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Comment by sonofhans | Hacker News Reader

This is a new low, truly more dystopian than I imagined software could ever get.

Imagine this becoming a pattern. You have software you need for work, and the company behind it wants more money — so they pick the most popular feature and make it pay-per-use. It’s horrifying.

I hope this fails fast and hard, as a lesson to other companies. I doubt it, though. I ran IT at a big architecture firm 25 years ago, and everyone hated Autodesk then. That hasn’t changed — most architects still hate Autodesk, even if they have to or choose to get value from Autodesk products.

At that point AutoCAD still used dongles for licensing. If you upgraded a license you had to have both dongles plugged in. Some computers with multiple upgrades had multiple dongles hanging off the back, and I had to build custom dongle supports so they wouldn’t fall out and deauth a machine in the middle of someone’s work.

So yeah, even with that history, this surprises and horrifies me.

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This is rapidly becoming the "norm".

Why do you think basically every software product coming out these days is "SaaS"? It turns out that "SaaS" is basically equivalent to "we're rent seeking - we won't do more work, but we will rake in more revenue".

My prediction is that we're going to force the learning curve of tech on the general population (also already happening) because just like those who couldn't read were heavily abused by those who could - those who can't host their own software are being abused by those who can.

> those who can't host their own software are being abused by those who can

What is more abusive—choosing to sell your creation on your own terms, or forcing someone else to sell their creation to you on terms of your choosing?

Thankfully, if someone creates something of value, they don’t have to sell it to you if they don’t want to.

I think the issue is the old rug pull where the terms/price change dramatically after you are hooked, and after they have bought out or undercut the competition.

i think the most important change to legislate that could fix this problem is a freedom to demand api/specs from a company for the purposes of reverse engineering an competing product. This would include the data format that a customer can expect to be able to export off the product they pay for.

E.g., any data, file, or model, etc, should be exportable and in a format that is specified well enough for a competing company to offer a migration path away.

this right will ensure that there wouldn't be any rugpulls.

That won’t be good enough. These representation models get terrifyingly complex and even genuine good faith implementations between different parties will differ, much less efforts tainted by bad actors.

One only need look at web browser engines vis a vis web standards, all out in the open, and the Herculean effort required to get to the current state of differences between browser rendering, to get a sense of the challenge.

Such specifications also need to maintain test suites with real data and code and reference code to even start a conversation about effective inter-product data interchange.

are you kidding? what if microsoft/apple started charging you every time you save a file or add a monthly fee for undo/redo? should i pay a fee every mile i mouse my mouse? rent-seeking bs needs to stop.

One difference is that Apple nor Microsoft has a natural monopoly.

There's a hassle of changing OS's, but ultimately it's a market in which the must compete.

This is all just one giant opportunity for a company that actually wants to cater to what customers want.

Displacing the long-time market leader would take 5-10 years and a lot of money and defensive litigation. Autodesk was the premium CAD software when I got my first job building computers in the 1980s. I think it's a little silly to call it an opportunity unless you have $10s of millions in capital to get the ball rolling.

Of course you could take an open-source approach like Blender, but that's a 20-30 year climb.

That is part wishful thinking and part misunderstanding the market. These are "industry standards" and you are thus completely locked in. Thus, when Adobe switched to their subscription model, what people wanted was a software that is 100% compatible and looks and functions identically, but without the bullshit. Surprise that does not exist because only Adobe can legally offer that.

All Adobe did was lock out small players who have found alternatives. Blender comes to mind. Even big studios have blender somewhere in their workflow. Its a marvel.

Rent-seeking is more abusive than enforcing ownership rights, by far.

Copyright is an invention; if it is being used to grossly undermine ownership rights, then we should reconsider the extent to which we privilege copyright holders, including our current approach of granting state-backed legal enforcement of their DRM schemes.

Copyright was never meant to be perpetual, it nominally expires. The Walt Disney corporation has paid Congress to extend copyright essentially indefinitely to prevent works from falling into the public domain. Most importantly is "Steamboat Willie", the first work with Mickey Mouse in it.

As long as Congress continues to cash the checks that Walt Disney writes, copyright is an indefinite protection.

I understood Winnie the Pooh to be the harbinger.

