18 ms·

We need more of Richard Stallman's ideas, not less

• Juliannz 3y ago
  [flagged]
• jleyank 3y ago
  Software is a good, and like most goods you can sell it, you can trade it or you can give it away. It is not necessarily a physical good, but the cost of duplicating physical goods has greatly decreased with automation and robotics. They’re digital copies of the original, like high resolution pictures of the painting somebody took months to make. Free software benefits others, but you can’t choose the membership of “others”.
  • Zambyte 3y ago
    As someone who directly benefits from software being sold (meaning a pricetag is put on the transfer of software), I don't think software should ever be sold. Labor should be sold, because that's the part that is actually expensive and valuable. Once software has been written, it should only be limited by network transfer rates and the size of the audience that wants it. Anything else is artificial scarcity for the sake of lining our pockets.
    • MontyCarloHall 3y ago
      If the product of that labor cannot be sold, how is the labor paid for?
      • Zambyte 3y ago
        Contracts.
        • MontyCarloHall 3y ago
          You mean support contracts, like RedHat? This only works for certain software where that’s a suitable revenue model. How would that work for, say, AAA games, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make and require little-to-no support after they’re released?
          • Zambyte 3y ago
            > You mean support contracts, like RedHat? Perhaps. I mean more generally: labor contracts. "I will pay you X to do Y", where Y could be to write some software to do something. > How would that work for, say, AAA games, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make and require little-to-no support after they’re released? It wouldn't. I also think the state of AAA games is awful, and we shouldn't strive to support that model.
        • auggierose 3y ago
          So I first need to do a contract with some imaginary customer before I am allowed to develop some software I just had an idea for? It's not that easy to come up with a consistent economic model, is it?
          • Zambyte 3y ago
            Carpenters, plumbers, and electricians seem to manifest their imaginary customers just fine by selling labor contracts.
            • martin8412 3y ago
              Those fields have somewhat exclusive rights to the work they do. You can't just start doing electrical work without proper credentials.
            • jleyank 3y ago
              Not a valid comparison as their work can’t be transferred. This, to me, is arguing that software should be developed for a specific customer and not distributed further. Which probably isn’t what you’re arguing.
              • Zambyte 3y ago
                If I buy a house that needs work, contract that work to be done, and then sell that house with the work done, I believe I have distributed the result of that labor. With the proprietary software model, I would not be able to sell a house that I have had electrical work done under contract. That is bogus.
                • jwestbury 3y ago
                  You're actually making the case for licensed software without free distribution here -- the plumber has worked on your house, and possibly installed parts, just as someone may work on a computer, and possibly install software. If you want, you could remove those parts and sell them to your neighbour, but then you wouldn't have them anymore. Or, you could sell the house whole, just as you could sell a computer with software installed (okay, peculiarities of licensing may make that challenging, and I'm in favour of licensing reform). But what you can't do with plumbing work is have it performed, then copy it to your neighbour's house whilst still keeping it for yourself. You can do that with free software.
    • lr4444lr 3y ago
      That's not an invalid point of view, but if the expertise, trade secrets, and skill of your labor is evident in the product, and it is now takeable at no cost, you've sold WAY more than your skilled time building the product: you've sold the years you spent developing the skills, finding markets, etc. That just isn't realistically priced in yet.
• Kye 3y ago
  Can we fork him instead?
  • revskill 3y ago
    Sure, he should get married and have many children.
    • usui 3y ago
      That wouldn't be a fork though. If we really wanted to make progress on this front, we'd work to advance progress in human cloning. And then after that, advance progress in brain uploads and downloads.
      • hutzlibu 3y ago
        Sorry, but an cloned army of RMS? That sounds like a interesting nerd cult movie. The question is, would it be a splatter action movie, or a dogmatic preaching documentary? Or would some of them actually write code again? (More serious, I think the best one could do for free software - is writing free software. And RMS is against more children in general btw.)
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  • pieter_mj 3y ago
    RMSGPT, can't be prompted to dismiss libre software, whatever you try.
  • Finnucane 3y ago
    Too much technical debt. Better to wipe clean and start over from scratch.
