I also stand up for Stallman
raganwald.posterous.com
raganwald.posterous.com
I don't agree with rms right now, but he deserves a lot of respect for the work he has done throughout his life. I'm just going by the wikipedia page, but he wrote gcc and gdb - that alone should give someone a fair amount of respect. If you add the concept of copyleft and the GPL on top of that, you've got a substantial legacy that we owe a debt of gratitude towards.
He is an extremist, though. He has always been an extremist. His opinions were often unappealing even when he was writing in opposition to The Borg. His opinions have only become more unpalatable as closed platforms from Apple and Google have become more appealing on their technical merits.
In my own experience, though, it seems like some newer folks don't really understand that those extreme ideas came from an important place. They don't understand the hacker ethic or have much of an idea of the culture that rms comes from, exemplified, and fights for. I imagine most readers here are familiar with it, but it's a fading ideal, for sure.
Anyway - I've made fun of rms as much as the next guy, but he doesn't need me to defend him. And I doubt he cares what people say about his rider.
More than a few of the ideas Stallman has pushed have come into wide acceptance, and some number of the things he's warned about have come to pass (or made a good stab at it).
So his ideas have had a demonstrated merit, which - in my mind - makes them worthy of thoughtful consideration.
Let us not parrot mindless bashings or equally mindless fanboyism.
I have discovered lately that it is very easy to have "extreme" opinions. Such opinions only have to be irrevocably incompatible with what we think is mainstream.
For instance, if I say that private banks should stop creating money and give that power back to the people (or at least to the states who represent them), I can easily have reactions like "Banks don't create money." (that's false, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swap for a taste of the actual shenanigans), "Printing money is BAAD (hyperinflation and all)" (yes, for the rich), "But that would destroy the whole system!" (how sad, but that was kind of the point. Plus, I think a peaceful transition is totally possible.)
Back to Stalman's ideas. I think they're seen as "extreme" because they happen to be incompatible to the way we do things right now. But, come to think of it, why any single piece of software should not be free? Why any single piece of knowledge or culture should not be open to access? Those are not scarce to begin with. Excluding any one from any abundant resource whatsoever is simply ludicrous.
Yet, proprietary software is ubiquitous, and given how the world currently runs, it would be difficult to do away with it. So we have no choice: for all software to be free, we have to fix a thing or two in our Lovely Global Economy. Which would be extreme.
It's simple: information asymmetry can be very, very profitable. Why should Coca-Cola have the right to keep their formula secret, even though I pay for their product? Because they risk losing money if someone could clone the recipe (you could patent it, but that arguably creates less freedom, not more). Other examples abound. And just because it's possible to make money using "open information" business models doesn't mean you can make the same scale of revenue, or apply a successful model to any particular industry. (Good engineers are expensive.)
I'm completely in favor of all software being open. For that matter, I'm also in favor of a socialist paradise where every human has food, shelter, education and health care. But you can't just wave a wand or declare a mandate; we need new socioeconomic structures, whether by design or through natural emergence. But moral condemnations make very little progress, and as a FOSS spokesman and advocate, that is all Stallman has to offer.
Why do you think the majority of people don't care how a computer works? Simply because they don't want to learn, and they think mostly in the short term. (Not that I'd blame them. Short term thinking tends to be emphasised by our current western society.)
Of course you can't apply FOSS principle everywhere. Buildings and cars are scarce. You can't copy them the way you copy software.
You also assume that the market is efficient. It isn't. Even when doing the most ridiculous assumptions about human nature (homo economicus), the market simply isn't efficient. Therefore, the most popular product cannot be assumed to be the best, or even have the best cost/benefit ratio. And you know about Microsoft's OEM scheme. That gives them an advantage that has nothing to do with the quality of their software.
You also seem to assume FOSS doesn't have such a great market share. On the desktop, sure. But on the server, it won.
I'm neither defending nor vilifying corporations or other secrets-holders. But secrets are a big piece of the semi-functional market system that allows software engineers to draw a paycheck. If you want to talk about subverting or supplanting that market system, I'm ecstatic to have that conversation. But advocating FOSS without addressing the economic issues is pure dreaming. (Not that I'm knocking dreaming; but it's only useful as Step #0).
