Richard Stallman: "I Wished I Had Killed Myself"
opendotdotdot.blogspot.com
opendotdotdot.blogspot.com
(for example: I respect his ideals but have a generally low opinion of the man himself. I think that can be important)
BSD / MIT licenses might be "freer", in some sense, but almost all free projects are released because of the ideal of fighting propitiatory software.
I'm pretty sure that the GNU project was one of the main forces that inspired this culture.
The fight is still going on. Academia and business is still getting pushed to release code - think climate models and finance. If it weren't for RMS's work, would people really take such a hard line on propitiatory software? I doubt it.
This word, propitiatory .. I do not think it means what you think it means .. But even if it did mean what you thought it meant, I don't buy the argument. Lots of people don't release software for free because they're against proprietary software. Some release it for geek cred, or because they want somebody else to maintain it, or because it's not commercially viable as a product (which defines 99.99% of software that comes with a linux distribution .. I mean, do you really think you could get people to buy /bin/ls?)
Sendmail 1983 BIND 1985 patch 1985 CVS 1986 Perl 1987 TCL 1989 Expect 1990 TK 1991 Python 1991
The first even partial release of a free-software BSD was in 1989, when UC Berkeley first wrote the 4-clause BSD license (with the now-dropped "advertising clause"), and released a non-functioning OS core consisting of TCP/IP stack and libraries, called "Net/1", but couldn't release a functioning OS because they couldn't get permission to release the code that AT&T owned. They rewrote a bunch of the AT&T code as free software and released the first-ever free BSD, Net/2, in 1991, which then led to the 386BSD port, and thence to FreeBSD.
Bostic cites both the GNU project and the GPL as influential.
MINIX has been free and open source software since it was released
under the BSD license in April 2000.I think that one was one of Tanenbaums great strategic mistakes. The world of software was definitely 'ready' to adopt minix instead of linux (micro kernel, big name behind it), but 'free' won out, and minix is a footnote whereas linux is the unix with the most distribution ever.
What do you think would happen to FreeBSD if GCC vanished tomorrow? Hint: It would probably suddenly finish incorporating some other, more freely licensed, compiler into its base system.
I don't agree with RMS on all things, but he was absolutely instrumental in making our free software world what it is today, and just because you have differing beliefs about what a "free" license really is doesn't mean you should discount what he did for your favorite OS.
My hope is that if RMS hadn't existed, somebody who wasn't a creepy, bearded hippy would have been the spokesperson for free software.. Hopefully somebody more balanced who didn't work himself into a tizzy over whether to call it "GNU/Linux or Linux" ..
Hence his insistence over GNU/Linux. It boils down to being aware of the origins of the system you are using: how it came into existence, and why. The answer, of course lies in the mouth of the original author. In the case of GNU/Linux, the name of the system directly influences which guru we are going to listen to (Linus or Richard). This is very important, because the two men have very different political opinions.
Plus, as far as I know, GNU is bigger than Linux, in probably everything. Especially at the beginning of Linux. So the legitimate name of the entire system may well be "GNU". Unfortunately, the GNU system became popular largely thanks to the Linux kernel, and people started to use the wrong name for the entire system. Really, "GNU/Linux" is a reasonable compromise.
And the last time I looked, it was more of "Clang not being complete" then anything else to hold up DragonFly BSD from compiling. Not sure about the state of OpenBSD or NetBSD with Clang, though.
While there might've been an open software advocate without Stallman, it can't be seriously said that the world would've been better off without Stallman's advocacy. And thus, on balance, the world's better off with Stallman than without.
This guy needs to cheer up.
Here, he's dancing to Soulja Boy's "Crank Dat" together with a few other MIT people:
He doesn't want to because he thinks it's too easy, but he's still a human.
To "have a kid" is to create another person who might well wish to never have been born, another person who will have to decide whether or not it is justified to bring kids into this painful world.
I am glad that RMS is so honest about it. Most people cover up their unhappiness.
I myself am indeed of the opinion that no one should have kids. Life is a very mixed bag. Nonexistent people don't suffer the bad, and don't miss the good. Everybody wins! Or rather, nobody loses. :-)
. . . which sounds a lot like everybody losing, at least to me.
I'm not 100% sure if that was put up by him, but I've been told that it was.
http://stallman.org/extra/personal.html
With the addition of:
(Currently for amusement only.)
I'd think Stallman would have no problem finding an interested woman, provided he emphasized his fame rather than a self-described lack of "success".
All the people grabbing cheap cool points by dumping on the man are ultimately making it harder for him to get a date, and that's just needlessly cruel.
I would presume that if Stallman has romantic troubles, it's due to something other than people dumping on him.
Hilarious.
How about this: he has a very arrogant personality, the ego the size of a blimp and it's just impossible to have a conversation with him unless you agree with every single word he says.
I'm sure he's fun at the dinner table.
I really think if he took better care of himself he would be able to find an interested girl.
There's always at least one. One will fall for the Stallman charms, unkempt and all.
Thanks RMS, for all that you've done, and keep the fight going.