• pydry 3y ago
  >Forty years later, we must admit he was prescient. Every word he said still rings true. Very few celebrated forward thinkers were as right as RMS. Yet, we don’t like his message. We don’t like how he tells it. We don’t like him. As politicians understood quickly, we care more about appearance and feel-good communication than about the truth or addressing the root cause. Elites understand that while their boasts of being good people fall on deaf ears for all but their most ardent supporters, the cynicism of the public can reliably be weaponized via a concerted campaign of character assassination. It works against even the most blameless individuals. No guilt needs to actually be established either - a feeling that there is something "off" about the individual can be manufactured simply by throwing enough mud, consistently enough. If the mud doesnt stick to the individual, you can also throw mud at the supporters. It's all over this thread.
  • mandmandam 3y ago
    You're absolutely right. We saw it with Bernie, with Marianne, with environmental activists, with OWS; with Iraq protesters, with Vietnam protesters, with BLM, with Chomsky, with basically any anti-war media of any kind. It's really getting quite tiresome to hear people talk shit about RMS, while tech giants continue to harvest our souls and strip-mine our future for ad money.
  • Applejinx 3y ago
    …at which point the 'Open Source' side of things is unharmed, because they've practiced the realpolitik of giving away their power to giant corporate entities that care nothing for principle but will fight for their interests, against others like them. The interest is not in freedom. Their interests are in protecting their continued ability to plunder the commons. That's a perfectly real interest, so there's nothing fair about it but it's a line of defense. I know I'm interested in seeing what happens there. The essay sounds like it's claiming RMS-ness is still declining, and that this is a bad thing. I don't know whether Open Source-ness is keeping a space open for RMS-ness or starving it out, but I do know something's gotta be there, even if it means giving away power to force the corporate monsters to have a vested interest in a commons. They will steal everything anyway, including anything Richard has, so it's more about how well you can facilitate people sharing who want to share.
• p4bl0 3y ago
  My problem with RMS is that "FSF" now stands for "Fierce Stallman Fanbase" rather than "Free Software Foundation". In the recent (may be still ongoing) process of recruiting new members for the FSF board, while this process has been presented as an opportunity for the FSF to broaden its view and recruit more diverse people, candidates who did not want to give a complete allegiance to RMS were discarded in the first steps of the process. The FSF even demanded that people working with other free software defense groups around the world that at some point said anything not entirely positive about RMS to resign and distance themselves from those other groups to continue the process. I was extremely disappointed by this attitude. Anyway, I still think that the FSF is doing an important job and that it is necessary to have such groups. But I just don't think we need more RMS, really not, given what it appears to entail. Groups such as the FSF should really not be so tied to a single individual, whoever that is. And especially not with someone who's behavior has repeatedly been problematic while we need to tackle inclusivity issues in our communities. Even with the disclaimer at the beginning of the article, this title doesn't work for me. That said, I agree with most of the content of the article. The same article could have been titled "We need more copyleft", and it would be for the best. EDIT: to answer some comments: nobody's talking about diversity for diversity's sake here, nor specifically about diversity hiring. Inclusivity is also something to enjoy in public events for example, and we need public symbols to emphasizes that, which RMS (who, whether he wants it or not, is de facto a public symbol and a thought leader) is clearly incapable of.
  • Dalewyn 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • maxehmookau 3y ago
      > Nothing good comes from pursuing "diversity". Eesh. Nothing? Not one good thing comes from encouraging a diversity of people? > People should be judged for their character and merit, Yeah, they should. But they're not. Because humans are inherently biased, even when they don't mean to be.
      • 3y ago
• jostiniane 3y ago
  can't agree more! One of the main criteria for picking up a product in my workplace is the product taking the free software path and companies self hosting their own free software product.. We did it with the Graphana labs, Elasticsearch, ... We are paying anyways for such services so now we are Using a service + contributing indirectly to its free software business path and we love it.
• jmclnx 3y ago
  >The Free Software movement has been mostly killed by the corporate Open Source. To me this seems to be the case, and once $ gets involved, I think there is no way to stop this from happening. What volunteer would not be seduced by a 6 figure USD salary. I would not be surprised if RMS turned down offers similar to that 40+ years ago. That alone shows his dedication to Free Software. So yes, we need more like him.
  • belugacat 3y ago
    > What volunteer would not be seduced by a 6 figure USD salary This seems to be more of an NA thing. I know/have heard of plenty of EU devs who cut short interviews with NA companies offering 6 figure salaries because they lived very comfortably on their (often lower end) 5 figure salaries and why would they want any more? Especially if it involves sacrificing QoL.
    • thriftwy 3y ago
      The alternative is not accepting 5 figure salary. The alternative is accepting low end 5 figure salary and working on the FOSS product in after hours of a full day dedicated to something else entirely.