> advocating FOSS without addressing the economic issues is pure dreaming.
Totally agree. Now I discovered today that Stallman is probably aware of the economic issues[1]. Still, he doesn't deal with them. I don't know why, but I guess he may estimate there are other competent people working on just that (he repeatedly said that Free Software is a cause besides many others, and that he chose this one because he could).
[1] http://www.harishanker.net/2009/06/richard-stallman-intervie... It's not fleshed out, but I take it as evidence that Stallman at least thought about it.
RMS can be called an extremist because he refuses to accept that the opposing views have any merit when they clearly do (see some of my other comments on this post for examples, my apologies for hanging around this thread so long haha).
Just because the guy isn't holding college auditoriums full of undergrads hostage in exchange for GNU/Linux being installed on all campus computers doesn't mean he isn't an extremist. The FOSS movement, while stirring up a fair amount of debate and heated views, doesn't lend itself very well to suicide bombing, hostage taking, or any other type of violence. Maybe a little protesting but that's all. Even so, it doesn't mean he's not an extremist.
It's all about that fine line between strongly held belief and extremism. Peaceful protest doesn't equal not being an extremist.
Please don't pull out dictionary definitions of extremism to counter my point. I'm not saying black is white and white is red, I think I'm being pretty reasonable here. There's also a lot of people on the "well, x idea used to be considered extreme" bandwagon. I'd say to you that different isn't always better. Communism, socialism, feudalism, and others used to be considered extreme... And different too. Turns out all the naysayers were right! Those things unfortunately were tried and they all bombed out with everyone involved surely wishing they'd never been tried to start with. I'm not saying, at least not in this sentence and the next, that Stallman is wrong. What I'm saying is consider the possibility - really think about it. If you can do that then at least people like me can't call you am extremist.
You're right, obviously, but this might be only half of the story. Is it any coincidence that the spread of computing from universities and hobbyists to the general public happened at the same time that computing was commercialized? Would anyone be better off if software was universally free (by Stallman's standards) and yet inaccessible to 99% of the population?
What's wrong with being a weakling? Some people live in wheelchairs; some people can't do math. It's wrong to target a weakness like that as a means of ridiculing a person, and it's wrong (though effective in most circles) to stigmatize the views by stigmatizing the person.
Richard Stallman is not very socially gifted, and no matter how much he polishes that turd he will never be able to hide his weakness and pass himself off as socially "strong." I identify with Stallman in that people who have a reason to resent me find it very, very easy to despise me for being a little socially out of tune. I'll never be able to perfectly hide it, so people will always find it easy to look down on me if they wish to do so. If you want to make it into a contest of "strength" I would have to mock them for their intelligence, their income, their boring jobs, the fatness of their girlfriends, how small they have to make their worlds to feel big inside them... that doesn't sound very attractive, does it? How much time would you want to spend around people who act that way? You can't win that way, not without becoming what you despise. So I'll stick up for Richard Stallman against those who personally insult him.
What can he do to stop them himself? They don't care what he says; they're doing it because they enjoy it and think that everyone else who matters enjoys it. The only thing that will stop them is knowing that people find their behavior generally repugnant.
This may be a defense against an ad hominem attack, but it's still an argument about the qualities of the man himself.
First, the social logic. No amount of achievement makes you less of a dork. Bill Gates is an incredibly rich dork, but he's still a dork. Most of the country can revel in their superior social appeal, their superior ability to add life to a party and make every kind of social situation more easy and enjoyable than Bill Gates would. Oprah is rich and accomplished, but every skinny woman in America can read about Oprah's weight problems and think, "I may have my own problems, but at least I'm not Oprah." These things aren't amenable to reason. They go right back to childhood pecking orders and insecurities. It's just raw, ugly aggression, plain and simple.