Edit:

Winnie 1926, later purchased by Disney

Willie 1928

FWIW there's no talk of a copyright extension on the horizon and only a year and a half left to ram one through. The last major extension was lobbied for on the back of EU harmonization and free trade; that's been done and dusted. Few countries have supra-German copyright terms and none of them are dealmaker countries.

Furthermore, having the mouse fall out of copyright doesn't actually impact Disney's bottom line all that much, for two reasons:

1. They aren't losing much. You still can't put him on a t-shirt or sell any merch of him; that will infringe upon trademarks that will practically never expire. You are only limited to either direct reuploads of the public-domain material (which is practically worthless save for historical value) or including him as a character in another unrelated new work; and even then you will have to be very careful to only include aspects of him that were expressed in a public domain cartoon. Anything still under copyright casts a long shadow over the public domain[0].

2. The mouse isn't actually their flagship franchise anymore. Disney has since graduated to the FAANG strategy of "Can't innovate? Just buy your competition!". In this case that means buying up Marvel, Lucasfilm, and most of 20th Century FOX to gain access to more relevant - and, most importantly, newer works. Those works will not hit the public domain in any appreciable way for at least another half-century.

[0] My favorite example of this: Public Domain Sherlock Holmes is not allowed to have emotions because that's part of Still Copyrighted Sherlock Holmes.

Disney has been laying the legal groundwork for protecting the mouse for years now. Notice how all the new Disney movies have that little clip of the original mickey whistling. They are laying out a pattern so they can prove in court they are still using the imagery to distinguish their brand. Copyright expires but trademark is forever, as long as you are using it.

While I'm inclined to agree with you because everything you are saying is logical it doesn't pan out when I consider the history of it. If "Steamboat Willie" is not so important, then why were such herculean efforts pulled out to extend copyright?

I've lived basically my whole adult life dealing with this. Works never entering the public domain because of this copyright extension nonsense. Even college professors seem to think copyright is eternal. I had to argue with one that no, I do not need a textbook for a 19th century work. I can just read it on project Gutenberg or anywhere I want.

Because of the Brussels Effect.

The EU wanted a single copyright term for their single market, so they picked the member state with the longest term (Germany), made that the EU-wide standard, and then put in a reciprocal extension clause basically designed to force America to go life+70.

At the time Disney was pushing hard into the European market[0] and having uniform copyright rules between two major trading blocks would be a huge boon to them. Keeping the mouse slightly more under their thumb than it could have been otherwise was just a bonus.

[0] Even when it was losing them billions of dollars, such as with the EuroDisney debacle

OK, that I definitely was not aware of. Thanks for taking the time to explain it.

OP wasn’t talking about copyright, but was instead complaining that companies are never publishing their software at all, and are instead hosting their software as services on the Internet.

Ownership of web applications is not governed primarily by copyright law (which is only relevant as it pertains to the front-end portion of a web app that users download to their browser), but rather by trade secret law (with regards to the server-side code) and trademark law (with regards to the domain name).

Neither trade secrets nor trademarks ever expire if the proper precautions are taken—nor have they ever. Your point regarding copyright extensions is largely irrelevant to the question of web applications.

Look - I have zero problem with a creator selling a product under their own terms.

I have a LOT of problems with having all of us enforce copyright for them (at society's expense - mind you) so that they can freaking rent you their product forever.

Basically - I think capitalism is structured to be efficient when you have to produce physical goods, and every copy incurs an unavoidable expense - which can be optimized through competition.

I think "modern capitalism" where the goal has obviously become: Extract as much value for as little cost as possible is an ethical quagmire when dealing with digital goods. The clear goal is for companies to keep the right to make zero-cost copies, and force consumers to rent a copy for an on-going permanent cost.

Where is the end game here? What is your plan when literally every item costs you a monthly charge, and you own nothing? Explain to me how that's not just a more complex form of slavery?

> Explain to me how that's not just a more complex form of slavery?

What? This is a non sequitur. Please explain the connection to slavery (as defined as a person is owned by another and has no or few rights).

Because slavery is complicated, and historically comes in a huge variety of forms, often with completely different social expectations and rights, but a general theme:

The theme is that your labor, and the value it produces, is not captured by you. You work, but do not capture the benefits of that work in meaningful and significant ways. This is directly related to "you do not own - you rent". Because that (quite literal) rent seeking behavior is leaching additional capital from you.