    • jmclnx 3y ago
      From what I heard, in the EU if you loose work you will get plenty of support from your Gov. Wish that was the case were I am. In NA, especially in the US, you get a bit of support. But after a period of time, you will be homeless. The period of time depends upon your State. I think in all cases, this period of support, will not exceed 1 year, some states much less. Also that support itself, is no were near the amount needed to cover basic living expenses. This means, in the US, many people would have a very hard time saying no to the a high salary. And there seems to be a trend where Companies will not hire people where were unemployed at the time of the interview. Luckily right now that trend seems to have reversed somewhat due to the skill work shortage.
      • fullspectrumdev 3y ago
• MontyCarloHall 3y ago
  From the article: >Disclaimer: I’m aware that Richard Stallman had some questionable or inadequate behaviours. I’m not defending those nor the man himself. … I’m defending a philosophy, not the philosopher. I pretend that his historical vision and his original ideas are still adequate today. The problem is that the man himself epitomizes his own ideas. A lot of his behavior is a consequence of taking his ideas to their logical conclusion. For example, consider the following interaction [0]: My closest interactions with him involved trying to get him off a conference stage so the next session could happen (just as bad as you’d imagine) and being seated next to him on a puddle-jumper during a 90 minute ground hold (whatever you’re imagining, worse). He … berate[d] me for having noise canceling headphones (something to do with them not being based on free software). He spent the whole time telling me about software freedom and how my headphones were a symbol of oppression or some such. I’m not sure how forcing the manufacturer of those headphones to make their hardware and firmware fully open source would benefit the world in any way, shape, or form. This sort of demagoguery does way more harm to the Free Software movement than good. If more of RMS’s ideas means more people thinking and behaving like that, we really, really don’t need any more. [0] https://twitter.com/mattblaze/status/1374460079798292487 https://twitter.com/mattblaze/status/1374460079798292487
  • hardware2win 3y ago
    How about attacking an argument instead of a man?
    • Kye 3y ago
      There's a reason every famous civil rights protest in the last century or so started with someone carefully chosen to stage it. A poor quality advocate can get in the way of change.
      • hn_thrwn 3y ago
        [dead]
      • modo_mario 3y ago
• chx 3y ago
  It would have been much better if the title were "We need more of Richard Stallman's ideas, not less". The author even acknowledges this in the preamble.
  • weevil 3y ago
    Simple: controversy. It wouldn't get so many clicks otherwise.
  • dang 3y ago
    Ok, we've put ideas in the title above. Thanks!
• mandmandam 3y ago
  > Copyleft as in "Forbidding privatising the commons". > We need to rebuild the commons. Ten thousand times yes. And it's not just software, though that is a major part of all this. The commons are under attack from every possible angle. Our air, our fresh water, our soil, our food, our climate, our oceans, our forests, our animals, our housing, our healthcare - they are all being destroyed, quite rapidly, by private interests.
  • Zambyte 3y ago
    I think this article from Drew would have also been good to link on this: https://drewdevault.com/2020/08/24/Alice-in-Wonderland.html https://drewdevault.com/2020/08/24/Alice-in-Wonderland.html
• informatimago 3y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36389805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36389805 You may also re-license under AGPL all your old software that you distributed so far under another license, as long as you still have the copyright on it. You won't be able to prevent others to use the old license, but you are in no obligation to continue distributing your old software under those old licenses. Of course, people who want up to date up-streams will have to agree to the new licensing terms. They may still fork the old software and keep it under the old license, but if they try to merge an AGPL patch, it'll become AGPL automatically by the GPL contamination. So they're quite incentivised to switch to the new upstream with the new AGPL license. Ah, if OpenAI had been under AGPL license...
• jkhdigital 3y ago
  It would be a better article without the anti-capitalist ranting. Capitalism won, because it is the only economic system compatible with individual rights. We can disagree about the level of taxation, redistribution, regulation, etc. but we’re not getting rid of free markets and private property rights. I wish we had a more precise set of terminology here. Maybe corporatism is a good description of what the author is opposed to?
  • esarbe 3y ago
    You seem to defend something you don't know the definition and meaning of. You can have free markets and private property without capitalism. You can have capitalism without "free" markets or private property. Capitalism simply means that the fruits of the labor are not enjoyed by the workers but by those owning the capital.
