not put an expensive toy in your hands, he had no visibility for the larger public. Jobs has been a salesman more than an engineer. He did not need to understand tech, he just wanted to sell it.
- tinus_hn 4y ago
  Dennis Ritchie created great things and if he hadn’t, someone else would have created these things. Differently but just as well. Without Steve Jobs there would have been no iPhone and we would have settled for a Windows CE like phone. Just look at what Android was before the release of the iPhone. That would have been the major leap. That’s the difference.
  - gompertz 4y ago
    What! You can't say that if Ritchie hadn't creating things, someone else who have... and then proceed to make Jobs as an exception to that rule. There's 100x Jobs out there for every Ritchie. One could say something even better than the iPhone may have happened if Jobs was never born, and that he held us all back with his visions. Who really knows in this simulation.
    - tinus_hn 4y ago
      Just like some people are hypnotized by the Steve Jobs reality distortion field, you are blinded by your dislike for Steve Jobs and it is impossible to calmly talk about the things he created. All that is left is a screaming match ‘my guy is better’ ‘no my guy’. That is useless.
      - thefz 4y ago
        Jobs' work is derivative from other great people's work.

anthk 4y ago

What? Stallman alone changed the world 20 times more than Jobs. The indirect effects of GCC, Emacs, the FSF and GNU around Linux and servers are astounding. From Android's core to the 90% of the growth of companies on tech. And not just tech: physics, genomics... lots of them backed and helped with free software from GCC to Coreutils. At least to build and port BioPerl sucessfully. And, still, Perl's growth was closely bound to GNU and Linux. Libre software democratized the access to technology, science and free as in freedom books on lots of term and inspired parallel licenses for media and documents. In 1995 you would need to spend $300 dollars in books and $3500 in a proper workstation to run scientific software. Later, with GNU/Linux, the costs plummeted down. Today you have free compilers, free documentation and cheap NUCs to learn the basics on nearly any STEM career, at least if you can simulate it. You can even compose music and multimedia FFX with libre distros and DAW software. There are even neural network based translators with libre licenses and models. That's astounding.

contingencies 4y ago
You both have good points, and while Jobs' role in Apple's technology is clearly overstated he did create space for execution. I think more broadly the key point should be that we as creative technology participants can be somewhat objectively said to often have power to change the world in ways that few individuals in other walks of life can even dream of. Consider Library Genesis/Sci-Hub, Wikipedia, citizen science, instant messaging, online dating, torrents, Bellingcat, etc.
hammyhavoc 4y ago
Stallman isn't as celebrated as much as one might otherwise expect because he can be quite socially abrasive. There's also the controversies in the recent past. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Controversies Whilst Jobs was only human and there are plenty of anecdotes about negative personality traits in regard to how he treated others, he was definitely someone who knew how to work a room of average people rather than a room of neckbeards. For a further example of social abrasiveness within open source, look to Linus Torvalds. As with Stallman, a genuinely brilliant chap, but some people aren't meant to be in the public eye, they're people who are in their element behind-the-scenes. Software isn't very sexy. Curvy, pretty consumer hardware is something the average Joe can lust after. Ask the average Joe on the street if they know what Emacs or Linux is, but they'll know about consumer-oriented Apple products.
- anthk 4y ago
  End of bullshit: https://stallmansupport.org/the-practice-of-ritual-defamation-laird-wilcox.html https://stallmansupport.org/the-practice-of-ritual-defamatio... Even women close to Stallman had to stop people like you defamating people.
deafpolygon 4y ago
> What? Stallman alone changed the world 20 times more than Jobs. I know I'm going to get downvotes for this; but I disagree. While Stallman played an important role in GNU and Libre software through his work at MIT and FSF, there were already like-minded people working towards the same thing. It's hard to say that Stallman single-handedly influenced things like that in history to that much impact, given how much impact Steve Jobs had on the personal computing space. Without Linux (Linus Torvalds), he may not have had much impact at all. Let's not forget: - Brian Reid who co-authored BSD Unix operating system under a permissive license, which used BCC (Berkeley C Compiler) - Bill Joy who co-founded Sun Microsystems - among contributions count NFS, Sparc, Java Who knows what would have arisen from that, had not Stallman had a fortuitous partnership with Torvalds? Would we be living in a world with OpenBSD rather than GNU/Linux?
- anthk 4y ago
  Eh, GNU Coreutils were used by a huge margin over core Sun tools to do actual work. With the GNU utilities Sparc and Java wouldn't be as used as they were. Everyone and his aunt used GCC, Bash and GNU utilities. And Emacs. Even ksh form OpenBSD got autocompletion support. Some features are nice, I guess. And I use mksh myself on Hyperbola GNU/Linux, which mostly blends GNU's openness with BSD's KISS stance. No SystemD here, not even Pulse. Sndio, the same one as OpenBSD. On OpenBSD, I love their stance on security and correctness, and ofc I know about pledge(4) and unveil(4). that's why Hyperbola will rebase their Unix-like OS from OpenBSD (minus the blobs) with GNU addons.
  - bzzzt 4y ago
    > GNU Coreutils were used by a huge margin over core Sun tools to do actual work. Being more convenient doesn't quals changing the world... While Sun was hugely influential in the early days of the internet it's place could have been taken by a lot of other *nix vendors.
    - anthk 4y ago
      If you think GCC and coreutils didn't change the world and shaped the commercial Unixen themselves, think twice.

thefz 4y ago

Dennis Ritchie had a way larger impact than Jobs; yet he is not celebrated because he did not put an expensive toy in your hands, he had no visibility for the larger public. Jobs has been a salesman more than an engineer. He did not need to understand tech, he just wanted to sell it.

tinus_hn 4y ago
Dennis Ritchie created great things and if he hadn’t, someone else would have created these things. Differently but just as well. Without Steve Jobs there would have been no iPhone and we would have settled for a Windows CE like phone. Just look at what Android was before the release of the iPhone. That would have been the major leap. That’s the difference.
- gompertz 4y ago
  What! You can't say that if Ritchie hadn't creating things, someone else who have... and then proceed to make Jobs as an exception to that rule. There's 100x Jobs out there for every Ritchie. One could say something even better than the iPhone may have happened if Jobs was never born, and that he held us all back with his visions. Who really knows in this simulation.
  - tinus_hn 4y ago
    Just like some people are hypnotized by the Steve Jobs reality distortion field, you are blinded by your dislike for Steve Jobs and it is impossible to calmly talk about the things he created. All that is left is a screaming match ‘my guy is better’ ‘no my guy’. That is useless.
    - thefz 4y ago
      Jobs' work is derivative from other great people's work.