6 ms·

> 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

by 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.
- liotier 3y ago
  Ideological purity is the point. A whole range of other options are available but ideological purity is what Stallman offers, with no expectation that everyone will appreciate its benefits. The very existence of the FSF's offerings is necessary to understand what other positions compromise to obtain other benefits.
  - throw0101b 3y ago
    > Ideological purity is the point. Can a person be ideologically pure and not be an asshole? Or do the two go together (as is alleged with Stallman)?
    - Hamuko 3y ago
      The assholes are probably firmly inside the union in the Venn diagram of "ideologically pure" and "vocal advocates".
    - teekert 3y ago
      I agree with throw0101bm but then there are people like Henry Cavill.
      - CoastalCoder 3y ago
        What's the Cavill reference?
        teekert 3y ago
        Henry Cavill is vocal (but kind and respecting) and an "ideologically pure" geek, in the sense that he seems to try and change scripts of series and movies he plays in, where they overlap with his nerdiness, ie [0], but there are more references. Of course, this is true in so far as geekiness can be seen as an ideology, if so, Cavill is pretty pure and vocal, but also just a great guy it seems. Now he’s going for a Warhammer 40k series and people are looking forward to it, because he knows his s*. [0] https://redanianintelligence.com/2021/12/09/henry-cavill-added-a-scene-in-the-witcher-without-permission-and-it-worked/ https://redanianintelligence.com/2021/12/09/henry-cavill-add...
        Hamuko 3y ago
        I thought that the rumours were that other people in the production of The Witcher show were not fans of Cavill trying to change the scripts?
        dagw 3y ago
        Basically Cavill wanted the show to closely follow the books (books he was a huge fan of), and the show runners wanted to make changes to the stories and go in a different direction. This lead to a lot of arguments, and eventually Cavill being replaced.
  - dale_glass 3y ago
    Okay, but Stallman's non-purity related bad qualities are a problem for his own mission. Eg, Stallman is reported as creeping women out in the link above. That has nothing to do with his uncompromising ideals regarding software. So maybe Stallman could quietly retire to some sort of metaphorical ivory tower, and keep producing uncompromising ideology, which could be then evangelized by somebody less creepy. There's no need for compromise even. The same ideology just has to be delivered by somebody with better people skills. I think that'd be a win/win.
    - arp242 3y ago
      That would be ideal, yes. But there also needs to be a bit of a culture change away from Stallmanism ("we want absolute Software Freedom now and anything even slightly short of that is unethical!) to a more pragmatic attitude and outlook. This starts with simple things like not picking fights with the BSD projects only because they allow non-free software in ports and not alienating many lead developers of the most successful project that uses your license (Linux).
      - toyg 3y ago
        Lol, this has been said over and over basically since GNU existed. "You need to compromise!!!11!!one!". FSF and GNU are not about compromises. If they were, they'd have stuck to the original Unix distributions and all their licensing grey areas. Instead they didn't, and the world is better for it. Why should they change now...?
        arp242 3y ago
        > Instead they didn't, and the world is better for it. Why should they change now...? So this is where we fundamentally disagree: I do not think the world is better off with an uncompromising FSF. I think the world and state of Free Software would have been significantly more advanced if they had adopted a more pragmatic attitude. I don't think that's "compromising" per se, but rather accepting that things don't change in a day. Also consider an alternative universe where the FSF and/or GNU had invested in to a good code hosting platform and a system to setup payments for people developing software instead of the ecosystem rolling from one proprietary platform to another over the last 25 years.
  - jackmott42 3y ago
    "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good" Might be a saying to reflect on for a bit. Also aside from that he was an enormous asshole to people, which damaged his own goals, and is just wrong.
arp242 3y ago