    • WJW 3y ago
      > fruits of the labor are not enjoyed by the workers How is my salary not the fruit of my labor? We can quibble (as many people have over the centuries) which division of profits between labor and capital is "fair", but stating a modern laborer is not getting anything out of their labor is quite false. Not as much as they want, sure, but it's not zero. The ways of shifting the balance between groups have also been known for centuries as well btw. Organization of labor into unions on the side of labor, various ways of divide-and-conquer on the side of capital.
      • esarbe 3y ago
        So, a slave would phrase that "How is the food and shelter I receive from my master not the fruit of my labor?" Capitalism is a system where the people doing the work are not the ones deciding over the fruits of their labor. This decision is instead made by the entity that owns the means of production.
        • WJW 3y ago
          Yes, that's what I said. Tbh I think it is fair for the provider of capital to be recompensed for their contribution, since factories and machine tools cost (lots of) money and they are an essential part of modern production. There would be no jobs for laborers without the input of capital owners, just as there would be no investment opportunities for capital owners without laborers. EDIT: WOW what a dishonest way to completely edit your post, and way to escalate this completely. A modern employee is in no way comparable to a slave, especially not the kind of employee likely to visit HN.
• elif 3y ago
  Disclaimer: I am a lifelong footpedaling, boot-to-fullscreen emacs apologist. However: I nolonger believe that GPL licensing is free-as-in speech. Especially in an age where stack overflow or GPT code snippets can accidentally cause violations, GPL has become an encumbrance on free software as frustrating OR MORE as the actual copyright/patent law it originally sought to attack. As a developer you have to bite your tongue and that is not free speech. Times have changed and so has the concept of free software, and RMS' ideology is too absolutist to apply today. Copyleft has just become an alternative copyright system whose fee is all your profit.
  • rhn_mk1 3y ago
    How does stack overflow cause violations of the GPL? Is it not possible to clarify the license when posting an answer? As far as I know, it's so far rather unclear whether using machine learning systems cause violations. Care to support the statement with an example?
    • elif 3y ago
      "any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License ."
      • rhn_mk1 3y ago
        This reads to me like it requires the entire answer to be published under the GPL. I guess it does cause accidental violations of the GPL, but in the same way as pasting GPL code without attribution. Or pasting MIT code without attribution. From a layman's perspective, the only difference is if the comment mixes GPL and some incompatible code in it. But that would be ridiculous under any license, so I actually don't know what to think about it. Could it be that fair use applies to SO snippets?
  • c4mpute 3y ago
    In that sense, any license that isn't fully public domain or equivalent is a problem. Stackoverflow and GPT could also give you secret but leaked Microsoft, Oracle or NSA code. You'll never know, until that black helicopter lands on your doorstep and a legion of lawyers empty your bank account. Just copy&pasting code from somewhere always was risky and always will be, as long as there is copyright, patents, trademarks, trade secrets and crap like that.
• lr4444lr 3y ago
  RMS was right IMHO when he said that software that runs without the permission of its users, doing things to or preventing use of the hardware owned by the user, is an infringement of freedom. But he goes too far in demanding that all software source be open, scrutinizable, and subject to modification. As a software dev, that's my work product, my trade secret, my value add. Not the end user's. He's free to turn it off and uninstall it if he doesn't like or trust what it does.
  • c4mpute 3y ago
    I see two alternatives: The RMS approach, where all software needs to be open, scrutinizable, subject to modification. Ensuring quality and responsibility through openness. Or the liability approach: Make closed-source developers liable for what they produce, legislate standards for safety and security and have them be responsible for their creations. Because the current state of closed source software got us into the mess of Windows, Stuxnet, self-murdering cars, etc. A combination of both approaches is possible. But if you want to hide your code, thats fine. If you then take full responsibility for your code.
  • BlackFly 3y ago
    As a society, we have learned to forbid manufacturers from selling for mass consumption products without divulging what those products generally contain. As a society, why would we allow people to sell for mass execution software without divulging what those products generally do when we historically know (and are currently seeing) how this will end up? The consumer is free to not consume if they don't trust the manufacturer? No, we generally require a little bit more declaration from the manufacturer on the product. I don't see why we would change this arrangement from physical products to software products. But certainly that doesn't dictate that the source code is available... we require a list of ingredients but not the recipe. Appliances are required to have power ratings. Other products have emissions ratings, fuel consumption, etc. Such products are also generally certified to certain standards. Open source is actually easier than figuring out how to regulate telemetry, energy consumption, data processing, repair, continuance of service and the host of other things society might want (and is currently beginning to regulate) to be declared by software manufacturers.
