20 ms·

How I do my computing

334 points by fs111 11y ago

JosephRedfern 11y ago
What is meant by: "I did write some code in Java once, but the code was in C and Lisp (I simply happened to be in Java at the time)"?
- stingraycharles 11y ago
  I think it's supposed to be a joke, referencing Java (the island) in Indonesia.
  - JosephRedfern 11y ago
    Ah, I see. Thanks.
  - smitherfield 11y ago
    I assumed he meant he wrote Java that looked like (i.e. was idiomatically similar to) C or Lisp.
- deleted 11y ago
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- deleted 11y ago
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acqq 11y ago
Previously on HN (282 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3809836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3809836 An idea: if somebody makes the diff between the page then and now we can talk about what he changed since the previous discussion and also refer to the previous discussion for the unchanged aspects.
- fs111 11y ago
  Why is hn not redirecting me to me to the old submission? Should be trivial to implement...
  - melling 11y ago
    It would be nice if HN linked to older submissions. You don't want a redirect because there may be an interesting new discussion.
  - tokenizerrr 11y ago
    It would have done this had it been posted recently. Instead, you are allowed to repost articles every few months.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- cooper12 11y ago
  A bit late but I took the April 7,2012 version [0] of the page and the recent version [1] from the internet archive and made a diff [2] using `wdiff` after converting the html to text and cleaning up the pages a bit. The diff doesn't look so great and mangles the before and after text together, but it was worth a try. The main differences seem to be updated information such as about his laptop, and changes to the prose for clarification. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120407053822/http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120407053822/http://stallman.o... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150517163401/https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://web.archive.org/web/20150517163401/https://stallman.... [2] http://pastebin.com/zqed9rPR http://pastebin.com/zqed9rPR
melling 11y ago
"The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or its variant, Scheme), you don't know what it means for a programming language to be powerful and elegant." You would have thought that rms would have made more of an effort to build a great Lisp on which to build better free software. Developers would be much more productive in Lisp than C or Java, for example.
- AndrewDucker 11y ago
  Lisp looks to me to be slower, use more memory, and be wordier than C: http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32/compare.php?lang=sbcl&lang2=gcc http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32/compare.php?lang...
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    More and more I feel nothing should be compared to Lisp, for it sits on the metalanguage line a bit too much, has no domain specific/concrete syntax and semantics (you can roll your own depending on your needs).
  - amatic 11y ago
    It is, but there are situations where speed of execution and use of memory are less important criteria for choosing a language. For example, when developing very large and complex programs. Lisp(s) allow encapsulation (hiding) of complexity into small modules, easier than c-family languages. Programs in lisp are faster to write, easier to maintain and reason about. The cost of being a bit slower is getting less important with better hardware.
    - dzhiurgis 11y ago
      I've read something quite contrary on reddit. It was about Clojure vs Haskell and more specifically, dynamic vs static typing. Person was claiming that it was so much easier to change statically typed languages. It get more difficult to maintain large projects that are Lisps. From what I've learned so far about languages, it makes sense. It looks that Lisps are more suitable for implementing algorithms because of the reductionism, but in more realistic systems world, you build interfaces, add random strings, and so on. If you are patient and good enough, you can probably build significant part of a system, but not all of it. I do not know any systems built entirely on Lisp, but I might be wrong.
Havoc 11y ago
aka very slowly. The web browsing part in particular sounds downright glacial.
- carlosrg 11y ago
  The web browsing part is obsolete. In the last LibrePlanet he said he now uses the GNU IceCat browser (free software distribution of Firefox + several privacy protection add-ons, http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/) with Tor.
  - dorfsmay 11y ago
    Also, keep in mind that one of the reason he wasn't using a web browser was that he often only had time to read articles and other material from the web when he did not have access to the internet (airplanes, trains, cars, taking a rest while hiking in a mountain, etc...), so he used this technique to treat the internet like offline emails.
    - tedunangst 11y ago
      It also, intentionally or not, allows him to remain uninformed through an email thread. Stallman makes a claim (perhaps about some projects licensing policy), someone refutes the claim with a link to the policy, stallman dodges with "I can't browse the web, but based on what I was told..."
lmorris84 11y ago
I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I give so little thought to many of these things. I have a Spotify subscription, I'm watching the Football on Sky Go which uses Silverlight, I'm using a browser rather than emailing myself web pages. A lot of this is just bizarre and I just don't see non-free software as inherently evil.
- tokai 11y ago
  Its a bad thing. While you may not agree with Stallman's analysis of the morality of software, should everyone think about the tools they use - not just their apparent functionality, but also the broader ramifications of characteristics of said tools. The world would be a better place if fewer people just went on autopilot and short-term gratification.
  - rimantas 11y ago
    There is also an option that you can think long and hard about the tools you use and come to conclusion, that Stallman is wrong. And there is nothing wrong with that.
    - ska 11y ago
      I parsed that as agreeing with you (albeit worded a bit awkwardly), that the "bad thing" was not thinking about it, not disagreeing with Stallman.
      - tokai 11y ago
        Exactly.
    - sean-duffy 11y ago
      Or there is the third option to think long and hard, largely agree with Stallman, but still continue to mostly use the tools you do out of habit and practicality. I'd say I fall into that category. He raises a lot of very important issues, however it would be too much for me to change my lifestyle to address all of those issues, and then some of his points, such as proprietary software being inherently evil, I don't agree with.
throwawayaway 11y ago
how dare he snipe at UX like that. who does he think he is?
dogma1138 11y ago
I wonder if this guy also does not have bank accounts, credit cards, phones (land or cell) to their name, and all live in a cabin in the woods without paying taxes. It's also a bit odd that for a guy who intentionally buys a 10+ year old or so hardware to run free/libreboot on it (at least partially to trust the boot layers), didn't mind buying a Chinese laptop which was not only made in China, but also designed from parts natively developed in China including the CPU by a government institute. His browsing habits are also a bit well laughable tbh, both because at the end even if he hogs the free WiFI at Starbucks he is traceable, and delivering internet pages of email ins't intrinsically more secure or surveillance resilient than browsing them directly. This guy always interested me in some ways, it's quite amazing how one can be so talented and so coo coo for cocoa puffs at the same time, and in contrast to the usual extreme left social anarchists or marxists also very accomplished.
- mbrock 11y ago
  Could you try to refrain from insults like "coo coo for cocoa puffs"? Stallman is trying his best to live up to his ethical principles. What is the point of your uncharitable criticism?
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    Sorry i don't see this exactly as an insult, yes there is quite a bit of abnormality in there probably with a slight touch of insanity, if you fail to see that well that's your problem, not every thing is criticism, some are just observations.
    - mbrock 11y ago
      "Criticism" might be too lofty a word for your accusations of "abnormality" and "insanity" in this level-headed personal page. Please reconsider the value of sharing your subjective and uncharitable "observations."
      - dogma1138 11y ago
ikeboy 11y ago
