Stallman's critique of software, hardware, and services as tools of social control has only become more relevant over the years. Can you imagine his search records being rifled through by a government investigator? Or his Facebook profile being examined by an employer? No, because they don't exist. Nor can you imagine his computer being locked by a bootloader that only allows "Genuine Windows".<p>He's not concerned about looking weird. For certain audiences this is a disadvantage. But he is concerned about tying his computing down to his core philosophy. He did it so well that you can almost hear him when he's not in the room. We should all be such effective weirdos.<p>At some level we have to trust a substrate of computing to get anything done. Stallman's work to make that substrate as trustworthy as possible was very farsighted.
Every time an rms article comes up trolls come out of the woodwork to rally about what a kook he is and all "the horrible things" he's done. "Why the nerve, living a life different than I would choose!? IT MUST BE STOPPED." Snooze. I've been reading this fear-mongering regularly since '97.<p>Why is he so threatening? It's not like you have to share a studio apartment with the guy. Have any complainers contributed 1/10th as much to the public good? Highly unlikely. The sickest individuals are those who angrily rail against the unconventional in my opinion.<p>I, for one welcome rms and nonconformists in general. Life is a lot more interesting and fruitful with them around. I appreciate my free operating system thank you, and don't pass judgements on what he does in the privacy of his own home (or blog).<p>Watch the revolution os doc and you'll see these geeks are quite likeable, sometimes funny, and nothing to be afraid of.
I think it is really tough for younger people to realize that technology can be seen as a highly dangerous in different forms.<p>Instead of trashing his principles, perhaps try to see the motivation behind them. I respect anyone who establishes their own code and adheres firmly to it. RMS meets this criteria. He is also very open and honest about his views which I find refreshing.<p>I also think that this type of boycotting/selectively using technology will become far more common with physical hardware as it rapidly develops. Robots will not smoothly integrate with everyone's tastes.<p>Consider a highly sophisticated sex robot not noticeably different from a normal human. I can imagine there will be a strong division of people for and against this type of human intimacy replacement.
The one thing I get kind of annoyed with Stallman at is that he keeps mentioning this Leemote machine he has, which runs free software even in the BIOS. He might as well say that he runs Linux on a magical unicorn.<p>I have tried and never been able to get my hands on one of these things. I'd really like to see Stallman jump off his insistence on free for one second and maybe suggest something realistic for users who care about free software but aren't willing to work on an obscure, unavailable 7" netbook.
I did however find this comment quite interesting. He recommends Lisp to beginner programmers. Honestly this makes me want to play with Lisp (I do just about every other popular language but I've never done Lisp):<p>"The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or its variant, Scheme), you don't appreciate what a powerful language is. Once you learn Lisp you will see what is missing in most other languages.<p>When you start a Lisp system, it enters a read-eval-print loop. Most other languages have nothing comparable to read, nothing comparable to eval, and nothing comparable to print. What gaping deficiencies!<p>Lisp is no harder to understand than other languages. So if you have never learned to program, and you want to start, start with Lisp. If you learn to edit with Emacs, you can learn Lisp by writing editing commands for Emacs. You can use the Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp to learn with: it is free as in freedom, and you can order printed copies from the FSF."
<i>I skimmed documentation of Python after people told me it was fundametally similar to Lisp. My conclusion is that that is not so. When you start Lisp, it does `read', `eval', and `print', all of which are missing in Python.</i><p>Could someone explain what he means? (Did Python not have a repl when he wrote that?)
I've only read a few writings by Richard Stallman. It seems plain to me that he is an egomaniac with some kind of rigid obsessional thinking patterns. People like this are very annoying, and ironically undermine their own case if they intend to persuade others of their views.<p>The willingness with which he labels the practices of large swaths of the population (of the US) "unethical" would be very disturbing if he was a political leader with significant power.<p>Oddly, the patterns I see evidenced in his writings (that I have read) remind me of the thinking used to justify totalitarian states!<p>I think his views on his core issue of the badness of copyrighted software are not well thought out and absurd on their face. He makes a point of pointing out that the copyright laws are arbitrary, they are not some kind of natural right. One of his main arguments is that making a copy of a digital good does not destroy the usefulness of the original, or harm the person who has it in his "possession."<p>What he is apparently oblivious to is that a system of laws is entirely a social construct. It contains huge amounts of arbitrariness. The whole concept of property is extremely abstract, unless you consider it in some kind of caveman scenario. "It is wrong to take this food that a person has in their hands because then they will be deprived of the ability to eat it." As far as I can tell that's how he thinks about property.<p>I think a lot of his confusion is because he is an absolutist. He thinks laws should be "ethical." There is certainly an overlap between law and morality. But there are major areas of disunion.<p>IMO, the ability to accept ambiguity in the areas of law, ethics, and personal conduct is needed to keep society humane.<p>Just writing this to think through my thoughts. I usually try to not be judgmental of others being a fallible human, but I make exception in cases of people who have chosen a career as self appointed judges of their fellows.
