5 ms·

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

by 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.
- cwp 14y ago
  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. Fair point. That line was actually meant as a direct response to cstross's "We need people like RMS," but I botched the parallel construction. The "we" there should be the same "we" that cstross was talking about. 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 That's an interesting way to think about it, but for me at least, neither of those characterizations is accurate. I think practical arguments are a way to achieve practical goals. I oppose the philosophy of the FSF, because AFAICT, they're making moral arguments to achieve moral goals. You seem to consider morality and practicality to be two sides of the same coin, where I see them as quite separate. What I dislike about the RMS position is that it seems to consider tinkering, and perhaps geek culture in general, as inherently good and goals in their own right. I take a more utilitarian view: tinkering is good insofar we benefit from the results. (That "we" is very broad by they way. Users of technology and humanity in general.) [turns out I can still edit the gp, so I fixed that line]
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - icebraining 14y ago
    What I dislike about the RMS position is that it seems to consider tinkering, and perhaps geek culture in general, as inherently good and goals in their own right. I take a more utilitarian view: tinkering is good insofar we benefit from the results. I disagree; his position, as I perceive it, is that having the right to tinker is inherently good, not so much tinkering itself. Much like many of us consider Free Speech to be inherently good, even if we find some speech abominable. And the advantages of Free Software aren't limited to tinkering, of course.
    - cwp 14y ago
      Sure. The right to tinker is required for actual tinkering, and a right that's never exercised is pointless. Regardless, I don't consider the right to tinker an end in its self. The pleasure of tinkering is utterly unimportant compared with the good that a tinkerers work can bring into the world. As for freedom of speech, I think the analogy is flawed. The technology equivalent of speech is invention, and the freedom to invent doesn't require anything like the GPL. The freedom to tinker is more like the freedom to copyedit somebody else's work. And hey, I'm for it! Remix culture is great stuff. But it's not in the same league as freedom of speech. When it comes right down to it, though, I don't consider freedom of speech an end in its self either. The value of free speech is the sort of society it produces, not the speech its self. I favour limits to speech when the effect of that speech is not a net good to society. Now, those situations are few and far between, but they do exist. Yelling "fire" and all that; our legal system has a long and nuanced tradition of weighing the issue in various situations. The point is that dogma and fanaticism are counterproductive, whatever your goals are. The FSF is certainly not alone in this.
zem 14y ago
one of the most striking examples of this is rms's objection to a modular gcc. modularity is a technically superior solution, and would have been supremely useful in supporting a larger ecosystem of development and analysis tools (e.g. ides, automated refactoring, source-to-source translators, etc), but would also have made it easy to build proprietary systems that could remain closed while using modules from gcc. the current groundswell of clang adoption has revealed just how many people wanted a good, free, modular c++ compiler, but by rms's principles, making gcc serve their purposes would have come at too high a cost.
cpunks 14y ago
The differences between ESR and RMS are: * RMS is technically competent. ESR is technically clueless. * ESR is more charismatic. He manages to convince people he's important. RMS has on charisma. * ESR will do everything he can do undermine RMS. It's a way of building himself up. RMS will do whatever he believes will further free software. They're both often wrong. * RMS's writings from the late nineties are prophetic. ESR's writings from the same period are, in retrospect, idiotic. * RMS created the whole movement. ESR did little bits of damage to it.
- nnethercote 14y ago
  Have you ever seen RMS speak? I have, several times. He's fat, hairy, ugly, but he definitely has a great deal of a certain kind of charisma.
  - kamaal 14y ago
    Nerd Appeal! I heard RMS speak at a college even here in Bangalore. It was like listening to a Saint. Somebody like Buddha of software. He has a unique appeal which big achievers build around themselves. That sort of a calm confidence comes only through relentless belief one's principles and proven success demonstrating his principles. Outside of nerd circles, this doesn't have much appeal.
- koeselitz 14y ago
  This seems a bit extreme to me. I fall more on RMS's side of things, but I also thing RMS would not characterize ESR as "technically clueless" and only doing "little bits of damage" to the movement. "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" is not an unimportant essay, if only as a pedagogy to an important shift in how development can work. I disagree strongly with ESR's attempt to divorce, as he says here, "moral thought" from software - this seems like a mistake to me - but he is not a fool or a dilettante.
dspeyer 14y ago
We do need RMS. Compromise is a dangerous game. Especially when the proprietary world doesn't compromise back (and it usually doesn't). How long could the free software movement have continued to mean anything if each year it had crept a little closer to the mainstream technological community?
- cwp 14y ago
  Open source isn't a compromise between free software and proprietary software. It's a different philosophical basis for advocating the same practices.
  - dspeyer 14y ago
    The open source movement isn't. The "proprietary software is ok so long as not much is at stake and you weren't likely to tinker with it anyway" idea is.
pi18n 14y ago
RMS is pretty brilliant, he's predicted exactly the kind of closed platform iOS turned out to be, and has been fighting against it. I think it's important that people be allowed to code and mess with their devices, and know what their devices are doing. How is it that so many iOS apps grab your contacts without asking? Before I stray too far from my point; I am glad he does what he does.