It's about effective advocacy. Stallman can think or do whatever he wants, but he is not and has never been an effective advocate. And from an advocacy position, ideological purity almost never works. An advocacy organisation like the FSF should be pragmatically "climbing the ladder" one step at a time, not insisting on an instantaneous revolution. You might as well advocate for the moon to be painted blue: it's just not going to happen, no matter how right you are. You absolutely can achieve short-term wins without losing the long-term picture. The idea that any compromise somehow diminishes the longer term ideals is just wrong. Consider a law that states that purchasing software must come with the source code (under any proprietary license/NDA) as a matter of "right to repair". This would be a complete non-starter for ideological purists because it's not True Freedom, but clearly it would be a huge improvement over the current situation. This is how the ideological purity is impeding progress. The reasons for Firefox's decline are unrelated to "compromised ideals" (which have IMO been hugely overstated in the first place). Quite frankly, no one cares about any of this outside of a relatively small group of people. If Mozilla had been more "ideologically pure" they never would have implemented DRM and would be considerably more irrelevant today. If you think "oh, this new browser has more Freedom (a concept you need to spend 10 minutes explaining in the first place) but you can't watch Netflix with it" is going to convince many people then you're sorely mistaken. The fact is: Firefox started declining as Chrome was just a better browser. That's all there is to it. Firefox Quantum significantly improved things, but it seems it was "too little, too late". All the cases where Free Software is a resounding success is because it's the best possible software for the problem, and the cases where it's not is because it's not the best software for the problem. Free Software will succeed if it's the best solution, so that's where the effort should go, not the (frequently minor or even petty) stuff Stallman keeps banging on about. Edit: the fact that this got downvoted in less than a minute – hardly enough time to actually read the post – is also part of the problem. I don't really care about downvotes, but it's indicative of the kind of hostility that makes these kind of internal community discussions hard. My article that I previously mentioned got posted to HN, where it was promptly flagged[1], seemingly because some pro-Stallman people were upset by it. Fine, whatever, I didn't even care enough to email dang about it, but it does make these discussions a lot less constructive than they can be. I received more emails and private communication about this article than everything else on my website combined, almost all positive by people who appreciated a more nuanced take than "Stallman == atrocious" or "Stallman == secondComing(Jesus)", so clearly it wasn't all that bad. But on HN it was "censored" – for lack of a better word. I'm not directing this at you – your comment was constructive and fine – but in general it can be hard to have these discussions. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26579225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26579225
pjlegato 3y ago
As a direct result of Stallman's uncompromising disinterest in what values people in the broader world actually wanted to engage with -- instead attempting to dictate his own moral views as a petty tyrant -- GNU _as a project_ hasn't been relevant to computing for decades. When was the last time you booted up the Hurd kernel? I would be surprised if more than 10% of HN readers even know what that is. (Stallman actually summarily dismissed Hurd's lead developer when he dared to criticize the GFDL in public. https://lwn.net/Articles/59147/ https://lwn.net/Articles/59147/) Stallman's abrasive and confrontational posturing is related to but distinct from his ideological goals. His rude posturing actually _damaged_ the chances of ever reaching those goals. Even the GNU "copyleft" license -- the project's greatest success in terms of "actually impacting the world" -- has fallen more and more into disuse in favor of less restrictive licenses such as BSD and MIT.
- kevviiinn 3y ago
  AFAIK the Hurd kernel isn't ready for production because Linux is so solid so it hasn't been focused on
  - ebiester 3y ago
    That is true today, but Linux didn’t have that much of a lead. People chose to develop for Linux instead when the future was in doubt, and that was largely due to the pragmatism of Linus.
- arp242 3y ago
  GNU wants to recreate a 1988 Unix. That's not necessarily a bad thing – I'm an old Unix beardy type myself as well – but it's not really how you stay at the forefront of computing, yeah. Also didn't help Stallman alienated the GNOME and GTK people so they're not longer GNU projects (and they were independent for a long time before that anyway). There are still some important GNU projects though, GCC, GNU libc, and Grub being the most notable.
  - toyg 3y ago
    > didn't help Stallman alienated the GNOME and GTK people I don't know the details but, I mean, GNOME/GTK people themselves have been very good at alienating folks of all sorts...
raxxorraxor 3y ago
I agree. Stallman can be subborn and arrogant and he often rubs people the wrong way. It is a character flaw just as it is a character flaw to not be able to seperate these issues from the ideas proposed. People that demand a sanitized environment have their flaws as well and I believe them to be far more detrimental. People demanding his resignation would probably have installed a far less effective and competent leader. I also thought about Mozilla here that tried to set a new course which is as pale as the next corporate environment. People that tarred Stallman certainly would be insufficient in any leadership position even with Stallmans perhaps very eccentric flaws.