I find it odd that he choses to dump platforms that also support Windows. Manufacturers adding Windows support (realistically the other way around with Linux being supported after the fact) is about giving consumers choice in how their product runs.<p>I feel this is somewhat core to the FSF movement, a choice for how your computer runs. Why should Stallman criticise a company for allowing someone to pick the OS that best meets their needs? If a person picks Windows over a FOSS aligned OS then there is clearly something wrong in the feature-set or user interface of that FOSS OS.
I don't understand his point. I'd be very sad if set myself so strict rules. Terminal is powerful, but this doesn't mean not to user X11. I like *nix and open source, but why souldn't I use Windows (which i find very nice system since Windows 7). He says Lisp is powerful, I agree. I prefer Scheme, but it's the same strengh. However it doesn't mean I use only C and scheme. I rather use a rule - match programming language to task you do. Somethimes it's C, sometimes scheme, sometimes perl, sometimes even C#. And so on...
Over the years Stallman has passed to be an iconic figure that contributed a lot to a fanatic out of touch with the current world.<p>Comments like saying he was glad Steve Jobs was dead, are what in my opinion makes him a fanatic, yes Steve Jobs was a greedy asshole but being glad that he is dead doesn't portrait Stallman any better.
Stallman is a smart man, a genius - that's exactly why his way of computing will never be used by most other people.<p>I do my computing in a terribly inefficient way - Windows and GUI as much as possible to avoid text/code and throw as many apps and resources at a task as possible to make it easier/faster - I've managed to outgrow a T9600 Core 2 Duo in daily use (it's 100% loaded all the time), and now I'm on the way to doing so with a Core 2 Quad.<p>If RMS saw me, he'd probably shoot me on the spot :-D, but still, things get done....
I don't understand the hostility to RMS here in hackrerland. RMS is trying to recreate the best hacker environment that ever existed bar none: MIT's AI lab in the 1970's. I was alive then and knew some people there and it was all true--it was hacker nirvana. It got blown apart by his friends going off and founding some lisp machine companies that killed off lisp as a commerical language when those companies died from infighting.<p>What does RMS want? Four freedoms that businesses want to take away from you: the ability to read, modify, share, and run the programs that you or hackers like you write. There's nothing purist about wanting control over your own program, or for it not to be closed off from you against your will. That's what happened in the 1980's, and what continues to happen with proprietary software.<p>Obviously, as the leader of this movement RMS has to stay especially pure or no one would follow him. RMS may have his idiosyncracies, but you have to give him credit for not being hypocritical, which is more than you can say about virtually any other leader out there.<p>I'm a really proud supporter of RMS and what he stands for because I've spent half my life being burned by proprietary software, and I'd love to go back to the garden of eden that was MIT's AI lab in the 70's and early 80's.
Can someone help me understand what the purpose of this is:<p><i>I have several free web browsers on my laptop, but I generally do not look at web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites operated for or by the GNU Project, FSF or me. I fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. </i>
<i>I skimmed documentation of Python after people told me it was fundametally similar to Lisp. My conclusion is that that is not so. When you start Lisp, it does `read', `eval', and `print', all of which are missing in Python.</i><p>Lisp experts, what does this mean? As far as I can tell, Python has pretty good REPL facilities.
The attitude in this difficult to understand.<p>RMS is different, and it takes guys like him to do something different. Its like Steve Jobs. His attitude is different. Its difficult to understand that unless you are somebody like RMS himself.<p>Sometimes this level of eccentricity and madness is needed if you are out on a lofty mission. You can question why Gandhi had to wear clothes and live the lifestyle of peasant. Or why Linus Torvalds has a bloated ego, Or why Steve Jobs behaved the way he did. These are all eccentric personalities in their own and they won't part with what they are.<p>You will never see their energy wear off, or they running out of passion doing something. In their own eccentric style, they are what they are because they are <i>unique</i>.<p>That is what sets them apart from most of us. There is very little difference between genius and insanity.
> However, since around 1992 I have worked mainly on free software activism, which means I am too busy to do much programming. As a result, I have not had time or occasion to learn newer languages such as Perl, Python, PHP or Ruby.<p>I'm sorry. What does this mean? What does he spend his time doing?
I cannot even believe that there are people who agree with this moron. First of all, he's chasing an ideal that's not even THAT valid: not all of the crappy-written software is knowledge, not all source code is worth reading. Plus, proprietary software improves industry. Industry feeds people.<p>Not to mention, in today's world, it is impossible to live without depending on corporations. The only way to live without someone knowing a lot about you is to live in a cave, miles away from civilization.<p>The way he is using computers: he is just putting restrictions on himself, thinking he actually removes them.<p>The only thing I agree with here is his opinion about Lisp.
RMS should be proud because open source has already won. His focus should not be on software freedom, it should be on data freedom.<p>So, where is the "Free Data Foundation"?
I'd like to know his view on the rise of the app stores on smart phones (Android and iOS for example). Although companies like Apple have undoubtedly gotten rich on the backs of developers by taking their 30% cut, I would argue that the app store model is the best market for selling software from independent software developers that has ever existed.
