"Stallman Was Right"

[woodsmoke]

Re: "Stallman Was Right"

it was QUITE intentional.

woodsmoke

[SteveRiley]

Re: "Stallman Was Right"

Eggbert, what is the point you're attempting to make here? So far, I'm seeing mostly personal criticisms or out-of-context references.

The guy is beyond eccentric, and imho a complete freak.

Asperger syndrome, as someone pointed out in the blog you referenced, is possibly an explanation for his eccentric behavior. But does his predilection for unusual public behavior affect the worthiness of his ideas? If so, why?

parrot sex, he "yearns" for it.

Selective editing and interpretation. Why not instead point us to the source of this information? All living creatures are driven to reproduce. Only humans have managed to wrap some truly weird moral classifications around what is purely a biological act. Stallman's article serves a valid purpose: to get us to ask ourselves whether we're truly better off by labeling certain sexual behaviors "good" and others "bad."

When Stallman writes "I yearn for another chance," you must read that in the context of what he wrote just a few words before: that feather stroking is considered to be a form of sexual foreplay. Stallman is simply expressing his satisfaction from and enjoyment of the attention. It's likely the bird received favorable return; for all we know, Stallman might have stoked its back or belly -- this information is missing.

By omitting context, your statement implies to readers that Stallman wishes to copulate with a bird, and he never said that.

I think the guy is a ticking timebomb, and his "weirdness" may end up unravelling any good the FSF has done. If they were wise, they'd distance themselves from him.

Are you able to support your assertion with evidence? Can you assemble a credible alternate theory that states free software might be more successful had someone else spearheaded the movement? In your write-up, be sure to explain whether you agree or disagree with Stallman's differentiation of "free software" and "open source."

[woodsmoke]

Re: "Stallman Was Right"

Well, this thread has REALLY taken a different turn...but about the Stallman comment.

When the ol' woodsmoker was a young lad he used to raise pigeons.

I got started with a single male "rock pigeon" (the wild type that is the progenitor of all the others) that had a single white "neck feather" in the normal rather emerald sheen.

I found it in a local lead mine, it had fallen from a nest up above and I didn't have the courage to climb up to the nests which numbered in the many, many, hundreds. (way too young!)

Later, I would "steal" fledgelings which had colours that I liked and I used them to make a very nice flock of birds that I would give away as pets to close friends.

However, that male and I "bonded" quite well. So well, in fact, that I could take him into the house and he would not "poop" in the house, he would go over to a window and had a particular walk and call that indicated that he needed to go out to do his business.

Since I raised him as a single male, I also observed such a behaviour but didn't equate with it being a preening for a female.

One has to remember that a bird is a ....well....bird.. ....and that, just as with a cat, or a dog, that the bird can bond with another organism ....and humans are..... organisms.....

Imagine the dog sleeping with the cat....if one has ever kept dogs and cats, one knows that they can become quite "bonded"....

So.... I would think, and it is just my thought...of little worth, that possibly Stallman used the best descriptor that he could come up with...

and one must also remember that he just LOVES to tweak other people's beards!

woodsmoke

[eggbert]

Re: "Stallman Was Right"

Eggbert, what is the point you're attempting to make here?

That RMS comes off as a deranged madman, and runs the risk of undermining his own cause by saying or doing something foolish.

Does his predilection for unusual public behavior affect the worthiness of his ideas? If so, why?

The ideas, I think, stand on their own merits. However, his bizarre behavior and writings make him a poor spokesperson for Free Software. I mean, come on, it's hard to take a guy serious who writes about having sex with animals and dead people. But perhaps I'm unenlightened and failing to grasp the brilliant point he is making here

Are you able to support your assertion with evidence?

No. It's just my gut feeling that he is unhinged, thus I fear he will go off the rails and create a PR disaster for the FSF.

Can you assemble a credible alternate theory that states free software might be more successful had someone else spearheaded the movement?

