This answer from Luboš Doležel it's right in the point IMHO: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/discuss-gnustep/2015-12/m...
"Your vision of freedom is rather absolutistic, since forcing freedom upon others goes against the very nature of freedom."
"Your vision of freedom is rather absolutistic, since forcing freedom upon others goes against the very nature of freedom."
This is exactly the same flawed logic that leads people to cry "But free speech!" every time they get yelled at in public for a offering an unpopular opinion. They're substituting the idea of "freedom from criticism" for "freedom to express" and claiming victory by linguistic trickery instead of moral philosophy.
If you accept that people who want to take away freedom are "free" to do so, eventually you won't have freedom.
And it happened to be that RMS wanted to use liberty rather than freedom, but US politics already associate the word liberty with a specific political platform and RMS wanted people from all side of the political spectrum to join the movement. Thus he used the non-identical-but-similar word "freedom" over "liberty".
If he had just called it the libre software movement from the beginning then maybe we would see less discussion about the true definition of freedom.
If Stallman were "forcing" people to use a product like Savannah it would be a valid point, but Stallman has been consistent for decades pushing for maintaining freedom(strategic ownership). "Forcing" people towards solutions that support their abilities to change and grow is not authoritarian, even if you disagree with his recommendations.
Would he eat at a restaurant that doesn’t provide detailed recipes of everything he orders? If he had his way, there would be no restaurants unless they all provided recipes, which means that “secret sauce” becomes not so secret and thus commoditizes the hard work of those who developed it.
I'd suggest you read more of his work -- The Right To Read springs to mind -- as that's a misrepresentation of his ideology.
His fight is for the right to open the hood of your car and decide yourself if you've got the right carburettor and maybe swap out a lug nut or two using standard dimensions, conventions, and tools.
To match your example: he wouldn't eat at a restaurant that somehow made it impossible to open up your burger and see if the onions are caramelised, and required you only use McRestaurant brand utensils to eat the food. Do you own the food? Is it yours? Are you free to take parts out and add parts if you want? Or do you not have "the right" to decide that the pickles look sketchy?
Recipes, in your analogy, would represent academic knowledge. I'm pretty sure he's for sharing that, too, but the GPL has no requirements that people understand how you're creating the tasty algorithms you're serving on those floppy disks... That doesn't get commoditised, as such, but instead gains new value propositions as the demand for it raises through developing an economic ecosystem surrounding it.
That is to say: RedHat is more valuable because I can "commoditise" their drivers and then pay them money to scratch my itch, not less. Most businesses are in the "make money" business elsewhere, not in the Linux business. Sharing is profit.
How is this in any way relevant to the discussion? It's really bad form to pick a random activity, stuff the word "proprietary" in there, and use it as an example of how you think rms would regard it, and then rail against that.
> If he had his way, there would be no restaurants unless they all provided recipes
What do you think "his way" entails exactly? And what makes you feel confident this projection is accurate, especially in the light of apparently being largely unfamiliar with his person or his ideas?
That's a misrepresentation for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's a misrepresentation of what Free Software is about: having freedom to use/alter/etc. "the things you own". When buying a coke from a machine, that has nothing to do with whether you own that machine.
Free Software is concerned about the power imbalance that copyright can enable. For example, purchasing a computer chess game is very different from purchasing a physical chess set: you legally own the chess set, whilst the copyright holder legally owns the computer version and only grants you a limited license. The GPL, copyleft, etc. provide a way for copyright holders (e.g. computer chess developers) to offer their wares in a way which is more like the physical chess set (e.g. if they feel like the default copyright is less ethical).
The second problem is that you're claiming things which Stallman has specifically stated he disagrees with, in public, well-documented places. For example, at https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html he specifically states (under "Non-free software issues"):
"However, if I am visiting somewhere and the machines available nearby happen to contain non-free software, through no doing of mine, I don't refuse to touch them. I will use them briefly for tasks such as browsing."
"Likewise, I don't need to worry about what software is in a kiosk, pay phone, or ATM that I am using. I hope their owners migrate them to free software, for their sake, but there's no need for me to refuse to touch them until then."
Also, Stallman has made it very clear that he doesn't care about proprietary code running inside devices if those devices aren't meant to be used as computers, e.g. like vending machines. From the same URL above:
"As for microwave ovens and other appliances, if updating software is not a normal part of use of the device, then it is not a computer. In that case, I think the user need not take cognizance of whether the device contains a processor and software, or is built some other way. However, if it has an "update firmware" button, that means installing different software is a normal part of use, so it is a computer."
Again, this makes perfect sense from the "things you own" perspective. If nobody can replace the firmware of a device, then you're not being excluded/oppressed. On the other hand, if a manufacturer can replace it but doesn't permit you to do so, then it becomes a Free Software issue. This was the case with TiVo: their devices ran on Linux, which the manufacturer provided source for as required by the GPL; but the device refused to run code which wasn't signed by the company's private key, which they didn't provide to customers.
> nor permit others to do so either because he hates proprietary licenses
That's absolute BS. Stallman has never said that others shouldn't be permitted to make or use proprietary software; it's an absurd straw man, which goes completely against his principles. He certainly asks people not to make or use it, but preventing people from doing so would defeat the entire point of FOSS!
If Stallman "had his way" then nobody would bother to make proprietary software, because users would choose to avoid it. Similar to how most people would avoid using software which e.g. blasted tortured screaming from the speakers during use, and hence nobody bothers to make software which does that. Yet nobody's being prevented from doing so.
PS: I admit that the "tortured screaming" analogy isn't very good, since adding such a "feature" wouldn't bring in extra money, like making something proprietary might. I originally wrote that sentence with an analogy to software being filled with advertising; it was only when I read it back that I realised some software actually does contain advertising, and people still use it! What about spying on the user? Nope, that happens. Being overpriced? Nope. Crashing? Nope. It seems like software users are willing to put up with a lot of crap!