by cwp 14y ago

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.

cwp 14y ago
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. Fair point. That line was actually meant as a direct response to cstross's "We need people like RMS," but I botched the parallel construction. The "we" there should be the same "we" that cstross was talking about. 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 That's an interesting way to think about it, but for me at least, neither of those characterizations is accurate. I think practical arguments are a way to achieve practical goals. I oppose the philosophy of the FSF, because AFAICT, they're making moral arguments to achieve moral goals. You seem to consider morality and practicality to be two sides of the same coin, where I see them as quite separate. What I dislike about the RMS position is that it seems to consider tinkering, and perhaps geek culture in general, as inherently good and goals in their own right. I take a more utilitarian view: tinkering is good insofar we benefit from the results. (That "we" is very broad by they way. Users of technology and humanity in general.) [turns out I can still edit the gp, so I fixed that line]
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- icebraining 14y ago
  What I dislike about the RMS position is that it seems to consider tinkering, and perhaps geek culture in general, as inherently good and goals in their own right. I take a more utilitarian view: tinkering is good insofar we benefit from the results. I disagree; his position, as I perceive it, is that having the right to tinker is inherently good, not so much tinkering itself. Much like many of us consider Free Speech to be inherently good, even if we find some speech abominable. And the advantages of Free Software aren't limited to tinkering, of course.
  - cwp 14y ago
    Sure. The right to tinker is required for actual tinkering, and a right that's never exercised is pointless. Regardless, I don't consider the right to tinker an end in its self. The pleasure of tinkering is utterly unimportant compared with the good that a tinkerers work can bring into the world. As for freedom of speech, I think the analogy is flawed. The technology equivalent of speech is invention, and the freedom to invent doesn't require anything like the GPL. The freedom to tinker is more like the freedom to copyedit somebody else's work. And hey, I'm for it! Remix culture is great stuff. But it's not in the same league as freedom of speech. When it comes right down to it, though, I don't consider freedom of speech an end in its self either. The value of free speech is the sort of society it produces, not the speech its self. I favour limits to speech when the effect of that speech is not a net good to society. Now, those situations are few and far between, but they do exist. Yelling "fire" and all that; our legal system has a long and nuanced tradition of weighing the issue in various situations. The point is that dogma and fanaticism are counterproductive, whatever your goals are. The FSF is certainly not alone in this.

zem 14y ago

one of the most striking examples of this is rms's objection to a modular gcc. modularity is a technically superior solution, and would have been supremely useful in supporting a larger ecosystem of development and analysis tools (e.g. ides, automated refactoring, source-to-source translators, etc), but would also have made it easy to build proprietary systems that could remain closed while using modules from gcc. the current groundswell of clang adoption has revealed just how many people wanted a good, free, modular c++ compiler, but by rms's principles, making gcc serve their purposes would have come at too high a cost.

cpunks 14y ago

The differences between ESR and RMS are: * RMS is technically competent. ESR is technically clueless. * ESR is more charismatic. He manages to convince people he's important. RMS has on charisma. * ESR will do everything he can do undermine RMS. It's a way of building himself up. RMS will do whatever he believes will further free software. They're both often wrong. * RMS's writings from the late nineties are prophetic. ESR's writings from the same period are, in retrospect, idiotic. * RMS created the whole movement. ESR did little bits of damage to it.

nnethercote 14y ago
Have you ever seen RMS speak? I have, several times. He's fat, hairy, ugly, but he definitely has a great deal of a certain kind of charisma.
- kamaal 14y ago
  Nerd Appeal! I heard RMS speak at a college even here in Bangalore. It was like listening to a Saint. Somebody like Buddha of software. He has a unique appeal which big achievers build around themselves. That sort of a calm confidence comes only through relentless belief one's principles and proven success demonstrating his principles. Outside of nerd circles, this doesn't have much appeal.
koeselitz 14y ago
This seems a bit extreme to me. I fall more on RMS's side of things, but I also thing RMS would not characterize ESR as "technically clueless" and only doing "little bits of damage" to the movement. "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" is not an unimportant essay, if only as a pedagogy to an important shift in how development can work. I disagree strongly with ESR's attempt to divorce, as he says here, "moral thought" from software - this seems like a mistake to me - but he is not a fool or a dilettante.

dspeyer 14y ago

We do need RMS. Compromise is a dangerous game. Especially when the proprietary world doesn't compromise back (and it usually doesn't). How long could the free software movement have continued to mean anything if each year it had crept a little closer to the mainstream technological community?

cwp 14y ago
Open source isn't a compromise between free software and proprietary software. It's a different philosophical basis for advocating the same practices.
- dspeyer 14y ago
  The open source movement isn't. The "proprietary software is ok so long as not much is at stake and you weren't likely to tinker with it anyway" idea is.

pi18n 14y ago

RMS is pretty brilliant, he's predicted exactly the kind of closed platform iOS turned out to be, and has been fighting against it. I think it's important that people be allowed to code and mess with their devices, and know what their devices are doing. How is it that so many iOS apps grab your contacts without asking? Before I stray too far from my point; I am glad he does what he does.