8 ms·

RMS: De Icaza Traitor to Free Software Community

36 points by billpg 17y ago

zecg 17y ago
One has to admire rms for sticking to his guns and living up to his ideals. He is a bit brash, true, but a) he has been proven right many times before when it comes to software and b) he is consistently being himself and doing his thing. See him eat a piece of his foot on camera while giving a lecture (it's on youtube) and you'll perhaps have a Zen moment. He is a walking, talking media antidote.
- compay 17y ago
  I agree completely. Love or hate RMS, you have to respect that he says what he means and means what he says. He has absolutely no filter and is pathologically incapable of telling a lie. I don't always agree with him but I do admire him.
  - jshen 17y ago
    I'm not sure it's good to admire ideological extremists. In fact, I think the opposite, what is admirable is empathy, the ability to see something from someone else's perspective. RMS seems incapable of this.
    - compay 17y ago
      Well, if you have some empathy then you can admire somebody for their good qualities while at the same time being aware of their faults. The existence of free/open source software owes a big debt to RMS's idealogical extremism, and Emacs, GCC and GNU are pretty major (and admirable) achievements in programming. That's why I say I admire RMS, even if I wouldn't want him to date my sister.
      - jshen 17y ago
        No, we don't owe a debt to his extremism. There are thousands of people out there who have created open source software without the extremism. We do owe a debt to his work on those projects, but not to his extremism. The work could have, and often is, done without the extremism.
- drats 17y ago
  To extend your a) a little, Stallman has every right to be suspicious of a company which has; deliberately targeted GNU/Linux in the past and said it's coming after it, said GNU/Linux infringes patents, is a convicted monopolist in the USA and the EU, deliberately uses its power over system-builders to shove GNU/Linux out (desktops options and netbooks), used its market power to make ACPI/power management difficult for other operating systems and much more. People seem to forget these things all the time when discussions come up. IBM used to be the big bad guy at one point too, but they now have a track record of community contributions to point to and say "we are different". There is no such thing with MS, and the top management went from Gates to Ballmer who sees rivals commercial or otherwise in a very combative way (going to "kill Google", GNU/Linux a "cancer"). When someone who was/is considered to be part of your community works with, helps and defends an entity which has tried to attack you and desires to do so in the future then "traitor" isn't a bad name for them. There's plenty of money to be made with GNU/Linux without doing any of the MS stuff he does. Miguel de Icaza never got over his incapacity to land a job at MS (it was no visa because he didn't have a degree it wasn't because he was stupid) and has always sought to emulate them and defend them from that point onwards in some weird psychological relationship. Novell is suspicious in its intentions and it seems they'd gladly see others get sued if they had a waiver. They are not a community player at all. Miguel putting "God" and "Love" in his post he doesn't clear up any of the issues while he sits there trying to evoke an open source hero mystique while working on a Microsoft platform clone... for the iPhone.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
    is a convicted monopolist What the hell does this mean? It's not a crime to be a monopoly!
    - allenbrunson 17y ago
      no, but it is a crime to use a monopoly in one area to help squash rivals in other areas, and that's what microsoft was convicted for. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft
skwiddor 17y ago
hehe two retards arguing on the internet, who'd have thought that possible!
skwiddor 17y ago
cripple fight!
systems 17y ago
RMS basically invented Open Source, and I believe he is allowed to say whatever he wants! So what is he think that Miguel De Icaza is a traitor to HIS ideals! It's his opinion! And, when you speak with friends, don't you ever accuse and attack anyone for something he did or said! Why isn't RMS allowed to speak his mind, and speak freely! I believe people are too harsh on RMS and love to portrait him as psycho, weird and eccentric to the level that allow them to discredit him. RMS is a guy of principles, let him be!
- aw3c2 17y ago
  We badly need someone like Stallman to stay true to free and open-source principles. Without someone radically keeping to his visions, everything blurs to mediocrity.
  - davidw 17y ago
    Agree completely. But there are ways and ways of going about that. He should stick to talking about software though, ("don't use Mono") rather than attacking people ("guy who wrote zillions of lines of free code is a 'traitor'").
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    yes, but also no. Zealots tend to do a lot of damage to projects - especially FOSS projects. And it's hard not to class Stallman as a zealot.
- lucumo 17y ago
  > Why isn't RMS allowed to speak his mind, and speak freely! Nobody forbids him to speak his mind. They just think he's a jackass for making that remark. I agree. And that's my opinion and I do believe I have the same right to express that as he does.
- ananthrk 17y ago
  A honest question. How is Mono going against the principles of Open Source software? Just by the association of Microsoft or am I missing something? Edit: Just noticed that Icaza also accepted to be part of MS's open source labs.
viggity 17y ago
"Microsoft apologist", wtf? Microsoft != Nazis
- rbanffy 17y ago
  More like convicted monopoly abusers.
- m0nty 17y ago
  FWIW, "Apologist" is perhaps not quite so strong a word as you think: "a person who argues to defend or justify some policy or institution" "Apologists are authors, writers, editors of scientific logs or academic journals, and leaders known for taking on the points in arguments, conflicts or positions that are either placed under popular scrutinies or viewed under persecutory examinations." "One who makes an apology; One who speaks or writes in defense of a faith, a cause, or an institution." It doesn't imply that there's anything to "apologise" for in the usual sense: it means "to defend" or "argue for".
  - viggity 17y ago
    That may be the definition of the word, but look how it is used in mainstream usage. It is typically used to describe someone who is defending something that is not usually defended. Such as Nazi Apologist, Hamas Apologist, Stalin Apologist, etc. You don't hear anyone using the phrase "Clean Air Apologist", do you?