I can only speculate, but it seems like the open source side has more "street cred." You hardly ever see a big company say they are going to release an application as "free software"... No, they always refer to it as going "open source"... I know it's also a buzz word... but my guess is it's because oss advocates come off as more credible, more reasonable, and less weird than Stallman does for Free Software. PR matters and extremism usually turns people off. Well reasoned, less caustic, advocacy like esr's catb probably did more for "Open Source" in 1 year than 15 years of rms' speeches (about some future dystopia where Big Evil Corporations, Republicans, and The Pope keep us all enslaved because we don't have the source code to our printer drivers) ever did for Free Software.

I am appreciative and thankful for all that he and the FSF has done, but otherwise, I think he is a lousy spokesman.

[woodsmoke]

Re: "Stallman Was Right"

Getting back to the animals thing... it puts me in mind of when I was a kid and kept a herd of Hereford cattle. I had two young bulls, and we all know what young men sorry bulls do when they are standing around with nothing to do but impress the heifers.

So, since I had several pieces of property leased I took one of them over to another piece for the summer. The grass was not nearly as good there so I also took hay and put hay out there regularly.

At the end of the summer I brought him back and since it was pouring rain that day a lot of the animals were in the "loafing barn" and I was putting hay into the stancions for them to eat and most of them had their heads in the stancions eating and as I was walking down the backlane the one bull that I had taken to the other farm said to the first one:

"So how was your summer?

Other one:

"Oh you know, same ol same ol plenty of grass and the girls were friendly. How was your summer?"

"Not that good, there wasn't much grass but the human did bring hay."

The first one asked:

"So how was the girl situation."

The second one:

"Not as good as here, there was just one steer and all he could do was talk about his operation!".

woodsmoke

[GreyGeek]

Re: "Stallman Was Right"

....
To be perfectly honest, I don't give a crap whatever he does with parrots.

I'll bet they are very tasty grilled and sauteed with Teriyaki sauce! (g,r,d from DYK)

[woodsmoke]

Re: "Stallman Was Right"

Ok so we moved from commentary about Stallman and FOSS etc. to parrots and questionable practices, to herefords and now back to parrots!

WHAT A PLACE!!

woodsmoke

[dibl]

Re: "Stallman Was Right"

It's often a very thin line between "Visionary Genius" and "Nut Job On Wheels". RMS stands in close vicinity to that line, IMHO -- I don't think eggbert is all wrong here. Just my two cents' worth, and well worth the price!

[woodsmoke]

Re: "Stallman Was Right"

+1 dlbl
woodsmoke

[GreyGeek]

Re: "Stallman Was Right"

If you collaborate in the destruction of RMS you also assist in the destruction of the GPL. No one, I repeat, NO ONE, does as much to defend the GPL as Stallman, nor is anyone even come close to matching his dedication to that purpose. The forces of proprietary software are doing everything they can to plunder the commons, steal its resources and patent them for profit. The most classic example of this is the OSI (Open Source Initiative) begun by Bruce Perens and Eric S Raymond. His good intentions were subverted when he invited various members to the board who did not have the same understanding or love of Open Source as he did. Quite bluntly, the GPL, and ONLY the GPL, because of its four freedoms, is Open Source. Perens resigned from the organization he founded, and ESR departed later. Now, there are about 60 licenses "approved as OS" by the OSI. ONLY the GPL includes the Four Freedoms and excludes "gotcha" clauses characteristic of many of the other licenses. You cannot exclude any of those four freedoms and call a license an OS license, nor can you modify or "extend" them and have them still retain their current conditions of Freedom.

Why 60+ licenses? Confusion of choice for the ignorant. If you aren't knowledgeable about the GPL and you are told that the OSI collects and describes the "Open Source" licenses available, you browse around the site. The information on their page presents all the licenses, including the GPL, as minor variations on OS theme. No difference? No big deal? WRONG! Imagine you heard about a fruit that was really tasty and had lots of nutritional benefits. You heard that it was legal to take seeds from fruits your friends planted and plant your own fruit. However, none of your friends have planted that variety of fruit. You go to the Tasty Fruit Initiative garden and notice dozens of species of fruit that appear to be the same. The plants look the same. The fruits look the same. They smell the same. But, in light gray print, embedded in only slightly darker gray print on the back of the sales slip, in very small, hardly readable font, is a statement that says "these plants do not contain viable seeds", etc....