by toyg 3y ago

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.

liotier 3y ago
Ideological purity is the point. A whole range of other options are available but ideological purity is what Stallman offers, with no expectation that everyone will appreciate its benefits. The very existence of the FSF's offerings is necessary to understand what other positions compromise to obtain other benefits.
- throw0101b 3y ago
  > Ideological purity is the point. Can a person be ideologically pure and not be an asshole? Or do the two go together (as is alleged with Stallman)?
  - Hamuko 3y ago
    The assholes are probably firmly inside the union in the Venn diagram of "ideologically pure" and "vocal advocates".
  - teekert 3y ago
    I agree with throw0101bm but then there are people like Henry Cavill.
    - CoastalCoder 3y ago
      What's the Cavill reference?
      - teekert 3y ago
        Henry Cavill is vocal (but kind and respecting) and an "ideologically pure" geek, in the sense that he seems to try and change scripts of series and movies he plays in, where they overlap with his nerdiness, ie [0], but there are more references. Of course, this is true in so far as geekiness can be seen as an ideology, if so, Cavill is pretty pure and vocal, but also just a great guy it seems. Now he’s going for a Warhammer 40k series and people are looking forward to it, because he knows his s*. [0] https://redanianintelligence.com/2021/12/09/henry-cavill-added-a-scene-in-the-witcher-without-permission-and-it-worked/ https://redanianintelligence.com/2021/12/09/henry-cavill-add...
        Hamuko 3y ago
        I thought that the rumours were that other people in the production of The Witcher show were not fans of Cavill trying to change the scripts?
        dagw 3y ago
        Basically Cavill wanted the show to closely follow the books (books he was a huge fan of), and the show runners wanted to make changes to the stories and go in a different direction. This lead to a lot of arguments, and eventually Cavill being replaced.
- dale_glass 3y ago
  Okay, but Stallman's non-purity related bad qualities are a problem for his own mission. Eg, Stallman is reported as creeping women out in the link above. That has nothing to do with his uncompromising ideals regarding software. So maybe Stallman could quietly retire to some sort of metaphorical ivory tower, and keep producing uncompromising ideology, which could be then evangelized by somebody less creepy. There's no need for compromise even. The same ideology just has to be delivered by somebody with better people skills. I think that'd be a win/win.
  - arp242 3y ago
    That would be ideal, yes. But there also needs to be a bit of a culture change away from Stallmanism ("we want absolute Software Freedom now and anything even slightly short of that is unethical!) to a more pragmatic attitude and outlook. This starts with simple things like not picking fights with the BSD projects only because they allow non-free software in ports and not alienating many lead developers of the most successful project that uses your license (Linux).
    - toyg 3y ago
      Lol, this has been said over and over basically since GNU existed. "You need to compromise!!!11!!one!". FSF and GNU are not about compromises. If they were, they'd have stuck to the original Unix distributions and all their licensing grey areas. Instead they didn't, and the world is better for it. Why should they change now...?
      - arp242 3y ago
        > Instead they didn't, and the world is better for it. Why should they change now...? So this is where we fundamentally disagree: I do not think the world is better off with an uncompromising FSF. I think the world and state of Free Software would have been significantly more advanced if they had adopted a more pragmatic attitude. I don't think that's "compromising" per se, but rather accepting that things don't change in a day. Also consider an alternative universe where the FSF and/or GNU had invested in to a good code hosting platform and a system to setup payments for people developing software instead of the ecosystem rolling from one proprietary platform to another over the last 25 years.
- jackmott42 3y ago
  "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good" Might be a saying to reflect on for a bit. Also aside from that he was an enormous asshole to people, which damaged his own goals, and is just wrong.

