Stallman Responds To GNOME Questionaire 542
proclus writes: "Stallman's
response to the GNOME board election process
is a lesson in the application of free software principles. For Stallman, GNOME is a GNU project, and the main goal is to promote free software. His consistancy and ethics are admirable, but one wonders if GNOME has grown beyond its roots in the free software community. Is Stallman's view of GNOME too narrow?
The GNU-Darwin Distribution
and
The Fink
projects are a case in point. It is simply amazing how many people want to use GNOME together with Mac OSX, and yet in Stallman's view, this would be an example of GNOME falling short of its goals. If free software is used together with proprietary, then the movement has failed to displace proprietary software, and free the users. Is it possible to reach such users with free software ideals, and is it necessary to divorce free software from proprietary in order to accomplish that goal?"
I think (Score:4, Insightful)
No! (Score:5, Insightful)
EX. I may not like Microsoft bashing Linux, but I will defend their right to do so.
Now, that is somewhat of a contrived example of free speech at work, but, it is vital to defend all aspects of freedom. If you take away one person's freedom (the freedom to run Gnome with proprietary software) then what good is the rest of the freedom that is associated with Gnome? How long until other freedoms are taken away in the interest of "the greater good"?
Well (Score:3, Insightful)
Pure Bigotry... (Score:3, Insightful)
Might sound a tad tough but it is just pure bigotry. His definition of "pure" and his insistance that his way is right is down-right insulting. For me the whole point of Open Source is that I can do what I want with it, thats why I like the BSD license. Which basically trusts me to be a nice person and put stuff back, but also says "hell if you want to wrap it with summat else fine".
Open Source is about freedom of choice, if I choose to use proprietary stuff then so be it, that is my choice.
Anyone who mutters on about purity and ethos like this has me worried, I don't care how people use the Open Source stuff I've written, hell its nice that they have used it.
Freedom isn't about purity its about flexibility and choice.
What about using the free version of GNU-Darwin? (Score:2, Insightful)
Stallman is NOT about Freedom (Score:1, Insightful)
This is not flaim.
Stallman is NOT about Freedom. He wants you to be forced to use software in a manner that HE dictates. True freedom, freedom that is embodied by such licenses as the BSD licenses, allows you to use software in whatever manner you see fit. Forcing people to use free software is denying them the RIGHT TO CHOOSE software that is proprietary and potentially better that what is freely available. Having proprietary software available for use creates competition for free software, and can only make it better.
Stallman is not unlike a communist in his views (and I'm sure he is anyway)... they claim that subjecting yourself to communism will "free you" from the yoke of "bourgeois oppression", only to replace is with the yoke of mass exploitation.
To use the word "Free Software" when referring to the GPL and GNU software, is to be disingenuous to the point of lying outright.
Tough Medicine (Score:5, Insightful)
In all of this, RMS has been a constant - he promotes Free Software.
is presence on teh GNOME board would be a case of Tough Medicine. Without an avowed extremist to act as a "conscience" of sorts, it is easy to imagine that GNOME might be tempted to compromise a little here and a little there. As long as you have RMS standing in the corner, reminding everyone (obstinately, ruthlessly, pick your adjective) exactly when we are moving towards the many slippery slopes that can be stumbled across, the concept of Free Software will benefit.
IMHO, RMS deserves a place on that board solely because of his constancy and vision. I personally may disagree with any number of his ideals or issues, but IMHO you need the full spectrum to ensure that the integrity of the project is maintained.
Only be listening to the extremes can you triangulate the middle ground.
putting words in his mouth (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Small victories... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think his goal is (and I think this because my recollection is that he's told me, not because of some analysis I've done) to make the world work for him personally in the way he wants. I've never heard him say he really wants to change the world for its own sake. On that point, he's said the world is full of people he doesn't really necessarily like and has no interest in helping. So doing things "for the world" doesn't seem to matter to him.
People attribute all kinds of ethics and high moral principles to him, but I've never heard him say this was his motive. From all I can tell, and all I've ever heard him say, he's just single-mindedly selfish in a way that happens to have some positive community benefit. So people attribute all kinds of other attributes to him to explain the outcome.
If I'm right about this, it should help you see why things that only partly address an issue don't really make him happy. He wants things to work for him today, not for people generally some day. And so a partial solution is not a solution.
I'm 50-50 on the whole free software thing. I think it's got some pluses, but it also has some minuses. And definitely one of the minuses is having Richard at the helm. Because when I want to discuss social policy, I want to discuss it with someone who understands that compromise is not always evil, that partial solutions can sometimes be better than no solutions, and that there are ways of doing good for the world that don't fit into the narrow definition of free software. I get none of this from Richard.