So he thinks emails can't be spied on. He doesn't mention which computer runs the email wget-like program, but if it's traceable to him, then it's trackable, or if the email isn't encrypted at any step. He doesn't mention using PGP for that, and without that it's likely that the emails are in plain-text. About DRM: he seems to say that if you can break it, it's ok to use it, even if it's unfree. Also, is Netflix breakable? I don't use it myself, but I was once told you can rip the movies with some programs.
- upofadown 11y ago
  >So he thinks emails can't be spied on. That seems very unlikely. Since the stuff in the emails is publicly available on the net there would be no point in encrypting them. You might be able to determine what RMS is interested in, but everyone already knows what RMS is interested in ... in some detail.
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    >One consequence of this method is that most of the survellance [sic] methods used on the Internet can't see me. is right after the description of how he browses. It sounds like he doesn't want people knowing what he's browsing. Although "most" could exclude the NSA and anyone capable of intercepting emails.
- jordigh 11y ago
  > So he thinks emails can't be spied on Quite the contrary. Since the Snowden revelations, all of his emails have the following header: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    >One consequence of this method is that most of the survellance [sic] methods used on the Internet can't see me. That's what I based my comment on. Although he's changed, apparently, according to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9559834 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9559834
fixxer 11y ago
Relatively speaking, Netflix is like a chorus of angels when all you've known is Comcast. Can anyone outline the argument against Netflix, Spotify, etc.? I don't follow. Is he suggesting the content should be free?
- dbbolton 11y ago
  No, both the FSF and rms have repeatedly said that charging for software (or content) is perfectly fine. His issue is with the licensing and DRM. Here is one of the FSF's sites about DRM: https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ Personally I do use Netflix and I don't think that the company or its users are unethical, but ultimately if there were a reasonably priced service that offered DRM-free content and didn't rely on closed-source plugins and apps, I would switch in a heartbeat.
  - wampus 11y ago
    My guess is that Netflix couldn't negotiate agreements for a lot of the content that makes the service attractive without relenting on DRM. We'll know when Netflix turns evil, because it will force you to sit through commercials and previews before showing you the content you want and paid to see.
    - dbbolton 11y ago
      I think you are absolutely right. It's not content providers that are pushing for DRM, it's content producers. There's absolutely no way a rightsholder would let Netflix show their content if, god forbid, there was any remote possibility that a user could download and use their content outside of a controlled environment. In some ways it parallels internet piracy. ISPs for the most part are sick of policing their users and sending out C&D letters for copyright infringement, but they more or less have to due to pressure from major studios.
      - MichaelGG 11y ago
        Then check to see if DRM is needed to see Netflix "original" content.
mark_l_watson 11y ago
I always enjoy Richard's writing. I would like to take more of his advice but some practicalities interfere, mostly about social media. I tend to not post much personal stuff on social media but posting links to my recent blog articles, new books I have written, and when I release open source software is very valuable to me because it increases the number of people I get connected with. He is absolutely correct about the dangers of losing privacy on social media. I have considered the all free laptop route and technically this would not hurt my writing and work efforts, but I like to experiment with new stuff, and I really enjoy having a Windows 8.1 and a Mac laptop to experiment with, in addition to my Linux laptop. I have the bizarre work habit of rotating between Linux, Windows, and OS X every four or five hours. My work flow is the same, and I enjoy the variety so much that the slight change-over effort is worthwhile. This is a stupid habit that I should probably change. Stallman is really important for our tech community and I personally like his political stands. +1000 for Richard Stallman.
la6470 11y ago
I am careful in how I use the Internet. I generally do not connect to web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites I have some special relationship with. I fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program (see git://git.gnu.org/womb/hacks.git) that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. Then I look at them using a web browser, unless it is easy to see the text in the HTML page directly. I usually try lynx first, then a graphical browser if the page needs it (but I make sure I have no net connection, so that it won't fetch anything else). - now that is really weird and probably a result of some minor to moderate brain damage.
AdamN 11y ago
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw We should all be thankful to rms for his unreasonableness. It has literally been the underpinning of so much of what we take for granted vis-a-vis free software.
- msutherl 11y ago
  Not to mention, in a circuitous way, encryption and security.
- rocky1138 11y ago
  I often worry about what the world will look like after he dies. There doesn't seem to be a RMSjr in the wings anywhere.
  - Istof 11y ago
    I would be really surprised if he followed his advices 100% of the time, but they sure are a good start for getting you to think.
    - Sir_Substance 11y ago
      You're seriously asking yourself if a man who doesn't own a mobile phone or credit card is sneaking some CS:GO on the sly? I doubt it.
  - A_COMPUTER 11y ago
    Eben Moglen. He's also more "presentable" for all the folks that have leveled that criticism against RMS. I don't think age-wise they're that much different, but at least he's got a redundant backup.
  - jordigh 11y ago
    David Kastrup has my vote for GNU project leader after rms.
- 11y ago
dmytrish 11y ago
"I read a book about Java, and found it an elegant further development from C. But I have never used it. I did write some code in Java once, but the code was in C and Lisp (I simply happened to be in Java at the time)." - could someone explain this passage? Edit: does he mean the island Java?
- joesmo 11y ago
  I think so--seems to be a bit of a joke.
amelius 11y ago
"The Google+ account using my name is also not mine." and then "Google+ offers to hide the user's real name, but demands people prove an "established identity" or provide ID." Sounds contradictive.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  How many people named 'Richard Stallman' can there be in the world.
- throwawayaway 11y ago
  i think all that shows is google+, what it offers and what it demands, are bullshit. i don't think rms is contradicting himself.
- quadrangle 11y ago
  That's not a contradiction. He says "someone signed up an account in my name, it's not me" and "I happen to now that G+ has certain rules, and I don't like them" and incidentally the rules prohibit someone from impersonating him on G+, but that doesn't mean the rules have perfect enforcement.
scriptproof 11y ago
"After a few years I found out that this was due to the hard keys of my keyboard." Several years? Because doctors are not free? (joke)
Mahn 11y ago
I don't know, I appreciate his convictions and what he does, but I don't believe software in general would be where it is today if it weren't for commercial and closed source software. Google and Apple have done a lot to shape the world we live in today despite being "unethical" in terms of openness.
- nfoz 11y ago
  Software would not be "where it is today"; it would be a fundamentally different place. Many of us see that place as being far better than what we have. It's strange to me that you mention Google and Apple, because in both cases they built their empires largely on using open-source software that was available to them, and keeping some software closed isn't obviously relevant to their business model or success.
  - mcmillion 11y ago
    Out of curiosity, what would make that place better?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- notatoad 11y ago
  If it weren't for Google and Apple (and microsoft, of course) and everybody used computers the way RMS wanted them to, there would be a lot less people using computers. I've got a lot of respect for RMS. What he does is important, and i want him to keep fighting for what he believes in. I just don't want him to win. We're all better for the opposition between the corporate interests driving forward usability and inclusiveness, and the philisophical interests pushing openness and ethics and impractical idealism.
userbinator 11y ago