If you prefer, or if "slavery" is a term you feel loaded, you can substitute "serfdom" instead. It's also not quite apt - since it implies a tie to a specific geographic location, but it's close.

Alternatively, you might consider this very similar to a person in a "company town" - they work all day at the company, only to be forced to buy literally every item from the only store in town - the company's store. Which, conveniently for the company, charges them roughly their month's wage for housing/food/clothing. They are working and gaining nothing.

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So in this case, what happens when every item you need (not want) to participate in society is costing you a monthly subscription cost equivalent to your monthly wages?

What happens when internet, car, home, phone (and the apps on that phone) are all rented items, that capture literally all of your wages?

I'd actually say that for many lower class folks in the US right now this is already the case - they work 80 hours a week at two full time jobs, and literally all of it simply gets them to tomorrow. Nothing can be saved, there is no chance to "own" any of it. They certainly make plenty of value - it's just captured by someone else.

It's not going to stop there, though - it's going to keep eating through the ranks of our society. You will be free! (please note that your freedom is the choice to rent an Apple or a Google phone). You have choices! (please note that your choices are limited to renting a car from BMW/Ford/Tesla/etc). You will make decisions! (please note that your decisions are limited to selecting whether to rent content from Hulu or Netflix). You can vote for any one you want! (please note that they must be either Democrat or Republican).

Thanks for the explanation. I see a connection, but it seems a few steps removed conceptually and many steps removed causally. Anyhow, I don't want to argue which concepts are more closely connected. Brains work differently (*), and I'm glad you readily see this connection even if I don't.

Please allow me to offer these questions, since they better represent where my brain is at the moment... What does it mean if a person cannot buy and outright own the tools needed for their work? Is this necessarily bad? Does it tend to be bad? Does it depend on other things?

Your thoughts? (Can you slow down a little? It seems like you jumped to dystopian scenarios quite quickly.)

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* Sorry, it is a vague statement, something that seems to be taken for granted. But this makes me wonder if neuroscientists have made efforts to compare how different brains do conceptual reasoning. Can concepts be visualized in an fMRI? How? Are they represented in ways that have commonalities across people? Cultures?

I guess the question would be "who is capturing the value" of the rental.

In some interesting ways - socialism is fairly close to the idea of "a person who cannot buy and outright own the tools needed for their work". Except the moral justification for that system is that the "owner" who is capturing the value is "all of us". Communism is also there, but it's a little more honest that the "state" (in whatever form it might take) is the owner capturing value - and you just hope that the state is doing good things for you, and will take care of you.

In practice though, I think our society is regressing to similar outcomes that were experienced in communist/socialist countries (not good), but the owner capturing value happens to be a corporate entity. Which is functionally not all that different from "the state", it's just even more honest that it has no real obligation to society at large. They carry obligations to their employees and shareholders, but not much else. In theory - they also have obligations to the government, but that requires that the government be functional and powerful enough to enforce that obligation. I think we're seeing that control slip (and not for the first time - robber barons was the term we coined last time it happened).

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But to your point - it's not required to be a negative (in theory - socialism is great), I just have yet to see any case where it doesn't immediately devolve into abuse (see pretty much every communist country in history). It can still work out great for individuals if they happen to be on the right end of the deal, but it rarely works out for society at large.

I'd guess how much it bothers you is probably strongly dependent on how much you value individualism.

>"serfdom" instead. It's also not quite apt - since it implies a tie to a specific geographic location, but it's close.

"slavery" is even less apt since it implies a tie to a specific person or entity that owns you and controls your every action.

>phone (and the apps on that phone) are all rented items

Is this really something we need to worry about? You can get an Android phone for $100 with no contract. Is there a single app that you "need (not want)" that is paid, much less paid by subscription?

> "slavery" is even less apt since it implies a tie to a specific person or entity that owns you and controls your every action.

Look - I agree that neither word is an exact fit, but I think this is a misunderstanding of slavery at large, and a view exclusively through the lens of European slavery, and slavery in the colonies (ex: islands and the US).

