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I think this is a mischaracterization, since these things apply to free software as well. The difference is that it is usually much easier to detect when such things are happening, and modify the program so that it no longer does these things.

That's an interesting rewriting of "the law prohibits the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges," but if you read back he said "more likely," not "it's impossible for free software to have bad stuff in it."

> I think this is a mischaracterization, since these things apply to free software as well. The difference is that it is usually much easier to detect when such things are happening, and modify the program so that it no longer does these things.

> Again, this doesn’t seem to me to be a “free software” argument. The reason this doesn’t usually happen with free software is that there is no central entity that controls the software, whereas with non-free software one company/server/person can control their products and “backdoor” them.

But that is the whole point! Software freedom is about power. The point isn't that it is impossible to licence malware under GPL, the point is that GPL gives the user the freedom to remove the malware parts. Your argument seems a bit like saying that claiming that free markets help with price discovery is a mischaracterization because people can offer overpriced products in a free market ... when the whole point of a free market is that the buyer has the option to not buy the overpriced product, and it's just completely irrelevant whether overpriced offers exist.

> So I’m really curious how the economy would work if everyone sold free software, since this doesn’t seem like something that would work.

Potentially, the mistake is simply in thinking in terms of "selling software". Instead of software, you can simply sell development work. Not that that necessarily works in every market, but the point is that the model of repeatedly selling the end result of the development work is not the only way to make money by applying your expertise at developing software.

> Also, just a a final comment, I find it amusing that Stallman has these little nicknames for all the non-free things he doesn’t like. It seems to me a bit childish; I wonder if this actually helps him or it just makes other people feel like I do.

Well, the emotional reaction can be a problem for him being taken serious by some. But you have to consider that the status quo in many ways is not neutral, and also often the result of intentional framing by other parties. It's just that they are way better at hiding their manipulation from your view.

>However, the money they’re getting is usually coming from companies that sell non-free software.

Most of their customers don't sell software, basically every company needs software these days. They still have those needs if all software were free, so I'm not really seeing the problem.

>Also, just a a final comment, I find it amusing that Stallman has these little nicknames for all the non-free things he doesn’t like. It seems to me a bit childish;

He named his first major project after a local ice cream shop, and his second after a children's song from the fifties. That's just him. I find it silly but don't see it as credible attack on his message.

The Flanders and Swan song ("I'm a gnu") was not a kid's song.

I'm not sure if Emacs and Bolio was open when the editor evolved, but the text formatting program (like runoff) called "Bolio" was definitely named after the ice cream store (since by the time it was written Emacs already existed).

The song: https://youtube.com/watch?v=OPgo6s1lBbw

3 minutes not wasted, thanks for telling me about it. I'd never thought where the Gnu name came from.

The icecream shop is actually "Emack and Bolio's". This leads me to believe that Bolio was named for the icecream shop (punning Emacs~Emack's), but that Emacs was not named for the icecream shop. (Emack and Bolio's opened in 1975, and it seems that Emacs was created in 1976; so it's possible though.)

> Also, just a a final comment, I find it amusing that Stallman has these little nicknames for all the non-free things he doesn’t like. It seems to me a bit childish; I wonder if this actually helps him or it just makes other people feel like I do.

This seems like a logical counter to the Orwellian argument that language shapes though. If you propose you should be free of Microsoft influence, you should reject their rebranding of spyware as Telemetry. It's a political statement more than childish mockery.

"Digital Restrictions Management" for Digital Right Management" is an effective and mature satire. "winblows" and "micro$oft" are not.

I can't see how it is satire if it is a more fitting description to what the system is designed to do.

If nothing else if does force one to consider which term is closer to the truth, the one commonly used or the one Stallman invented. Used and users seems very clever, while global heating vs global warming seems arbitrary, while some people may think of heating as more threatening than warming, I'm not sure that's universal.

> consider which term is closer to the truth

Also, some of them catch on and are very generally used.

DRM is actually intended to mean "Digital Rights Management"

For what it’s worth, “global heating” is how the phenomenon is described in spanish (“calentamiento global”, while global warming” would be “entibiamiento global”), so to a native spanish speaker like me it doesn’t read odd that he uses it that way in english.

For what it's worth, Stallman speaks both Spanish and French in which the expression "global warming" does translate as though it were "global heating".

> I think this is a mischaracterization, since these things apply to free software as well.

You think free (not in the sense of $0; in the sense of Stallman's usage: non-propriatry, libre) software contains malware/spyware?

Not always, and not even a majority of the time, but yes, of course

There have been instances of open-source programs (including a certain code editor Hackernews has a collective nerdgasm over every time a release drops) shipping with telemetry or other spying features enabled. In some cases (like that one popular browser), the vendor makes it difficult or impossible to disable those features without modifying and recompiling the code.

"There have been instances of open-source programs shipping with telemetry or other spying features enabled."

Brew comes to mind.

Several years ago I recommended to Stallman to switch to using the term liberating software. I believe it is far better at conveying the whole meaning and is far more inviting.

Sadly yes: install Ubuntu and get login ads in your terminal [1].

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/98ctgu/ubuntu_server...