I want stallman.org to remain simple: not a "user experience" but rather a place where I present certain information, views and action opportunities to you. ...and as a result, I think it gives a very good "user experience" - I wish more webpages were like this, plain and informative without distractions.
- wenderen 11y ago
  I wish more sites were like this. 1. It loads lightning fast on my 512 kbps connection. 2. The font is preinstalled on my system, no separate request needs to be made. 3. It's easy to tell what is a link and what isn't. 4. Scrolling works like I'd expect it to, and doesn't involve any clever "transition" effects. More generally, there are next to no distracting animations or effects on the entire page.
  - bane 11y ago
    It's amazing how much work we've put into making the web a worse place.
    - blowski 11y ago
      All this pseudo-hipster "the web became a worse place when designers got involved" stuff really annoys me. Seriously, if all the web looked like this it would be more complicated to use for 99.9% of the world, so it would have remained a niche, so its overall usefulness would have remained limited. Instead, talented hard-working people put lots of effort into making the web look a much more friendly place. This has made the web a much more inclusive place, and thus, much more of the world has started to use it. RMS is a brand, and this 'zero design' is part of his brand. You already know who RMS is before you visit his site, and if you don't, you probably aren't part of his 'target market'. The jarring "Oh the CSS hasn't loaded" moment is precisely what he wants you to experience. The kind of people who visit his site know how to use reading mode on their browser, are comfortable adjusting the line width in whatever client they are using, so it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that the rest of the web would be a in a better place if it had remained looking like this. It would have remained an obscure corner of the world where a group of geeks met, and so many of the benefits of the internet would never have transpired.
chestervonwinch 11y ago
This may not be a direct comment rms's computing habits, but it's related and as good a place as any bring it up. I've been trying to reconcile two views on free software. I like to think about it in terms of car ownership because its more tangible to me: As a car owner, I should have the freedom to open my car, inspect its inner workings, change/fix things as desired, and share my knowledge others. The ability to openly inspect the inner workings also allows me to assure that the car is only performing operations I purchased it to perform. However, as a car developer, I cannot possibly hope to make money by giving the car away for free. There have been significant hours invested into the design of the car. Sure, there's money to made in maintenance, but realistically most people don't care about routine maintenance. They'd rather buy the car and ride it 'til the wheels fall off - maybe an oil change here and there. Are these two views fundamentally incompatible? Does anyone pay an upfront cost for free software in recognition of the time spent building/designing the product as they might with proprietary?
- bane 11y ago
  One of the arguments of the movement is that by participating in it, by giving away your labor to all mankind, others can benefit and this works vis-a-versa, others give away their labor so you can benefit as well. The problem of course is that this also says that labor is worthless and nobody gets to eat and find shelter unless they have some significant patronage. So sure I can build my Sprocket-Cog Software more easily because many of the software components that go into it are available to me for free (beer) so long as I free the entire thing at the end (freedom). The follow-on argument is that you can always try to build a services model around Sprocket-Cog Software and live from that. But there's a subtle implication there that building turnkey software is not an option if you want to live, but making broken, user-hostile, hard-to-use software is the only morally "good" option. (there's another argument that can be dismissed that you aren't prohibited from selling your software commercially under the right license, but that's a stupid argument, nobody will buy software from you if you just make it available for free (beer) anyways, so your only valid option (and the only one that has so far sorta "worked" in the marketplace is to provide services) RMS of course dismisses all of this with a bunch of handwaivyness, like he does issues with hardware, food, etc. because he simply doesn't have to worry about them (because he has money) or because he can't find a path he can personally follow. It's hard to take claims about morality seriously when they only apply to software and not anything else that's far more embedded in life.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- throwawayaway 11y ago
  i'd be interested to hear how you think he should behave, instead of how he is behaving currently - which you don't appear to be happy about.
  - sudioStudio64 11y ago
    I know that it doesn't necessarily sit well with the libertarian streak in most technical people, but political organization is the only way that change can be made in the systems that are actually threatening democracy and personal liberty. He may think that he isn't participating, but he is. GCC is used by every major vendor to both Wall St and the DOD. IF we are only talking about the freedom of people who purchase expensive consumer items to use them as they see fit...and that includes, let's say, a data mining company that produces metadata that is used for targeting drone strikes WHO USE GCC...then we are talking about a very narrowly focused issue...and yeah, he's probably right that it's bullshit that I can't get the source code to the OS that runs my TV...but I don't think that it's necessarily as important as he does. That is, if its even actually important at all.
    - throwawayaway 11y ago
      i think free software is one of the greatest tools to protect civilization against the rapidly growing 'techno' totalitarian state. and also in providing education. you are still critiquing his behaviour and not saying what he should be doing instead. consider that gnu, fsf and eff are related organisations.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
    - Synaesthesia 11y ago
      He's pretty politically active, just look at his homepage.
sudioStudio64 11y ago
People should be really thankful that RMS is out there making all of these issues visible. People might not even know that these issues could effect them in the future if it weren't for a vanguard standing up and taking notice now.
- ams6110 11y ago
  I would bet that the vast majority of people who use computers and the internet have never heard of Richard Stallman and never think about these issues at all.
ulkesh 11y ago
While I admire RMS's passion on freedom and privacy and the abhorrence of using non-free (free-as-in-freedom) software, I just wonder what he'll do or feel when non-free software has to be used to save his life one day.
- glenda 11y ago
  I know many people, a lot of doctors, who say that they would prefer to just be allowed to die when the time comes. Not everyone expects to have their lives extended by modern medicine and even if you do get longer to live, it usually isn't very pleasant anyways.
  - ulkesh 11y ago
    My statement implied that it would take place in an emergency situation before his time is up, not some kind of life-extension technology.
    - glenda 11y ago
      Oh yeah that is a little more complicated. I'd still imagine that he might choose death, I suppose that will be a real test to his ideology if it ever occurs.
    - evan_ 11y ago
      or even just taking cholesterol medicine, or having skin melanoma removed. I doubt many doctors are thinking "whelp, I have high cholesterol, guess it's my time to die"
      - glenda 11y ago
        That doesn't have much to do with him using non-free computer systems though. As a side note: the pendulum is swinging the other way in regards to cholesterol - so in many cases doctors are not actually concerned about high cholesterol in the same way they used to be.
- meatysnapper 11y ago
bitL 11y ago
I am not sure why anyone cares how RMS does his computing? Would you complain about Michelangelo using his chisel in a certain way and not in your preferred way? Or Gaudi drawing just with ordinary pencils on a thin paper instead of using all the technology available in his age for initial drawings of his architectural wonders? Get over it.
- normloman 11y ago
  Everyone knows the technique you use influences the final work. If I draft a novel by talking into a tape machine, it's gonna come out different if I wrote it on paper.
jaimebuelta 11y ago
