6 ms·
Stallman was right.
by em3rgent0rdr 8mo ago
Stallman was right.
- nehal3m 8mo agoIs, he’s still with us.
- mkl 8mo agoWas, he said it a long time ago. He has said a lot of things that sounded kind of far-fetched and paranoid at the time, but which were later demonstrated to be true, so "Stallman was right" is reappraising the past statement.
- nehal3m 8mo agoI understand what you mean, but he’s still saying it and he never stopped.
- randallsquared 8mo agoLots of people are saying some of those things now, but Stallman was saying them decades ago. It's not differentiating or meaningful to say "A is right" if B-E are saying the same thing at the same time.
- Kiboneu 8mo agoLet’s just say Stallman was and is still in the process of being right
- tokyobreakfast 8mo agoIt's easy to be right when you live outside the boundaries of reality. E.g. he won't (didn't?) own a mobile phone, but is okay with borrowing someone else's. He won't use Wi-Fi where he has to log in but would happily borrow someone else's. It's not being right; it's shifting responsibility in exchange for his own personal convenience.
- psoundy 8mo agoIt's called 'setting an example'. One might disagree with value of the example being set, but I'm not sure I would characterize his choices as in any way convenient for him.
- tokyobreakfast 8mo agoThey he should do without. Live like the Amish in 2026 (though I assume they have phones now). It's not setting an example. We have a word for it and it's called being a mooch. The attitude is consistent with that famous video where RMS explains that he's "never installed GNU/Linux" because he could just ask someone else to do it for him, and suggest others should do the same. For that matter, why own a car if we can borrow someone else's? Especially with license plate readers and traffic cameras everywhere, who wants to be tracked? Let your friend be tracked instead. That is the level of logic here.
- zelphirkalt 8mo agoFirst people call him "outside the boundaries of reality" then demand he lives like Amish... Look who is removed from reality now. How would he even work for the FSF's goals, if he were to follow silly advice like that? Apparently, whatever he does, he can't do right by every naysayer's standards. What many people miss is, that even Stallman admits, that you don't have to go cold turkey free/libre only, but it is already a step in the right direction to do what you can, accepting an inconvenience in exchange. Many people will rather bury their head in the sand than to accept any inconvenience at all.
- kelnos 8mo agoIt's not setting an example if you shift responsibility to someone else. Setting an example would be just doing without the things he doesn't agree with. Need to make a call but only other people's cell phones are available? Well, you don't make the call. Need wifi but no open networks are available? Well, you don't get wifi. Is this even more inconvenient than the already-inconvenient use of other people's cell phones or wifi logins? Absolutely. But it's actually sticking to your principles.