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> That can happen in open source, see Stallman and others. Could you elaborate on because I'm increasingly seeing Stallman being thrown around as a bogeyman wh

> That can happen in open source, see Stallman and others. Could you elaborate on because I'm increasingly seeing Stallman being thrown around as a bogeyman who impeded FOSS progress for years if not decades and I really dislike this trend. It seems that his personal views (which I do not support) and eccentricity is being conflated with his contributions to FOSS. I will preface this by noting that this is "my belief" but Stallman has been a positive force in ensuring that consumers today can work, play and do practically anything on a largely free platform. Via the FSF, his contributions towards the GPL license series ensures that contributions to the Linux kernel stay open allowing the kernel to improve as a whole.

pydry 3y ago
He doesnt seem to be liked by some of the more powerful, corporate entities in tech, probably because he pushes some agendas that are somewhat anti-their-profits. I think this was behind the rather unsuccessful attempts to cancel him a few years ago, which cast a shadow over his reputation.
- devoutsalsa 3y ago
  I heard Stallman speak once about FOSS. He struck me as a very interesting person, but not very flexible in his views. Even if he's 100% "right" in the long run about how digital products should be completely free, his views are so polarizing that it'd be hard to interact with him long enough to understand his positions.
  - tombert 3y ago
    I think there is value in people like Stallman existing. I disagree with him in a lot of regards, but I think it's important for people like him to shift the "Overton Window" of software copyright a bit closer to FOSS. He's a disagreeable bastard, I'm not even sure he would dispute that, but a part of me does respect the dedication to the cause. That said, I almost always use BSD or MIT licenses for my personal stuff; sometimes I use the Eclipse one because that's the default that Leiningen gives me for Clojure and I can't really be bothered.
    - detourdog 3y ago
      That captures my sentiment exactly and GPL is always the last choice for me.
  - pydry 3y ago
    For the last 30 years a strong belief in anthropogenic global warming has been polarizing too. Sometimes appeals to moderation are valid, but I think sometimes it is entirely the wrong thing to do.
  - detourdog 3y ago
    Idealism retards the growth of most good ideas. I suffer this daily but it is an internal struggle and I structure my idealism to minimize the impact on others.
- dale_glass 3y ago
  > He doesnt seem to be liked by some of the more powerful, corporate entities in tech, probably because he pushes some agendas that are somewhat anti-their-profits I don't think any of those corporate entities care about Stallman in the slightest. At least 95% of the time you hear talk about him even in technical forums it's the "why is he still around" sort of controversy in various forms. You almost never hear about him doing something that could be described as positive leadership that could make any competition worry. I highly doubt anybody at those powerful, corporate entities even keep track of what he's doing, let alone has any concerns for their profits because of him. > I think this was behind the rather unsuccessful attempts to cancel him a few years ago, which cast a shadow over his reputation. The attempts to get him out I think come mostly from the Free Software community itself who to a large extent wants a better and less embarrassing leadership.
codeflo 3y ago
> his personal views (which I do not support) and eccentricity Oh wow. That's some downplaying of the actual issue, which I won't make explicit because it's absolutely disgusting. The guy made himself and his foundation untouchable for anyone with a reputation to lose, leading to a lot of effort going into "de-GNU-ification" of technology stacks. > Stallman has been a positive force It's very hard to make this kind of argument for anything he has done in the last 15 years. Two quick points: The version of the GPL that continues to enable the success of Linux is one that Stallman now explicitly disapproves of. And you might have noticed not a single one of the recent successful programming languages uses GCC as the default backend -- there's a whole history of Stallman intervention in the project and resulting idiotic architecture decisions behind why that's the case.
- zajio1am 3y ago
  > leading to a lot of effort going into "de-GNU-ification" of technology stacks. De-GNU-ification was mostly about GPLv3, not Stallman. Some of this was pushed by Apple, so they can use free software without copyleft requirements.
  - arp242 3y ago
    Technical issues were another reason; Stallman intentionally made GCC worse to prevent possible abuse (mostly based on unfounded fears, IMHO), some GNU tools are not well suited for all environments ("bloated", for lack of a better term), and there have been some governance issues (e.g. GNU libc was notorious for a long time, but also copyright assignments to the FSF, bad technical decisions being made for purely ideological reasons). Also, Apple pretty much proposed to transfer LLVM to the FSF: "If people are seriously in favor of LLVM being a long-term part of GCC, I personally believe that the LLVM community would agree to assign the copyright of LLVM itself to the FSF and we can work through these details."[1] which was basically just ignored. That was in 2005 before GPLv3, but it shows that Apple wasn't against copyleft out of principle and that a small bit of pragmatism would have prevented the alienation of Apple, as well as many other organisations and people. All that for the very small benefit the controversial clauses in GPLv3 give us. Well done people. [1]: https://gcc.gnu.org/legacy-ml/gcc/2005-11/msg00888.html https://gcc.gnu.org/legacy-ml/gcc/2005-11/msg00888.html
kaba0 3y ago