I think it leads to confusion when the community looks to him for leadership, becuase I don't think he is offering what some see him as offering, and so it never comes out looking like what they expect. Maybe this continued sense of "unexpectedness" makes him look "mysterious", and maybe that's why people have such a continued interest, never being able to predict him because the model they have for him is never aligned with the reality of him. Just guessing.
Free isn't free if it comes with strings attached (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hypocritical os the wrong term. Stallman does not advocate free software then turn around and sell proprietary software. However, his idiology is cotradictory to his goal. he says that he wants freedom for software, however, in his thinking freedom means that everyone must use his modle. that is a contradiction not hypocracy.
Good read! (Score:2, Insightful)
Among other things question 9 stands out:
Gnome: Will you represent the interests of GNOME and the GNOME Foundation over all other personal or corporate interests you may represent?
Stallman: All personal and corporate interests, certainly. But there are two higher interests that rightfully apply to GNOME: the GNU system, and free software.
Translation: No. I will use the BOD position to surreptitiously hijack the goals of this project and subvert them until I alone control all your projects and they are under my license. MUWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Moderators, realise that if the comment was made about anyone else, it would be +1 Funny, so watch it.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Tough Medicine (Score:4, Insightful)
However, most companies don't succeed with this type of leadership. If Gnome is to be successcul, they will need a board of like minded, energetic people to lead them. Do you think there was anyone on Microsquish's board who said "hey, I think we are doing the wrong thing here?".
If the goal of Gnome is to simply encourage 'free' software, then RMS is a good choice. But if they want to be successful as a product, then RMS would simply cause to much dissention to be effective.
Personally, as a businessman, I would never, ever have RMS on a board. He is quite good at pontificating his views, but he is absolutely horrible at seeing other sides of arguments. It's his way or the highway. Can you imagine the board meetings? He would drive everyone else crazy.
My biggest complaint is with Mr. Stallman is the hypocrisy in his definition of 'free'. Freedom = Choice. Mr. Stallman thinks freedom = his way.
But, I could be wrong.
Re:No! (Score:0, Insightful)
NOTE:
* first party developer == original developer who wrote the product
* second party developer == user who also happens to be a developer
* third party developer == a non-user who develops software for the application
Re:Stallman is an honest man (Score:3, Insightful)
There are always 2 sides to every story, and just because he admits his arrogrance doesn't me he has the right to ignore the other "story".
He has to be the most un-interesting person to have on a board of directors, while a brilliant person, i couldn't imagine him having anything but a philispohical word on how things SHOULD be when in all reality someone just needs to give direction on HOW THINGS ALREADY ARE.
And that includes software that makes money, manages money, manages business, manages computers, enables people to work effeciently and effortlessly.
And if that costs a few bucks or ends up being proprietary everyone wins. Freedom is the choice of software, not the limitations of it. I don't want to be limited to only running free software and microsoft doesn't limit me to only running Commercial software.
Let freedom speak for itself and let the people chose what they want.
Re:Doesn't Godwin's law apply here? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:How is this different fron GNU on proprietary U (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure why people have a problem understanding this. Forget about RMS and GNU for a minute, and consider the point of view of any other software developer, say, Apple. Obviously, Apple wants to serve its customers as well as possible, so it wants to make software that can run on and interoperate with Microsoft systems. At the same time, Apple certainly does not want to suggest to users that they ought to rush out and buy the latest version of Windows XP. Like any other software developer, RMS wants to try to promote his own systems as much as possible, while providing compatibility as a convenience to its users. (Of course, that is probably where the similarities between RMS and proprietary software developers end ...)
Re:I think (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, I can see him disapproving of efforts like Wine, which have the potential of turning systems that already are 100% Free into less-than-100% Free. "Hey, MS Office runs in Linux now? Let's stop using KOffice!"
GNOME on the Mac, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite - it takes a 100% proprietary system and turns it into something part Free, part proprietary. This is a good thing, and I'll bet RMS would agree. A beachhead if you will.
Another interesting tidbit from RMS's responses is:
From time to time I face the ticklish task of asking a complete stranger to change the license of his software package. Making this request is like waking up a dragon to ask to borrow its hoard: the developer is likely to find the request impertinent and could easily get angry. Nonetheless, I succeed most of the time.
I wonder if he's had the opportunity to tackle Dan J. Bernstein [cr.yp.to] yet. Although his terms seem to meet the Free Software criteria for me, I hear all the time that Qmail isn't free software.
