4 ms·

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

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.
    - toyg 3y ago
      I mean, no hard FSF/GNU, no GPL, no Linux - with only the BSD/MIT license around, any good kernel feature would have been simply coopted and repackaged like the TCP stack was, keeping commercial software always ahead. From that perspective, the world is undoubtedly better off like this. Even the projects that compromised just a little bit with LGPL often got swallowed: see KHTML, for example. > consider an alternative universe where the FSF and/or GNU had invested in to a good code hosting platform FSF/GNU were created by nerdy hippies, expecting them to ever be great at running such a service is unrealistic. Besides, they did provide platforms, they just were never as good as commercial alternatives.
esarbe 3y ago
It would be good if you would not repeat unsubstantiated rumors. No credible allegation have brought forward against Stallman's behavior regarding women. It's all hearsay and we should avoid hearsay and rumors.
- dale_glass 3y ago
  I don't mean to imply he committed a crime. I'm saying that he's odd and offputting to many people, which is hardly news. And while I've not seen him recently in person, everything I've read firmly indicate that he's very stuck in the past and his manners are not up to modern standards.
  - esarbe 3y ago
    Sure, no harm done. Stallman is odd, no argument about that.

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.
  - toyg 3y ago
    I mean, no hard FSF/GNU, no GPL, no Linux - with only the BSD/MIT license around, any good kernel feature would have been simply coopted and repackaged like the TCP stack was, keeping commercial software always ahead. From that perspective, the world is undoubtedly better off like this. Even the projects that compromised just a little bit with LGPL often got swallowed: see KHTML, for example. > consider an alternative universe where the FSF and/or GNU had invested in to a good code hosting platform FSF/GNU were created by nerdy hippies, expecting them to ever be great at running such a service is unrealistic. Besides, they did provide platforms, they just were never as good as commercial alternatives.

esarbe 3y ago

It would be good if you would not repeat unsubstantiated rumors. No credible allegation have brought forward against Stallman's behavior regarding women. It's all hearsay and we should avoid hearsay and rumors.

dale_glass 3y ago
I don't mean to imply he committed a crime. I'm saying that he's odd and offputting to many people, which is hardly news. And while I've not seen him recently in person, everything I've read firmly indicate that he's very stuck in the past and his manners are not up to modern standards.
- esarbe 3y ago
  Sure, no harm done. Stallman is odd, no argument about that.