Second, though I think it's irrelevant to this childish mockery, the merits of the man. To make a case for Richard Stallman is to accept that his dorkiness is something that needs to be apologized and compensated for. Is it? By most accounts, he has worked hard to be a good ambassador for his ideas and has only tried to retain the aspie qualities that he felt were helpful for his life and his goals. Like any other person with a weakness, he can only be blamed to the extent that he indulges his weakness in a lax or perverse way. I've read enough about RMS to guess that he gets his fair share of legitimate criticism in that vein, but (as you would guess) the stuff that is noised about in public is always just mean and nasty, meant to ridicule and discredit him, not to push him to be better. Legitimate criticism deserves a legitimate answer. Bullying only deserves disdain. Bullying depends on the perception that it elevates the bully over the target, and we should make it clear that we don't see it that way, that it degrades the bullies and doesn't have the slightest pertinence to Richard Stallman himself.
I'm going to start just getting to my beef with whatever RMS is doing any particular day instead of adding the "I respect him but" comment and so should everyone else. When you complain about your parents you don't say "They did such a good job raising me and they were so loving and kind BUT they're a pain in my ass right now" do you?
I have few kind words to say about Stallman and I disagree with him on a lot of point but nothing. That's it. It doesn't matter whether I respect his work or not, it isn't relevant to what I'm saying.
I'm not denying rms gets unfairly criticized, or that bullying is bad (and the part about your son was poignant). But all criticism of rms is not bullying. In fact, since his position is so important, it would be wrong _not_ to hold him to a higher standard.
That's an awfully generous reading.
Though I can believe that Kottke didn't mean to instigate a mob (it is so easy to do by accident), there's no sense in pretending the mob isn't there, now. I'm not about to fuel the fire by linking to multiple people, many with large audiences, who have been poking fun at RMS's personal habits while pretending – not very convincingly – that they're doing so out of principle, but such links aren't hard to find at the moment.
And, yes, we can all tell the difference between disagreeing with (or even joking about) RMS's very strong and sometimes very offbeat technical, legal, and political ideas... and making fun of his socks. The first is fine – it is something he invites – but the second is just rude.
Are we talking about the same Richard M Stallman who once wrote:
> Could people please not use this list to announce information of no particular interest to the people on the list? Hundreds of thousands of babies are born every day. While the whole phenomenon is menacing, one of them by itself is not newsworthy. Nor is it a difficult achievement—even some fish can do it. (Now, if you were a seahorse, it would be more interesting, since it would be the male that gave birth.)
> These birth announcements also spread the myth that having a baby is something to be proud of, which fuels natalist pressure, which leads to pollution, extinction of wildlife, poverty, and ultimately mass starvation.
in response to someone mentioning the birth of their child?
If we're going to have an intellectually honest conversation about bullying in the tech community and the separation of personal attacks from technical matters, let's not attempt to do so under the delusion that RMS only invites comments on technical and political matters and never engages in extremely insulting social attacks on others.
RMS is and always has been a controversial extremist who has been more than willing to engage in personal attacks in service to the causes that interest him.
Can you cite something? Your above quotations are not personal attacks. He is explaining (poorly) that the chosen venue was not correct for the content being communicated. He is speaking in terms of principles and not attacking the person's identity.
This didn't require telling the guy that the birth of his child was menacing, insignificant because it was accomplished by a female instead of a male, and complicit in mass starvation and genocide. The "wrong forum" content was just an incidental cover for a long-form attack on that person because it happened to push Stallman's buttons, and Stallman was in a position of power on the list from which he could conveniently abuse the poster without fear of repercussion.
It's bullying every bit as much as the attacks on Stallman.
I don't know who else is poking fun of him, or what they're saying. There is limited time in life and an inexhaustible supply of jerks on the internet.
The dude clearly suffers from some kind of high functioning autism. Aspergers, whatever, it's just clear he doesn't think about social interactions the same way most other people do.
Which given the kind of audience of nerds and geeks that he is front of I would expect to be a little bit more understanding or patient but – I guess in the end we're all just moneys jockeying for social status.
Frankly, once I realized the above almost all of the rms mocking comes off as being extremely mean spirited.
I'm all in favor of principled people. But if nothing else, the public ribbing should actually HELP his cause - he is turning people off by virtue of what he's saying and doing. If he actually listens, he might find himself a little bit more persuasive about his principles
These ad hominem dismissals are, logically speaking, irrelevant, but they sway people, often more than the actual merits of the the arguments. As a result, it is often frustrating when someone who is on the same side as you, and very visible, makes themselves such a lightning rod for them. I currently feel this exact way about OWS. It's a mixture of "I'm glad people care about fixing our broken financial system" and "oh no, they're going to make moderate America associate financial industry reform lazy hippies."