Wintel doesn't get the credit they deserve. Everybody running Linux on anything faster than an 80386 owes Bill and Andy lunch, at least.
And indeed, looking forward: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ARM-Atom-Netbooks,7242.html
Maybe. Or maybe we'd just have locked on to CP/M-86 and Digital Research, which was just as tied to x86.
However, it's impossible to tell if someone like Gates would have risen to the top. Gary Kildall was not Bill Gates and, for that reason among others, Digital Research never became Microsoft. Corporate culture and philosophies matter.
Software might not have eaten up all the performance profits, either, though. Overall, we might have had more clock cycles free and gotten things done more quickly with whatever hardware we had.
It's a false dichotomy. There is no need to imprison (as Stallman would say) the user and disrespect his rights (at least to use, understand, improve) in order to be commercial. What "Gates et al" have done is to bind their users through the software they use to manage their lives and jobs, ensuring long-term prosperity through technological dependency.
The folks at Red Hat, Canonical and MindTouch (just to name a few I have in my head right now) are every bit as serious as Microsoft when it comes to be commercial and to be paid for their work.
The main difference being they show much more consideration towards their users and customers.
Also, your selection of companies seems a bit deceptive. These companies' profit strategies are very narrowly focused on the one market where it's possible to make money with free software — and even that isn't really making money from the software. You have to be in a market where people will pay through the nose for support contracts, because the software itself isn't making much money.
The one real exception I can think of is Mozilla, which makes decent money off of Firefox. Otherwise, unfortunately, it does generally seem to be necessary to bind the users enough to make them pay you for the software. (That's not a sarcastic "unfortunately" — I do think it would be great if I could reasonably sell free software as profitably as non-free software, but I don't see any evidence that it's feasible.)
Wouldn't that be a question of time and business model? Apple is a hardware company and both were around when the PC (not the IBM one) was invented.
> isn't really making money from the software
It's very hard to directly make money from software sales if you grant your customers the right to share it. Software companies make money out of the scarcity of software ("You want Windows? Ask Microsoft"). Free software is naturally abundant. It's possible, but not easy, to make your users pay directly for it.
And Mozilla can't ask users to pay for it. Not only because it's infinitely abundant (anyone can give you one) but Microsoft's IE comes bundled in the OS most Firefox users run. Opera does that and look at their market share.
That's what I was getting at: It's hard to be rewarded for free software, so there really is a dichotomy between free and commercial software. It's not just Jobs and friends being dicks and restricting customers.
No. You are only making software that doesn't usually get sold. Most of it isn't, but you can custom-develop - building upon piles of other free software - and then license it under a free license to your client who chooses whether to share it (always under a free license) or not. Free software can be sold. I know this because I did it a lot.
> It's hard to be rewarded for free software
OTOH, it's much cheaper and easier to develop it. With closed software, you have to invent your own wheels. With free and open-source software, you are free to use the ramjet engines other people have developed.
There are a few small areas where FOSS is as commercially viable as anything else, and you'll notice those are also generally the areas where it seems to be most mature. You can't generalize those tiny areas and say that making open-source software in general is a reliable income source.
Making open-source is not a direct income driver and, apart from very limited niches, will never be, but, nevertheless, it allows a business to have full control of its technology stack.
Company A builds a great game using a closed-source library built by company B and company C builds another great game using, say, an LGPL library. When the underlying platform changes, breaking both libraries, company C is not subject to whatever the strategy of company B is and, therefore, can be first to market with a new, compatible, version.
This is a hypothetical situation, of course, but illustrates one important thing about free software - most people don't really make it: they use it and, from time to time, and, if and when the need arises, add a little improvement here or a fix there. Its strength lies in the sheer number of people that give a little hand, scratching one another's itch.
I wonder if more startups should remember this.
I also believe that the "Stallman or nothing" suggested by so many of his fans is a false dichotomy. You don't need to be rabidly communistic about software to oppose the "imprisoning" influence of corporate software vendors, after all.
But this attitude, of sacrificing "just a little" here and there for more convenience is not healthy either.
And then there is another false idea: Free Software is not about Communism. Communism is about the collective ownership of scarce resources. Free Software is the realization that software (as ideas and knowledge) are infinitely abundant.
The truth of the matter is that we're probably going to continue to see an increase in corporations using the GPL and (more to the point) other mutually incompatible copyleft licenses, because copyleft licenses can be extremely valuable for those who want to maintain control of the codebase while still getting the benefits of open source software, thus providing a way to sucker competitors into supporting your software "product" while still keeping an anticompetitive advantage by way of the MySQL AB business model and other ways to combine the GPL with proprietary licensing for market domination profit.
So, in summary . . . yes, it's true that "free software" in general isn't necessarily communistic or socialistic, but copyleft licensing in particular does bear a striking resemblance to various principles of communism and socialism. Just like communism and socialism, it also tends to get co-opted by market dominating monopolists and their ilk.
What isn't better than that?
There is plenty of fun to be had still in technology, just don't get married to a philosophy. I learned that the hardway.
