3 ms·
> yet for the most part it hasn't really mattered all that much. I'm a little confused by what you mean. Do you mean what he's afraid about doesn't matter that
by duaneb 14y ago
> yet for the most part it hasn't really mattered all that much.
I'm a little confused by what you mean. Do you mean what he's afraid about doesn't matter that much? Considering the massive patent lawsuits flying around I think that's pretty blatantly false. I mean, some of this has been ameliorated by industry's unexpected generosity towards the open source world (Google via a ton of shit, Apple via LLVM), but certainly not all of it.
Personally, I've stopped ignoring what Stallman is saying. I'm not saying he doesn't have a side of him that worries about completely irrelevant shit, but I think he's been proven well enough on important topics that he deserves our (as hackers, consumers, and business owners) respect, even if you decide you disagree with him.
- bane 14y agoI guess I'm being too strong. I think what I mean is that if the world had followed RMS in keeping away from non free software we'd all be surfing the web through daemon that scrape a URL and then emails us the results. Put another way. RMS has warned about the dangers of hot water and has spent a lifetime taking cold showers. He's right of course, hot water can be dangerous, but warm water is just fine and gets things done. He's presenting a binary choice when its not the choice that matters. It's about how hot the water can get for your needs and not be dangerous is where all the important things are happening. I don't really care about what RMS says because it locks you into thinking binary extremes. Free or evil, the past or some hypothetical future, when it's the now that matters.
- vanderZwan 14y agoI guess I'm being too strong. I think what I mean is that if the world had followed RMS in keeping away from non free software we'd all be surfing the web through daemon that scrape a URL and then emails us the results. You don't think massive adoption of open source software would not at all imply that all the R&D effort spent on everything else over the last decades would have shifted to that instead?
- bane 14y agoI don't think so...at least not all. One thing the open source model has not been able to do is lead in many areas. End-user facing software and easy-to-use guis is a notable example.
- duaneb 14y agoFirefox & Chromium are pretty damn good end-user facing software.
- vanderZwan 14y agoPretty definite counterpoint to "surfing the web through daemon that scrape a URL and then emails us the results" I suppose.