    - 10ren 17y ago
      http://news.google.com/news?q=Apologist http://news.google.com/news?q=Apologist Of the first 10, most are as you say, 2 are about actual apologies, and 1 is a "CIA apologist", which is in line with the above dictionary meaning. It does tend to have the connotation you mention, but that isn't its only use in the mainstream press.
icey 17y ago
This is why we don't see more Microsoft developers coming to open source. There are quite a few out there who are interested in it, but their skillset leads them to Mono. Why would anyone want to help out in a way that would get them treated as a pariah? I appreciate all the things that rms has done, but he's gone off his rocker; why people still pay any attention to him is baffling to me (other than the tabloid qualities of paying attention to him, I suppose).
- nathanwdavis 17y ago
  There are quite a few out there who are interested in it, but their skillset leads them to Mono Mono is an open source-licensed project, so if a MS developer starts working in Mono, aren't they effectively working with Open source??
  - icey 17y ago
    Yes, and then they hear about how Mono is a terrible abomination according to rms. That's the crux of my point.
    - thwarted 17y ago
      This is why we don't see more open source developers developers migrating to develop on Windows. They are curious but then they hear how open source is a terrible abomination according to Microsoft. (Admittedly, not the exactly the same, in one case rms is attacking your new choice, and in the other Microsoft is attacking your old choice, but it doesn't make either side attractive to the other).
      - icey 17y ago
        I don't think we've really heard much about Microsoft needing more developers though. Certainly not in the sense that open source needs more developers.
patrickgzill 17y ago
I don't blame de Icaza for being hired by MS; I blame him for all the bloat to be found in each of his projects. He could be pure as whitest snow and MS would still be happy with how what he puts out slows down the Linux desktop experience.
- mahmud 17y ago
  Miguel gave his life to free software. He gave GNU its first desktop environment. If it wasn't for Miguel and his work there wouldn't be Redhat, Suse, Caldera, Mandarake, or any of the major corporate linux distros. Sun would never have bowed to Open Source, in fact, Sun would still be an independent entity in business. Novel would be in a different line of business. GNOME breathed fresh air into the Unix workstation and made it truly a commodity. Even Motif would have still been closed if it wasn't for the high quality code that Miguel et al where churning out both in GNOME and also in Gtk and its associated technologies. In 2001, Ximian was the hottest thing to run on a PC. If they put a price tag on it they could have sold it in custom boxes at $5k and would have had buyers, but it was free, and it was a Unix desktop you could install and upgrade by double clicking on an icon. Fucking gorgeous too.
  - onedognight 17y ago
    > Miguel gave his life to free software. RMS's choice of the word traitor implies that he understands this and is only commenting on recent actions of Miguel's.
    - tjr 17y ago
      I imagine so. Miguel won an award from the FSF in 1999: http://www.gnu.org/award/1999/1999.html http://www.gnu.org/award/1999/1999.html
  - bokchoi 17y ago
    > If it wasn't for Miguel and his work there wouldn't be Redhat, Suse, Caldera, Mandarake, or any of the major corporate linux distros. Bullshit. As if no one else could have created a linux desktop? There were already plenty of window managers at the time. The distance between a window manager and a "linux desktop" is pretty slim. > In 2001, Ximian was the hottest thing to run on a PC. If they put a price tag on it they could have sold it in custom boxes at $5k and would have had buyers, but it was free... And then Ximian died. Perhaps they should have sold it for $5k a box instead, hm?
doki_pen 17y ago
I believe this article is more balanced: http://www.itwire.com/content/view/27980/1090/ http://www.itwire.com/content/view/27980/1090/
rfreytag 17y ago
Miguel de Icaze has been an asset to open source as both a vocal critic (http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/bongo-bong.html http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/bongo-bong.html) and a significant contributor (see OP citations).
Raphael_Amiard 17y ago
I would like to outline the basic "traitor" scenario, tell me if i got things right : 1. Miguel de Icaza, after a secret deal with microsoft and novell, starts an OSS implementation of the dot net platform. It has been his goal from the beginning. In fact he always wanted to work at Microsoft, and he decided to become their infiltrated spy, to stop the worst threat Microsoft has ever seen : Linux (ahem, sorry ,i mean GNU/Linux). Some say that's even why he started GNOME in the first place. 2. He gets a lot of contributors, but that's mainly because they're too dumb to see the secret plan he has from the beginning. 3. The mono platform enters a stage in wich it becomes usable, and applications begin to appear and after some time, begin to become integrated into common linux distributions. The fact that Novell is actually developping a major linux distro is a big factor in this. 4. Some very clever OSS users / programmers / developpers, led by their enlightened guru Richard Stallman, finally discover that this is a secret plan to make the whole GNU/Linux stumble. They decide to put aside the quarell about the Linux name, because duty is calling them. They consequently put tremendous effort into alerting people about the menace 5. The evil duo (Microsoft / Novell) and Miguel the menial, are in a very bad position. They never expected anybody to actually SEE through their evil plan. Microsoft then decides to publish a 'promise' not to sue anybody about an implementation of the CLR. The plan is very clever, because mono implements not only the CLR, but other parts of the Microsoft stack. When things will be calmer again, then will be the moment to sue ! ... are you guys serious ? Now i know there are some real risks, some real stakes, maybe even some part of that is true. But common, when i read some contributions, i just wonder how much hollywood movies has affected our brains.
- drats 17y ago
  You could have saved yourself a load of typing just by looking up the definition of "traitor" in the dictionary. By the way, while you are at it, look up "strawman" also. To Stallman he is a traitor to the ideals and helping the enemy (see my other post on this page). This does not mean it's a conspiracy. "i just wonder how much hollywood movies has affected our brains". Indeed.

