7 ms·

We need people like RMS. He marks one side of the Overton Window framing the debate on freedom and software. (Overton window: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over

by cstross 14y ago

We need people like RMS. He marks one side of the Overton Window framing the debate on freedom and software. (Overton window: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window ) This doesn't mean he's right but what he does is necessary. If he didn't exist we'd need to invent him (or someone like him). (Oh, and he is indeed a fanatic, but of the pacifist variety -- not the kind who's interested in killing people to enforce his views -- and therefore worth debating with.)

deleted 14y ago
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arthi 14y ago
No doubt you feel the same way about Rick Santorum.
- cynicalkane 14y ago
  To elaborate on this, fanaticism often looks like a great idea to those allied with the fanatics, even if they disagree with their behavior. But people should not feel entitled to fanaticism because they think they are right, because that's how you get people like Santorum. Everyone thinks they are right, after all. It's hypocritical to say fanaticism is a luxury permissible to the "good guys" and not to the "bad guys".
- graeme 14y ago
  That would only be true if he thought santorumms ideas were generally good, but too extreme.
- nickpinkston 14y ago
  I'd say I feel the same way about Ron Paul - he brings a refreshing perspective to politics, but he's certainly not right on everything. Santorum adds nothing to the debate but repetition of the narrative that's already going on. I should add to this that no one ever likes the same tactic they use to be used against them - in this case having Stallman define an extreme position to maintain a more pragmatic narrative. All considered, I'm glad both Stallman and Paul are doing their thing - even if I don't agree with them much of the time.
  - arthi 14y ago
    So it's more appropriate to say you don't mind fanaticism as long as you agree with most of what they're saying, not because fanaticism is good. Typical hypocrisy. It's like saying "Yeah, I'm all for free speech... EXCEPT those guys who disagree with me." Guess what? The other side feels the same way. Their guy is moving the Overton window in the direction they want. RMS and Ron Paul are not pragmatic to them.
- Spooky23 14y ago
  Santorum is a true believer. There's a difference between a leader who drinks the kool-aid, and a leader who mixes the kool-aid. Kool-aid drinkers by definition cannot set the agenda.
  - arthi 14y ago
    So RMS doesn't really believe in free software?
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    As John Medaille put it Santorum preaches to the choir but drives the congregation out of the church.
- pjscott 14y ago
  I would feel that way about Rick Santorum if (and only if) I wanted people's views to move closer to his. This is not a statement about his opinions, but about how his opinions influence the public discourse. Likewise for RMS.
bluekeybox 14y ago
Except: (1) Politics and public debate is multidimensional and not a single axis with a clear "left" and "right" as people sometimes mistakenly imagine; multiple and different extrema are possible. (2) On the axis where RMS appears to stand, I do not believe his position to be the most extreme one possible. (3) Just the way most people fail to understand that politics is multidimensional, without broad knowledge, they will often mistake one political axis for another. I believe people misunderstand RMS and project their own ideals about freedom and ascetic saints/prophets onto him. I do not believe RMS to be a champion of freedom that many people who had heard of him do. There exists an equally idealistic view, from where his positions are not wrong because they are fanatical, they are wrong period. Take what RMS wrote about the early days of Symbolics. When you read him, you begin to realize that he believed the community of hackers that developed at MIT to be a goal unto itself, not as a means to achieve something specific. This is in spite of the fact that every individual who started hacking at MIT (this ironically includes RMS) surely saw himself as pursuing a specific goal. It is hard to reason with a man who believes that groups of people exist in and of themselves, independently of individuals and their goals. The only possible consequence that can stem from such a position is to define freedom as a property of groups, not of individuals, which is completely alien to the notion of freedom as most people (at least in the U.S.) understand it. The exact same position, when held by people in other countries, has lead to tyrannies being established, both of right- and left-wing kind. The issue that ESR is raising is a very practical one -- RMS has become the de facto spokesperson for the free software movement, which hurts free software more than it helps it.
- kijin 14y ago