> with his contributions to FOSS It is not as noteworthy as well known his name is. Especially if you count how many have stopped working on open-source projects because of him.
- unconed 3y ago
  Can you name a few of these luminaries to see what we've lost? Most of what I've heard about Stallman are social attacks from autistic mean girls with zero self awareness. Edit: FYI, people have flagged my follow up comment where I address the request for clarification to make it look like there is none. Just turn on showdead in your HN options to see. This is exactly the kind of playbook they love to use. Manipulative, dishonest and pathetic. https://acko.net/blog/on-sperging-out/ https://acko.net/blog/on-sperging-out/
  - jakear 3y ago
    Quite extreme words to provide no reference supporting them.
    - unconed 3y ago
      [flagged]
  - eyko 3y ago
    I've met and hung out quite a bit with Stallman (as part of a conference organizers group) in the early 2000s and he wasn't the most self aware person when it came to social situations. He is very socially awkward. Everything I've read so far has seemed plausible, although I would also agree that it seems to be blown out of proportion. He is one of the kindest persons I've met, very idealistic, and a captivating personality. It's just super socially awkward being around him. Sometimes straight up uncomfortable.
    - johnisgood 3y ago
      Do they still use the term socially awkward to describe nerdy people who work in IT? I thought it was quite on point, at least back in the days.
arp242 3y ago
I wrote about this a few years ago in [1]. I think some of the more recent personal attacks have been unfair and misguided, but criticism of Stallman goes back decades. Why does X use the MIT license and not GPL? Because they found Stallman too difficult to talk to (see quote in the article). Many prominent people involved in Free Software have been at odds with Stallman for a long time. When I first heard of Stallman in an interview sometime in the early 2000s I compared him to Osama Bin Laden in terms of extremism, which was a mean and wrong thing to do and I'm sorry I did that (I was young...), but it's indicative of the kind of responses he's evoked for a long time. Some of his ideas are good, but many are also silly, and some downright misguided. You can have good ideas and be a bad leader of a movement. These two things are not mutually exclusive. A wiser and less ego-centric Stallman would have stepped back decades ago. [1]: https://www.arp242.net/rms.html https://www.arp242.net/rms.html
- toyg 3y ago
  > A wiser and less ego-centric Stallman would have stepped back decades ago. I don't agree. For all his limits, Stallman maintained an ideological purity that is required to firmly signpost one end of the Overton window. Opensource licenses and projects can mix and match rights and regulations, but you will always have an unwatered GPL option, there to remind people of what the original ideal looked like. Compare the trajectory of the GNU project with that of Mozilla, for example. Mozilla compromised ideals to gain popularity, and now that popularity is waning the compromise gets worse and worse (pocket, pop-unders...). GNU compromised nothing, ignored ebbs and flows in popularity, and will continue to do their thankless work for the good of the community at large.
  - bigcat12345678 3y ago
    The puny weak souls shudders in the sight of an unbreakable mind
  - dale_glass 3y ago
    I don't think ideological purity is the problem here.
johnisgood 3y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36108633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36108633 [1] Guess who's the common denominator here? Yup. JeanHeyd. Such a small world. [1] https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235124.html https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235124.html
- HumanOstrich 3y ago
  Yea, it's good to see someone consistently pushing back against hate and refusing to give up or be silenced.
  - srslack 3y ago
    That's a funny definition of "hate" you have there.
    - HumanOstrich 3y ago
      No, it's not really funny at all.
      - srslack 3y ago
        You’re right, I was being charitable to try and adhere to guidelines. Should’ve been “delusional” instead of “funny.”
goodpoint 3y ago
This has nothing to do with the GPL. For more than two decades Stallman has been described as a terrible public speaker by most people who met him in person. He has many strange quirks and can be very brash. He himself admits being very tone deaf.
- tristramb 3y ago
  I think it probably took an awkward misfit to create the GNU propject and the GPL in the first place. I am reminded of "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." (Maxims for Revolutionists by George Bernard Shaw)
  - goodpoint 3y ago
    No, GPL is the product of the existing hacker culture. Thousands of people were involved in the early FOSS movement.
detourdog 3y ago
Stallman is a pillar of our community for better or worse he insisted on the availability of a free c compiler with source code. He is too extreme for my tastes but deserves a base level of respect despite himself.
danielheath 3y ago
I'm thankful to Stallman for his many contributions to the field - (software, legal, moral writings, etc). I am better off for his work, as are most living humans. However, there's a pretty large number of perfectly reasonable-seeming people who refuse to spend any time interacting with him, either in person or online. His reputation, fairly or otherwise, is terrible. Maybe that's deserved, maybe it's undeserved - but it's the reputation he has, and that reputation is enough to seriously discourage people from getting involved in the FSF in any capacity.
bigbillheck 3y ago
The first one that comers to mind is when he refused to allow changes to gcc to expose the AST: https://lwn.net/Articles/629259/ https://lwn.net/Articles/629259/ , and this came up in another thread a while back: https://gcc.gnu.org/legacy-ml/gcc/2001-02/msg00895.html https://gcc.gnu.org/legacy-ml/gcc/2001-02/msg00895.html There was also the whole egcs thing.
jbirer 3y ago
[flagged]