• lapcat 3y ago
  Serious question: How are software developers supposed to put a roof over their head and food on the table if software can't be privatized? We can't all be employed by academia or rely on charitable donations. The worst scenario would be if all software becomes "free" but funded by advertising. If you're not the customer, you're the product. The author rails against capitalist businesses, but what exactly is the author's proposed alternative? Are we going to have a Free Houses Foundation and a Free Furniture Foundation? It feels to me that the FSF take software labor completely for granted, as if it just grows on trees. Is every consumer good supposed to come with instructions for exactly reproducing it? That's a recipe for theft and getting uncut by lazy competition.
  • brookst 3y ago
    All business is about value created, not expenses incurred. And houses and furniture have marginal costs, where software does not. How does Linus Torvalds make money when Linux is free? How do commercial Linux or MySQL or Apache companies make money when their IP is free? It turns out that writing code is the least valuable thing a developer does. Which is a good thing since "turn spec into code" is a job function that will be taken over my AI in... (Checks watch) I'm fully supportive of close source, but I think it's pretty clear that successful businesses can employ lots of people usi g either model, and also that the greatest threat to code mill developers is not open source.
    • lapcat 3y ago
      > All business is about value created, not expenses incurred. Yes and no. Profit is revenue minus expenses. But you have to pay the expenses no matter what. Revenue and profit don't just magically appear. > And houses and furniture have marginal costs, where software does not. This seems to demonstrate what I said about taking software labor for granted. Producing software to operate at scale is actually quite difficult and requires a ton of labor. > How does Linus Torvalds make money when Linux is free? Good question. I don't even know. But the real question isn't how a few famous individuals like Torvalds and Stallman make a living. The question is how millions of non-famous individuals can make a living under this "funding model", whatever that happens to be. > it's pretty clear that successful businesses can employ lots of people usi[n]g either model Define "lots of people", and compare how many people are employed by open source companies vs. how many are employed by closed source companies. [EDIT:] I suspect the answer to the question of Linux funding is corporate donors. Which would be pretty ironic, given the anti-capitalist argument here, don't you think? It's just like how Mozilla is funded in large part by Google search revenue.
• alberth 3y ago
  GPL =? FPF I never understood how GPL licensed software qualified as “free” when numerous restrictions exist as part of that license. RMS even wrote an article about how software should not limit its freedom to be run, but GPL software does limit. It seems like RMS is actually describing MIT/BSD licenses, while having blinders to the shortcomings of his own licenses. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed...
  • c4mpute 3y ago
    GPL software imposes no limits for how it can be run. GPL only limits distribution, copying, development.
    • zabzonk 3y ago
      how does it limit development?
      • Jochim 3y ago
        Need to release your own changes if you distribute the application. Whether you're able to statically/dynamically link the library without also having to release your own source.
        • zabzonk 3y ago
          > Need to release your own changes if you distribute the application. i'm not sure if this is true. if i released version 1.0 to licencees then i have to give them the source, but i don't think i have to give them version 1.1 source, unless i released that to them.
  • rhn_mk1 3y ago
    How does the GPL limit the freedom to run? I think you might be misunderstanding it. The only limitations are on distribution: giving the code to others without giving them the sources.
• jasmer 3y ago
  I'm afraid this call for freedom is actually narrow ideology. Consider: what is more 'free'? A) Here is some code, do whatever with it? or B) Here is some code, you can only use it in certain circumstances? FSF is dead because it's not practical, and the ideologues behind it naively malign 'capitalism' as something terrible for the world. OSS makers are free to publish as they chose. Apple and MS don't force or cajole anyone to use MIT. If you use copyleft, your software will not likely get used very much and that's that. 'Big companies leverage over small developers!' True, maybe they should get together and license their software to Large Corporations? Finally, the conversation started with a giant Photo of Stallman and that hints at the ideological demagoguery right from the start no matter how much they try to play it down, it'd have been better to not opened the discussion with that at all. In the end, it will not matter, very few will use copyleft because it's just not practical and that's that.
