6 ms·

Stallman actively hurts the cause with his behaviour. I'm not only talking about his eccentricities, but also the adversarial and combative language. Yes, Amazo

Stallman actively hurts the cause with his behaviour. I'm not only talking about his eccentricities, but also the adversarial and combative language. Yes, Amazon is trying to swindle us, but few people will be convinced of that when you start your argument by calling the kindle an "Amazon swindle" every time, directly implying that anyone who has one is an idiot or even malicious. Yes, it's unfair that someone can be 100% correct but people won't listen to them because of their appearance or mannerisms. But whining about that unfairness is unproductive. People will never listen to someone who can't stop themselves from eating stuff from their foot in public.

alt187 1y ago
Stallman's mannerisms are one of the only reason FOSS is still standing. First of all, from a public image point of view, it really doesn't matter at all whether he ate something off his foot or whether he says "Amazon swindle", because Stallman isn't the gateway into free softward anymore. To an order of magnitude, no one in the last 15 years has heard of Stallman then free software. The real role of Stallman is to avoid the movement being co-opted by soulless and/or corporate interests. As long as Stallman is here, you can't make free software corporate and well-mannered, which essentially means you can't absorb it into a marketing strategy for your next brand of phones unless you actually plan to deliver.
tgma 1y ago
I used to 100% feel the same, but at some point I realized the problem was me, not him, in not viscerally understanding his goals. His stated goals are very clear, but the audience usually has somewhat overlapping, but nevertheless distinct goals. This is indeed at the very core of Open Source-Free Software feud. The base is almost entirely the same people, yet the ideologies are not the same, and in a very interesting way: the differences are critical to RMS's ideology, but minute to the other side. Thus, the other side thinks of a crazy guy ruining the whole thing for nothing or very little, and evaluates him as net negative for "the cause." Well, it is absolutely true, for their cause, not his. I think his take on what compromises are valid and what aren't makes this clear: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.en.html In fact, this particular incident, re Android, a seemingly "open" system, is a perfect example of the importance of his PoV in particular, as it illustrates that Open Source ideology would not have been enough to ensure the user is in control.
- takluyver 1y ago
  I don't think Stallman is an effective spokesperson or campaigner for his own cause, though. Corporate-friendly open source has got enormously popular, to the point where the biggest open source collaboration platform, Github, is owned by Microsoft. Stallman is not troubling them. It's his own side he's driving to irrelevance.
  - zenmac 1y ago
    >Github, is owned by Microsoft There was a time getting bought up by a large company seems like a great success and exit strategy. Now days the only things that I want spend my time making are things that are useful for people around me, not things that are useful for industrial military and surveillance state.
  - genewitch 1y ago
    isn't android corporate friendly open source?
    - takluyver 1y ago
      Definitely, yes. That's a prime example of how corporate friendly open source has been massively successful. By contrast, the first entry on the FSF's high priority projects page is a free phone operating system. They point to Replicant, an Android fork that... does not look particularly active.
- cedilla 1y ago
  The problem is: you never get to have your goals or arguments listened to when you fail to represent yourself as a basic human. That means not putting weird stuff in your mouth on camera, not looking too unkempt, not being too belligerent before you get to your points – and never, never, never discussing the fine differences between ephebophilia and pedophilia on a mailing list. His point of view and his goals are completely besides the point that he is unfit as a spokesperson for them. Sadly. Because I agree with him quite a lot, and he does have good arguments.
lwhi 1y ago
It's inconvenient to have to recognise that we are being f**ed in the ass by corporations like Amazon, but that doesn't make it any the less true unfortunately. It's also a damn shame that the majority of the people who are skilled at communicating messages effectively are working for these corporations; because without them, the unfiltered message of people like Stallman is all we've got.
- lucianbr 1y ago
  It is a damn shame, and it is also a choice. If that majority chooses to work for the corporations, perhaps humanity just does not deserve better. There isn't anyone else but us humans who can fix this thing. If we choose not to, it won't be fixed period.
BlueTemplar 1y ago
[flagged]
- nkrisc 1y ago
  So now people who use Amazon are the enemy?
  - megaloblasto 1y ago
    People who use amazon are part of the misguided masses.
- zettabomb 1y ago
  You're comparing buying stuff from Amazon... to fascism? Your moral compass is a bit extreme.
  - anthk 1y ago
    Amazon has remotely deleted purchased books from customers. And, the irony, 1984 among them.
- rv3392 1y ago