36 points by billpg 17y ago

zecg 17y ago

One has to admire rms for sticking to his guns and living up to his ideals. He is a bit brash, true, but a) he has been proven right many times before when it comes to software and b) he is consistently being himself and doing his thing. See him eat a piece of his foot on camera while giving a lecture (it's on youtube) and you'll perhaps have a Zen moment. He is a walking, talking media antidote.

compay 17y ago
I agree completely. Love or hate RMS, you have to respect that he says what he means and means what he says. He has absolutely no filter and is pathologically incapable of telling a lie. I don't always agree with him but I do admire him.
- jshen 17y ago
  I'm not sure it's good to admire ideological extremists. In fact, I think the opposite, what is admirable is empathy, the ability to see something from someone else's perspective. RMS seems incapable of this.
  - compay 17y ago
    Well, if you have some empathy then you can admire somebody for their good qualities while at the same time being aware of their faults. The existence of free/open source software owes a big debt to RMS's idealogical extremism, and Emacs, GCC and GNU are pretty major (and admirable) achievements in programming. That's why I say I admire RMS, even if I wouldn't want him to date my sister.
    - jshen 17y ago
      No, we don't owe a debt to his extremism. There are thousands of people out there who have created open source software without the extremism. We do owe a debt to his work on those projects, but not to his extremism. The work could have, and often is, done without the extremism.
drats 17y ago
To extend your a) a little, Stallman has every right to be suspicious of a company which has; deliberately targeted GNU/Linux in the past and said it's coming after it, said GNU/Linux infringes patents, is a convicted monopolist in the USA and the EU, deliberately uses its power over system-builders to shove GNU/Linux out (desktops options and netbooks), used its market power to make ACPI/power management difficult for other operating systems and much more. People seem to forget these things all the time when discussions come up. IBM used to be the big bad guy at one point too, but they now have a track record of community contributions to point to and say "we are different". There is no such thing with MS, and the top management went from Gates to Ballmer who sees rivals commercial or otherwise in a very combative way (going to "kill Google", GNU/Linux a "cancer"). When someone who was/is considered to be part of your community works with, helps and defends an entity which has tried to attack you and desires to do so in the future then "traitor" isn't a bad name for them. There's plenty of money to be made with GNU/Linux without doing any of the MS stuff he does. Miguel de Icaza never got over his incapacity to land a job at MS (it was no visa because he didn't have a degree it wasn't because he was stupid) and has always sought to emulate them and defend them from that point onwards in some weird psychological relationship. Novell is suspicious in its intentions and it seems they'd gladly see others get sued if they had a waiver. They are not a community player at all. Miguel putting "God" and "Love" in his post he doesn't clear up any of the issues while he sits there trying to evoke an open source hero mystique while working on a Microsoft platform clone... for the iPhone.
- HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
  is a convicted monopolist What the hell does this mean? It's not a crime to be a monopoly!
  - allenbrunson 17y ago
    no, but it is a crime to use a monopoly in one area to help squash rivals in other areas, and that's what microsoft was convicted for. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft

skwiddor 17y ago

hehe two retards arguing on the internet, who'd have thought that possible!

skwiddor 17y ago

cripple fight!

systems 17y ago

RMS basically invented Open Source, and I believe he is allowed to say whatever he wants! So what is he think that Miguel De Icaza is a traitor to HIS ideals! It's his opinion! And, when you speak with friends, don't you ever accuse and attack anyone for something he did or said! Why isn't RMS allowed to speak his mind, and speak freely! I believe people are too harsh on RMS and love to portrait him as psycho, weird and eccentric to the level that allow them to discredit him. RMS is a guy of principles, let him be!

aw3c2 17y ago
We badly need someone like Stallman to stay true to free and open-source principles. Without someone radically keeping to his visions, everything blurs to mediocrity.
- davidw 17y ago
  Agree completely. But there are ways and ways of going about that. He should stick to talking about software though, ("don't use Mono") rather than attacking people ("guy who wrote zillions of lines of free code is a 'traitor'").
- ErrantX 17y ago
  yes, but also no. Zealots tend to do a lot of damage to projects - especially FOSS projects. And it's hard not to class Stallman as a zealot.
lucumo 17y ago
> Why isn't RMS allowed to speak his mind, and speak freely! Nobody forbids him to speak his mind. They just think he's a jackass for making that remark. I agree. And that's my opinion and I do believe I have the same right to express that as he does.
ananthrk 17y ago
A honest question. How is Mono going against the principles of Open Source software? Just by the association of Microsoft or am I missing something? Edit: Just noticed that Icaza also accepted to be part of MS's open source labs.

viggity 17y ago

"Microsoft apologist", wtf? Microsoft != Nazis

rbanffy 17y ago
More like convicted monopoly abusers.
m0nty 17y ago
FWIW, "Apologist" is perhaps not quite so strong a word as you think: "a person who argues to defend or justify some policy or institution" "Apologists are authors, writers, editors of scientific logs or academic journals, and leaders known for taking on the points in arguments, conflicts or positions that are either placed under popular scrutinies or viewed under persecutory examinations." "One who makes an apology; One who speaks or writes in defense of a faith, a cause, or an institution." It doesn't imply that there's anything to "apologise" for in the usual sense: it means "to defend" or "argue for".
- viggity 17y ago
  That may be the definition of the word, but look how it is used in mainstream usage. It is typically used to describe someone who is defending something that is not usually defended. Such as Nazi Apologist, Hamas Apologist, Stalin Apologist, etc. You don't hear anyone using the phrase "Clean Air Apologist", do you?
  - 10ren 17y ago
    http://news.google.com/news?q=Apologist http://news.google.com/news?q=Apologist Of the first 10, most are as you say, 2 are about actual apologies, and 1 is a "CIA apologist", which is in line with the above dictionary meaning. It does tend to have the connotation you mention, but that isn't its only use in the mainstream press.

icey 17y ago

This is why we don't see more Microsoft developers coming to open source. There are quite a few out there who are interested in it, but their skillset leads them to Mono. Why would anyone want to help out in a way that would get them treated as a pariah? I appreciate all the things that rms has done, but he's gone off his rocker; why people still pay any attention to him is baffling to me (other than the tabloid qualities of paying attention to him, I suppose).

nathanwdavis 17y ago
There are quite a few out there who are interested in it, but their skillset leads them to Mono Mono is an open source-licensed project, so if a MS developer starts working in Mono, aren't they effectively working with Open source??
- icey 17y ago
  Yes, and then they hear about how Mono is a terrible abomination according to rms. That's the crux of my point.
  - thwarted 17y ago
    This is why we don't see more open source developers developers migrating to develop on Windows. They are curious but then they hear how open source is a terrible abomination according to Microsoft. (Admittedly, not the exactly the same, in one case rms is attacking your new choice, and in the other Microsoft is attacking your old choice, but it doesn't make either side attractive to the other).
    - icey 17y ago
      I don't think we've really heard much about Microsoft needing more developers though. Certainly not in the sense that open source needs more developers.