pydry 3y ago

He doesnt seem to be liked by some of the more powerful, corporate entities in tech, probably because he pushes some agendas that are somewhat anti-their-profits. I think this was behind the rather unsuccessful attempts to cancel him a few years ago, which cast a shadow over his reputation.

devoutsalsa 3y ago
I heard Stallman speak once about FOSS. He struck me as a very interesting person, but not very flexible in his views. Even if he's 100% "right" in the long run about how digital products should be completely free, his views are so polarizing that it'd be hard to interact with him long enough to understand his positions.
- tombert 3y ago
  I think there is value in people like Stallman existing. I disagree with him in a lot of regards, but I think it's important for people like him to shift the "Overton Window" of software copyright a bit closer to FOSS. He's a disagreeable bastard, I'm not even sure he would dispute that, but a part of me does respect the dedication to the cause. That said, I almost always use BSD or MIT licenses for my personal stuff; sometimes I use the Eclipse one because that's the default that Leiningen gives me for Clojure and I can't really be bothered.
  - detourdog 3y ago
    That captures my sentiment exactly and GPL is always the last choice for me.
- pydry 3y ago
  For the last 30 years a strong belief in anthropogenic global warming has been polarizing too. Sometimes appeals to moderation are valid, but I think sometimes it is entirely the wrong thing to do.
- detourdog 3y ago
  Idealism retards the growth of most good ideas. I suffer this daily but it is an internal struggle and I structure my idealism to minimize the impact on others.
dale_glass 3y ago
> He doesnt seem to be liked by some of the more powerful, corporate entities in tech, probably because he pushes some agendas that are somewhat anti-their-profits I don't think any of those corporate entities care about Stallman in the slightest. At least 95% of the time you hear talk about him even in technical forums it's the "why is he still around" sort of controversy in various forms. You almost never hear about him doing something that could be described as positive leadership that could make any competition worry. I highly doubt anybody at those powerful, corporate entities even keep track of what he's doing, let alone has any concerns for their profits because of him. > I think this was behind the rather unsuccessful attempts to cancel him a few years ago, which cast a shadow over his reputation. The attempts to get him out I think come mostly from the Free Software community itself who to a large extent wants a better and less embarrassing leadership.