  If you think of the Overton Window as a multidimensional space with multiple axes, RMS does occupy a location close to (although perhaps not exactly at) one or another edge of it. Regardless of whether he is wrong or right, he has done a great deal of work stretching the edges of, and drawing attention to, the part of the Overton Window that he occupies. In fact, it's the whole point of the Overton Window argument that even wrong views can often be useful in the grand scheme of things. So I don't think your exceptions to GP's argument are valid. Also, lots of people have hopelessly romantic views about the group to which they belong (or used to belong). At least in that respect, RMS is not unique at all. But the fact that he falls prey to this common error is not very relevant when we ask whether it is indeed "evil" to make proprietary software, or any other current issue that RMS rants about. (We don't evaluate Peter Thiel's startup advice on the basis of his odd philosophical commitments, do we?)
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cwp 14y ago
No. The difference between RMS and ESR is one of kind, not one of degree. Both the free software movement and the open source movement believe that open system are good, and the more open they are the better they are. The difference is in their answer to the question of "why?" RMS and his adherents believe in inalienable human right to tinker, and consider limitations to that right, such as closed source technology, to morally offensive. ESR and his followers believe that open technology is better technology and that the benefits of technology are more fully realized when it's possible to tinker with it. RMS is concerned with morality, ESR with practicality. The key thing here is that there's no spectrum with the RMS on one end, Steve Jobs on the other end and ESR somewhere in the middle. The open source movement is just as ardent, just as committed and just as "extreme" as the free software movement, but more successful. Now perhaps you mean that the FSF serves an important function, in that their fanaticism makes the open source movement look more reasonable and thus more acceptable to the mainstream. But I think the very fact that actual positions held by free software and open source advocates are so similar make it hard for mainstream observers to appreciate the distinction. So no, we don't need people like RMS. [edited the last line for clearer rhetoric]
- raganwald 14y ago
  The difference between RMS and ESR is one of kind, not one of degree Yes. RMS is concerned with morality, ESR with practicality. Also yes, for some definition of “practicality.” The open source movement is just as ardent, just as committed and just as "extreme" as the free software movement, but more successful. I don’t know how to measure commitment, but I agree that the open source movement is more successful in the sense that it is more popular. But what else should we expect? If you take two groups with similar ideas, but one thinks of moral arguments as a way to achieve practical goals, while the other thinks that practical arguments are a way to achieve moral goals, you should almost always expect to see the “practical” group be more successful than the moral group. I see this in school, where students who study how to pass tests get higher marks than students who study the material to learn. I see this in business. I see this in politics. Why would we expect to see anything else in software? no, we don't need RMS I think that’s a fine statement to make if you qualify who “we” are. If you mean people concerned with practical objectives, you may be right. I caution against rhetoric that might be mistaken for suggesting that your point of view encompasses everyone reading your arguments.
Rhino55 14y ago
This is absolutely false. When RMS advocates for "free" software, what he really means is "prohibit IP protection for value-add". Prohibition != Freedom. This inhibits the natural development of software...it is bad for software, and it is bad for business. The GPL tries to TAKE AWAY your freedom to add value to existing GPL products by forcing you to release your source code. Fortunately the GPL is fairly ineffective in achieving its aims. The BSD is an actually free license. When you release actually free software, there is nothing to debate because you aren't going out of your way to annoy people who are trying to bring innovative products to market that are based on your stuff. The Free Software Foundation should give up already and call itself the "Anti-Commercial Software Cult".
bonch 14y ago
Whenever this topic comes up, someone chimes in that we "need" Stallman, and it's never sufficiently explained why. As for calling him a pacifist who means no harm, he has publicly stated that it's more important not to have proprietary software than for employees to be able to feed their kids (http://lunduke.com/?p=2273 http://lunduke.com/?p=2273).
specialist 14y ago
Agreeing with you: Absolutists (like RMS) expand the Overton Window. I'm more BSD than GPL, but without RMS, BSD would be seen as radical. ESR wrote: Unfortunately, RMS made an early decision to frame his advocacy as a moral crusade rather than a pragmatic argument about engineering practices and outcomes. Having done a bit of policy work, value statements are what works. "Intellectuals" (progressives, geeks, libertarians) think The Right Answer wins. Nope. Cite George Lakoff, David Domke, Thomas Frank, Noam Chomsky... Further, open source is a moral issue. Example: Diebold hid their software. We lost transparency of our elections. Bad things happened. John Bonifaz and voteraction.org proved in court that John Kerry won New Mexico in 2004. The same things happened nationwide. Extrapolate. Ditto medical devices, our personal data, etc. So I'm with RMS. I'm sorry that RMS makes ESR feel weird. Tough.