Stallman is a tireless promoter of his ideology, and if you subscribe to the same then you would have to have mixed feelings about him because of this. His "weirdness" does some amount of harm to the cause because in the end it's always the moderates (who are most easily swayed by irrelevant things like parrots) who decide the issue.
This is, of course, no reason to be uncivil to him, but it at least partially explains (though in no way justifies) the sort of behavior you see even from many who are predisposed to agree with many of his ideas.
Personally, I don't care what he looks like and I hate it when disparaging anecdotes are being passed around. It doesn't matter that he's a stereotypical "weird kid" as Dave Winer describes him. We're all hackers here and before the days of the Brogrammer, most of us were (and still are) weird kids. What does matter is the message Stallman conveys in his talks. It's an important one, and he brings it across very eloquently.
He himself is, however, an extremist and people do well to always keep this in mind. He is still influential because he is an extremist with a lot of legitimate grievances. When he is giving talks he sounds reasonable, because the fundamentals of his ideas are reasonable. That doesn't mean he is a reasonable person. In many interactions he does in fact appear to be the bully, not the victim.
In the end, RMS is so fanatical about his vision of Free Software that he as a person becomes remarkably non-free. That's a tremendous price to pay and I respect that. So there is no need to come down for or against RMS. He is what he is - he does his thing irregardless of the world around him.
I believe it's not always productive to try and pass a final judgement on people or ideas, to try and weigh the good vs the bad and arrive at a net value. It is not necessary to stand up for or against Stallman. Sometimes, it's OK to let the pros and cons stand for themselves and acknowledge them as such without giving in to the urge to make a weighted sum of the whole thing.
He makes public comment as the leader of a large software organisation, many people strongly disagree with his statements and post their reasons for this on technology related forums.
I don't really see an issue with 99% of what is posted here on HN, juvenile or downright nasty comments usually get downvoted pretty hard.
I’m 100% ok with this. In my essay a few years ago about optimism (there’s a link in the post), I suggest we we try hard to praise people and criticize behaviours. That’s where I try to go. I think it’s perfectly ok to criticize words and choices. I try to avoid criticizing people. It may seem like a meaningless distinction, but to me there’s a world of difference between:
So-and-so is a dick, and:
So-and-so wrote some dickish words.
"Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.
As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, “I’m not glad he’s dead, but I’m glad he’s gone.” Nobody deserves to have to die – not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs’ malign influence on people’s computing."
(1) Stallman got his facts right. (Jobs is pioneer of the walled garden that people actually buy.)
(2) Making people accept such a lock-in can reasonably be called "malign influence" in my opinion.
(3) Stallman quite clearly stated that Jobs didn't deserve to die.
(4) The timing was probably appropriate too, as Jobs death creates a surge of interest for Apple's locked-down devices. It wouldn't do for the Free Software cause if Steve Jobs became a martyr for Proprietary Software.
All 4 of your points are factually accurate (number 4 can be debated but I'll give it to you now for the sake of argument) but they miss the glaring, obvious, in-your-face subtext of that post which was:
"I Richard Stallman, am going to use the death of a high profile enemy of mine to purposely stir up controversy and get attention, despicably, by calling him evil, but not directly, then adding in this Herals Washing quote so I can have plausible deniability that my supporters will use to defend me".
The worst thing about what he said is that he purposely infused that post with words and a quote that he could use as plausible deniability.
You know, Id be mad but would definitely not think of Stallman as a coward (which that post makes him) if he were to just come right out and say what he meant which was so obviously:
"I'm glad Jobs is dead because that means the company might flounder under new leadership and fail, making my movement seem attractive. Oh, and I do hate Jobs, always have, think he guy is evil along with his product line".