In the early days I ran a BBS. When the Internet became mainstream I remember thinking "how do I compete?" I redoubled my efforts: upgrading modems, adding drives/door games, increasing my software library, etc.... All the time thinking "where's the 'community feel' on the Inet?" By the late 90s I realized the problem was me and not the world.
Maybe you don't look at your cell phone or nintendoDS and think "hmm, there must be some way to run irc on this thing". Maybe you don't care anymore, but there are huge communities who do. Maybe the spirit of openness is fundamental to the tools themselves?
From the comments on the OP's blog. :)
I also don't know if his existence has had a net positive effect. Free software he advocates is used to power robots, missiles, and other weapons that kill many people. It has also taken money from developers who write good software and shifted it to middlemen who sell services for free code, which limits the viability of writing code and the financial options for hackers to put a roof over their heads and food in their mouths.
If you really want to help hackers and keep the hacker culture alive, teach the world that software has value and is worth paying for.
> I’m the last survivor of a dead culture.
In 1983, there was no "free software" as we have today. No FSF, no EFF, no Creative Commons.
Additionally, Stallman's interview is at the end of a book about the guys who started "hacker culture". These guys did some amazing stuff: they physically modified one of their computers to add new machine instructions, wrote editors, compilers and games from scratch, etc, etc. Then they made their code available for free.
When I read that quote in the book, I interpreted it as Stallman expressing sadness over the loss of hacker culture.
It's just him being stuck in the "glorious past" (nothing really wrong with that) and assuming that hackers should be working with computers on that sort of level.
Things move on; if we still had to do all that computing wouldn't have moved on very fast :P
I heartily disagree that the culture is materially different - it's just spread out a bit more (instead of being on the university campus' etc.)
It is to some extent in human nature to assume that what's happening around someone is what's happening everywhere -- but that's really no excuse for declaring himself the last of his breed as he did. In fact, I'd say that the rise of the cypherpunks was a stronger resurgence in the hacker culture tide than Stallman's generation, and actually far more committed to freedom in an essential sense.
The fact things change doesn't mean the good stuff has all died off. I think we're a lot better off for the modern state of hacker culture than if there was still the kind of hacker culture that existed Way Back When. Concepts of freedom, inquiry, and improvement that are central to a hacker culture have become more refined and encompassing than they were in those early days, which is pretty much what happens with everything that sees long-term success; it starts out less well-defined, and feeling more "special" because of its rarefied nature, then grows more widespread, better defined, and more generally applicable, thanks to the efforts of people who pick up where a previous generation left off to add their own efforts to the continuing evolution of the movement.
Far from being the last of his breed, he went from being an early visionary to a late relic, from what I can see. I might not have used such harsh terms for it, but his own statements about being the last of his kind pretty much completes the picture of Stallman as a dinosaur who has died and is too stubbornly attached to his own illusions to realize it.
Yeah, the culture isn't materially different. It has simply continued developing. If it had remained exactly the same as it was for Stallman's early peers, that wouldn't have been success. It would have been stagnation.
He should learn to take a cue from people like Ken Thompson, who has managed to remain relevant and continue to contribute fresh new ideas to the state of general purpose operating system design all these years. Yes, advocates for freedom in our software development model are of critical importance; I'm not arguing otherwise. I think, though, that Stallman's apparent idea that such advocacy should focus on trying to recapture a communal sharing model that worked for a very small number of people who mostly knew each other, at least peripherally, is naive at best. Furthermore, the way Thompson and his spiritual descendants lead by example does almost as much for effective advocacy as the actual advocates (e.g., Bruce Perens and Theo de Raadt, to name a couple out of many -- who are, unlike Stallman, well-known for being currently contributing developers as well as advocates, thus lending credence to their statements even when they're abrasive in the extreme as de Raadt can sometimes be).
Looking at things with a critical eye, Stallman is the only guy I can think of who is granted so much relevance as both a developer and an advocate for freedom in software use and development whose achievements are always described in the past tense.
Alright, I realize this might be a bad statement to make on this subject... but seriously? He's a free software advocate. It's not like he's Ghandi going on a hunger strike or Martin Luther King Jr going to jail over his beliefs.
"I hesitate to exaggerate the importance of this little puddle of freedom," he says. "Because the more well known and conventional areas of working for freedom and a better society are tremendously important. I wouldn't say that free software is as important as they are. It's the responsibility I undertook, because it dropped in my lap and I saw a way I could do something about it. But, for example, to end police brutality, to end the war on drugs, to end the kinds of racism we still have, to help everyone have a comfortable life, to protect the rights of people who do abortions, to protect us from theocracy, these are tremendously important issues, far more important than what I do. I just wish I knew how to do something about them." - Free As In Freedom by Sam Williams (p66 or p73 depending on version).
I also think the importance of Stallman as applied to freedom of use and development of software is often overstated, though.
Even if he was only referring to his perceived lack of belonging, openly fantasizing about suicide is not the sign of someone in a healthy emotional state.
I hope very much that he has grown past this point his life.