Time to fork the FSF

I don't get it, personally. Yes, Stallman's a loon - although as an aside I think that every good movement needs its loons. Who's going to say "you know what? I believe in Free Software so much that I will use nothing else, and publicly and harshly declare that anyone doing otherwise is a moron and a traitor to the future of humanity"? Anyone who is willing to sacrifice the usefulness of the last 30 years of proprietary tech to make a point has to be a bit barmy. But who else will make that point? All progress depends on unreasonable men.<p>And I agree that it would be helpful to have a moderate voice in Free Software. I use a Mac - sorry, it's really nice to use and I code a lot. I like my Kindle - sorry, it's better than the others and I read a lot. I live and work with proprietary software, but I believe in Free Software too. WebKit is popular because of Apple and Google. OS X is the most popular BSD, and the most popular consumer Unix. Non-free and free can and have worked together to mutual benefit. Is there anyone out there who can help me walk that line? If Larry is proposing to make that organisation, I would welcome it with open arms.<p>But what of this Jobs nonsense? Are we so timid and flammable that we can't handle a complex opinion that we don't agree with? Can you not accept that Jobs was a great leader who didn't deserve to die, but that he left a scary, proprietary footprint all over the mobile and tablet space? "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone." is an opinion I don't agree with, but I don't think it's ludicrous, tactless and heartless.<p>Not everyone has to respect the things I respect, and feelings don't suddenly trump debate because of death. Jobs is one of the hacker community's sacred cows, and we wouldn't accept this level of sanctification on any other topic. I'm sure when Bill Gates or the Dalai Lama dies, there will be posts saying "let's not forget that Windows Vista was awful and religion is the other opiate of Tibet" Will they cause the same outcry?

I tweeted earlier that I see RMS as the Fred Phelps (Westboro Baptist Church) of Free Software. He may not have started out this way; but these days he's completely single issue. If you're not doing free software 100% his way; you not only disagree with him but you are actually evil. Not just free software; but free software as RMS defines it(see GNU/Linux) or you're wrong. He's so blinded by his own zealotry that I'd argue that beyond the inner, hard-core "free software circle, he's seen as much of an embarrassment to the notion of free software as Phelps and Westboro are likely seen by other Christians.<p>I've felt this way a long time about RMS; his comment about Steve Jobs's death was uncalled for--but it really was well-within character. Just like Phelps and Westboro are expected to show up at soldier's funerals to protest, we've come to expect this type of shit from RMS--and I agree with the OP that it's time to stop just accepting it.<p>[Edit] I want to state that RMS, like everyone, is fully entitled to his opinion and that opinion carries no more or less weight than my own. Moreover, you're completely entitled to agree with him. What I do have a problem with is what the OP described: he doesn't belong at the head of a major organization, nor does he belong at the apex of the free software movement. Beyond my earlier described "inner circle," in the past several years, he's done more to tarnish the image of the free software community than to help it.

OS X would not be possible without RMS.<p>You have to remember that Stallman was around before Jobs' day -- he was performing real work at MIT when Apple was initially conceptualized. Stallman therefore is apparently less vulnerable to the reality distortion field and does not unduly offer oblations to a guy who was obsessed with shininess at the expense of hacker culture. Jobs went to lengths on many products to prevent tinkering in an age when computing was still very open and very academic, because Jobs didn't want any little peons messing up his perfect devices. Hence Stallman's quip that Jobs made computers as a jail cool.<p>If you think about this statement from Stallman's perspective it really makes a lot of sense, and I think it is ridiculous that the Steve Jobs hero worship pervades so deeply as to not recognize that Jobs <i>was</i> a control freak even after Apple products were sold and in the possession of customers, and that some people, particular contemporaries of Stallman's stripe, may not have been fond of that. I doubt that the release of the iPhone really did much to persuade that set of people.

Go ahead... fork it. Then what happens?<p>Will you travel the world tirelessly promoting free software, speaking at universities and other events for very little money?<p>Will you maintain a job board, mailing list, hardware database, software directory, year after year?<p>Will you find lawyers to donate hundreds of hours to write and revise licenses?<p>Will you hire lobbyists to fight software patents?<p>Will you tirelessly fight the RIAA, day after day?<p>When you've done all these things, sign me up.