There is an extremely interesting post describing what a few days living with RMS look like. It describes a trip of RMS to Spain, to give a talk in Majorca University. It get to great length to describe how uncompromising and coherent with his views RMS is, to the point of showing how tough it is for him and everyone around. Unfortunately, the post is only available in Spanish: https://gallir.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/un-viaje-con-richard-stallman-esa-persona/ https://gallir.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/un-viaje-con-richard... Google translate version is relatively good: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fgallir.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F10%2F29%2Fun-viaje-con-richard-stallman-esa-persona%2F&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev... I think is fascinating insight...
dreamdu5t 11y ago
Stallman is a leech. He lives off the productivity of others. His lifestyle and brand is a luxury afforded to him by being employed by academic institutions. His free software is only possible because other people sell software and hardware. He is arrogant and naive, not revolutionary.
- gargarplex 11y ago
  We need the left to balance the right.
mmrasheed 11y ago
A truly remarkable tech veteran, Richard Matthew Stallman is. My utmost respect for you, sir. This webpage and its content made me thinking about the purpose of internet as both communication media and e-commerce. Can someone picture the alternative internet following contents of that page as guideline?
totony 11y ago
> However, I can suggest that it may be wise to use an email service that is not connected with your search engine. That way you can be almost sure that your email contents don't influence your search results. You shouldn't identify yourself to your search engine in any case. I don't understand this, if it makes your searches more relevant to you, what's wrong? I used duckduckgo for a while, but the results were very poor compared to Google, since Google knows what i usually search (i.e. programing-related stuff, not cooking or w/e) and what interests me. If you fear about being prosecuted, then sure don't use the service, or you could also fight to improve regulations.
- vollmond 11y ago
  The search bubble may benefit you on occasion (such as your programming example), but it will affect you on every search, showing you mostly results with similar politics, etc, to the sources you already read. http://dontbubble.us/ http://dontbubble.us/
motxilo 11y ago
I would like to understand why he's got an account on Twitter. Yes, he uses to proxy his credentials to other sites, but I see the other reasons for not having an account on other sites also applying in the case of Twitter.
runn1ng 11y ago
First time I am reading about "Libreboot X200" (computer with pre-installed Trisquel and, by their own words, 100% free software) http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/ http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/ I thought RMS is still using his old Leemote. Evidently not.
- tjakab 11y ago
  The Lemote got stolen from him in 2012: http://www.devthought.com/2012/06/09/richard-stallman-robbed-in-argentina/ http://www.devthought.com/2012/06/09/richard-stallman-robbed...
- runn1ng 11y ago
  Haha. From the requirements for the "free software certification" http://www.fsf.org/news/endorsement-criteria http://www.fsf.org/news/endorsement-criteria Specifically, the seller must use the term "GNU/Linux" for any reference to an entire operating system which includes GNU and Linux, not "Linux" or "Linux-based system" or "a system with the Linux kernel" or any other term that mentions "Linux" without "GNU". Likewise, the seller must talk about "free software" more prominently than "open source." ....am I the only one, or does it seem petty to anyone else?
  - devcpp 11y ago
    The first part is rather pertinent. Android is precisely bad because it contains very little of GNU, which allows Google to develop the OS on an Apache license, and is the root of our closed-source Android problem. See https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.htm... The second part is also problematic, first because it's inaccurate (MIT- and BSD-licensed software is also open source but not free software i.e copyleft, which is bad), and second because it misses the point of free software: allowing others to use your work without contributing back is is very comparable to the right to enslave. So free software says that software being free is more important than people being free to do what they want with it. Much like we generally think that people being free is more important than others being free to do what they want to their neighbors. So it's only petty if you're not accustomed to these ideas, which you are supposed to be anyway if you go through the effort of reading these rules. That's why this label exists after all: so you don't have to give it as much thought as these people did.
suprgeek 11y ago
We are - all of us - the slowly boiling frogs of the story. Google, Netflix, Amazon, Uber & AirBnb - What you search for & e-mail about, What you watch, What you buy, Where you travel to & from & Where you stay - perfect tracking of everything. Add NSA & others on top & 1984 seems like a poor cousin of the world we live in. We need some one like Richard to show us what the COLD water looks like. Not the slightly boiled one, not the warm one, the COLD water. Zero tracking of anything as much as possible. He has lived his life trying to be as true to his philosophy as he can - at great personal cost & a LOT of sacrifice. I have personally seen some of the medical issues & his assets as such if any are shockingly meager for someone so well thought of (not something he will admit). Not like most of us (me included) - who will give up any data if it means a little bit of convenience. Please consider donating: https://my.fsf.org/donate/ https://my.fsf.org/donate/
Yawnoc2 11y ago
I think it is important for free software to provide free graphical user interface software, which is why the GNU Project arranged to launch three projects to develop that. The third, GNOME, was successful, so we never needed a fourth one. Does anybody know what the first two GNU windowing systems were? Is he talking about GNUstep? A friend once asked me to watch a video with her that she was going to display on her computer using Netflix. I declined, saying that Netflix was such an affront to freedom that I could not be party to its use under any circumstances whatsoever. These streaming dis-services are malicious technology designed to make people antisocial. Right, Richard, it's the Netflix users who are antisocial, not the people who get irate when their "friend" tries to load a website.
- mjrbrennan 11y ago
  This really irked me too. Sounds like he would be great fun to be friends with. I guess if I made it my full time job to avoid every modern product or service possible I wouldn't have much time to be social or have fun either.
alansmitheebk 11y ago
RMS is a genius programmer but debating his opinions about what makes for a better website is like Debating Don Knuth's opinions about what makes for a better email client. We canonize these people and yet they are luddites.
magice 11y ago
You know, my feeling for rms is quite bipolar. On one hand, I respect the severity of his commitment. On the other hand, as time passes, he sounds more and more like those extremist whackjobs. Seriously. For example, what is wrong with paying for digital services on the web? I mean, serious, what is wrong with it? Or, I found his opinion on Netflix quite funny. Netflix never intends to sell its users anything. The whole premise is to watch without buying. Like library (but you pay for the service). You can't exactly complain that you can't, says, tear apart a library book, can you? So, why DRM on Netfix a problem? The users don't own those video! Well o well.
- vollmond 11y ago
  I don't think he finds paying for digital services unethical, but he chooses not to since that payment is always personally identifiable (since you have to have an account, use a credit card, etc). He has 2 major stances outlined here -- an ethical opinion on free software, and a personal choice on privacy.
jongdubois 11y ago
Maybe if he tried to learn some of these other tools which he currently 'has no time for' - He would realize quickly that they pay for themselves in time saved. I guess it's probably more of a sentimental thing for him though.
jongdubois 11y ago
Maybe if he tried to learn some of these other tools which he currently 'has no time for' - He would realize quickly that they pay for themselves in time saved. I guess it's probably more of a sentimental thing for him though.
AnonJ 11y ago
His ideas are mostly hugely idealistic and categorical, ignoring real world scenarios and downplaying the downsides of free softwares. People who believe in complete anarchy can perfectly choose to live in their enclosed community, but if the world were to follow their way of living it would be a total disaster. Though of course debating their ideas would contribute to the development of practical, real world ideas in some ways. Better to have such a voice around than not, of course, but most people, after thinking it through, would just rightly reject taking his ideas verbatim.

