From reading the other comments here, I understand that it's easy to pick something RMS said and say "Yeah, right..."
But you have to keep in mind that RMS advocates the free software philosophy - the complete left end of the software spectrum - the white angel on your shoulder (not the red devil on the other).
And while I find some of his points too radical to implement practically in my own situation, I believe it's very important that we have someone like him in the tech world. As a result, whenever there is a RMS talk, I listen to it. And each time I gain new and valuable perspectives about free software that help guide future decisions.
>>> And while I find some of his points too radical to implement practically in my own situation, I believe it's very important that we have someone like him in the tech world. As a result, whenever there is a RMS talk, I listen to it. And each time I gain new and valuable perspectives about free software that help guide future decisions.
Most people would probably find his views and recommendations as too extreme to be practical, but he really does practice what he preaches in terms of only using free software for his own computing:
> I never pay for anything on the Web, because I cannot pay anonymously.
Wow. My first thought upon reading that is that seems quite extreme. Having said that, it just shows you how normalized it's become to track all transactions.
Right, the fact we transitioned into this new model, and it was really just him and a few others screaming about it is a little sad. It really doesn't seem easy to go back (to a more anonymous society) at this point either.
I ask myself how he pays for his servers. Does it count if another person does it? Apparently, he connects to the internet over an other person.
I think that's a real issue. If you have enough power that other persons do the stuff for you, it doesn't mean it's a way in which other persons can do it as well.
I'm very much not a fan of RMS, but here's one way you can square that circle:
He and you could both live by the principle that you do as much to fit your principles as you feasibly can.
If you have someone to help you get online anonymously for free, you do that. If you need to pay to be online, you do that instead.
If you can get by in life without buying things and being tracked, you do that. If you can't do that, because it's not the life you can imagine living, you don't.
The more important the principle (to you), the more you sacrifice to implement it.
Low-to-no military spending is important enough to me that I won't work for a defense contractor. It's honestly not important enough for me to purposefully earn less than the taxable minimum (and thus pay no taxes, and thus pay no military money).
And of course by evidence, "Anonymous internet" is important enough to RMS to live an ultra-hippie life, but not important enough to use no internet at all.
I completely agree with you except that I think that politics is important and not working for a defense contractor is insufficient. Everything I am pointing out is that there are shortcomings in RMS' model that can't be applied to everyone. I am not a "fan" of RMS, either. I am not a "fan" of anyone.
"I never pay for anything on the Web, because I cannot pay anonymously. Anything on the net that requires payment that would identify me, I don't do. (I made an exception for the fees for the stallman.org domain, since that is connected with me anyway.)"
Personally, I really hate all the tracking. But I also really need to advance some aspects of my life because time grows short and I ended up raising my granddaughter.
(She will either kill me off, or I get a lot stronger! Lol)
So, I pay. But will also contribute time and money to good causes. Not happy about all that, but I need what I need too, so does the fam.
Tons of people struggle like this. It has to be important to have the conversations sans the judgement.
I wouldn't describe the most extremist viewpoint on most matters as a white angel. Extremism tends to turn off some people from the cause when it looks somewhat irrational. Telling people they're bad and shouldn't play non-free videogames certainly isn't going to help things much. If you make someone who would otherwise be on your side feel guilty everytime they pick up a controller to unwind at the end of the day, that's hard to swallow.
It's not extremism -- it's representing a value -- of being able to access, learn, and change the code that we run and use to improve our lives.
One perspective would say "RMS/Free-software advocates are saying only free games should be played" -- but another is:
"If we want to have access to the code for the games we play (as a value), what economic, legal and technical infrastructure (rather than depending on current copyright, DRM, etc) do we need?" If that's something we want, how do we advocate for it?
IMHO there is nothing irrational about RMS position, but it is often impractical. That means we need to push harder in his direction because it shouldn't be a practical impossibility to do what he advocates. That difficulty is exactly the problem his crusade is fighting against.
You can't control if people think your viewpoint is extremist or guilt-inducing. Some viewpoints can be logically categorized as being at the end of a defined spectrum. Many cannot, and there is much room for debate on whether or not they're extremist.
>You can't control if people think your viewpoint is extremist or guilt-inducing.
True. I'm not saying he can control the impact of his viewpoint, I'm making an observation on what that impact may be.
>and there is much room for debate on whether or not they're extremist.
Also true. I classify RMS as an extremist, but recognize that reasonable people may disagree.
>Some viewpoints can be logically categorized as being at the end of a defined spectrum
That is pretty much the definition of extremism, being at the final end point on either end of a spectrum. But then that's why I don't gravitate towards viewpoints that exist only as a single point on a spectrum. I prefer a multi axial approach that takes various considerations into account. Unfortunately for me that often makes it significantly harder to convey a short answer on my views, because they are fairly nuanced.