It is wise, on occasions, to review the Four Freedoms for software use:

We maintain this free software definition to show clearly what must be true about a particular software program for it to be considered free software. From time to time we revise this definition to clarify it. If you would like to review the changes we've made, please see the History section below for more information.

“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.”

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it means that the program's users have the four essential freedoms:


The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3).

By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms.

RMS gave his reasons:

My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal: spreading freedom and cooperation. I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietary software that forbids cooperation, and thus make our society better.

That's the basic reason why the GNU General Public License is written the way it is—as a copyleft. All code added to a GPL-covered program must be free software, even if it is put in a separate file. I make my code available for use in free software, and not for use in proprietary software, in order to encourage other people who write software to make it free as well. I figure that since proprietary software developers use copyright to stop us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to give other cooperators an advantage of their own: they can use our code.

Not everyone who uses the GNU GPL has this goal. Many years ago, a friend of mine was asked to rerelease a copylefted program under noncopyleft terms, and he responded more or less like this:

“Sometimes I work on free software, and sometimes I work on proprietary software—but when I work on proprietary software, I expect to get paid.”

He was willing to share his work with a community that shares software, but saw no reason to give a handout to a business making products that would be off-limits to our community. His goal was different from mine, but he decided that the GNU GPL was useful for his goal too.

If you want to accomplish something in the world, idealism is not enough—you need to choose a method that works to achieve the goal. In other words, you need to be “pragmatic.” Is the GPL pragmatic? Let's look at its results.

He then discusses how pragmatic the GPL is. An "insane" person discussing pragmatism? How is that possible?

[GreyGeek]

Re: "Stallman Was Right"

.....
There's also this blog post that sums up his "weirdness" nicely
http://lunduke.com/?p=725
....

Bryan Lunduke, a former MS coder who now produces the Linux Action Show, is merely expressing HIS opinion about Stallman's personal preferences. A person is entitled to behave according to his own philosophy of life, as long as it isn't detrimental to the lives of others. I can swing my fist all I want. My right to do so ends at your nose.

Not wanting to use cellphones is "weird"? Not if you consider that even with your cellphone "TURNED OFF" it is possible for someone to activate your microphone and listen in to nearby conversations without you knowing it is happening. With it on, apparently anything is possible.

Now that the President has been given the (what I interpret as illegal and unconstitutional) authority to declare anyone or group a "terrorist" and imprison them secretly and indefinitely without formal charges or knowledge of what they are being accused, you can expect to see people with viewpoints opposing those in office disappearing (see NSA Letters) without apparent reason. You are joking around with friends over a beer in a bar and make a statement like, "(am I being paranoid for not specifically making a provocative, politically incorrect statement here?)". A few days later you don't show up at work. No one knows where you are. Three months later, on an obscure website, a sentence states you are "being held" under suspicion of being a terrorist. The only way to have a private conversation is to remove the battery from your cellphone. Even then, you have no idea where the parabolic mike is located that is recording your conversations from 200 feet away, or infrared laser beam from several hundred feet. This is not a partisian issue.

What RMS chooses to listen to, or not, or to wear or not, or which genre of music he prefers, or what mode of transportation he uses, is no ones business but his own. And, he doesn't have to explain or justify his reasons to anyone. Those are the same rights anyone in a free country has, as long as it remains free. You included. So, while you consider him a lunatic, I consider him a sane man who has carefully thought out his personal philosophy and follows it the best he can.

[Telengard]

Re: "Stallman Was Right"

The forces of proprietary software are doing everything they can to plunder the commons, steal its resources and patent them for profit.

Brings to mind something I wrote recently in response to someone who openly expressed contempt for Free Software.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post4548413

And in a Linux Forum no less

[GreyGeek]

Re: "Stallman Was Right"

....
Brings to mind something I wrote recently in response to someone who openly expressed contempt for Free Software.
...
And in a Linux Forum no less

That troll reminds me of Steve Barkto on the old OS/2 Canopus Forum on Compuserv.

[Detonate]

Re: "Stallman Was Right"

Ah, good old Compuserve!! Before the World Wide Web. I loved it!!
73667,2407

[HalationEffect]

Re: "Stallman Was Right"

When people don't have a good counter-argument to the message, they often resort to attacking the messenger instead.

Seems like RMS is falling afoul of this >