codeflo 3y ago

> his personal views (which I do not support) and eccentricity Oh wow. That's some downplaying of the actual issue, which I won't make explicit because it's absolutely disgusting. The guy made himself and his foundation untouchable for anyone with a reputation to lose, leading to a lot of effort going into "de-GNU-ification" of technology stacks. > Stallman has been a positive force It's very hard to make this kind of argument for anything he has done in the last 15 years. Two quick points: The version of the GPL that continues to enable the success of Linux is one that Stallman now explicitly disapproves of. And you might have noticed not a single one of the recent successful programming languages uses GCC as the default backend -- there's a whole history of Stallman intervention in the project and resulting idiotic architecture decisions behind why that's the case.

zajio1am 3y ago
> leading to a lot of effort going into "de-GNU-ification" of technology stacks. De-GNU-ification was mostly about GPLv3, not Stallman. Some of this was pushed by Apple, so they can use free software without copyleft requirements.
- arp242 3y ago
  Technical issues were another reason; Stallman intentionally made GCC worse to prevent possible abuse (mostly based on unfounded fears, IMHO), some GNU tools are not well suited for all environments ("bloated", for lack of a better term), and there have been some governance issues (e.g. GNU libc was notorious for a long time, but also copyright assignments to the FSF, bad technical decisions being made for purely ideological reasons). Also, Apple pretty much proposed to transfer LLVM to the FSF: "If people are seriously in favor of LLVM being a long-term part of GCC, I personally believe that the LLVM community would agree to assign the copyright of LLVM itself to the FSF and we can work through these details."[1] which was basically just ignored. That was in 2005 before GPLv3, but it shows that Apple wasn't against copyleft out of principle and that a small bit of pragmatism would have prevented the alienation of Apple, as well as many other organisations and people. All that for the very small benefit the controversial clauses in GPLv3 give us. Well done people. [1]: https://gcc.gnu.org/legacy-ml/gcc/2005-11/msg00888.html https://gcc.gnu.org/legacy-ml/gcc/2005-11/msg00888.html

kaba0 3y ago

> with his contributions to FOSS It is not as noteworthy as well known his name is. Especially if you count how many have stopped working on open-source projects because of him.

unconed 3y ago
Can you name a few of these luminaries to see what we've lost? Most of what I've heard about Stallman are social attacks from autistic mean girls with zero self awareness. Edit: FYI, people have flagged my follow up comment where I address the request for clarification to make it look like there is none. Just turn on showdead in your HN options to see. This is exactly the kind of playbook they love to use. Manipulative, dishonest and pathetic. https://acko.net/blog/on-sperging-out/ https://acko.net/blog/on-sperging-out/
- jakear 3y ago
  Quite extreme words to provide no reference supporting them.
  - unconed 3y ago
    [flagged]
- eyko 3y ago
  I've met and hung out quite a bit with Stallman (as part of a conference organizers group) in the early 2000s and he wasn't the most self aware person when it came to social situations. He is very socially awkward. Everything I've read so far has seemed plausible, although I would also agree that it seems to be blown out of proportion. He is one of the kindest persons I've met, very idealistic, and a captivating personality. It's just super socially awkward being around him. Sometimes straight up uncomfortable.
  - johnisgood 3y ago
    Do they still use the term socially awkward to describe nerdy people who work in IT? I thought it was quite on point, at least back in the days.