  I get where you're coming from, but I think you need to understand that the vast majority of people (conservatively maybe >95%) are perfectly fine with using Amazon. If you just start metaphorically punching all of them you won't convince them of anything. I don't think you can really make something socially poisonous that way without a significant group of people, in socially powerful positions, already agreeing with you. I think you're overestimating how many people think like you on both of these topics (iOS/Android and Amazon).
  - BlueTemplar 1y ago
    Not long ago the vast majority of people were also perfectly fine with smoking (and even second hand smoking) and using asbestos. But sure, what other kind of approach do you suggest that would work better to, say, kick them out of the EU ?
Gigachad 1y ago
I was always somewhat put off by his extreme vigilance over the word free. Stallmans usage of free software is exactly the same as the rest of the worlds open source. We also have “source available” for software that is license encumbered but distributes the source. So much time and effort wasted on a fruitless effort to redefine words that already have well established meanings.
- tgma 1y ago
  If they were really the same, you should flip the question around. You do realize the Open Source folks invented that phrase explicitly to avoid using (and dare I say to undermine) the term Free Software?
  - SlowTao 1y ago
    Same way Vegan was forked to Plant based diet, to strip out the ethics question.
    - goku12 1y ago
      > Vegan was forked to Plant based diet That's news to me! But no. Open source philosophy isn't free software stripped of its ethics question. I have written an essay/article/novel/epic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45027202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45027202
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
- SlowTao 1y ago
  Stallman has mentioned this before that it is a limit of the English language. Thus the use of Libre. Problem is that many people today do still mistake Free software as no cost and for good reason. Funnily enough, "open sourcesource" turns out to have great SEO. Free software doesn't.
bambax 1y ago
Yeah, let's be nice and polished. No blood, no foot eating, just nice people talking in nice settings (castles, maybe?) around a warm cup of tea. That's how revolutions succeed, historically.
- calgoo 1y ago
  Or you go shouting in the beer house every Tuesday about how the failed state is giving away your riches to others and that these communists are ruining the country. You then have your goons go beat up the communists for fun and when you get enough people behind you, you abuse a loop hole in the constitution which causes re-voting over and over again until you win majority power. No revolutions turn out good for everyone, and there is no solution that fits all. Sometimes the rich and powerful needs to be dragged into the streets and executed, so they are reminded to be scared of the people under them. If they don't fear the population, then they see that there are no consequences for their actions.
- emptyfile 1y ago
  [dead]
asimovfan 1y ago
Well if they are too stupid and ignorant to consider the meaningful content of what someone says and get so fixated on how they are disgusting (although it is obvious that he is doing that to attract attention and make what he says memorable), perhaps it is fitting that they lose all their freedoms.
Gud 1y ago
Frankly I find it refreshing in a world where everyone is obedient to the corporate overlords to have someone who just doesn't give a shit and calls it out exactly the way he sees it. We don't need more polished people.
znpy 1y ago
> Stallman actively hurts the cause with his behaviour. People arguing this should realize that actors fighting oh the other side of the war might act kind and use politically correct wording, but they're still eroding our freedom little by little. Arguments like this ("his behaviour") really mean that people care about policing other people's behaviour more than they care about the actual topic being discussed. Downvote me if you want, I don't care: - Stallman, singlehandedly, did more than anybody else for freedom in the computing industry. - People pushing those arguments a huge part of the problem. - People like Stallman are a huge part of the solution.
- whywhywhywhy 1y ago
  Expecting someone who built what he did to be normal is even more ridiculous. If he were normal he’d probably have ended up working at MS, IBM, Oracle. Of course if his behavior bothers you then fork it and rewrite his work and maintain it then you have a laundered version of the same thing but you probably don’t care that much about his behavior to do that so it’s pointless to bring up.
markus_zhang 1y ago
To put my thoughts into one sentence: You can't fight the system within the system.
mbs159 1y ago
I will forever call it the Amazon Swindle now, that's hilarious
msgodel 1y ago
Language matters. I actually really like what Stallman does. You need this kind of thing to counteract repeated exposure to marketing material. It's similar to the Dave Ramsey situation IMO. Dave Ramsey's advice is objectively bad but you need something to be repeated as an alternative to the credit ads people hear multiple times a day. These simple repeated ideas slowly absorb into people's subconscious.
dmbche 1y ago
Calling the kindle the "swindle" hurt open software? Listen to yourself.
timeon 1y ago
Why would someone use Kindle?