334 points by fs111 11y ago

What is meant by: "I did write some code in Java once, but the code was in C and Lisp (I simply happened to be in Java at the time)"?

stingraycharles 11y ago
I think it's supposed to be a joke, referencing Java (the island) in Indonesia.
- JosephRedfern 11y ago
  Ah, I see. Thanks.
- smitherfield 11y ago
  I assumed he meant he wrote Java that looked like (i.e. was idiomatically similar to) C or Lisp.
deleted 11y ago
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acqq 11y ago

Previously on HN (282 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3809836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3809836 An idea: if somebody makes the diff between the page then and now we can talk about what he changed since the previous discussion and also refer to the previous discussion for the unchanged aspects.

fs111 11y ago
Why is hn not redirecting me to me to the old submission? Should be trivial to implement...
- melling 11y ago
  It would be nice if HN linked to older submissions. You don't want a redirect because there may be an interesting new discussion.
- tokenizerrr 11y ago
  It would have done this had it been posted recently. Instead, you are allowed to repost articles every few months.
deleted 11y ago
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cooper12 11y ago
A bit late but I took the April 7,2012 version [0] of the page and the recent version [1] from the internet archive and made a diff [2] using `wdiff` after converting the html to text and cleaning up the pages a bit. The diff doesn't look so great and mangles the before and after text together, but it was worth a try. The main differences seem to be updated information such as about his laptop, and changes to the prose for clarification. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120407053822/http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120407053822/http://stallman.o... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150517163401/https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://web.archive.org/web/20150517163401/https://stallman.... [2] http://pastebin.com/zqed9rPR http://pastebin.com/zqed9rPR

melling 11y ago

"The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or its variant, Scheme), you don't know what it means for a programming language to be powerful and elegant." You would have thought that rms would have made more of an effort to build a great Lisp on which to build better free software. Developers would be much more productive in Lisp than C or Java, for example.

AndrewDucker 11y ago
Lisp looks to me to be slower, use more memory, and be wordier than C: http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32/compare.php?lang=sbcl&lang2=gcc http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32/compare.php?lang...
- agumonkey 11y ago
  More and more I feel nothing should be compared to Lisp, for it sits on the metalanguage line a bit too much, has no domain specific/concrete syntax and semantics (you can roll your own depending on your needs).
- amatic 11y ago
  It is, but there are situations where speed of execution and use of memory are less important criteria for choosing a language. For example, when developing very large and complex programs. Lisp(s) allow encapsulation (hiding) of complexity into small modules, easier than c-family languages. Programs in lisp are faster to write, easier to maintain and reason about. The cost of being a bit slower is getting less important with better hardware.
  - dzhiurgis 11y ago
    I've read something quite contrary on reddit. It was about Clojure vs Haskell and more specifically, dynamic vs static typing. Person was claiming that it was so much easier to change statically typed languages. It get more difficult to maintain large projects that are Lisps. From what I've learned so far about languages, it makes sense. It looks that Lisps are more suitable for implementing algorithms because of the reductionism, but in more realistic systems world, you build interfaces, add random strings, and so on. If you are patient and good enough, you can probably build significant part of a system, but not all of it. I do not know any systems built entirely on Lisp, but I might be wrong.

Havoc 11y ago

aka very slowly. The web browsing part in particular sounds downright glacial.

carlosrg 11y ago
The web browsing part is obsolete. In the last LibrePlanet he said he now uses the GNU IceCat browser (free software distribution of Firefox + several privacy protection add-ons, http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/) with Tor.
- dorfsmay 11y ago
  Also, keep in mind that one of the reason he wasn't using a web browser was that he often only had time to read articles and other material from the web when he did not have access to the internet (airplanes, trains, cars, taking a rest while hiking in a mountain, etc...), so he used this technique to treat the internet like offline emails.
  - tedunangst 11y ago
    It also, intentionally or not, allows him to remain uninformed through an email thread. Stallman makes a claim (perhaps about some projects licensing policy), someone refutes the claim with a link to the policy, stallman dodges with "I can't browse the web, but based on what I was told..."

lmorris84 11y ago

I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I give so little thought to many of these things. I have a Spotify subscription, I'm watching the Football on Sky Go which uses Silverlight, I'm using a browser rather than emailing myself web pages. A lot of this is just bizarre and I just don't see non-free software as inherently evil.

tokai 11y ago
Its a bad thing. While you may not agree with Stallman's analysis of the morality of software, should everyone think about the tools they use - not just their apparent functionality, but also the broader ramifications of characteristics of said tools. The world would be a better place if fewer people just went on autopilot and short-term gratification.
- rimantas 11y ago
  There is also an option that you can think long and hard about the tools you use and come to conclusion, that Stallman is wrong. And there is nothing wrong with that.
  - ska 11y ago
    I parsed that as agreeing with you (albeit worded a bit awkwardly), that the "bad thing" was not thinking about it, not disagreeing with Stallman.
    - tokai 11y ago
      Exactly.
  - sean-duffy 11y ago
    Or there is the third option to think long and hard, largely agree with Stallman, but still continue to mostly use the tools you do out of habit and practicality. I'd say I fall into that category. He raises a lot of very important issues, however it would be too much for me to change my lifestyle to address all of those issues, and then some of his points, such as proprietary software being inherently evil, I don't agree with.

throwawayaway 11y ago

how dare he snipe at UX like that. who does he think he is?

dogma1138 11y ago

I wonder if this guy also does not have bank accounts, credit cards, phones (land or cell) to their name, and all live in a cabin in the woods without paying taxes. It's also a bit odd that for a guy who intentionally buys a 10+ year old or so hardware to run free/libreboot on it (at least partially to trust the boot layers), didn't mind buying a Chinese laptop which was not only made in China, but also designed from parts natively developed in China including the CPU by a government institute. His browsing habits are also a bit well laughable tbh, both because at the end even if he hogs the free WiFI at Starbucks he is traceable, and delivering internet pages of email ins't intrinsically more secure or surveillance resilient than browsing them directly. This guy always interested me in some ways, it's quite amazing how one can be so talented and so coo coo for cocoa puffs at the same time, and in contrast to the usual extreme left social anarchists or marxists also very accomplished.

mbrock 11y ago
Could you try to refrain from insults like "coo coo for cocoa puffs"? Stallman is trying his best to live up to his ethical principles. What is the point of your uncharitable criticism?
- dogma1138 11y ago
  Sorry i don't see this exactly as an insult, yes there is quite a bit of abnormality in there probably with a slight touch of insanity, if you fail to see that well that's your problem, not every thing is criticism, some are just observations.
  - mbrock 11y ago
    "Criticism" might be too lofty a word for your accusations of "abnormality" and "insanity" in this level-headed personal page. Please reconsider the value of sharing your subjective and uncharitable "observations."
    - dogma1138 11y ago

ikeboy 11y ago

So he thinks emails can't be spied on. He doesn't mention which computer runs the email wget-like program, but if it's traceable to him, then it's trackable, or if the email isn't encrypted at any step. He doesn't mention using PGP for that, and without that it's likely that the emails are in plain-text. About DRM: he seems to say that if you can break it, it's ok to use it, even if it's unfree. Also, is Netflix breakable? I don't use it myself, but I was once told you can rip the movies with some programs.