Re:Tough Medicine (Score:4, Insightful)
If there was any justice in the world (or in the U.S. government) then Microsoft would right now be wishing that they'd had such a conscience. Most of the time, keeping a business focused on ethics (or at least on staying within the law) is a good business practice, not a mistake. It saves you money and time in the long run. Microsoft just happens to have been a giant exception to this so far.
Re:What users want is what is best (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think this is necessarily true. Let's use the pharmaceutical (sp?) world as an example. In that case, it is certainly not the case that what the customers want is what's best for them.
RMS is saying, I think, that the software producing world should have the same responsibility to the public as the pharmaceutical world has. Computers are becoming more and more a critical piece of our infrastructure, and as such, we as a society should demand that our software producers are making software the complies with all of our better interests. RMS is saying that the only way to do that is to hold the software industry to the openness that the pharmaceutical industry is held. Before a drug can be sold to the public it must undergo incredible public scrutiny for the impacts it has on public health. Basically, this is scientific peer review. RMS would say that the same should be true for software and its impact on the overall well being of our critical infrastructure.
Do I agree with this? Dunno, but it can't be easily dismissed. Code Red, ILOVEYOU, the Morris worm, et al, are prime examples of how software can cause actual damage, and these are just the tip of the iceberg. They didn't really cause any direct damage. Had the authors of these worms been bent on destruction, the impact could have been tremendously bad.
I'd love to see the industry come up with a solution to this on its own, but so far our solution includes producing Microsoft. I don't see them volunteering to undergo the kind of scrutiny that Merck and Glaxo have to take on.
Re:I think (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder if he's had the opportunity to tackle Dan J. Bernstein [cr.yp.to] yet. Although his terms seem to meet the Free Software criteria for me, I hear all the time that Qmail isn't free software.
According to RMS, free software must have "The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits." DJB doesn't give that freedom, and that is why Qmail isn't considered "free software".
Personally, I still use tinydns, despite the fact that it is not free software, but I wish there was a comparible alternative to bind which was free software.
Re:Misunderstanding Stallman (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No! (Score:4, Insightful)
He does. I am sure that he is quite happy for instance to be directly involved in porting Emacs to run under NT. And likewise for other projects that he doesn't directly work on.
The point that he is making is that the purpose of free software is not to have as many people use it as possible, but to help develop the idea that software should be free. This is his aim, which you may or may not agree with, but is something that he stuck to clearly thoughout the years.
GNOME is not important to him per se. Free software is important. Seems like an admirable position to me.
Phil
Re:Stallman is right (Score:3, Insightful)
License choice is entirely up to the author of the code, and that's that.
That is simply not true, and it breaks me when I hear it because it so widely accepted inspite of the fact that it is very conceputally dishonest. Copyrights by their very nature are a government imposed monopoly that give a person the power to impose on millions of people. This is not a moral right, and when a person is deprived of this power, they are not violated even if they feel violated. Even the people who put them in the US constitution realised that - which is why copyrights have an expiration date. Perhaps the CEO of Ford would feel violated if I bought a car made in Japan - well sorry, no un-natural monopoly is a right.
Why do none of our other rights have an expiration date? In fact, they didn't even look at copyrights like a property at all back then. Copyrights in the USA were primairly designed to get away from the english system of copyrights which said "if you don't publish anything bad about the king, I'll give you a copyright". By giving copyrights to anybody unconditionally - it got away from this censorship. Unfortunately, those who believe that copyrights are some form of property ruin this, it can only lead to more DMCA rules that take away everyones freedoms.
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
There you go with what?
Lot's of proprietary applications for our nice Free system?
Why exactly do you use Free Software beefstu01? Do you have a reason? If you don't have a reason, besides it idling away your time pleasantly, then why bother submitting posts to a discussion? If you don't have a philosophy, then what exactly do you have to say?
It's not all about Market Share because it is not a Business.
Non-Free Software (Score:2, Insightful)
The only non-free software that I own are my Linux and console games... Maybe some day I will be able to dump non-free software altogether.
If you count consoles, you must also count washing machines, home security systems, and your automobile. Software has become as ubiqitous as screws. And in appliances, it is almost all non-Free.
So I think more than just creating another Free copy of a non-Free package, the ideal should be to inform people's understanding of the issue. Show managers the advantages of Free software. Encourage thought on new definitions of ownership.
not an exception at all (Score:4, Insightful)
Sony, Merck, General Motors, Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola, Disney, Nike, Wal-Mart, Exxon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Monsanto, McDonald's, Nestle, Allstate, Macy's, Bloomingdales, Levi Strauss, Abercrombie & Fitch, British American Tobacco, Doubleclick, Ford, Glaxo Wellcome, Tyson Foods, Titan International, The Gap.
