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Comment by GuiA | Hacker News Reader

It's discouraging to observe that Assange's word are met by the tech community here with the same snark and derogation that Stallman's were a decade or so ago.

But today, the threads about Stallman on HN tend to converge towards a sentiment of "oh crap, he wasn't actually completely insane". I predict that the same will happen with the words of Assange (and others).

I am personally saddened that our community reacts this way. We're the only ones with any grounds whatsoever (no matter how small they are) to fight against this, and lazy hand waving is the best that we can do.

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What exactly is the connection between Assange and Stallman? Why does Stallman turning out to be "right" have anything to do with Assange's future?

In any case, I don't think anyone thought Stallman was "wrong", just that he presented his points in a hysterical way that detracted from him being taken seriously. He still does.

We're the only ones with any grounds whatsoever [...] to fight against this

What does this mean? Hacker News isn't unique in any relevant way.

Good questions; those points deserve clarifications.

>What exactly is the connection between Assange and Stallman? Why does Stallman turning out to be "right" have anything to do with Assange's future?

Both are activists, who have warned us (and are still warning us) about the consequences of letting those powerful in the world of atoms exert their power in the world of bits. Their causes are distinct, but are two facets of the same object. I highly recommend reading this essay by Assange: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-internet-is-a-threat-to-hu...

>What does this mean? Hacker News isn't unique in any relevant way.

I'm saying "we" as in "we who work in technology and program for a living", not as in "we on HN". The latter is a subset of the former, and a somewhat representative one in my experience. Hence my phrasing.

Hope that clarifies my original points a bit :)

well said. your original point was completely clear btw.

I don't think Stallman presents his points in a hysterical way, he's just uncompromising when the vast majority of us are pragmatic by necessity.

The problem is most of us are pretty simple; One cannot resonably follow his advice, thus we believe he is wrong. It's a catch 22 though, as if more agreed, at least some of his ideals would be worthwhile.

Personally I'm not super bothered about whether your flash in the pan app is open source or not, but it's really frustrating when people don't buy into open data standard and open hardware drivers. Ultimately, that's a bit like chopping your foot off to save your toe.

Yes, it does make me very sad too. A lot of this community has nothing to do with the hacker philosophy and they'd even think is enough to be a good programmer to be called a hacker (when in fact it's the other way round: you can be quite illiterate with computers and still be a fantastic hacker). This website used to be called "start up news": sometimes I think it was a more appropriate name.

I don't understand. The few snarky comments that are in this thread have all been downvoted. My impression is generally (from this and other threads) that the HN audience is quite positive towards Assange and his mission.

Regarding Stallman I personally held him in higher regard 10 years ago, but I have no feeling for the general opinion about him, I might be an outlier.

It's discouraging to observe that Assange's word are met by the tech community here with the same snark and derogation that Stallman's were a decade or so ago.

Where? Looking here and at most blogs and forums I'd say the tech community is heavily and uncritically supportive of Assange.

Assange and Stallman are world apart, but yes, I have no problem dismissing both.

Personally, I still find it insane that people run code on machines they own without being able to examine the source. Many of these programs have access to all of your files as well!

I can understand that people will run code without examine the source for it. What I don't understand is how we at the same time consider bugs and crashes the responsibility of the user, and not something that the developer is liable for.

You want to sell me software and refuse to tell me how it work. Fine. Just be dam ready to take responsibility for said software when it breaks my computer. And don't even try to steal my private data.

If a hire a cleaner, and the person goes around and steal information from my desk, I don't really care if the hire contract of 40 pages said somewhere "might collect data for improvement of the service". nor do I care if it also say "no liability" when the china/laptop/valuable item crash into the floor by the careless cleaner.

On other hand, if you give me the source, I got the tool to verify the code, make sure nothing breaks, and fix problems. Like if I buy a power tool, it really is my responsibility if I hurt myself with it.

I never understood this view, why? Because of all the businesses I deal with daily whose systems I do not have source too store my personal data in some form or another. Some of them even store information I do not store at home, hell some of it I am probably not allowed to; medical.

I look at it that way, there are far too many sources out of my control to worry about a few programs or more at home. I don't have the time to review all that code even if I had it at home, let alone be able to say with a straight face I understood it all.

So I will stay in your insane category, frankly anyone who actually lives by that mantra would never turn a computer on.

No, full-blown dogmatic Free Software folks just run all Free Software. Please continue to go ahead questioning dogma, as dogma is usually not healthy; but your learned helplessness is equally unhealthy.

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