RMS has the FSF and Defective By Design sites as soapboxes if he wished to gain more attention from Jobs's death. This was a post on his political notes page. He did nothing to publicize it.<p>He didn't post to aggregators or tweet to ask for upvotes (technically it was posted on his Identi.ca account which is linked to his political notes feed, but it got no special treatment).<p>If some major sites hadn't picked up on it and provided the publicity, most readers would never know. So RMS wrote a politically incorrect opinion on his personal page. Can we move on now?

Crass and insensitive but in line with everything I've ever heard him profess to believe. He's never strayed from his goal in making great software available to millions of people around the world, and he's never given a shit why it shouldn't or couldn't be done his way...damn, that sounds familiar.

so... it's perfectly ok to publish tons of linkbaits about 'how steve jobs changed my life' even if they are vague and repetitive boring opinions, but nobody can state his negative views on this occasion. gimme a break. death is sad, but it's good that there are people who had decided to stay out of this bubble.

This is a common pattern: (i) someone famous dies, (ii) someone else says something bad about that celebrity, (iii) everyone else is scandalized. Thou shalt not bash the dead.<p>Now, I don't think Stallman's lines were <i>gratuitously</i> offensive. He was merely clear and concise. He spent no word on niceness, but he spent no word on rudeness either. And by the way, he is factually correct: Jobs <i>was</i> "the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed [among other things] to sever fools from their freedom" (or, if not <i>the</i> pioneer, at least the most effective apologist).<p>Now should he have just shut up? Probably not. Every one now is praising Jobs, and that may trigger even more sales for the iPhone and the iPad. Praise Jobs, and soon you will praise Apple's most locked down products. At least a word of caution is needed.<p>Now I do understand that Stallman knows next to nothing about how not to trigger bad feelings. I do understand that he should work on that. But please, don't be offended by something that most probably wasn't intended to be offensive.

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.<p>They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo.<p>You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them.<p>About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward.<p>And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world - are the ones who do!

What Stallman said is just, analytically speaking:<p>1) I don't like when people die.<p>2) But this happened to Steve Jobs, unfortunately.<p>3) However from my point of view he was doing so much damage to the world of software that this is a good thing. Not the fact he died but the fact that we no longer have his influence.<p>Note: I don't agree. But I don't think it should be a problem to say the above.<p>It is like if you are the leader of a movement against the practice of killing whales, and there is one guy that kills 100,000 whales every year. If he dies you can legitimately say: "I'm sorry he died, but this is a good thing for whales".<p>He used the wrong words, the wrong time, and so forth, but the concept is nothing of extraordinary from his point of view. It is important to have the freedom of saying what we want.

Wait, isn't there a whole stack of organisations that support FLOSS or the same sort of values as openness that the FSF support other than the FSF already?<p>Off the top of my head: Apache Software Foundation, OSI, GNOME Foundation, Linux Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, Python Software Foundation, Open Knowledge Foundation, Software Freedom Law Center, Software in the Public Interest, Wikimedia Foundation.<p>If you feel like you want to throw money, power or sexual favours to the open source community, there are plenty of ways to do it that don't involve RMS or the FSF. Or you could just find some free/open source script or app or library you use and like and chuck the creator $20 and a nice email saying "I really like your code, go buy yourself a pizza and a beer on me".

I fully understand this Larry, and think FSF would have been doing much better if there was someone else at its cockpit.<p>RMS is a fanatic about free software, like ultra religious people are to their religion.<p>For instance, for me, being free, means, at first and above all, being free to choose. Being able to install <i>proprietary nVidia driver</i> which does not crash my linux box every half a day, and have this driver built and available for me in my linux distro repository.<p>Years ago, RMS was a guest of honor in IBM Tel Aviv. These were the days, Linux was something left-field, obscure, that no one wanted to know or hear about it. There were hundreds of developers in the hall who came to hear about the "Gnu/Linux thing" from the Freedom Guru.<p>All of a sudden, in the middle of his lecture, out of any imaginable context, RMS took of his left shoe, and then the sack, and start rubbing his toes with his fingers while preaching about free software.<p>Yes, imagine that, a man is playing with his barefoot on a stage, would you remember anything he said? Would you listen to anything he has to say? Or would your brain being busy understanding and categorizing the extraordinary show you are in?<p>(Those were not the days of youtube and smartphone, I bet if that would have been happening these days, this was the most viewed video on youtube amongst hackers.)<p>It is sad, but successful open source project does not seemed to get along with RMS at all, see Ubuntu/Canonical as a good example.

