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Comment by awake | Hacker News Reader

He walks the walk and talks the talk. People may think he’s backwards or annoying but he’s consistently maintained his philosophy that software should be free. The fact that he has to use absurd measures to consume what everyone else does is a statement about the limitations of free software not a statement about his workflow preferences.

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He is just a professional contrarian. We are lucky he went against big software corporations and his contributions to Open Source licenses are groundbreaking.

But many others managed to provide screenshots while using free software.

He, a great man in many other ways, he is also backwards and annoying.

Does he think every written product should be free, or just software? Or is he just against paying people for their time?

It's probably best to get that from the horse's mouth:

https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.en.html

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html

Thank you! Very helpful.

This answer would require to explain the whole free software ideology. If you want to know more, just type Richard Stallman on Youtube to see one of his talks.

Or you can go to the free software foundation: https://www.fsf.org/

EDIT: the moment I posted this I wasn't aware someone had already replied

Maybe just google even a little bit about the FSF.

> Or is he just against paying people for their time?

He definitely has no problem collecting speaker fees from conferences and universities all over the world.

Just don't buy him a parrot!

https://gizmodo.com/please-do-not-buy-richard-stallman-a-par...

>If you can find a host for me that has a friendly parrot, I will be very very glad. If you can find someone who has a friendly parrot I can visit with, that will be nice too.

>DON'T buy a parrot figuring that it will be a fun surprise for me. To acquire a parrot is a major decision: it is likely to outlive you. If you don't know how to treat the parrot, it could be emotionally scarred and spend many decades feeling frightened and unhappy. If you buy a captured wild parrot, you will promote a cruel and devastating practice, and the parrot will be emotionally scarred before you get it. Meeting that sad animal is not an agreeable surprise.

https://github.com/ddol/rre-rms

>Richard Stallman's rider has been a cause of amusement, bemusement and confusion for many conference and lecture organisers who have hosted him. It has even drawn the attention of the press[0].

>But what is the story behind this complex beast? When were certain clauses added, and why? We hope that with enough data regarding when modifications were made, we may be able to shed some light on the why's.

https://stallman.org/articles/extreme.html

>A parrot once had sex with me. I did not recognize the act as sex until it was explained to me afterward, but being stroked on the hand by his soft belly feathers was so pleasurable that I yearn for another chance. I have a photo of that act; should I go to prison for it?

https://stallman.org/parrot-love.jpg [NSFW!!!]

It's good to live strictly by a philosophy, and I admire anyone who does this. I can't say I agree with Stallman's philosophy, because it places too high of an importance on communist principles which are inherently flawed and unjust.

There is nothing evil about closed-source software or proprietary licenses. Yes, it can be abused by greedy people, as can pretty much anything including water. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that all software must be open source as a step in humanity reaching its ultimate goal of perfection.

I'm not a communist for various reasons but I'm curious what makes you describe it as unjust. Could you elaborate?

My reasons are whatever the Catholic Church's reasons are.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has a little more to say about it[1]:

> (2425) The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with "communism" or "socialism." She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of "capitalism," individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor. Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for "there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market." Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended.

[1] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2...

(This book, online free at that link, is an immensely helpful resource on a huge variety of topics.)

And here's the Catholic Encyclopedia's entry on Communism: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04179a.htm

thanks for the detailed response!

My pleasure, I always enjoy sharing what I firmly to be the truth. I guess that's a pretty common attitude here on HN, but I seem to be the only one who believes that truth is found in the Catholic Church.

I'm sure it can be a kind of lonely around here for Catholics. For what it's worth, while I'm no longer conventionally religious, and while even in my religious days the Catholics were considered to barely qualify for heaven (Evangelicals being Evangelicals), I've come to have a somewhat more nuanced perspective on 'you guys'.

And I definitely think having views like yours over here is a benefit to the 'community'.

I think not all software should be open source. At the same time not all software should be proprietary.

And both should be able to compete for market share one against the other.

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