Historically, slavery is a really complicated thing, and almost every society had some form of forced labor, performed by low tier members of the society - the details of which vary dramatically.

Slavery (outside the narrow scope of the US history of it) is absolutely not "tied to a specific person or entity that owns you and controls your every action".

Ex - Pre-colonial native american tribes had all sorts of forms of slavery, everything from "we're going to sacrifice you and then eat you" to "you have been captured to fill the role of the warrior you killed in battle". In the later case, they were often given duties and responsibilities markedly similar to the person they replaced, and in some cases end up formally adopted by the tribe in question.

Further - looks at places like India, where african slaves were brought over not for manual labor, but for military use (dating as far back as the 12th century). That enabled them far greater social mobility. Just take a look at cultures like the Siddi - West coast african slaves who rose to become rulers in India.

Basically - ditch the high school view of slavery - it's all the rage in the media right now because it's a wonderfully divisive topic in the US, and diverts attention from other serious political matters. But historically - it's very euro/us-centric in tone (and not even all that accurate within those cultures...).

> I think "modern capitalism" where the goal has obviously become: Extract as much value for as little cost as possible is an ethical quagmire when dealing with digital goods. The clear goal is for companies to keep the right to make zero-cost copies, and force consumers to rent a copy for an on-going permanent cost.

Let me offer a perhaps undesired writing suggestion. Avoid using "obviously". It tends to signal you think it is obvious, yes. We are here on a fairly decent Internet forum, and you should expect some number of people to disagree. When someone disagrees, the word "obviously" backfires: you come across as overconfident. You lost your first impression to persuade.

1. Your stated goal is not obvious. Actually, it is not a particularly useful way to understand company goals. We need a better understanding of corporate goals in order to explain the variation we see.

To gloss over just one way companies vary: not all companies want to seek profit in the same way. Companies vary in terms of their time horizons. Companies having tough times often try to squeeze out more profits in the short run. More stable companies sometimes are willing to take a hit to build market share.

There are many other ways they vary too: risk profiles, market segments, and more. Another example: some companies actively seek to improve their brand even though doing so is expensive and may not pay off right away.

And let's not forget that some founders do have goals other than pure profit maximization. Some focus first on other things, believing that sufficient profits will follow.

Second, while copies may be nearly zero cost, maintenance and support are not.

Ah yes - Maintenance and support for that "cloud only" feature that just 1 month ago ran just fine on your own hardware, requiring no maintenance and support at all...

And look - I'm not even completely disagreeing with you (I'm certainly not downvoting folks in this thread). Particularly -

>And let's not forget that some founders do have goals other than pure profit maximization

This I agree with whole-heartedly. I strongly believe that founder personality has a large influence on companies, but my complaint is that eventually the founder dies or retires, or is ousted. But the company just keeps chugging along, and (particularly for public companies, although this still applies to private companies) the goal of the company changes from "vision of the founder" to "pay the shareholders". And if we're focused on paying shareholders... it's really, really hard to turn down "we make a widget that costs zero per unit, and we rent it for $x, and legally - no one else is allowed to make that widget".

It's just about as profitable as you can possibly be - and that profit enables you to do all sorts of things that are not "improve the company product" to keep that revenue stream. Things like "hire all the engineers who might compete with you" or "Buy all the politicians that might regulate you" or "acquire all the competition that might disrupt you" or "suppress all the uprisings that put your monopoly at risk" or "murder lawyers and journalists in other countries who might expose you". And it works - because they're capturing huge amounts of value in the form of the labor their consumers are forced to expend in renting their product, which they produce for nothing.

Worse - I also agree that companies have differing goals - but they are competing, and you can't really compete with an entrenched monopoly that is legally allowed to produce widgets that cost nothing, but is legally allowed to prevent other folks from producing those same widgets for nothing (copyright/trademark/IP). From the outside it might look like this competition is happening, but by far and large, the larger companies are just buying the smaller competitor.

Even tiktok - it's getting so much flak in the media right now because our tech giants can't buy it (and it deserves it - but so do Google/Apple/Meta, they're all peddling ads and addiction - selling you as fast as they can).

So while companies might start out with different goals - our current system works very hard to force them into becoming profit centers for their owners - who will be the folks who buy them and force the founder out.