I agree with this comment by "tom robinson" in the blog post:<p><i>To those saying you agree with what RMS wrote: that’s fine, but irrelevant. As a spokesman for FSF he shouldn’t be pandering to his already devout followers, he should be trying to convince others that the ideals of the FSF are worth pursuing, and he’s been doing an absolutely TERRIBLE job of that lately.<p>Silly campaigns of immature puns, lashing out at people who don’t say “GNU/Linux”, insulting a recently deceased man who much of the world admires, and making otherwise inappropriate remarks on a regular basis is an excellent way to alienate the people you’re trying to win over.<p>How have these tactics been working out for FSF? I don’t have stats, but anecdotally most new open source projects I come across have rejected the GPL licenses for BSD, MIT, Apache, etc.<p>Now imagine what FSF could accomplish if they had a spokesman with the skills of Steve Jobs</i>

I'm sorry, but - what a nutcase. Silently accepts Stallman's years of nasty comments, cynical attitudes, world-wide conspiracy theories and downright condescension all through. Then Stallman says something unfriendly about god^H^H^H Jobs, and he resigns. Oh, come on.

I think RMS's statement is completely misinterpreted. Don't forget the first part of the sentence: "I'm not glad he's dead", which literally means RMS is <i>not</i> glad that Jobs died!<p>"I'm glad he's gone" is only a complaint towards Jobs' influence on personal computing. You may disagree with RMS (I certainly do), and it is certainly an inappropriate comment to make at this time, but this is nothing to make a drama of RMS' comment... Geez people!

All you really need to do is consider what Steve Jobs would have said about RMS if he were still here when RMS is no longer. At worst, he'd say nothing, at best, he'd say something that would have touched you and made you think deeply about what the two men had in common despite their deep differences.

As I said already, today's hacker culture is crippled. So called "hackers" here have lost their principles, forgotten the value of freedom, worship the wrong idols. How come an entrepreneur be a hero much more important than any of the researchers who pioneered the modern computer technology? How can the man who worked against the values and principles of the hacker ethic be an idol for so many hackers? There is no real hacker community here on HN, only a flock of spineless ship.

After reading this, all I can say is that some people are too sensitive.

I'm aware of Stallman's advocacy on free software issues, but (completely honest question), what else does the Free Software Foundation <i>do</i> ?<p>Software is at a point where its basically impossible to make anything useful <i>without</i> opensource software. Proprietary code is a minority in my stack both as a developer and as a user. Proprietary software is often good before opensource software is good, but consistently opensource implementations eventually outpace their proprietary counterparts. We saw this trend first with UNIX -&#62; Linux. Today, just reading this webpage I'm using Chrome (Chromium + WebKit) which communicates via POSIX to the BSD network stack in my kernel (Darwin). The browser has been compiled with either GCC or LLVM. Hackernews is probably hosted on nginx / apache behind varnish or something, running on linux.<p>In short, I feel like the opensource movement has already won. Aside from RMS's crusade against software patents, how is the FSF still relevant?

Although Stallman didn't use a great deal of tact in his statement I agree with his concern overall. Software should serve the user in accordance with the ideal of individual empowerment with technology and not become a sort of jail controlled by a central authority that you have to struggle to break out of. The problem of impersonal computing is by no means isolated to Apple though.

Emacs Virgin thing: <a href="http://opensourcetogo.blogspot.com/2009/07/emailing-richard-stallman.html" rel="nofollow">http://opensourcetogo.blogspot.com/2009/07/emailing-richard-...</a>

Stallman didn't say he's glad Steve Jobs died. I understand he's glad that Steve's influence on computing stop, as that influence is driving computing in a closed ecosystem.<p>You can take it in a non-emotional way. A is, in your opinion, a bad thing. If A stops, you're glad. If A stops because of a sad B event, you can be both glad for A to end, and sad for B to occur.

This is kind of like wanting a "toned down" PETA. People don't devote their lives to marginalized causes without either having or picking up a twinge of zealotry. If you want those people to stand up for causes you mutually believe in, you have to take the bad with the good.<p>RMS might not be the best possible Free Software advocate, but I'm glad someone's doing it, and nobody else seems to be volunteering for the job.