arp242 3y ago

I wrote about this a few years ago in [1]. I think some of the more recent personal attacks have been unfair and misguided, but criticism of Stallman goes back decades. Why does X use the MIT license and not GPL? Because they found Stallman too difficult to talk to (see quote in the article). Many prominent people involved in Free Software have been at odds with Stallman for a long time. When I first heard of Stallman in an interview sometime in the early 2000s I compared him to Osama Bin Laden in terms of extremism, which was a mean and wrong thing to do and I'm sorry I did that (I was young...), but it's indicative of the kind of responses he's evoked for a long time. Some of his ideas are good, but many are also silly, and some downright misguided. You can have good ideas and be a bad leader of a movement. These two things are not mutually exclusive. A wiser and less ego-centric Stallman would have stepped back decades ago. [1]: https://www.arp242.net/rms.html https://www.arp242.net/rms.html

toyg 3y ago
> A wiser and less ego-centric Stallman would have stepped back decades ago. I don't agree. For all his limits, Stallman maintained an ideological purity that is required to firmly signpost one end of the Overton window. Opensource licenses and projects can mix and match rights and regulations, but you will always have an unwatered GPL option, there to remind people of what the original ideal looked like. Compare the trajectory of the GNU project with that of Mozilla, for example. Mozilla compromised ideals to gain popularity, and now that popularity is waning the compromise gets worse and worse (pocket, pop-unders...). GNU compromised nothing, ignored ebbs and flows in popularity, and will continue to do their thankless work for the good of the community at large.
- bigcat12345678 3y ago
  The puny weak souls shudders in the sight of an unbreakable mind
- dale_glass 3y ago
  I don't think ideological purity is the problem here.

johnisgood 3y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36108633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36108633 [1] Guess who's the common denominator here? Yup. JeanHeyd. Such a small world. [1] https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235124.html https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235124.html

HumanOstrich 3y ago
Yea, it's good to see someone consistently pushing back against hate and refusing to give up or be silenced.
- srslack 3y ago
  That's a funny definition of "hate" you have there.
  - HumanOstrich 3y ago
    No, it's not really funny at all.
    - srslack 3y ago
      You’re right, I was being charitable to try and adhere to guidelines. Should’ve been “delusional” instead of “funny.”

goodpoint 3y ago

This has nothing to do with the GPL. For more than two decades Stallman has been described as a terrible public speaker by most people who met him in person. He has many strange quirks and can be very brash. He himself admits being very tone deaf.

tristramb 3y ago
I think it probably took an awkward misfit to create the GNU propject and the GPL in the first place. I am reminded of "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." (Maxims for Revolutionists by George Bernard Shaw)
- goodpoint 3y ago
  No, GPL is the product of the existing hacker culture. Thousands of people were involved in the early FOSS movement.

detourdog 3y ago

Stallman is a pillar of our community for better or worse he insisted on the availability of a free c compiler with source code. He is too extreme for my tastes but deserves a base level of respect despite himself.

danielheath 3y ago

I'm thankful to Stallman for his many contributions to the field - (software, legal, moral writings, etc). I am better off for his work, as are most living humans. However, there's a pretty large number of perfectly reasonable-seeming people who refuse to spend any time interacting with him, either in person or online. His reputation, fairly or otherwise, is terrible. Maybe that's deserved, maybe it's undeserved - but it's the reputation he has, and that reputation is enough to seriously discourage people from getting involved in the FSF in any capacity.

bigbillheck 3y ago

The first one that comers to mind is when he refused to allow changes to gcc to expose the AST: https://lwn.net/Articles/629259/ https://lwn.net/Articles/629259/ , and this came up in another thread a while back: https://gcc.gnu.org/legacy-ml/gcc/2001-02/msg00895.html https://gcc.gnu.org/legacy-ml/gcc/2001-02/msg00895.html There was also the whole egcs thing.

jbirer 3y ago

[flagged]