patrickgzill 17y ago

I don't blame de Icaza for being hired by MS; I blame him for all the bloat to be found in each of his projects. He could be pure as whitest snow and MS would still be happy with how what he puts out slows down the Linux desktop experience.

mahmud 17y ago
Miguel gave his life to free software. He gave GNU its first desktop environment. If it wasn't for Miguel and his work there wouldn't be Redhat, Suse, Caldera, Mandarake, or any of the major corporate linux distros. Sun would never have bowed to Open Source, in fact, Sun would still be an independent entity in business. Novel would be in a different line of business. GNOME breathed fresh air into the Unix workstation and made it truly a commodity. Even Motif would have still been closed if it wasn't for the high quality code that Miguel et al where churning out both in GNOME and also in Gtk and its associated technologies. In 2001, Ximian was the hottest thing to run on a PC. If they put a price tag on it they could have sold it in custom boxes at $5k and would have had buyers, but it was free, and it was a Unix desktop you could install and upgrade by double clicking on an icon. Fucking gorgeous too.
- onedognight 17y ago
  > Miguel gave his life to free software. RMS's choice of the word traitor implies that he understands this and is only commenting on recent actions of Miguel's.
  - tjr 17y ago
    I imagine so. Miguel won an award from the FSF in 1999: http://www.gnu.org/award/1999/1999.html http://www.gnu.org/award/1999/1999.html
- bokchoi 17y ago
  > If it wasn't for Miguel and his work there wouldn't be Redhat, Suse, Caldera, Mandarake, or any of the major corporate linux distros. Bullshit. As if no one else could have created a linux desktop? There were already plenty of window managers at the time. The distance between a window manager and a "linux desktop" is pretty slim. > In 2001, Ximian was the hottest thing to run on a PC. If they put a price tag on it they could have sold it in custom boxes at $5k and would have had buyers, but it was free... And then Ximian died. Perhaps they should have sold it for $5k a box instead, hm?

doki_pen 17y ago

I believe this article is more balanced: http://www.itwire.com/content/view/27980/1090/ http://www.itwire.com/content/view/27980/1090/

rfreytag 17y ago

Miguel de Icaze has been an asset to open source as both a vocal critic (http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/bongo-bong.html http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/bongo-bong.html) and a significant contributor (see OP citations).

Raphael_Amiard 17y ago

I would like to outline the basic "traitor" scenario, tell me if i got things right : 1. Miguel de Icaza, after a secret deal with microsoft and novell, starts an OSS implementation of the dot net platform. It has been his goal from the beginning. In fact he always wanted to work at Microsoft, and he decided to become their infiltrated spy, to stop the worst threat Microsoft has ever seen : Linux (ahem, sorry ,i mean GNU/Linux). Some say that's even why he started GNOME in the first place. 2. He gets a lot of contributors, but that's mainly because they're too dumb to see the secret plan he has from the beginning. 3. The mono platform enters a stage in wich it becomes usable, and applications begin to appear and after some time, begin to become integrated into common linux distributions. The fact that Novell is actually developping a major linux distro is a big factor in this. 4. Some very clever OSS users / programmers / developpers, led by their enlightened guru Richard Stallman, finally discover that this is a secret plan to make the whole GNU/Linux stumble. They decide to put aside the quarell about the Linux name, because duty is calling them. They consequently put tremendous effort into alerting people about the menace 5. The evil duo (Microsoft / Novell) and Miguel the menial, are in a very bad position. They never expected anybody to actually SEE through their evil plan. Microsoft then decides to publish a 'promise' not to sue anybody about an implementation of the CLR. The plan is very clever, because mono implements not only the CLR, but other parts of the Microsoft stack. When things will be calmer again, then will be the moment to sue ! ... are you guys serious ? Now i know there are some real risks, some real stakes, maybe even some part of that is true. But common, when i read some contributions, i just wonder how much hollywood movies has affected our brains.

drats 17y ago
You could have saved yourself a load of typing just by looking up the definition of "traitor" in the dictionary. By the way, while you are at it, look up "strawman" also. To Stallman he is a traitor to the ideals and helping the enemy (see my other post on this page). This does not mean it's a conspiracy. "i just wonder how much hollywood movies has affected our brains". Indeed.