I agree with much of the above.

> "murder lawyers and journalists in other countries who might expose you"

Wait, did I miss something?

Please let's explore this a little. How do you feel about a person that builds a house with their own hands and then rents it out for the next 50 years?

I personally am ok with that.

What if they rent it out to the same tenant for 50 years? I am ok with that but start to question the wisdom of the tenant. What if rent keeps going up even beyond a reasonable mortgage payment? It doesn't make me question the landlord more. It makes me question the tenant more.

Now if you add a wrinkle like the landlord passes a law that no more houses can be built, then my prejudice switches. Or if it is more subtle like you can't build with the same kind of materials, or reuse a concept like footings.

I oppose that kind of rent-seeking. But it's not the rent-seeking to which I object. It's the moating.

Of course, it's hard to build a new house even without moating. I see too often people who just pay rent because it's inconvenient to look for alternative housing. And building their own seems way too hard. Their own creation would never have the bells and whistles of what they are renting.

Wells Fargo is a perfect example. You get cheated and abused and swindled, but you don't leave. Microsoft was an example for a very long time. Intel has been an example. Amazon is in a big way.

"There's no other option," people cry. But of course there is. Regarding Autodesk, FreeCAD is an option. "Not even close!" some claim. MicroStation? "No way." Solidworks? "Well..."

Build your own, rent from somebody else, go homeless, or stay where you are and pay your rent. And if somebody makes it illegal to do anything but the last, revolt. But don't claim there's no other way if you just mean you want to be entitled.

* Edited for typos *

You need to add what Autodesk is doing here, features where available during the initial contract and being revised as me move along. It's like adding a rent for every flush of your toilet and also paying for the cost of water.

Can you ask for a refund since features that you paid for have been removed?

It's illogical to request refund since the feature is still there it's just modified and since you were paying rent when it was still there and now your option is to stop renting.

I guess I'm not familiar with Autodesk. Is it always paid by subscription? There's no way to pay a one-time price?

Even if it is just subscription, what is the length of the subscription? If it's say 1 year, you could ask for a refund for the rest of the year since they've changed what they're giving you.

Ok, landlord removes toilet while raising rent. Scummy landlord? Maybe. But I still question the tenant more. Why keep renting?

Because living in tent doesn't get you a toilet and loses a lot.

So build your own house! Or pay someone to build you a house. Or join forces with 10 others and build a hostel with decent toilets, or a tent campground with a bathhouse. Move to a different building with higher rent.

Or just sit in your dump apartment, keep paying rent, and complain about the toilet. Yeah, that's the best choice.

What's that? It's a 3-bath that still has 2 working toilets and a great kitchen? It's not a total dump? It's kind of a dump but close to awesome schools? Look, is it worth the rent or not? Stay and pay, or leave. What's that? It costs money and trouble for a moving van? Sigh. It sure does.

The problem is there is no option when all the landlords are scummy.

I mostly agree.

Perhaps another analogy would put Autodesk (or any other rent-seeking company) as a mildly abusive partner, with similarly clear options: put up, find another partner, go single etc.

Doesn't mean the mildly abusive partner isn't mildly abusive.

(Clearly Autodesk is withing their rights here, I'm not suggesting otherwise).

The basis of your comparison is a bit weak: you’re delving into legal entity anthropomorphism.

A person, sure! A company? I don’t think it holds up. A company has no sense of morality, no career duration, no children or relatives to take care of. It has a duty to take care of shareholders. When the way it choses to do that naturally comes to oppose our ethics, we legislate.

> Where is the end game here? What is your plan when literally every item costs you a monthly charge, and you own nothing?

World Economy Fiefdom ;)

"Thankfully, if someone creates something of value, they don’t have to sell it to you if they don’t want to."

That's fine but here the conditions were changed after one's already committed money.

That's a different ballgame altogether and it should be regulated by law - simply because it's intentional exploitation.

Agreed, the conditions of a sale shouldn’t be altered once money has changed hands. Such things should be regulated by law—and they are, through the enforcement of contracts and fair advertising laws.

Absolutely. But loopholes like this need closing.

Edit: it just occurred to me that this Autodesk case is big enough to become a precedent. If lawmakers and regulators want reasons for updating the law then they should look here. Moreover, the many issues raised here in comments by HN's knowledgeable readership would alone provide sufficient justification for laws to be altered.