If you want an advocacy organization with a better ear for public sensibilities and business, that's what the Open Source Initiative was designed for, wasn't it? Why not join them instead of starting yet another organization?

I won't say I am supporting RMS or not. Actually I think Jobs was a man with great talent, but I don't like him. I think most of you overreacted on "I'm not glad he's dead, I'm glad he's gone". RMS expressed clearly that he don't agree with the achievements that Jobs reached in his short life. This is a personal opinion. You can't force everyone to agree with what Jobs has done. After all RMS said "I'm not glad he's gone." That's enough. I think there is nothing to argue for.

While most of the commenters here discuss what Stallman said and what he actualy meant, whether it was distasteful or not, and whether Jobs was a modern day messiah who single-handedly changed the world we live in or just a smart business man with a very good sense of choosing the right people to create the products that he envisioned, I'd like to take a minute to think about what is actually proposed in this article - the forking of FSF. It's quite obvious from the article that the reason the author suggests something like that is not because his views on software freedom somehow differ than those of Stallman, but because he has issues with Stallman himself, or more precisely, with his publicly expressed opinions. He feels that they hurt FSF and free software in general. Isn't then the solution to the problem to, through some electoral process, replace Stallman and put a new figure at the head of FSF? Somebody more tactful, more careful about how they say what they mean (if that's truly the kind of a person memebers of FSF would like to see in charge)? Starting a new foundation with exactly the same goals as FSF, just because you don't like Stallman's public statements, seems pointless to me.

RMS and Jobs seem very similar to me. Both were monomaniacal perfectionists. Both were undiplomatic and unwilling to compromise or cater to unbelievers.

I have never heard of Larry, so my guess would be: chance that Larry will found and lead the FFSF (Forked Free Software Foundation) = 0%

Much worse will be written about RMS when he dies and many will applaud what is written, never mind their contributions to technology had the same scale of impact on society... It's all in the perspective.

Oh, give it a rest already. rms was actually pretty tactful. Did people actually read what he wrote?<p>&#62; Nobody deserves to have to die - not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing.

I support open source on a pragmatic level as a way for people to share code so that they no longer have to "re-invent the wheel". Because of this I feel like it's petty and counter-productive for the FSF to refuse to share their "free" software with people because of the way that those people want to use the software. Truly free software should be released to the public without limitations on how and where it should be used.<p>To clarify: I know that my preferred model ignores the scummy/greedy tendencies of people to leech off work that others have done. However, I'd like for people to think of open source software as a gift given with no strings attached.

In the marketplace of ideas Stallman has a simple remedy for his woes with Apple. Make better software than them.<p>Go on Richard, I dare you to.

So it's time to fork the FSF because this guy does not agree with one comment RMS did?<p>How is this not overreacting in the first place...

Fuck you RMS. I have been and still am a staunch believer in open source, but when I read comments like this from the person who's motto once was that everybody writing software should contribute the source back to the community, not because it delivers better software (due to the more eyeballs resulting in fewer bugs), but because it results in moving software forward quickly by virtue of helping each other out, I agree with the OP, it's time for a change.<p>Let me tell you something, free software or not, it was Steve Jobs, who told us what forward direction for software actually means, first by making GUI mainstream, then by making capacitive touch mainstream, and lastly by defining what a tablet form factor should and should not be.<p>If you think Steve's products hamper your freedom, I can argue the exact opposite, it was Steve who taught us ways to make technology more accessible by making groundbreaking innovations in user interfaces, which enables the non geeks of the world to use computers in the first place, I am pretty sure those users will feel more trapped in the command line interface that you envisioned for them, than they feel by not having access to the source of the painting app they have fun playing with on their ipad.<p>So if you cannot come out the frog hole that you have created for yourself, and give credit where it's due, then maybe you should shut the fuck up.

Many of the comments following that story are deranged, and I mean that in the strongest sense of the word. "Software extremists" like that really exist? There are people who honestly think Steve Jobs was evil? And most disturbingly, there are people who will flat out bash on the reputation of someone who so recently died? Wow. Just wow.

RMS deserves praise for starting the Free Software movement, but he has been a liability to it for quite some time now. Leaders that start movements are not always fit to lead them when movements grow.<p>And before you protest — have you met the man in person? If you haven't, you won't understand.