Anyone denying that his post on Jobs was not full of vitriol or schadenfreude is one of the following:
* an RMS fanboy * someone who didn't read the post * a contrarian * blind (physically or otherwise) * lacks human emotion, intuition, and the like
That post was seriously just completely damning for RMS. we'd expect that out of some random Internet jerk but somehow because it's Stallman and because he laced it in his cloak of plausible deniability its become a debate. There should be no debate. The guy said he was glad Jobs was dead without having the balls to come out and say he was glad Jobs was dead.
Also, it is quite obvious for everyone that Jobs' work is overall quite against Free Software (though it doesn't hesitate to use Open Source). That is something worth reminding, especially while everyone else is praising that very work. But how can you possibly criticise a man's life work without making it look like you want to soil the man himself? My guess is, you can't.
[1]: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Halo_effect
[2]: http://stallman.org/archives/2011-jul-oct.html?ohai#27_Octob...
I don't wish to deny anyone the right to hold their ideas, or to speak them (even stupid ones). But the right to speak is not the same as a right to be heard. I saw this as the foundation of the argument. I agree that some honor is due someone who adopts a principled stand and lives by a moral code of conduct, even if I may disagree with the morals or their consequences. But that does not mean they have a right to be heard. The mere existence of an idea does not grant the right to be debated.
Pragmatically, ideas are shared by those who have attention. And the act of obtaining attention reflects—whether it should or not—on the idea itself. That's what the hubbub is about, not whether someone should be allowed to speak.
The analogy you've drawn between Stallmam and your kid does not validate. rms isn't being bullied; he is the one doing the bullying. The public reaction is appropriate and rational. There is no excuse for Stallman's behavior, and if you disagree that it's deserving of backlash, well then we'll just have to disagree.
That said, it hurts my heart as well to hear about your son being picked on. I hate the thought so much. Your kid isn't the bully. He's the victim. I hope you've explained to him, and I hope he realizes, the difference between him and those who push him around.
This is getting a little paternalistic. Stallman is not a child, and speaking of others' bullying him strikes me as somewhat diminutive, particularly when the example Raganwald compared Stallman to was his son.
True enough. But behavior fitting only for overgrown children is still a bad idea, even if Stallman can take the heat. I agree with raganwald here that if we can say "I am a human being" we ought to have some basis for treating all of our fellow human beings humanely.
Steve Ballmer seems like kind of a jerk sometimes, but if he agreed with the principles of the FSF, I'd find him a far more palatable frontman than RMS.
> coïncidence
Here’s an interesting video, Rick Mercer calling on people in the limelight to stand up and be counted. I am not endorsing his views, just suggesting it’s an interesting perspective to think about:
And his words from 2007:
As for his predictions regarding the 'tech-world' they have unfortunately been very accurate with software patents posing as the biggest threath to both open/closed source development just as he predicted back in 1996 (if not earlier). Add to this the increased widespread use of computer 'gadgets' and their locked-down functionality. As such I think his views of the tech world is more relevant than ever, despite not fully agreeing with it.
I'm going to write a blog post about how no one can say mean things about the president anymore (any president from now on) and equate strongly disagreeing with prominent public figures and saying any mean thing about them is as bad as slavery and gay bashing. Does that sound reasonable? Nah. Didn't think so.
Stallman is a public figure and like it or not, people say mean things about them publicly. It goes with the territory. People like that have to deal with it and I really doubt they lose sleep over nasty comments on Internet message boards and blog comments.
You know, I was always a huge Steve Jobs fan. Maybe even a fanboy. I've seen all sorts of crazy comments about him all over the web but I never once thought the guy needed me or anyone else to stand up for him nor do I think he paid any mind at all to what us little people said about him.
I admit I'm a bit biased. I don't like Stallman. I'm on board with parts of what he stands for but generally don't like his attitude and the way he conducts himself publicly. That said, if Stallman wants people to stop bullying him then he should get out of the public eye. I know he's no Paris Hilton when it comes to media attention but amongst circles like ours here on HN he qualifies as a public figure. This post is preposterous to me and I can't believe it's a top story.
Oh, and please don't down vote me because that's bullying and losing all my karma on HN would hurt my feelings! (Actually, I would get a little tiny bit upset but I, apparently unlike Stallman am prepared to face the consequences of voicing my opinion in a public forum).