I really respect everything he's done and his opinions, but to me he's much like a devout religious figure. His dedication to free software is akin to a Buddhist monk. I appreciate his devotion (like I do non-atheists) but respectfully disagree with his strong feelings.
I'm not sure I quite understand his criticism of Python; it most certainly <i>acts</i> like it has a REPL, and it actually does have a builtin functions for eval() and print() (the equivalent of read needs to do additional parsing).<p>So what's RMS's beef with Python?
"...I fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me."<p>that's one tough pill to swallow, sir.
How does RMS earn a living?<p>I often find it odd that people even talk about free software or software having to be free. There is, of course, no such thing. There's subsidized software, but no free software exists.<p>Linux, as an example, is probably the most expensive piece of software ever developed. Think of all the people employed at universities and businesses who devoted time paid by their employer to develop Linux. Even if they did the work at home "on their own time". The only reason this was even remotely possible is because they had gainful employment that kept a roof over their heads and paid the bills. The same is true of students who contributed to Linux. Their parents, or the government (through a loan) provided the financial support to work on Linux.<p>Not one of these people would have been able to work on Linux had their financial needs, need for shelter and generally "having a life" needs had not been met through either employment, parental support, loans or grants.<p>Free software is, at best, subsidized, and at worst, not free at all. I'll be that Linux probably cost more to develop than Windows or OSX.<p>Now, there's free to the end user. OK. That's fine. People will take free food, free beer, free ice-cream and free software. That's human nature.<p>I don't find reveling against commercial software a particularly intelligent stance. No offense intended. Those writing software for sale are simply choosing to earn a living writing software that they sell rather than doing something else to subsidize software to be given away.<p>If I am good at writing software, why should I be a gardener to pay for food and shelter and give away software?<p>Furthermore, all of the software that RMS used as the model for GNU was the result of years of expensive development and none of it was free. It's a lot easier to, say, study and learn Unix and then go off and develop a "free" Unix clone than to have to invest years upon years developing and optimizing Unix in the first place.<p>One of my favorite saying goes something like this: The second person who saw the wheel thought it was obvious.<p>I don't find waging war against non-free software a particularly honorable stance when you are standing on the shoulders of giants who devoted years and billions of dollars to evolve an industry and, yes, make money with it.<p>I wonder if he refuses medical attention when he goes to the hospital because the software on all of the systems at the hospital do not use free software. There's a word that describes a type of person who thinks and behaves this way and it isn't a flattering one.
I view Richard Stallman's attitude to this as though he has set himself up as some kind of social/technological guinea-pig for the general public good.<p>Yes, he is fanatical in several senses, especially nasal and botanical, by all accounts ( read Stallman does Dallas: <a href="http://stallman.org/articles/texas.html" rel="nofollow">http://stallman.org/articles/texas.html</a> ).<p>But the day that Stallman cannot get on the internet, without compromising his own set of restrictions, is the day when it is literally impossible to have dominion over any computational objects that you think you own.<p>[edit] for clarity, I thought about this, added the qualifier computational, and am not including abacuses ;)
Oh boy. RMS wrote yet another opinion that we just have to read. I'll be hated for this but I must state the obvious. This is a list of really boring opinions. Interesting for rms fanatics but many are barely explained and most aren't realistic to actually try out unless you want to be a software philosopher for a living. Did people just see Stallman in the title and up vote? Come on.
It's like it was still 1980 around him. To me, freedom also includes choosing what I feel like and what I desire, and allowing myself to move with the times rather than against, instead of fooling myself that I strike a blow for freedom by tethering myself to the floor in every single question. All he does is putting restrictions on himself (and in the process also on other people who blindly follow his fundamentalism) rather than removing restrictions and bonds. But that's just me and where I draw my line.
His tone is so arrogant and condescending.<p>>I recommend all the ethical distros — namely, those that are 100% free software.<p>i.e.: Any distro that uses anything that I don't like, namely 100% free software, is unethical.<p>>If you don't know Lisp (or its variant, Scheme), you don't appreciate what a powerful language is.<p>If some random person on hacker news came out and said this, we'd call them a buffoon and say they need to get out more. When Richard Stallman says it, we lap up his words and marvel at his terse wit.
I was surprised to find such an article here. I thought that this site was all about promoting starups? If you think about it for a minute, Richard Stallman's point of view would eliminate most startups that ycombinator promotes (directly or indirectly). They would fail financially. He mentions using google and duckduckgo on friends computers. Do you think he would consider clicking on adverts free? I don't think so because clicking on them results in a transfer of money somewhere. Unless his definition of free is that he himself did not pay out of his own pocket for it? (someone else pays for it). If this were the case, If someone bought him a copy of windows as a gift would he use it.<p>So I ask, why is this anti-startup (at least for the 90% of startups you see here) blog linked from here?
If you disagree with my reaction/question - answer with your solution which would allow these 90% of startups to survive financially if only Richard Stallman followers used them.
If you're reading hacker news it probably means you don't share the same rigid commitment to free software as rms and thus his recommendations are virtually useless. I wonder where rms stands on airtravel or using a crosswalk given the non-free software that operates these devices.