Relevant pg essay?<p><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html</a>

Stallman &#38; Jobs are both giant figures in the tech world to anyone who knows their history. I would also imagine that anyone who has followed Richard Stallman over the years would be surprised if he hadn't made a statement like this.<p>He is an outspoken &#38; tireless champion of an incredibly worthy cause he believes is greater than himself (and c'mon, the guys hacking skills are legendary).<p>Steve Jobs was a uniquely amazing entrepreneur &#38; visionary leader. His impact on the way people everywhere use technology is both profound &#38; undeniable.<p>Both men are worthy of the deepest respect IMHO, even if their goals were in conflict.

I agree with forking the FSF, but not just having someone whose nice is necessary. It needs to be led by someone who gives a damn about user experience. This is an issue with not all open source applications, but many. It is getting better, but I still prefer Windows or OS X to using Gnome, KDE. I've never needed to use any of the bundled software with Ubuntu (except the settings apps, gedit, and Firefox). It can't just be about open-source alternatives, because most people don't care if something is open or closed source, they care if it gets the job done well.

Jobs loved what he did and believed in it. RMS certainly is same.<p>I respect Jobs for `the inspiration` while I respect RMS for what `he offered to the world`.

Other related thread: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3085417" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3085417</a>

RMS is clearly on the autistic spectrum, probably far enough on it to be regarded as having a 'learning difficulty' in the rather twee PC UK-ism.<p>There is IMHO, an interesting litmus test where people who share his monomaniacal obsession, or think it 'reasonable', probably have the same issue.

I've attended one of Stallman's talks and it was more of a comedy than anything else. I don't actually take him seriously, he did some great work in the past but the world has moved on.

I'm so tired of political correctness and "sexism" posts. At times half of this site seems to consist of posts made by people offended by something.

Didn't this fork happen quite some time ago? <a href="http://www.opensource.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.opensource.org/</a> And for pretty much the exact same reasons being given now?<p>Although some of the people behind that are almost as embarrassing to be associated with as RMS.

If it were RMS who had died, I wonder what Steve Jobs would have said.

Stallman is a degenerate.

At the risk of getting repetitive: I think rms was speaking strictly from a utilitarian perspective-- that is, Jobs' absence is overall a good thing for the FOSS movement (even though that might not actually be true, unless Cook is more committed to FOSS than Jobs). I can see how some find his statement tactless, but I'm not offended by it because Jobs was not an important person in my life. That doesn't mean that his life had no value, but his life wasn't more valuable to me than the life of any of the thousands of people who die every day from preventable causes. I honestly don't understand why so many people claim to be sad because Jobs is gone. Why did they feel so connected to a CEO? Steve Jobs was not your uncle. You have no rational reason to be upset over his death, and especially over what a coot like rms says about him. If you're upset enough to "fork the FSF" you're probably suffering from some illusory feeling of connectedness towards Jobs. I don't agree with a lot of what the FSF says, but one single comment made by one single guy is not going to make me turn my back on the whole organization. I will no longer be reading Larry's blog if he thinks this kind of flighty and ostentatious display of disapproval is warranted.

Best way to deal with extreme fundamentalists is to ignore them.<p>He's a joke.

I have to flag this for being utterly asinine. If you're really a "free software guy", RMS's statement should not even partially raise an eyebrow.

And today is the day /usr/bin/gcc changes from "deprecated" to "deleted". I'm glad something finally pushed me over that hump.<p><a href="http://clang.llvm.org/" rel="nofollow">http://clang.llvm.org/</a>

In other news: Autistic Reporter: Train Thankfully Unharmed In Crash That Killed One Man<p><a href="http://www.theonion.com/video/autistic-reporter-train-thankfully-unharmed-in-cra,20098/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theonion.com/video/autistic-reporter-train-thankf...</a>

I think RMS is doing perfect trolling to get more attention to his GNU/FSF/commie stuff.<p>The net effect is the people talking about RMS, about FSF and GNU. More people get to know about this stuff, more people get involved.<p>Just a little trolling replaces zillions of bucks spent on advertising, PR etc. Commies don't have money to pay, so they must troll.<p>---<p>Just don't spread this hype and don't feed the troll.