I hope those from Autodesk read these comments, it may give them room for thought.

This is disingenuous. If you introduce a new product and say 'here's my business model' then sure, people can take it or leave it.

If you have a well established product that dominates its market and exploit your vendor lock-in to say 'hey in 30 days I'm just going to start charging you an additional rent in exchange for nothing, by turning off a feature you may have come to depend on' then you're basically telling your existing customers 'fuck you, that's why.'

They haven't created anything of value in this case. they've destroyed value in order to extract an economic rent. It's zombie economics.

Meh. 20% annual maintenance is classic for on-prem enterprise software.

This is what cracks are for. You paid them already, so I don't think you should feel guilty at all about cracking and using without the dongle.

I am reminded of the classic "if you are a pirate this is what you get, if you are a paying customer this is what you get" meme.

You'll probably still be losing more and more features as they're moved to the cloud and can't be cracked.

> "can't be cracked"

If Adobe PS is anything to go by, that's not a worry. :)

I was referring to the old Autodesk software which was dongled but offline-only. That won't ever lose features (but of course the marketing spin is that it won't gain any either, nevermind the fact that it was the software used to successfully create many designs...)

Except now you probably installed malicious code on your system.

More than often, not.

I dug around a little bit and couldn't find a source supporting either of our claims. I did find verified examples of crypto miners in cracked software[0]. I think the threat landscape for cracks has probably changed with the rise of crypto mining.

0. https://decoded.avast.io/danielbenes/crackonosh-a-new-malwar...

That's "precracked" software, which is big enough to disguise the presence of malware. I was talking more about patches/keygens to be applied, which are relatively tiny compared to a cryptominer (and, although I'm not sure about recent times since I've been out of the scene for over a decade, crackers used to be quite skilled and proud of making their releases tiny.)

There are plenty of trusted places that you can get clean cracks and keygens that have been thoroughly tested.

That being said, a small file size doesn't mean anything in the case of most cracks/keygens because you have to give them admin access to your system. Which means it can download and install anything it wants in the background.

It is possible. But there are respectable websites with cracked software which generally does not allow for malware. If you would be a little bit picky and careful, the chances are not that high.

First, the whole purpose of a crack is to remove malicious code. So you're likely coming out ahead.

Second, you shouldn't be running any proprietary binaries unsandboxed with Internet access. My standard use of Windows is to install a fresh VM, install whatever software(s) I want, kill all network access but for my local Samba server, and then do my work. Lack of updates that pull the rug out from under me is a feature, and when there are features I want it's easy enough to repeat the installation process while watching TV or whatever.

Unauthorized copying, as Stallman would call it rather than the purposefully scary, deceitful p-word is one way to avoid things such as this, via blocking remote manipulation and removal of features from your licensed software and thus being able to stick with a fully functioning version without cloud fuss. But I would not consider using them for anything but learning and just exporting STLs in this case. Products in the field are well known to embed and encode identifying information to determine misuse, besides being filled with private info (example below). Some can be edited out of the files, some others may exist that aren't so obvious. I remember Solidworks embedding the MAC address somewhere in some formats. Small companies doing business get the middle finger the most, I suppose.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-support/what-perso...

Cracking local software isn't gonna work in the function is in the cloud.

Well, you know what the free software people say, proprietary software is malware.

Perhaps Stallman is more right than wrong.

Stallman's problem is that he has a savior complex, is an extremist only interested in complete software freedom not incremental progress, is exceptionally emotionally immature (namely, splitting: everything in computing is either free and good, or evil if not completely free, by his definition of free), and narcissistic in the extreme.

Last but not least: he lacks the ability to recognize the advantages (if only for implementing his own goals) of perspective-taking, compromise, being physically presentable (ie dressed decently, hair groomed, body clean), the slightest bit amicable/sociable...

....and not doing things that are socially repugnant. Such as threatening suicide when women won't date him (numerous independent accounts of such behavior, mostly with women who were very young), picking his toe cheese and eating it on a stage (there is video proof of this), repeatedly expressing extreme views around sex trafficking and pedophilia (and then when called out on it, nothing but petulance), hosting semi-clothed cuddle sessions on bare mattresses in his office at a university campus office building, and so on.