upofadown 11y ago
>So he thinks emails can't be spied on. That seems very unlikely. Since the stuff in the emails is publicly available on the net there would be no point in encrypting them. You might be able to determine what RMS is interested in, but everyone already knows what RMS is interested in ... in some detail.
- ikeboy 11y ago
  >One consequence of this method is that most of the survellance [sic] methods used on the Internet can't see me. is right after the description of how he browses. It sounds like he doesn't want people knowing what he's browsing. Although "most" could exclude the NSA and anyone capable of intercepting emails.
jordigh 11y ago
> So he thinks emails can't be spied on Quite the contrary. Since the Snowden revelations, all of his emails have the following header: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
- ikeboy 11y ago
  >One consequence of this method is that most of the survellance [sic] methods used on the Internet can't see me. That's what I based my comment on. Although he's changed, apparently, according to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9559834 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9559834

fixxer 11y ago

Relatively speaking, Netflix is like a chorus of angels when all you've known is Comcast. Can anyone outline the argument against Netflix, Spotify, etc.? I don't follow. Is he suggesting the content should be free?

dbbolton 11y ago
No, both the FSF and rms have repeatedly said that charging for software (or content) is perfectly fine. His issue is with the licensing and DRM. Here is one of the FSF's sites about DRM: https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ Personally I do use Netflix and I don't think that the company or its users are unethical, but ultimately if there were a reasonably priced service that offered DRM-free content and didn't rely on closed-source plugins and apps, I would switch in a heartbeat.
- wampus 11y ago
  My guess is that Netflix couldn't negotiate agreements for a lot of the content that makes the service attractive without relenting on DRM. We'll know when Netflix turns evil, because it will force you to sit through commercials and previews before showing you the content you want and paid to see.
  - dbbolton 11y ago
    I think you are absolutely right. It's not content providers that are pushing for DRM, it's content producers. There's absolutely no way a rightsholder would let Netflix show their content if, god forbid, there was any remote possibility that a user could download and use their content outside of a controlled environment. In some ways it parallels internet piracy. ISPs for the most part are sick of policing their users and sending out C&D letters for copyright infringement, but they more or less have to due to pressure from major studios.
    - MichaelGG 11y ago
      Then check to see if DRM is needed to see Netflix "original" content.

mark_l_watson 11y ago

I always enjoy Richard's writing. I would like to take more of his advice but some practicalities interfere, mostly about social media. I tend to not post much personal stuff on social media but posting links to my recent blog articles, new books I have written, and when I release open source software is very valuable to me because it increases the number of people I get connected with. He is absolutely correct about the dangers of losing privacy on social media. I have considered the all free laptop route and technically this would not hurt my writing and work efforts, but I like to experiment with new stuff, and I really enjoy having a Windows 8.1 and a Mac laptop to experiment with, in addition to my Linux laptop. I have the bizarre work habit of rotating between Linux, Windows, and OS X every four or five hours. My work flow is the same, and I enjoy the variety so much that the slight change-over effort is worthwhile. This is a stupid habit that I should probably change. Stallman is really important for our tech community and I personally like his political stands. +1000 for Richard Stallman.

la6470 11y ago

I am careful in how I use the Internet. I generally do not connect to web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites I have some special relationship with. I fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program (see git://git.gnu.org/womb/hacks.git) that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. Then I look at them using a web browser, unless it is easy to see the text in the HTML page directly. I usually try lynx first, then a graphical browser if the page needs it (but I make sure I have no net connection, so that it won't fetch anything else). - now that is really weird and probably a result of some minor to moderate brain damage.

AdamN 11y ago

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw We should all be thankful to rms for his unreasonableness. It has literally been the underpinning of so much of what we take for granted vis-a-vis free software.

msutherl 11y ago
Not to mention, in a circuitous way, encryption and security.
rocky1138 11y ago
I often worry about what the world will look like after he dies. There doesn't seem to be a RMSjr in the wings anywhere.
- Istof 11y ago
  I would be really surprised if he followed his advices 100% of the time, but they sure are a good start for getting you to think.
  - Sir_Substance 11y ago
    You're seriously asking yourself if a man who doesn't own a mobile phone or credit card is sneaking some CS:GO on the sly? I doubt it.
- A_COMPUTER 11y ago
  Eben Moglen. He's also more "presentable" for all the folks that have leveled that criticism against RMS. I don't think age-wise they're that much different, but at least he's got a redundant backup.
- jordigh 11y ago
  David Kastrup has my vote for GNU project leader after rms.
11y ago

dmytrish 11y ago

"I read a book about Java, and found it an elegant further development from C. But I have never used it. I did write some code in Java once, but the code was in C and Lisp (I simply happened to be in Java at the time)." - could someone explain this passage? Edit: does he mean the island Java?

joesmo 11y ago
I think so--seems to be a bit of a joke.

amelius 11y ago

"The Google+ account using my name is also not mine." and then "Google+ offers to hide the user's real name, but demands people prove an "established identity" or provide ID." Sounds contradictive.

GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
How many people named 'Richard Stallman' can there be in the world.
throwawayaway 11y ago
i think all that shows is google+, what it offers and what it demands, are bullshit. i don't think rms is contradicting himself.
quadrangle 11y ago
That's not a contradiction. He says "someone signed up an account in my name, it's not me" and "I happen to now that G+ has certain rules, and I don't like them" and incidentally the rules prohibit someone from impersonating him on G+, but that doesn't mean the rules have perfect enforcement.

scriptproof 11y ago

"After a few years I found out that this was due to the hard keys of my keyboard." Several years? Because doctors are not free? (joke)

Mahn 11y ago

I don't know, I appreciate his convictions and what he does, but I don't believe software in general would be where it is today if it weren't for commercial and closed source software. Google and Apple have done a lot to shape the world we live in today despite being "unethical" in terms of openness.

nfoz 11y ago
Software would not be "where it is today"; it would be a fundamentally different place. Many of us see that place as being far better than what we have. It's strange to me that you mention Google and Apple, because in both cases they built their empires largely on using open-source software that was available to them, and keeping some software closed isn't obviously relevant to their business model or success.
- mcmillion 11y ago
  Out of curiosity, what would make that place better?
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notatoad 11y ago
If it weren't for Google and Apple (and microsoft, of course) and everybody used computers the way RMS wanted them to, there would be a lot less people using computers. I've got a lot of respect for RMS. What he does is important, and i want him to keep fighting for what he believes in. I just don't want him to win. We're all better for the opposition between the corporate interests driving forward usability and inclusiveness, and the philisophical interests pushing openness and ethics and impractical idealism.