As far as RMS, he may have planted a very good seed, but I don't think that OSS would have gained dominance in many areas if there had not been more moderate & practical people working in the area.
He's not saying people are bad, he's saying that using non-free software (his version of the term) is bad and bad for people. I don't think believe the individual is a bad person. Now I'm sure that he views people like Bill Gates as a bad person or Elon Musk (for locking down Tesla software intentionally) as they use their pulpits to lower people's personal freedom with software.
That seems to stem from a very Christian "hate the sin, not the sinner" foundation. For me, it's always been difficult to separate a person doing bad things from the person also being bad.
The stereotypical angel, though, is usually encouraging you to make the incrementally best decision in any situation. That's not really the message RMS sends. If a proprietary software developer says "hey, RMS has inspired me, I'm going to make sure users have lots of control over this new feature I'm developing", have they done a praiseworthy thing? I think so, and it sounds like you might too, but I don't get the sense that anyone in the free software movement would agree.
Your example us two decisions, the decision to make user friendly software and the decision to give it a proprietary license. No matter how praiseworthy your efforts on the first decision are, the second one is still something he's not willing to tolerate.
It's just... curious that you rarely see this kind of grace extended to other sorts of radicals and subversives. Not that it doesn't happen ever, but there seem to be certain subjects where we appreciate this role and others where we don't.
As someone who has heard the name but never looked into his message until now, is Stallman always so gung-ho on "All software should be free software"? Specifically, when I hit his comments regarding video games, I was quite shocked. "Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it.", if that's the case, then is any entertainment that comes at a monetary fee bad? How ahout proprietary software for niche fields? Perhaps I need to do some more research on his stance, but from this article it seems that he doesn't believe that the software industry should exist (using industry defined as "a sector of economy").
"Free" here does not mean "free of charge", it means "libre" (guarantees the four essential freedoms [1]). The common quip is "free as in freedom, not as in free beer".
Yes, someone will redistribute it without charge, but there are still ways you can make money from libre software:
• selling physical media (e.g. an installation disk or drive)
• selling downloads from a trusted, official server (with the bandwidth to serve a global audience)
• selling support
• asking for donations
• adopting a patreon model (if you want so-and-such feature or modification, please fund me so that I can do so)
and so on. Admittedly, it is more difficult to make money from libre software than non-libre software, but that seems to be a consequence of the law allowing non-libre software to be sold as it is (i.e. treating software like other copyrightable material). "It's more difficult to make money from libre software" is essentially "it's more difficult to make money when you don't threaten to sue people for inspecting, modifying, or exercising ownership of the tools they use". We could similarly say "it's easier to make money when you can threaten people at gunpoint", which would simply be true! were it not for society imposing a high price (imprisonment) for doing so.
> "The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others"
>
> How is that not always going to end up being "free of charge"? Someone is always going to end up redistributing it without charge.
If you redistribute it. Doesn't mean you cannot sell your own software and allow the user to have the source code. The GPL allows the end-user to redistribute it, for free if they want, but it's essentially a non-supported, always behind version.
If the end-user adds some nice functionality to the software AND they then redistribute it, then they are forced to provide the source for the changes they made, which allows you, as the vendor, to incorporate those changes into your product. The idea is that, for any piece of software, the entire community of users will have the ability to modify that software.
After multiple iterations, even companies will get in on the act because they save money by contributing to, and using, the commons.
The point of the free software movement is not to prevent companies from making money writing software (that's a side-effect, sure), it's to ensure that the end-users' freedom to change the software is guaranteed.
Now you may argue that such a position, taken to its logical conclusion, will result in software developers never getting paid again. You may even be right. However that is not relevant to the movement's goals. Their goal is having a particular right for the end-user. Their goals does not include the well-being of the software developer.
It is pointless to argue that the movement, if successful, will result in software development being a non-paid activity, because not only is that not a goal for the movement, it's not even a concern for them. Hence, the argument is irrelevant.
> It is pointless to argue that the movement, if successful, will result in software development being a non-paid activity, because not only is that not a goal for the movement, it's not even a concern for them. Hence, the argument is irrelevant.
That is incredibly false. It is always legitimate to argue implications.
> That is incredibly false. It is always legitimate to argue implications.
It's not "incredibly false"; like everything else in life, it's "sometimes it depends".
In this case, making a successful argument against free software based on a side-effect of the movement has little to no effect:
1. The movement doesn't care. It's of no concern to them, so at worst they'll ignore it, at best they'll suggest mitigations. They aren't going to stop their cause.