He's so blind that he can't even see that his continued presence at the FSF in a leadership role has cost the FSF the vast majority of its working relationships with other organizations, free software or corporate. The FSF board is right there next to him; they're so devoted to him that even when almost the entire open source community says "if you won't fire Stallman, we're done working with you", they won't get rid of him.

Stallman and the FSF had been increasingly irrelevant in the thirty years proceeding the whole pedo/trafficking emails and sexual harassment blow-up. Given the reaction from both, they've since become even more irrelevant.

Stallmans problem is that he is always right. It just takes 20 years for everyone else to notice.

The secondary problem is that everyone's paycheck here depends on him being wrong, so we get character assassination instead.

is it character assassination if it's true?

Being right about a problem doesn't mean you're right about your proposed solutions. For the most part, his absolutism limited his ideas to lightly influencing the people trying in earnest to solve those problems rather than actually doing the leg work.* In my old job in academia, I called this "trickle-down public good." He wants to be a symbol for the good and true of free software, but is largely a symbol of ivory tower academic culture throwing shade at people who don't pretend we live in the star trek universe.

* Edit: the problems with software licensing which is the primary thing people know him for. See how many bios even mention his software development work, and then see how many fail to mention his free software zealotry. To even assume his development accomplishments are what people are talking about when discussing his public activities is strange even in a crowd of software developers. If he wrote that same exact software for IBM, or even if he had written it for GNU and not worn crazy outfits to software conventions, nobody would be talking about him 'at all.'

You're talking about the original author of GCC here.

You know, the compiler that kept free software running between 1990 and 2015?

The sheer erasure of his contributions would be comical if it wasn't done so maliciously.

I'm clearly not talking about his contributions as a software developer, but as a public intellectual.

That wasn't clear to me

Well now it is. I'm not really sure how you would think that gcc or any other GNU software solved a problem which nobody noticed until twenty years later-- the context for my comment-- but sure.

Let’s not conflate the messenger and the message.

As for absolutes, consider deadly poison: how much is okay? None, really-you can be poisoned with a lot, or a little, but you’re still dead.

Stallman's entire purpose is to sit at the extreme fringe and act as the canary against the Overton window moving.

> Stallman's problem is that he has a savior complex, is an extremist only interested in complete software freedom not incremental progress,

This is just telling on yourself.

What Stallman does, and all he has claimed to do, is set moral standards for technology. It's not his job to compromise any more than it's the job of a scale to tell you something weighs exactly a kilogram if it's close enough to a kilogram, the difference probably won't matter, you should be grateful for what you have, are you going to throw it away just because it isn't exactly a kilogram, it'll probably work as well as a kilogram's worth for most functions, so did you really actually need an entire kilogram?

At best you're condemning what you believe in for the sake of what benefits you.

At worst you're pretending to think that Stallman's ideas about software are correct (or as liberals say "perfect") when you actually think they're contemptible or dangerous, but admitting that you disagree with the concept of software freedom itself would cause the people who you want to demean Stallman to most to ignore you completely.

The FSF is as relevant as it's always been, and its enemies are who they always were. If they listened to you and both killed the messenger and compromised the message (which seem to be your only suggestions), they would be a non-existent organization.

My old man owns a successful firm and has hated autodesk for as long as I can remember. He told me the prices like 20 years ago and I was blown away. No idea what they are today, but I imagine they’re much higher and much more “nickel and dimey”

They altered the deal. Pray that they do not alter it further

10/10

the most amount of exformation possible

https://www.worldwidewords.org/turnsofphrase/tp-exf1.htm

This is an industry that is happy to enforce Autodesk's lockin on their work, not allowing their peers to use any alternative.

The worst the software gets, the better. Maybe that way somebody not entrenched may have enough leverage to gain some market.

The absolute contempt people would show others for suggesting the use of Blender over Maya was astounding. I hear it’s much better now. When I was in the industry in 2013-2015 it was very amusing to hear someone in the same breath talk about how much they hated Maya but how silly and *unprofessional* Blender was.

While self-hosted open source isn't immune to this, at least you could keep running an old version that still has the feature.

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