  • rhn_mk1 3y ago
    Consider two timelines: immediate, and long-term future. Which world is more free? A: short term more free: you get to do what you please now, including not giving others the freedoms you got. B: long term more free: copyleft ensures that a library of code builds up, available for everyone to run, study, and modify, and that it's a hassle to restrict others' freedom to use your modifications. If practicality is only considered until the next tax period, world A is more attractive. Once you start thinking in human lifetimes, it no longer is.
    • jasmer 3y ago
      [dead]
• yawpitch 3y ago
  Nice to see someone else notice that a statement of fundamental freedoms that doesn’t ship with a statement of concomitant fundamental responsibilities is a statement that is already fatally undermined.
• zoky 3y ago
  [flagged]
• globular-toast 3y ago
  RMS has always struck me as someone who is confidently correct. For a start, he doesn't weigh in on everything. He knows where his expertise lie and where it doesn't. Having an opinion means something. It's easier to not have an opinion at all than to invest the brain power in forming one. But mainly, he is always open to new inputs. That his views haven't changed on Free Software over the years is not because he is staunchly attached to them but because he remains correct, as he always was. As for copyleft, that has been maligned both by those for whom it benefits to do so, and by those who severely misunderstand it. The problem with the latter group is people criticise the means and do not consider the ends. The point of copyleft is to disable copyright. Copyright is the enemy of free software and community. Copyleft is the only known way to disable copyright. The means are unfortunate, but they are necessary because copyright exists. There is no way around it. As long as copyright exists for software, copyleft must exist to. Stallman was merely taking the pragmatic approach with copyleft and it's been incredibly successful, even if it's not fully understood.
  • CJefferson 3y ago
    Have you read stallman’s posts to the emacs and gcc mailing lists over the years? As I have the almost opposite view — he often expresses strong, and wrong, opinions, which have damaged both emacs and gcc over the years.
    • astura 3y ago
      Agreed - the GP sounds like someone who's never read the writings of stallman himself, only heard of him.
• valvix 3y ago
  I propose a different statement: we need less cringe, not more
• micromacrofoot 3y ago
  Every time someone mentions richard stallman it becomes a conversation about richard stallman, when will people learn
• pieter_mj 3y ago
  the author is wrong about Bruce Perens and Eric S Raymond though. They are as far removed from libre software as Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates or Steve Jobs were. Libre software is very radical and it's not about software excellence as Open Source is, but it's a political opinion about the freedom of the users using the software. Any user can turn into a developer in an instant (or not), and if he doesn't have the four freedoms libre software guarantees, most of the time he doesn't get very far or not as far as he wanted. Even Linus doesn't get this, to him free software is only about "tit for tat".
• devinprater 3y ago
  Meh, someone who talked to RMS said that he said that people with disabilities might as well just use Windows and iOS and such, because FOSS wasn't ever gonna focus on making a good experience for us. So no, we don't need more of that, or people calling disabled people's experiences with desktop Linux lies and such. If FOSS is to be welcoming to everyone, it needs to be welcoming to not just sighted, able, nuro-typical men.
  • placesalt 3y ago
    I can personally contradict this with my own interactions with RMS, in which he gave serious and continuing thought to development of libre computer interface software for blind people. Accessibility is listed as a FSF high-priority project (https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Category/Interface/accessibility https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Category/Interface/accessibil...)
  • RobotToaster 3y ago
    As an autistic, I have serious doubts that RMS is neurotypical.
    • bombolo 3y ago
      [flagged]
• user6723 3y ago
  Stallman did nothing wrong.
• goodpoint 3y ago
  Good article but the title is pretty weird: > I’m not defending those nor the man himself. Then why such title "We need more of Richard Stallman, not less"??
• TomMasz 3y ago
  Any movement that coalesces around a single person is indistinguishable from a cult.
  • shkkmo 3y ago
    You clearly have little experience with actual cults...
• dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  Arguably, the GPL license, and the free software politics of Stallman make software less free. Being forced to distribute changes doesn't represent freedom for users of GPL software. Removing the ability of others to keep secret their source that uses GPL software isn't freedom. Limiting the ability of others to commercialise software that uses GPL isn't freedom. Most of the discussions around GPL have a anti-corporate flavour to them, with a large helping of righteous indignation about said corporations monetising the software. When did free software become about money? The GPL licence has become all about money since it's often offered as a restrictive licence in combination with a commercial licence. I feel like the people most disadvantaged by GPL software are individual programmers and small teams who could most benefit from using open source software and make a living out of it. Of course people can choose whichever licences they want, but claiming to be the pinnacle of free software is rich, to say the least.
