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Look, all respect to Stallman for writing Emacs and the GNU toolchain. Among technologists he's clearly one of the few figures on par with Jobs. Indeed, he's also personally a difficult figure and a bit of a totalitarian about his craft, much like Jobs himself. [Though I don't think Jobs would ever publicly emit something like Stallman's "eulogy".]

Where Stallman falls short is in supposing that open, hackable systems are an unmitigated good. "Just works" and "highly configurable" are often antonyms, rather than synonyms.

Should open, hackable systems always exist or be developed as a check on Tivoization? Yes. Are they ever going to get a dominant market share, in the sense that the masses making voluntary decisions will choose Free software/hardware? No.

  more of a setback for the free software movement than 
  anything Microsoft ever did.

No.

iOS exists because it can make tons of money to pay back its development costs. Android exists for the same reason.

And at some point, a true mobile/touch Linux (perhaps a fork of Android) will also exist, and the free knockoff will owe a great deal to the hundreds of billions in dollars in capital plant installed worldwide by the for-profit, closed originals.

Indeed, Linux itself exists because of the fact that AT&T could make a profit off Unix, and that IBM could make money off selling computers.

So: iOS is not a setback for the free software movement. In the long term it's a massive boost in the arm.

    more of a setback for the free software movement than 
    anything Microsoft ever did.

Of course RMS would say something like this. Microsoft's business practices gave RMS followers; Steve Jobs took them away. As any RMS-style self-proclaimed bearded prophet/politician/priest/father-figure knows, it's never been about making things but about gaining followers. The beard is not ironic.

Stallman has never left any room for doubt that his motives are genuine. It's not about followers. There's no shortage of people telling him how to moderate his message to attract more, yet he won't do it. I think this is another thing people are going to grudgingly acknowledge he was right about, after a decade or two—but that might have happened more quickly if not for the harsh delivery.

> Where Stallman falls short is in supposing that open, hackable systems are an unmitigated good. "Just works" and "highly configurable" are often antonyms, rather than synonyms.

It's not really about "good". As far as Stallman is concerned, potential user freedom simply trumps everything else, including the ability to actually use a device of piece of software due to technical incompetence.

And I respect the man, not necessarily because I agree with him but because he's never (as far as I know) hurt anything but feelings (you've got to admit the guy is not exactly diplomat material) and he actually walks the walk (how many "open-source rha rha" zealots do you see trying their damnest to use open-source and free everything — including hardware — even if it limits their choices and the intrinsic quality of what they end up with? RMS does)

> So: iOS is not a setback for the free software movement. In the long term it's a massive boost in the arm.

You're doing yourself a disservice by thinking Stallman cares about software that much. Non-free hardware is just as big (if not even bigger) a deal for him, and on that point Apple is an even bigger sticking point than on software: non-serviceable, non-replaceable devices galore (the Mac side has gotten better but the devices side has not), non-free everything, generally in support of more semi-proprietary to proprietary (and freedom-restricting, such as DRM and "trusted") technologies, ...

The iPhone and iPad, and their popularity, only make things worse as far as RMS is concerned, as they flood the world with devices neither free in hardware nor in software and beholden to the "mothership". Likewise, I don't think RMS sees anything cloud with a teary eye for any reason than the loss of user freedom it translates into for him.

In this situation it's not as much a question of personal ideology as it is basic interpersonal skills. You generally avoid telling the world you're happy someone's gone immediately following their death. It's completely arbitrary, and no one's going to throw you in jail if you do it but it's just one of these things.

How you think software should be developed doesn't really come into at this level. It's just a question of how you deal with people and that's where Stallman's fallen short here.

And yet, the market has spoken, and here's why:

Only technology monarchism has been able to deliver a good user experience.

The organized chaos of OSS has delivered excellent technology but a piss-poor user experience by comparison. I can't imagine using Linux as anything other than a web-netbook without having a thorough understanding of it, and the UI still blows by comparison with anything by Apple.

Microsoft's UIs aren't that great, but that's because Microsoft's corporate culture is a lot less monarchistic than Apple's. Too many cooks in the kitchen. A fundamental requirement of good aesthetics is to have someone who can say "no" repeatedly to "ideas" that just clutter everything up. Minimal is a synonym for good.

When it comes to computing, it seems to me that most people would rather have a pretty prison than freedom.

Mostly because freedom is not really accessible for most people, in matter of computing.

You can have freedom to install what you want, the way you want... only a minority ultimately knows how to. The rest is left without a clue in front of their supposed freedom.

When the iPad is presented to people, of course it's no "revolution" to most of us. But for the regular person, it's an easy way to access something which they could have had difficulties to access, before. At this point, choice matters less than the actual possibility to use something, even if this thing is framed and safely guarded, for most.