alt187 1y ago

Stallman's mannerisms are one of the only reason FOSS is still standing. First of all, from a public image point of view, it really doesn't matter at all whether he ate something off his foot or whether he says "Amazon swindle", because Stallman isn't the gateway into free softward anymore. To an order of magnitude, no one in the last 15 years has heard of Stallman then free software. The real role of Stallman is to avoid the movement being co-opted by soulless and/or corporate interests. As long as Stallman is here, you can't make free software corporate and well-mannered, which essentially means you can't absorb it into a marketing strategy for your next brand of phones unless you actually plan to deliver.

tgma 1y ago

I used to 100% feel the same, but at some point I realized the problem was me, not him, in not viscerally understanding his goals. His stated goals are very clear, but the audience usually has somewhat overlapping, but nevertheless distinct goals. This is indeed at the very core of Open Source-Free Software feud. The base is almost entirely the same people, yet the ideologies are not the same, and in a very interesting way: the differences are critical to RMS's ideology, but minute to the other side. Thus, the other side thinks of a crazy guy ruining the whole thing for nothing or very little, and evaluates him as net negative for "the cause." Well, it is absolutely true, for their cause, not his. I think his take on what compromises are valid and what aren't makes this clear: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.en.html In fact, this particular incident, re Android, a seemingly "open" system, is a perfect example of the importance of his PoV in particular, as it illustrates that Open Source ideology would not have been enough to ensure the user is in control.

takluyver 1y ago
I don't think Stallman is an effective spokesperson or campaigner for his own cause, though. Corporate-friendly open source has got enormously popular, to the point where the biggest open source collaboration platform, Github, is owned by Microsoft. Stallman is not troubling them. It's his own side he's driving to irrelevance.
- zenmac 1y ago
  >Github, is owned by Microsoft There was a time getting bought up by a large company seems like a great success and exit strategy. Now days the only things that I want spend my time making are things that are useful for people around me, not things that are useful for industrial military and surveillance state.
- genewitch 1y ago
  isn't android corporate friendly open source?
  - takluyver 1y ago
    Definitely, yes. That's a prime example of how corporate friendly open source has been massively successful. By contrast, the first entry on the FSF's high priority projects page is a free phone operating system. They point to Replicant, an Android fork that... does not look particularly active.
cedilla 1y ago
The problem is: you never get to have your goals or arguments listened to when you fail to represent yourself as a basic human. That means not putting weird stuff in your mouth on camera, not looking too unkempt, not being too belligerent before you get to your points – and never, never, never discussing the fine differences between ephebophilia and pedophilia on a mailing list. His point of view and his goals are completely besides the point that he is unfit as a spokesperson for them. Sadly. Because I agree with him quite a lot, and he does have good arguments.

lwhi 1y ago

It's inconvenient to have to recognise that we are being f**ed in the ass by corporations like Amazon, but that doesn't make it any the less true unfortunately. It's also a damn shame that the majority of the people who are skilled at communicating messages effectively are working for these corporations; because without them, the unfiltered message of people like Stallman is all we've got.

lucianbr 1y ago
It is a damn shame, and it is also a choice. If that majority chooses to work for the corporations, perhaps humanity just does not deserve better. There isn't anyone else but us humans who can fix this thing. If we choose not to, it won't be fixed period.

BlueTemplar 1y ago

[flagged]

nkrisc 1y ago
So now people who use Amazon are the enemy?
- megaloblasto 1y ago
  People who use amazon are part of the misguided masses.
zettabomb 1y ago
You're comparing buying stuff from Amazon... to fascism? Your moral compass is a bit extreme.
- anthk 1y ago
  Amazon has remotely deleted purchased books from customers. And, the irony, 1984 among them.
rv3392 1y ago
I get where you're coming from, but I think you need to understand that the vast majority of people (conservatively maybe >95%) are perfectly fine with using Amazon. If you just start metaphorically punching all of them you won't convince them of anything. I don't think you can really make something socially poisonous that way without a significant group of people, in socially powerful positions, already agreeing with you. I think you're overestimating how many people think like you on both of these topics (iOS/Android and Amazon).
- BlueTemplar 1y ago
  Not long ago the vast majority of people were also perfectly fine with smoking (and even second hand smoking) and using asbestos. But sure, what other kind of approach do you suggest that would work better to, say, kick them out of the EU ?