2. The developers of the free software don't care. Many of them are already paid well even though the movement has been around for most of their entire lifetimes, and for most of them their jobs already depend on free software. They aren't going to care about what the implications are because in the last 40 years there hasn't been any negatives for the clear majority of developers, while they currently depend on it.
3. The users of free software (which includes almost all developers alive today) care very much that free software continues being a thing. They depend on it. Doesn't matter how accurate your argument is, they'll ignore it too.
So, once again, who is the target audience of any argument against free software? If all the audiences are going to mostly ignore it because it is against their best interests, why continue tilting at windmills?
He's a fairly important figure in free software. Probalby more like a godfather than a father I'd say. He lives what he preaches and he means it. I respect that. He sees any software (including firmware and video games) as bad unless you get a copy of the software so that you can modify it. His own license adds more stipulation to that like "if you distribute this software you have to release the code (and copyrights notices) that goes with it or make it available to those distributed to so they can modify it for their own use and this license is sticky". It's a bit more complicated than that but that's the jist. I think people who dismiss him as a nut should revisit how many times they've complained they are stuck with software/hardware that they can't get to work like they want or repair it because the company is defunct or refuses to fix old (non-lucrative) software/firmware.
This quote is almost useless unless you know its origins. I think it comes across as a bit disrespectful of the people you're aiming it at because most won't know what the hell you're getting at unless they look it up.
I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you there. If you're having to research the history of the phrase, you're overthinking it. It means exactly what it states, no tricks. "Free speech" is a well known phrase that means the unencumbered ability to say what you like. "Free beer" means something that everyone (ostensibly) likes being handed out without the need for payment. I'm not sure how one could more simply explain the "free" dichotomy. If you've got a suggestion, I'm open to hearing it.
There is no implication in the quote that beer is generally free, just that "free" in the context of beer generally means gratis whereas in the context of speech it does not.
If you release a game "free" as in "free speech", how is it not "free" as in "free beer" as well? What would prevent people from redistributing it? Nothing.
I guess I don't understand the question. Plenty of open-source projects charge money for a license. And even closed-source / non-free games have pirates. The availability of the soucre code does not determine a business model, the licensing does.
It's not really the end of the world if only some people pay for your software. You could charge for binaries but let people build from the source. You are willingly giving people the freedom to redistribute those binaries, such as to their friends. It's just not an issue. It's not a crime that needs to be prevented.
Surely the "red revil" would be these guys https://www.freebsd.org/ who, while certainly not having the exact same philosophy as RMS's, share a fair amount with it...
> But you have to keep in mind that RMS advocates the free software philosophy - the complete left end of the software spectrum
I don't think this is true! There are notable portions of the free software community that are farther left (or whatever direction you may consider it to be) than Stallman and GNU.
Debian, for instance, rejects the GFDL as a non-free license when the "invariant sections" or "cover texts" mechanisms are used. These are clauses that allow GFDL documents to include words or even entire chapters that cannot be modified or removed from copies of the document. Stallman uses this clause to include a section about the ethics of the free software movement in documents like the GCC manual. Now, explaining the ethics of the free software movement is of course an important cause. But the manner in which this is done - preventing the GCC manual, or portions of it, from being freely modified in its entirety, from being recombined freely with other documents or code with otherwise-compatible licenses - is, in the view of Debian and others, incompatible with the free software philosophy.
This is a farther / more radical view. Stallman's view is that making some unmodifiable and unremovable sections in an otherwise-free work is an acceptable compromise. Debian's view is that there is no room for compromise. And Debian is an entire (and quite influential) Linux distribution.
Or take the AGPL, for instance, sponsored by now-defunct startup Affero. There are many people (myself included) who believe the AGPL is a restriction on use, freedom 0, because it prevents you from using AGPL software in certain contexts where the requirements cannot be fulfilled. Suppose I find some AGPL code with a neat algorithm for a session cache, or something, and I want to incorporate that into a TLS library. There is absolutely no way to fulfill the AGPL's requirement to make source code available to users who interact with my code over the network. The clause triggers, because users are indeed interacting over the network, but since there's no TLS extension to offer source, I can't actually do so. This is, it seems to me, as much of a restriction on use as "You can't use this in commercial settings" or "You can't use this for military applications." There's a reason that even GNU still uses the GPL for much of its software - they know the AGPL would make lots of their code effectively unusable in contexts where it ought to be usable.
Or, in the left-libertarian direction, consider the folks who want to abolish copyright entirely. The GPL fundamentally relies on copyright law, else it cannot have its particular effect over the MIT/BSD/etc. licenses where it requires redistributing source along with binaries. The GPLv2 itself starts by saying, "To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions" - there is a coherent political view that this is contradictory. There is certainly a popular view, popular among the BSDs and others, that those licenses are freer than the GNU ones. But there is also the farther and more radical view that even the MIT and BSD licenses are a compromise, and the goal should be questioning the validity of software copyrights the same way much of the free software community questions the validity of software patents.