by cstross 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

arthi 14y ago

No doubt you feel the same way about Rick Santorum.

cynicalkane 14y ago
To elaborate on this, fanaticism often looks like a great idea to those allied with the fanatics, even if they disagree with their behavior. But people should not feel entitled to fanaticism because they think they are right, because that's how you get people like Santorum. Everyone thinks they are right, after all. It's hypocritical to say fanaticism is a luxury permissible to the "good guys" and not to the "bad guys".
graeme 14y ago
That would only be true if he thought santorumms ideas were generally good, but too extreme.
nickpinkston 14y ago
I'd say I feel the same way about Ron Paul - he brings a refreshing perspective to politics, but he's certainly not right on everything. Santorum adds nothing to the debate but repetition of the narrative that's already going on. I should add to this that no one ever likes the same tactic they use to be used against them - in this case having Stallman define an extreme position to maintain a more pragmatic narrative. All considered, I'm glad both Stallman and Paul are doing their thing - even if I don't agree with them much of the time.
- arthi 14y ago
  So it's more appropriate to say you don't mind fanaticism as long as you agree with most of what they're saying, not because fanaticism is good. Typical hypocrisy. It's like saying "Yeah, I'm all for free speech... EXCEPT those guys who disagree with me." Guess what? The other side feels the same way. Their guy is moving the Overton window in the direction they want. RMS and Ron Paul are not pragmatic to them.
Spooky23 14y ago
Santorum is a true believer. There's a difference between a leader who drinks the kool-aid, and a leader who mixes the kool-aid. Kool-aid drinkers by definition cannot set the agenda.
- arthi 14y ago
  So RMS doesn't really believe in free software?
- einhverfr 14y ago
  As John Medaille put it Santorum preaches to the choir but drives the congregation out of the church.
pjscott 14y ago
I would feel that way about Rick Santorum if (and only if) I wanted people's views to move closer to his. This is not a statement about his opinions, but about how his opinions influence the public discourse. Likewise for RMS.

bluekeybox 14y ago

Except: (1) Politics and public debate is multidimensional and not a single axis with a clear "left" and "right" as people sometimes mistakenly imagine; multiple and different extrema are possible. (2) On the axis where RMS appears to stand, I do not believe his position to be the most extreme one possible. (3) Just the way most people fail to understand that politics is multidimensional, without broad knowledge, they will often mistake one political axis for another. I believe people misunderstand RMS and project their own ideals about freedom and ascetic saints/prophets onto him. I do not believe RMS to be a champion of freedom that many people who had heard of him do. There exists an equally idealistic view, from where his positions are not wrong because they are fanatical, they are wrong period. Take what RMS wrote about the early days of Symbolics. When you read him, you begin to realize that he believed the community of hackers that developed at MIT to be a goal unto itself, not as a means to achieve something specific. This is in spite of the fact that every individual who started hacking at MIT (this ironically includes RMS) surely saw himself as pursuing a specific goal. It is hard to reason with a man who believes that groups of people exist in and of themselves, independently of individuals and their goals. The only possible consequence that can stem from such a position is to define freedom as a property of groups, not of individuals, which is completely alien to the notion of freedom as most people (at least in the U.S.) understand it. The exact same position, when held by people in other countries, has lead to tyrannies being established, both of right- and left-wing kind. The issue that ESR is raising is a very practical one -- RMS has become the de facto spokesperson for the free software movement, which hurts free software more than it helps it.

kijin 14y ago
If you think of the Overton Window as a multidimensional space with multiple axes, RMS does occupy a location close to (although perhaps not exactly at) one or another edge of it. Regardless of whether he is wrong or right, he has done a great deal of work stretching the edges of, and drawing attention to, the part of the Overton Window that he occupies. In fact, it's the whole point of the Overton Window argument that even wrong views can often be useful in the grand scheme of things. So I don't think your exceptions to GP's argument are valid. Also, lots of people have hopelessly romantic views about the group to which they belong (or used to belong). At least in that respect, RMS is not unique at all. But the fact that he falls prey to this common error is not very relevant when we ask whether it is indeed "evil" to make proprietary software, or any other current issue that RMS rants about. (We don't evaluate Peter Thiel's startup advice on the basis of his odd philosophical commitments, do we?)

