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Comment by wwortiz | Hacker News Reader

I suggest reading some of the other responses higher up in that thread if you want to see what RMS thought of openbsd at the time, I say thought as I don't know if his view has changed.

A quick summary is that RMS does not recommend openbsd because the ports tree contains links to non-free software and because these links are there openbsd is recommending non-free software.

Sometimes his ideals seem to just do more harm than good for free software and even though I do respect that he is so willing to follow his ideals to the letter he is eccentric enough to hurt a following.

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The thread doesn't actually make me come away seeing anyone in it in particularly great light. There seems to be a lot of bitter sniping from all sides, and compared to Jan Stary and Theo de Raadt's thread contributions, Stallman actually comes out sounding like the calm and reasonable one (in relative terms).

When you're the pope of open source, you better be a true believer, that much is for sure. Unfortunately, that does lead to a bit of a contradiction when you have situations like this. Live free or die, he'd probably say.

I wonder if he eats open source food.

The funny part of the whole thread is that ports are not installed by the OpenBSD installer. You actually have to install it yourself. I wonder how many people would be taken to be trollin' if not for their previous reputation.

At some point in the thread RMS moves on to say that he would support it if openbsd did not link to getting the ports tree and did not host it with the rest of their things, but when you read the whole thing it seems that RMS likes to change his opinion as he receives more information.

Such as his comment that started an entire outrage was that openbsd contained non-free software, then his opening argument about non-free firmware blobs, and then onto the ports tree urls.

Edit: from Theo de Raadt http://article.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/134986

>> but when you read the whole thing it seems that RMS likes to change his opinion as he receives more information.

Seems like a good trait to have.

You should gather information before forming an opinion, particularly if you intend to chastise people for their behavior or practices.

It is impossible to know everything, so you must form an opinion with limited information. Once presented with new information, it is reasonable to change ones opinion. If you think Stallman's information theshold is too low, maybe you need some more information ;)

"It is impossible to know everything, so you must form an opinion with limited information." - true - BUT - that phrase doesn't help his cause. Instead of going off half-cocked with his hearsay, he could of asked a couple questions of the list and then made his accusations. If you intend to chastise people for some behavior, perhaps it is best to get the facts straight.

"If you think Stallman's information theshold is too low, maybe you need some more information ;)" - Love, the smiley face. Yes, in this case I think the e-mails prove his information threshold was too low and it shows. I think you need to read the whole exchange :)

Definitely. http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/How_To_Actually_Change_Your_M...

> but when you read the whole thing it seems that RMS likes to change his opinion as he receives more information.

He really does. I used to be involved in Emacs development back in the day and he frequently changed his opinion on things if you presented him with with a well-reasoned argument. Sure, he's a stickler for his principles, but he's not afraid to admit when he's wrong on practical details or unable change his mind about stuff if you give him a good reason to.

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