(In fact, among non-experts, you can find a very common view that because something is released to the public in certain ways it ought to be "public domain." The Berne rule of every creative work being automatically copyrighted isn't clearly obvious to the general public, and it's a relatively recent rule, too!)
Stallman is influential, yes, and very passionate. But that's entirely different from him being all the way at the end of the range of discourse. It is worth listening to folks whose positions are less well-known but more radical.
First off, I love these kinds of discussions, debates. Thank you.
IIRC, RMS rejected forfeiting rights, eg public domain, to better protect users of software. Maybe the thinking was that the absence of copyright would lead to seizure (capture) and exploitation of the works.
I'd love to know how that's actually worked out, empirically. Like comparing outcomes of similar projects which used different licenses.
Yeah RMS definitely is adding a moderating factor with the license to ensure that the software stays open unlike MIT/BSD where you just have to note that you're using it to those you are distributing it to and include any copyright notices of the authors (and the license notice of course)
> Or take the AGPL, for instance, sponsored by now-defunct startup Affero. There are many people (myself included) who believe the AGPL is a restriction on use, freedom 0, because it prevents you from using AGPL software in certain contexts where the requirements cannot be fulfilled.
> The GPLv2 itself starts by saying, "To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions" - there is a coherent political view that this is contradictory.
There will _always_ be such restrictions. For an extreme, but derived from the same philosophical core, example: the act of murder is an individual freedom, but it imposes on other peoples' freedoms. So we have to make a choice between which freedom is more important: that of the person whose life is at risk, or that of the person who wants to take lives. The formal concepts are referred to as negative liberty (freedom from murder) and positive liberty (freedom to murder someone).
The modern world leans heavily towards negative liberty because we recognise that freedom isn't some absolute individualistic freedom, but rather that it is better to balance freedom in favour of most people. That's why stealing, killing, sexual assault, and many other things are freedoms we deem unethical and unnecessary.
Some people say, "well, it's just software" which is dismissive of the idea that software can have very bad effects, indirect and direct, on the world, so we must empower ourselves.
> Or, in the left-libertarian direction, consider the folks who want to abolish copyright entirely.
There are also those on the left who want this, but also to go _beyond_ simply abolishing. If you abolish copyright without requiring code and build instructions to be open source as well, you just end up with people and companies who instead keep their code secret.
It's why, when slavery was abolished, it wasn't enough. The former slaves were free, but were now in a world where the power structures were not in their favour, meaning they could still be taken advantage of and treated like slaves and were still being oppressed.
Libertarian views are usually rejected by the left as right wing, instead when you talk about leftists with less authoritarian views, they call themselves anarchists (or even reject that label, and say they're "doing anarchism" rather than being "anarchists").
>There will _always_ be such restrictions. For an extreme, but derived from the same philosophical core, example: the act of murder is an individual freedom, but it imposes on other peoples' freedoms. So we have to make a choice between which freedom is more important: that of the person whose life is at risk, or that of the person who wants to take lives. The formal concepts are referred to as negative liberty (freedom from murder) and positive liberty (freedom to murder someone).
Your example seems messy because people seem very opposed to the notion of a freedom to cause harm as even being a freedom. So why not avoid that complication entirely?
I think there is an even simpler example that'll work. If one is truly a free person, can they sell themselves into slavery. If we say yes, then allowing slavery is part of the package of ultimate freedom. If we say no, then there is at least one restriction we must include in the package of ultimate freedom. Package of ultimate freedom just being a spur of the moment name I've given to the legal system under which we are most free. Lastly, an answer of the form 'no one should exist in a position of being able to stop you from doing such', such as provided by anarchists, it just an alternate way of answering yes to the question.
I don't think that's the answer provided by anarchists. As far as I understand it, most anarchistic ideas explicitly rely on communities being able to stop you from doing harm. Anarchism is pretty far from libertarian views on individual freedom.
>communities being able to stop you from doing harm
I don't get how these don't qualify as a government. A very small scale one, but still a government.
But either way, that isn't relevant to the example. It is still either a yes/no question, and <insert your chosen name for group that believes in no entities of any sort that can enforce their will on you or change your behavior without your full consent> claiming that there should be no group who can stop you is still answering yes.
But you have to keep in mind that RMS advocates the free software philosophy - the complete left end of the software spectrum - the white angel on your shoulder (not the red devil on the other).
And while I find some of his points too radical to implement practically in my own situation, I believe it's very important that we have someone like him in the tech world. As a result, whenever there is a RMS talk, I listen to it. And each time I gain new and valuable perspectives about free software that help guide future decisions.