  • AlexandrB 3y ago
    Having source code available is similar to "right to repair" but for software products. It absolutely does give more freedom to users, but at the expense of some monetization opportunities. Whether that trade off is worth it is a matter of much debate.
• bbanyc 3y ago
  We need less of Richard Stallman and more of Matthew Garrett. Free software is good. Monomaniacal obsession with free software at the expense of literally everything else is why Stallman's allies are few and far between.
  • josephcsible 3y ago
    Isn't Matthew Garrett always defending Treacherous Computing technology?
• paxys 3y ago
  The free software movement died when it stopped being about writing software and more about politics and ideology. Tell me, when was the last time the FSF funded, developed or released any actual software? Their money and influence is instead now used to tell other developers what to do with their labor and general users how to live their lives.
• dingi 3y ago
  It's simple when you realize that, FSF is about USER FREEDOM. Not DEVELOPER FREEDOM. As a user, I would be thrilled to have all 4 freedoms met. But as a developer with commercial interests, this might not be ideal. Clash between FSF and corporate mindsets are an age old thing. They hate FSF's definition of free software with a passion. A lot of mudslinging at FSF can be traced back someway or another to big corporations and their puppet organizations. WRT RMS, I don't see a much difference between him and young activists these days. Sometimes they can be a pain in the a*.
  • pas 3y ago
    As a user I also want sustainable software, and for that developers have to also have their cake too. Where's the equilibrium point? Hard to say, obviously. Usually both users (and other downstream consumers, ie. other developers) and the actual developers of free & open software suffer from a serious information deficit. Users have crazy demands (see any random half-successful project's issue tracker), but also principled developers seriously underestimate the purchasing power of their user base, and useful overlap of common interests. I still believe that it's possible to build real alternatives to the hyperscale giants, but I have no illusions about doing it with "just focus on the code and principles", just going to comfy conferences funded by said giants, and so on.
• dralley 3y ago
  Stallmann has, as far as I can tell, been sitting on his hands for the past 15 years. In that time period it does not seem that has accomplished anything of consequence except drama, pissing off many of his remaining allies with powertrips [0], and crippling GCC relative to LLVM. I cannot remember the last time a new piece of software came out of the GNU organization which was actually relevant to users or developers - they and the FSF seem stuck in the 1990s and have done little to attempt to address the general trend towards SaaS / web. Even if "Stallmann was right", that doesn't mean he's the right person to lead the FSF. Because the increasing irrelevance of the FSF isn't just our fault for not caring enough, but his also, through inaction, poor decisionmaking, unprofessional behavior and terrible PR. [0] https://lwn.net/Articles/802985/ https://lwn.net/Articles/802985/
  • loxs 3y ago
    Stallman is huge. Practically you cannot appoint someone to his position. FSF is meaningless without him. If you could, this would have happened when they fired him.
    • dale_glass 3y ago
      That's a huge problem for the FSF then, which it should be urgently looking to solve. He's 70 years old, which means he will need a successor fairly soon in one way or another. If the mission is that important, it shouldn't die with him.
      • p4bl0 3y ago
        Yes, this is the most important point from an organizational point of view. If only for that, accepting to be so tied to a single individual is a concern.
  • p4bl0 3y ago
    I 100% agree with you. The inflexibility of the FSF as to adapt to platform capitalism (e.g., address licensing issues of Uber-like platforms and clients) is also a serious concern. When I see the debacle that the coopyleft (with two o, not a typo) licencing of the CoopCycle software platform and client has been, I'm left wondering if the discussion on human users vs software freedom (which is more or less supposed to be the philosophical difference between free and open source) isn't just a hypocritical argument.
• thesuperbigfrog 3y ago
  The four freedoms that free software guarantee are essential for people to be in control of their own computing. Are you in control of your computer, or does your computer control you? https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM?t=57 https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM?t=57 People get angry and frustrated when a big tech company makes a decision that is user-hostile, but benefits the tech company's profits. This is to be expected because in almost all cases, the big tech company has no obligation other than to maximize profits. The four freedoms help to put a check on the power of big tech companies by providing alternatives that keep power in the hands of the user. That does not mean that free software and big tech companies cannot coexist or even thrive together. Red Hat was built on free software. System76 sells hardware that runs mostly free software.