userbinator 11y ago

I want stallman.org to remain simple: not a "user experience" but rather a place where I present certain information, views and action opportunities to you. ...and as a result, I think it gives a very good "user experience" - I wish more webpages were like this, plain and informative without distractions.

wenderen 11y ago
I wish more sites were like this. 1. It loads lightning fast on my 512 kbps connection. 2. The font is preinstalled on my system, no separate request needs to be made. 3. It's easy to tell what is a link and what isn't. 4. Scrolling works like I'd expect it to, and doesn't involve any clever "transition" effects. More generally, there are next to no distracting animations or effects on the entire page.
- bane 11y ago
  It's amazing how much work we've put into making the web a worse place.
  - blowski 11y ago
    All this pseudo-hipster "the web became a worse place when designers got involved" stuff really annoys me. Seriously, if all the web looked like this it would be more complicated to use for 99.9% of the world, so it would have remained a niche, so its overall usefulness would have remained limited. Instead, talented hard-working people put lots of effort into making the web look a much more friendly place. This has made the web a much more inclusive place, and thus, much more of the world has started to use it. RMS is a brand, and this 'zero design' is part of his brand. You already know who RMS is before you visit his site, and if you don't, you probably aren't part of his 'target market'. The jarring "Oh the CSS hasn't loaded" moment is precisely what he wants you to experience. The kind of people who visit his site know how to use reading mode on their browser, are comfortable adjusting the line width in whatever client they are using, so it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that the rest of the web would be a in a better place if it had remained looking like this. It would have remained an obscure corner of the world where a group of geeks met, and so many of the benefits of the internet would never have transpired.

chestervonwinch 11y ago

This may not be a direct comment rms's computing habits, but it's related and as good a place as any bring it up. I've been trying to reconcile two views on free software. I like to think about it in terms of car ownership because its more tangible to me: As a car owner, I should have the freedom to open my car, inspect its inner workings, change/fix things as desired, and share my knowledge others. The ability to openly inspect the inner workings also allows me to assure that the car is only performing operations I purchased it to perform. However, as a car developer, I cannot possibly hope to make money by giving the car away for free. There have been significant hours invested into the design of the car. Sure, there's money to made in maintenance, but realistically most people don't care about routine maintenance. They'd rather buy the car and ride it 'til the wheels fall off - maybe an oil change here and there. Are these two views fundamentally incompatible? Does anyone pay an upfront cost for free software in recognition of the time spent building/designing the product as they might with proprietary?

bane 11y ago
One of the arguments of the movement is that by participating in it, by giving away your labor to all mankind, others can benefit and this works vis-a-versa, others give away their labor so you can benefit as well. The problem of course is that this also says that labor is worthless and nobody gets to eat and find shelter unless they have some significant patronage. So sure I can build my Sprocket-Cog Software more easily because many of the software components that go into it are available to me for free (beer) so long as I free the entire thing at the end (freedom). The follow-on argument is that you can always try to build a services model around Sprocket-Cog Software and live from that. But there's a subtle implication there that building turnkey software is not an option if you want to live, but making broken, user-hostile, hard-to-use software is the only morally "good" option. (there's another argument that can be dismissed that you aren't prohibited from selling your software commercially under the right license, but that's a stupid argument, nobody will buy software from you if you just make it available for free (beer) anyways, so your only valid option (and the only one that has so far sorta "worked" in the marketplace is to provide services) RMS of course dismisses all of this with a bunch of handwaivyness, like he does issues with hardware, food, etc. because he simply doesn't have to worry about them (because he has money) or because he can't find a path he can personally follow. It's hard to take claims about morality seriously when they only apply to software and not anything else that's far more embedded in life.

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throwawayaway 11y ago
i'd be interested to hear how you think he should behave, instead of how he is behaving currently - which you don't appear to be happy about.
- sudioStudio64 11y ago
  I know that it doesn't necessarily sit well with the libertarian streak in most technical people, but political organization is the only way that change can be made in the systems that are actually threatening democracy and personal liberty. He may think that he isn't participating, but he is. GCC is used by every major vendor to both Wall St and the DOD. IF we are only talking about the freedom of people who purchase expensive consumer items to use them as they see fit...and that includes, let's say, a data mining company that produces metadata that is used for targeting drone strikes WHO USE GCC...then we are talking about a very narrowly focused issue...and yeah, he's probably right that it's bullshit that I can't get the source code to the OS that runs my TV...but I don't think that it's necessarily as important as he does. That is, if its even actually important at all.
  - throwawayaway 11y ago
    i think free software is one of the greatest tools to protect civilization against the rapidly growing 'techno' totalitarian state. and also in providing education. you are still critiquing his behaviour and not saying what he should be doing instead. consider that gnu, fsf and eff are related organisations.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - Synaesthesia 11y ago
    He's pretty politically active, just look at his homepage.

sudioStudio64 11y ago

People should be really thankful that RMS is out there making all of these issues visible. People might not even know that these issues could effect them in the future if it weren't for a vanguard standing up and taking notice now.

ams6110 11y ago
I would bet that the vast majority of people who use computers and the internet have never heard of Richard Stallman and never think about these issues at all.

ulkesh 11y ago

While I admire RMS's passion on freedom and privacy and the abhorrence of using non-free (free-as-in-freedom) software, I just wonder what he'll do or feel when non-free software has to be used to save his life one day.

glenda 11y ago
I know many people, a lot of doctors, who say that they would prefer to just be allowed to die when the time comes. Not everyone expects to have their lives extended by modern medicine and even if you do get longer to live, it usually isn't very pleasant anyways.
- ulkesh 11y ago
  My statement implied that it would take place in an emergency situation before his time is up, not some kind of life-extension technology.
  - glenda 11y ago
    Oh yeah that is a little more complicated. I'd still imagine that he might choose death, I suppose that will be a real test to his ideology if it ever occurs.
  - evan_ 11y ago
    or even just taking cholesterol medicine, or having skin melanoma removed. I doubt many doctors are thinking "whelp, I have high cholesterol, guess it's my time to die"
    - glenda 11y ago
      That doesn't have much to do with him using non-free computer systems though. As a side note: the pendulum is swinging the other way in regards to cholesterol - so in many cases doctors are not actually concerned about high cholesterol in the same way they used to be.
meatysnapper 11y ago

bitL 11y ago

I am not sure why anyone cares how RMS does his computing? Would you complain about Michelangelo using his chisel in a certain way and not in your preferred way? Or Gaudi drawing just with ordinary pencils on a thin paper instead of using all the technology available in his age for initial drawings of his architectural wonders? Get over it.

normloman 11y ago
Everyone knows the technique you use influences the final work. If I draft a novel by talking into a tape machine, it's gonna come out different if I wrote it on paper.