Gigachad 1y ago

I was always somewhat put off by his extreme vigilance over the word free. Stallmans usage of free software is exactly the same as the rest of the worlds open source. We also have “source available” for software that is license encumbered but distributes the source. So much time and effort wasted on a fruitless effort to redefine words that already have well established meanings.

tgma 1y ago
If they were really the same, you should flip the question around. You do realize the Open Source folks invented that phrase explicitly to avoid using (and dare I say to undermine) the term Free Software?
- SlowTao 1y ago
  Same way Vegan was forked to Plant based diet, to strip out the ethics question.
  - goku12 1y ago
    > Vegan was forked to Plant based diet That's news to me! But no. Open source philosophy isn't free software stripped of its ethics question. I have written an essay/article/novel/epic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45027202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45027202
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
SlowTao 1y ago
Stallman has mentioned this before that it is a limit of the English language. Thus the use of Libre. Problem is that many people today do still mistake Free software as no cost and for good reason. Funnily enough, "open sourcesource" turns out to have great SEO. Free software doesn't.

bambax 1y ago

Yeah, let's be nice and polished. No blood, no foot eating, just nice people talking in nice settings (castles, maybe?) around a warm cup of tea. That's how revolutions succeed, historically.

calgoo 1y ago
Or you go shouting in the beer house every Tuesday about how the failed state is giving away your riches to others and that these communists are ruining the country. You then have your goons go beat up the communists for fun and when you get enough people behind you, you abuse a loop hole in the constitution which causes re-voting over and over again until you win majority power. No revolutions turn out good for everyone, and there is no solution that fits all. Sometimes the rich and powerful needs to be dragged into the streets and executed, so they are reminded to be scared of the people under them. If they don't fear the population, then they see that there are no consequences for their actions.
emptyfile 1y ago
[dead]

asimovfan 1y ago

Well if they are too stupid and ignorant to consider the meaningful content of what someone says and get so fixated on how they are disgusting (although it is obvious that he is doing that to attract attention and make what he says memorable), perhaps it is fitting that they lose all their freedoms.

Gud 1y ago

Frankly I find it refreshing in a world where everyone is obedient to the corporate overlords to have someone who just doesn't give a shit and calls it out exactly the way he sees it. We don't need more polished people.

znpy 1y ago

> Stallman actively hurts the cause with his behaviour. People arguing this should realize that actors fighting oh the other side of the war might act kind and use politically correct wording, but they're still eroding our freedom little by little. Arguments like this ("his behaviour") really mean that people care about policing other people's behaviour more than they care about the actual topic being discussed. Downvote me if you want, I don't care: - Stallman, singlehandedly, did more than anybody else for freedom in the computing industry. - People pushing those arguments a huge part of the problem. - People like Stallman are a huge part of the solution.

whywhywhywhy 1y ago
Expecting someone who built what he did to be normal is even more ridiculous. If he were normal he’d probably have ended up working at MS, IBM, Oracle. Of course if his behavior bothers you then fork it and rewrite his work and maintain it then you have a laundered version of the same thing but you probably don’t care that much about his behavior to do that so it’s pointless to bring up.

markus_zhang 1y ago

To put my thoughts into one sentence: You can't fight the system within the system.

mbs159 1y ago

I will forever call it the Amazon Swindle now, that's hilarious

msgodel 1y ago

Language matters. I actually really like what Stallman does. You need this kind of thing to counteract repeated exposure to marketing material. It's similar to the Dave Ramsey situation IMO. Dave Ramsey's advice is objectively bad but you need something to be repeated as an alternative to the credit ads people hear multiple times a day. These simple repeated ideas slowly absorb into people's subconscious.

dmbche 1y ago

Calling the kindle the "swindle" hurt open software? Listen to yourself.

timeon 1y ago

Why would someone use Kindle?