arp242 3y ago

It's about effective advocacy. Stallman can think or do whatever he wants, but he is not and has never been an effective advocate. And from an advocacy position, ideological purity almost never works. An advocacy organisation like the FSF should be pragmatically "climbing the ladder" one step at a time, not insisting on an instantaneous revolution. You might as well advocate for the moon to be painted blue: it's just not going to happen, no matter how right you are. You absolutely can achieve short-term wins without losing the long-term picture. The idea that any compromise somehow diminishes the longer term ideals is just wrong. Consider a law that states that purchasing software must come with the source code (under any proprietary license/NDA) as a matter of "right to repair". This would be a complete non-starter for ideological purists because it's not True Freedom, but clearly it would be a huge improvement over the current situation. This is how the ideological purity is impeding progress. The reasons for Firefox's decline are unrelated to "compromised ideals" (which have IMO been hugely overstated in the first place). Quite frankly, no one cares about any of this outside of a relatively small group of people. If Mozilla had been more "ideologically pure" they never would have implemented DRM and would be considerably more irrelevant today. If you think "oh, this new browser has more Freedom (a concept you need to spend 10 minutes explaining in the first place) but you can't watch Netflix with it" is going to convince many people then you're sorely mistaken. The fact is: Firefox started declining as Chrome was just a better browser. That's all there is to it. Firefox Quantum significantly improved things, but it seems it was "too little, too late". All the cases where Free Software is a resounding success is because it's the best possible software for the problem, and the cases where it's not is because it's not the best software for the problem. Free Software will succeed if it's the best solution, so that's where the effort should go, not the (frequently minor or even petty) stuff Stallman keeps banging on about. Edit: the fact that this got downvoted in less than a minute – hardly enough time to actually read the post – is also part of the problem. I don't really care about downvotes, but it's indicative of the kind of hostility that makes these kind of internal community discussions hard. My article that I previously mentioned got posted to HN, where it was promptly flagged[1], seemingly because some pro-Stallman people were upset by it. Fine, whatever, I didn't even care enough to email dang about it, but it does make these discussions a lot less constructive than they can be. I received more emails and private communication about this article than everything else on my website combined, almost all positive by people who appreciated a more nuanced take than "Stallman == atrocious" or "Stallman == secondComing(Jesus)", so clearly it wasn't all that bad. But on HN it was "censored" – for lack of a better word. I'm not directing this at you – your comment was constructive and fine – but in general it can be hard to have these discussions. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26579225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26579225

pjlegato 3y ago

As a direct result of Stallman's uncompromising disinterest in what values people in the broader world actually wanted to engage with -- instead attempting to dictate his own moral views as a petty tyrant -- GNU _as a project_ hasn't been relevant to computing for decades. When was the last time you booted up the Hurd kernel? I would be surprised if more than 10% of HN readers even know what that is. (Stallman actually summarily dismissed Hurd's lead developer when he dared to criticize the GFDL in public. https://lwn.net/Articles/59147/ https://lwn.net/Articles/59147/) Stallman's abrasive and confrontational posturing is related to but distinct from his ideological goals. His rude posturing actually _damaged_ the chances of ever reaching those goals. Even the GNU "copyleft" license -- the project's greatest success in terms of "actually impacting the world" -- has fallen more and more into disuse in favor of less restrictive licenses such as BSD and MIT.

kevviiinn 3y ago
AFAIK the Hurd kernel isn't ready for production because Linux is so solid so it hasn't been focused on
- ebiester 3y ago
  That is true today, but Linux didn’t have that much of a lead. People chose to develop for Linux instead when the future was in doubt, and that was largely due to the pragmatism of Linus.
arp242 3y ago
GNU wants to recreate a 1988 Unix. That's not necessarily a bad thing – I'm an old Unix beardy type myself as well – but it's not really how you stay at the forefront of computing, yeah. Also didn't help Stallman alienated the GNOME and GTK people so they're not longer GNU projects (and they were independent for a long time before that anyway). There are still some important GNU projects though, GCC, GNU libc, and Grub being the most notable.
- toyg 3y ago
  > didn't help Stallman alienated the GNOME and GTK people I don't know the details but, I mean, GNOME/GTK people themselves have been very good at alienating folks of all sorts...

raxxorraxor 3y ago

I agree. Stallman can be subborn and arrogant and he often rubs people the wrong way. It is a character flaw just as it is a character flaw to not be able to seperate these issues from the ideas proposed. People that demand a sanitized environment have their flaws as well and I believe them to be far more detrimental. People demanding his resignation would probably have installed a far less effective and competent leader. I also thought about Mozilla here that tried to set a new course which is as pale as the next corporate environment. People that tarred Stallman certainly would be insufficient in any leadership position even with Stallmans perhaps very eccentric flaws.