jaimebuelta 11y ago

There is an extremely interesting post describing what a few days living with RMS look like. It describes a trip of RMS to Spain, to give a talk in Majorca University. It get to great length to describe how uncompromising and coherent with his views RMS is, to the point of showing how tough it is for him and everyone around. Unfortunately, the post is only available in Spanish: https://gallir.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/un-viaje-con-richard-stallman-esa-persona/ https://gallir.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/un-viaje-con-richard... Google translate version is relatively good: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fgallir.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F10%2F29%2Fun-viaje-con-richard-stallman-esa-persona%2F&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev... I think is fascinating insight...

dreamdu5t 11y ago

Stallman is a leech. He lives off the productivity of others. His lifestyle and brand is a luxury afforded to him by being employed by academic institutions. His free software is only possible because other people sell software and hardware. He is arrogant and naive, not revolutionary.

gargarplex 11y ago
We need the left to balance the right.

mmrasheed 11y ago

A truly remarkable tech veteran, Richard Matthew Stallman is. My utmost respect for you, sir. This webpage and its content made me thinking about the purpose of internet as both communication media and e-commerce. Can someone picture the alternative internet following contents of that page as guideline?

totony 11y ago

> However, I can suggest that it may be wise to use an email service that is not connected with your search engine. That way you can be almost sure that your email contents don't influence your search results. You shouldn't identify yourself to your search engine in any case. I don't understand this, if it makes your searches more relevant to you, what's wrong? I used duckduckgo for a while, but the results were very poor compared to Google, since Google knows what i usually search (i.e. programing-related stuff, not cooking or w/e) and what interests me. If you fear about being prosecuted, then sure don't use the service, or you could also fight to improve regulations.

vollmond 11y ago
The search bubble may benefit you on occasion (such as your programming example), but it will affect you on every search, showing you mostly results with similar politics, etc, to the sources you already read. http://dontbubble.us/ http://dontbubble.us/

motxilo 11y ago

I would like to understand why he's got an account on Twitter. Yes, he uses to proxy his credentials to other sites, but I see the other reasons for not having an account on other sites also applying in the case of Twitter.

runn1ng 11y ago

First time I am reading about "Libreboot X200" (computer with pre-installed Trisquel and, by their own words, 100% free software) http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/ http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/ I thought RMS is still using his old Leemote. Evidently not.

tjakab 11y ago
The Lemote got stolen from him in 2012: http://www.devthought.com/2012/06/09/richard-stallman-robbed-in-argentina/ http://www.devthought.com/2012/06/09/richard-stallman-robbed...
runn1ng 11y ago
Haha. From the requirements for the "free software certification" http://www.fsf.org/news/endorsement-criteria http://www.fsf.org/news/endorsement-criteria Specifically, the seller must use the term "GNU/Linux" for any reference to an entire operating system which includes GNU and Linux, not "Linux" or "Linux-based system" or "a system with the Linux kernel" or any other term that mentions "Linux" without "GNU". Likewise, the seller must talk about "free software" more prominently than "open source." ....am I the only one, or does it seem petty to anyone else?
- devcpp 11y ago
  The first part is rather pertinent. Android is precisely bad because it contains very little of GNU, which allows Google to develop the OS on an Apache license, and is the root of our closed-source Android problem. See https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.htm... The second part is also problematic, first because it's inaccurate (MIT- and BSD-licensed software is also open source but not free software i.e copyleft, which is bad), and second because it misses the point of free software: allowing others to use your work without contributing back is is very comparable to the right to enslave. So free software says that software being free is more important than people being free to do what they want with it. Much like we generally think that people being free is more important than others being free to do what they want to their neighbors. So it's only petty if you're not accustomed to these ideas, which you are supposed to be anyway if you go through the effort of reading these rules. That's why this label exists after all: so you don't have to give it as much thought as these people did.

suprgeek 11y ago

We are - all of us - the slowly boiling frogs of the story. Google, Netflix, Amazon, Uber & AirBnb - What you search for & e-mail about, What you watch, What you buy, Where you travel to & from & Where you stay - perfect tracking of everything. Add NSA & others on top & 1984 seems like a poor cousin of the world we live in. We need some one like Richard to show us what the COLD water looks like. Not the slightly boiled one, not the warm one, the COLD water. Zero tracking of anything as much as possible. He has lived his life trying to be as true to his philosophy as he can - at great personal cost & a LOT of sacrifice. I have personally seen some of the medical issues & his assets as such if any are shockingly meager for someone so well thought of (not something he will admit). Not like most of us (me included) - who will give up any data if it means a little bit of convenience. Please consider donating: https://my.fsf.org/donate/ https://my.fsf.org/donate/

Yawnoc2 11y ago

I think it is important for free software to provide free graphical user interface software, which is why the GNU Project arranged to launch three projects to develop that. The third, GNOME, was successful, so we never needed a fourth one. Does anybody know what the first two GNU windowing systems were? Is he talking about GNUstep? A friend once asked me to watch a video with her that she was going to display on her computer using Netflix. I declined, saying that Netflix was such an affront to freedom that I could not be party to its use under any circumstances whatsoever. These streaming dis-services are malicious technology designed to make people antisocial. Right, Richard, it's the Netflix users who are antisocial, not the people who get irate when their "friend" tries to load a website.

mjrbrennan 11y ago
This really irked me too. Sounds like he would be great fun to be friends with. I guess if I made it my full time job to avoid every modern product or service possible I wouldn't have much time to be social or have fun either.

alansmitheebk 11y ago

RMS is a genius programmer but debating his opinions about what makes for a better website is like Debating Don Knuth's opinions about what makes for a better email client. We canonize these people and yet they are luddites.

magice 11y ago

You know, my feeling for rms is quite bipolar. On one hand, I respect the severity of his commitment. On the other hand, as time passes, he sounds more and more like those extremist whackjobs. Seriously. For example, what is wrong with paying for digital services on the web? I mean, serious, what is wrong with it? Or, I found his opinion on Netflix quite funny. Netflix never intends to sell its users anything. The whole premise is to watch without buying. Like library (but you pay for the service). You can't exactly complain that you can't, says, tear apart a library book, can you? So, why DRM on Netfix a problem? The users don't own those video! Well o well.

vollmond 11y ago
I don't think he finds paying for digital services unethical, but he chooses not to since that payment is always personally identifiable (since you have to have an account, use a credit card, etc). He has 2 major stances outlined here -- an ethical opinion on free software, and a personal choice on privacy.

jongdubois 11y ago

Maybe if he tried to learn some of these other tools which he currently 'has no time for' - He would realize quickly that they pay for themselves in time saved. I guess it's probably more of a sentimental thing for him though.

jongdubois 11y ago

AnonJ 11y ago

His ideas are mostly hugely idealistic and categorical, ignoring real world scenarios and downplaying the downsides of free softwares. People who believe in complete anarchy can perfectly choose to live in their enclosed community, but if the world were to follow their way of living it would be a total disaster. Though of course debating their ideas would contribute to the development of practical, real world ideas in some ways. Better to have such a voice around than not, of course, but most people, after thinking it through, would just rightly reject taking his ideas verbatim.