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

cwp 14y ago

No. The difference between RMS and ESR is one of kind, not one of degree. Both the free software movement and the open source movement believe that open system are good, and the more open they are the better they are. The difference is in their answer to the question of "why?" RMS and his adherents believe in inalienable human right to tinker, and consider limitations to that right, such as closed source technology, to morally offensive. ESR and his followers believe that open technology is better technology and that the benefits of technology are more fully realized when it's possible to tinker with it. RMS is concerned with morality, ESR with practicality. The key thing here is that there's no spectrum with the RMS on one end, Steve Jobs on the other end and ESR somewhere in the middle. The open source movement is just as ardent, just as committed and just as "extreme" as the free software movement, but more successful. Now perhaps you mean that the FSF serves an important function, in that their fanaticism makes the open source movement look more reasonable and thus more acceptable to the mainstream. But I think the very fact that actual positions held by free software and open source advocates are so similar make it hard for mainstream observers to appreciate the distinction. So no, we don't need people like RMS. [edited the last line for clearer rhetoric]

raganwald 14y ago
The difference between RMS and ESR is one of kind, not one of degree Yes. RMS is concerned with morality, ESR with practicality. Also yes, for some definition of “practicality.” The open source movement is just as ardent, just as committed and just as "extreme" as the free software movement, but more successful. I don’t know how to measure commitment, but I agree that the open source movement is more successful in the sense that it is more popular. But what else should we expect? If you take two groups with similar ideas, but one thinks of moral arguments as a way to achieve practical goals, while the other thinks that practical arguments are a way to achieve moral goals, you should almost always expect to see the “practical” group be more successful than the moral group. I see this in school, where students who study how to pass tests get higher marks than students who study the material to learn. I see this in business. I see this in politics. Why would we expect to see anything else in software? no, we don't need RMS I think that’s a fine statement to make if you qualify who “we” are. If you mean people concerned with practical objectives, you may be right. I caution against rhetoric that might be mistaken for suggesting that your point of view encompasses everyone reading your arguments.

Rhino55 14y ago

This is absolutely false. When RMS advocates for "free" software, what he really means is "prohibit IP protection for value-add". Prohibition != Freedom. This inhibits the natural development of software...it is bad for software, and it is bad for business. The GPL tries to TAKE AWAY your freedom to add value to existing GPL products by forcing you to release your source code. Fortunately the GPL is fairly ineffective in achieving its aims. The BSD is an actually free license. When you release actually free software, there is nothing to debate because you aren't going out of your way to annoy people who are trying to bring innovative products to market that are based on your stuff. The Free Software Foundation should give up already and call itself the "Anti-Commercial Software Cult".

bonch 14y ago

Whenever this topic comes up, someone chimes in that we "need" Stallman, and it's never sufficiently explained why. As for calling him a pacifist who means no harm, he has publicly stated that it's more important not to have proprietary software than for employees to be able to feed their kids (http://lunduke.com/?p=2273 http://lunduke.com/?p=2273).

specialist 14y ago

Agreeing with you: Absolutists (like RMS) expand the Overton Window. I'm more BSD than GPL, but without RMS, BSD would be seen as radical. ESR wrote: Unfortunately, RMS made an early decision to frame his advocacy as a moral crusade rather than a pragmatic argument about engineering practices and outcomes. Having done a bit of policy work, value statements are what works. "Intellectuals" (progressives, geeks, libertarians) think The Right Answer wins. Nope. Cite George Lakoff, David Domke, Thomas Frank, Noam Chomsky... Further, open source is a moral issue. Example: Diebold hid their software. We lost transparency of our elections. Bad things happened. John Bonifaz and voteraction.org proved in court that John Kerry won New Mexico in 2004. The same things happened nationwide. Extrapolate. Ditto medical devices, our personal data, etc. So I'm with RMS. I'm sorry that RMS makes ESR feel weird. Tough.