There are some people who do think freedom and accessibility can coexist; interestingly enough, some of the very people whose work Apple built on (but focusing more on the accessibility part of their work). For example, Alan Kay and Ted Nelson have both long pushed the idea that computer systems can be both hackable and user-friendly / broadly accessible, rather than having to be split into a dichotomy of consumer-appliance versus hackable-nerd-toy.

"pretty prison" is a nonsense term. For millions and millions of people, OS X and iOS and the relevant hardware are not prisons--they give them the freedom of the Internet, of usable software and of easy to use hardware to do what they want to do. Without commercial computing vendors, many people wouldn't be able to use a computer and would be a lot less free.

Freedom for 0.1% does not trump freedom for the masses and RMS is just engaging in shameless self-promotion.

A closed computing environment isn't a prison. I have the choice of using an iPad or something more open. If I choose an iPad and later wish for something more open, then I can replace it with a more open tablet or a laptop. I find the implication that I "prefer a prison to freedom" disingenuous and off-putting.

OK, so it's only a prison to the extent you use it.

Better not let your important data get locked up in any non-portable formats though. A literal prison is far easier to release someone from.

It's not a prison even if you do use it. The defining characteristic of a prison is that you cannot leave it. I can stop using an iPad any time I wish.

And yes, important data should not be locked in non-portable formats. At the same time, I've never found myself in a situation where I simply could not extract important data from a non-portable format into a more portable one.

Stallman doesn't need market approval.

If you are a shareholder it is a legitimate point, but the FSF's concerns are far deeper.

Someone died though. The polite thing to do would probably be to say nothing at all ...

This is just it. Implying the world is better off without Jobs or what Jobs did (however you want to slice that part of his comment) is insensitive beyond measure: someone is dead. Show a little respect if for nothing else than the fact he was a fellow human being, be him your greatest enemy or your dearest friend, where is the fucking humanity? Better to have said nothing at all than to make such a distasteful post.

Why should people be stifled just because somebody died? What exactly are we concerned about? Steve Jobs becoming disgruntled, rising from his grave, and sucking the blood of virgins during the night?

This "dead people are off limits" thing is a relic from the superstitious dark ages. If we can praise the actions of dead people, we can criticize them too.

Because people have feelings.

Why should it hurt anybodies feelings to point out that Steve Jobs wasn't all fairy dust and benevolence? This need to whitewash people when they die is truly bizarre.

We're not trying to whitewash it. It's just empathy. Would it have been so bad to wait a week or 2 after the funeral?

People also have opinions and they should be free to express them.

And my opinion is that RMS is being a D-bag.

Freedom to express isn't freedom from bad responses.

He has a family that he left behind. His wife and children. If your father just passed away 48 hours ago, would you want to read about how somebody is glad that he's finally gone? I sure wouldn't... It's called respect.

I somehow suspect that they aren't reading RMS's blog right now...

Sounds like we seriously need to get some of that superstitious dark ages politeness back ASAP.

I think XKCD had it right -- people should have to listen to their comments read aloud before they're published on the internet.

I think your comparison of Jobs and Stallman are spot on, they are essentially polar opposties of each other. I know I will misststae this, and I hope someone more eloquent than me can rephrase it, but what I find interesting is how much they share in common, in terms of how much control they want. Jobs's total control of the walled garden, Stallman's total control over the source (i.e. you must give others access to the source). In that sense, Jobs favors the ditributor, and Stallman favors the recepient. Neither approach favors true freedom, in the sense that the creator decides how she wants to distribute her product...

Makes me wonder whether a free software Steve Jobs (equivalent) would be possible. Maybe you need to be a powerful autocrat to generate enough directed force to dent the world?

It certainly seems like the divide between computer consumers and computer developers is getting ever wider. One side has their computer experience made ever simpler, whereas the other has to deal with ever more complexity (cf. Ryan Dahl rant).

The ultimate revolution might be to simplify programming to the point where anyone can do it.

Shuttleworth is trying... :-)

The ultimate revolution is to provide an operating system and applications simple enough that anyone could use them. Programming on the other hand should be easy and fun- simple doesn't have to play into it; something can be complex and still fun, and fun is what keeps people coming back.

I am not a Mac fan, in fact the only thing I have from Apple is the iPad. I have an Android phone and I have a windows machine.

Still, Stallman, as a public figure should have remained silent. These kind of comments don't help anybody, specially not the community.

Now I do understand his point of view, what I do not understand is why he can't see the whole picture. That is all. He should have remained silent if he had nothing good to say. His comments have no value at all to anybody.

Yes ... And most of the enlightened (here at HN) seem to approve of Jobs - voting with their wallets. I don't own a recent Apple computer, but I have a Powerbook (Wallstreet) that's still running after after more than 12 years ... I think that says something about the quality of the engineering.

I'm curious- what do you mean by "enlightened"?

lightened of money from their wallets?

I mean that the readership here is much more likely to understand the DRM and license implications of purchasing Apple products and services and yet there seems to be a disproportionately larger percentage of Apple users here than in the general population ... Or perhaps my perceptions are just plain wrong?