  • simiones 3y ago
    The problem with this utopic vision is that the vast vast majority of users have no power over their software regardless of whether it's proprietary or open source: they just don't know how to write software, so the supposed four freedoms are almost entirely lost on them. The other problem is that it is simply un-economical to imagine a software world that is run non-commercially in the current economical models. Most software would simply not get written if it had to be redistributable for free by every recipient. As it stands, the only economical way of creating free software is as a cooperation project between several commercial entities, who benefit from pooling resources to build common infrastructure - such as the Linux kernel, LLVM and clang, or Kubernetes.
    • thesuperbigfrog 3y ago
      >> they just don't know how to write software, so the supposed four freedoms are almost entirely lost on them. I don't know how to do car repairs, that's why I hire someone to do it for me. Software developers can be hired to work on software the same way. >> it is simply un-economical to imagine a software world that is run non-commercially in the current economical models. Software freedom does not have to mean non-commercial. Software can respect freedom and still be sold commercially. >> the only economical way of creating free software is as a cooperation project between several commercial entities This is not strictly true. While many large projects have many interested contributors and supporters, some projects are driven by a single company, a small team, or a single person.
• markus_zhang 3y ago
  IMO, you cannot solve the issue from within the system. Period.
• edelsohn 3y ago
  The FSF and the RMS fanbase advocate for a philosophy without a viable business model or skin in the game. The FSF can stand on principle, but most of the developers who are employed to work on Free Software don't wish to follow it into irrelevance and oblivion. The FSF can advocate for its principles and philosophy, but ultimately it has painted itself into a corner where it has no skin in the game for the impact of the strident interpretation of those principles and philosophies on the developers whose jobs depend on Free Software projects. The FSF is happy to take credit for the impact and benefit of the GNU Project software packages. And happy to raise money for its efforts based on the impact of the software, although the efforts primarily are advocacy for and enforcement of the licenses, not support for the success of the software projects. The FSF and its advocates mostly are concerned about the purity of the ideology. Anyone or any project that deviates is an apostate. The FSF and its leadership explicitly have stated that they have inhibited innovation in deference to the ideology. When Free Software was the only option to counter proprietary software, maybe that made sense. With a plethora of Open Source licenses and an explosion of Open Source projects, a reactive approach of waiting until the FSF is forced to allow a technically competitive feature is a losing strategy.
• jacknews 3y ago
  We really have to learn to, or perhaps go back to, detach ideas from their originators or audience, and value them on their own merits. https://areomagazine.com/2017/03/27/how-french-intellectuals-ruined-the-west-postmodernism-and-its-impact-explained/ https://areomagazine.com/2017/03/27/how-french-intellectuals...
  • asoneth 3y ago
    Isn't this already true? The article makes that point at the very beginning and many people who cut ties or stopped supporting the FSF and Stallman still seem to be committed to the principles of libre software.
• incomingpain 3y ago
  Stallman has his eccentricities to be sure. But imagine, because of your flaws as a human being... you get cancelled. It's the wrong move. We are all flawed and we should have a goal of improving. But because we aren't perfect we can't be part of these things?
• hexorg 3y ago
  What the article fails to address is… We all need food. Yeah it’s great working on GPL code and ensuring it’s all open. But when companies consider your gpl library vs someone else’s mit library they will naturally go with mit. And then they’ll say “well we’re using this free library already might as well donate/fund it”. So suddenly this MIT dev is able to put way more time into the mit library than your gpl library because it becomes their job. Something that feeds them. Their library gets better faster… And more and more companies use it and fund it. GPL is great if absolutely everyone is on board and everyone is fed. But that’s not the world we live in.
  • josephcsible 3y ago
    Don't a ton of people get paid to work on the GPL'd Linux kernel?
    • hexorg 3y ago
      Yes but you can interface with Linux kernel without being required to use GPL license.
  • zelphirkalt 3y ago
    If we only took the time and effort developers work on GPL and AGPL stuff in their free time, and abolished all bad-but-done-for-profit-nevertheless projects, we would probably still make more progress, than we are doing now, when so many developers work on software, that is not only not advancing things or truly helping anyone, but is actually actively harmful, addictive, engagement optimized, advertising for bad products, or helping the overlords to surveil the uninformed masses.
    • hexorg 3y ago
      Yes, but it’s much easier said than done. The article talks about FSF being shadowed by all of the funding for MIT licensed code. So funding means of making GPL code more attractive to companies probably should be one of the higher priorities. Though I’m sure companies also ensure FSF and GPL get bad publicity .