I'm sure if you really cared you could add more names to the list once you remove your anti-Microsoft blinders.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolute Freedom? (Score:3, Insightful)
One could say that to support freedom, they must support the freedom to oppress. Then I guess it could be said that the government is free to outlaw this, and people are free to rebel against the government, but the government is free to lock them up, just as these people are free to run.
Wait a minute... we are 'free.' We are restricted only by limit of power we have in society.
I suppose what we really need is not absolute freedom, but we need to impose our free will on the development of software such that the person who consumes the software faces as little hindrance as possible to the empowerment which software brings them.
Whereas Microsoft et al. is imposing their will on the development of software such that the person who comsumes the software is minimally satisfied while driving maximum profits.
At the same time, the government imposes its will on corporate citizen Microsoft such that their power in society is bolstered. They must balance the power they gain from Microsoft, against the power of Microsoft to bring them more power.
Power is not directly in the form of money. But money can buy power. For Microsoft, thousands of people around the world depend on them to put food on their table. Which the government sees it in its best interest to not exercise its freedom to impede them... today. But the government can control software, it can control these tools of communication.
Free software may put food on some people's tables, but no amount of government control over corporations can influence its development.
If the software is free, and the people are free, the tools to communicate will be free.
People will have the choice whether or not to put commercial software on their machines.
The government will still be free to oppose the freedom of citizens, but they have one less covert way to do it.
Re:Small victories... (Score:1, Insightful)
problem stems from what you want from Stallman.
The man has nothing to say about making money
from "free speech" software, or at least nothing
in a general means that has anything to do with his philosophy. His goal is plain and simple really, it's simply to try to make it so that all software comes with source code that is freely modifiable and extendable. How, this is accomplished and what someone does to put food in their mouth are totally seperate issues.
The problem most people have with Stallman is that they resent him for having ideals that he sticks to. Generally everyone else is prepared to sell their ideals to the highest bidder, Stallman isn't and in a world that only respects money this rankles most people very much.
GNU and RMS (Score:2, Insightful)
I really started to struggle with the RMS agenda and my own values, as I am not anti-business. In my expierences I've not encountered any software engineers that are anti-business... we make our living building software solutions. If a person wants to contribute their own software to a community then great, if not, they should have the opportunity to charge for that software and thats great too!
I don't see the RMS agenda of all-software being free, succeeding, as we can see that businesses are leveraging off of GNU software. IBM is a great example of a company leveraging the GNU software. IBM sells iron that runs Linux... $$, and then sells the support... $$, and then sells proprietary software that runs on Linux... $$
What I think would be more productive for contributors to the Linux community is to establish a non-profit organization, where contributions can be made for the work being done, and to work with the business community to partner in developing future solutions.
Many of the GNU and Unix world is focused on competing with Microsoft? So what is occuring, Linux is eating away at Unix market share, and Microsoft is still growing. Some years from know Linux will begin to eat into Microsoft Desktop/Server market... then what?
Go after Oracle, IBM,
I think it is time for the community to rethink their experiences over the last 10 years and ask themselves what they are really trying to accomplish. Competition is great, i.e Linux vs Microsoft, and doing that in both a non-business and business approach is great. I think its time to clartify the grey areas of current agendas, ie. anti-business, educational, business, hobbiest. GNU is currently all of these, but the FSF is not! I think now is the time for the community and their license to reflect their values.
Regards, Kramer
Re:I think (Score:1, Insightful)
> turning systems that already are 100% Free into
> less-than-100% Free. "Hey, MS Office runs in
> Linux now? Let's stop using KOffice!"
Oh my, musn't let users have the *freedom* to
decide what it is that they wish to use for
themselves...
Re:Stallman's honesty (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's safe to say that "they" want a GNU project as well. If they didn't, they wouldn't have named their project the "GNU Network Object Model Environment."
Re:No! (Score:2, Insightful)
It was the GNOME project's original goal to be a _Free_ software package, because what was previously available was something of a mixed bag. With the inclusion of non-free software in the official GNOME release, now GNOME is the mixed bag.
I'm not sure what that means for this GNU world, but it would seem that either GNOME has changed its view of the reality, or it is seriously lying to its self.
faboo
Free Software (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
My freedom does not interfere with your non-suckage, thankfully.
So, what is your point? Is it "Please be quiet I don't want to hear your philosophising"? Then stop listening. No-one is making you listen to Stallman, or any other free software advocates.
However, the attitude that comes from those like you who don't-give-a-damn about freedom, does interfere with those who do.
Re:No! (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the GPL is more like saying ``you have freedom of speech, but don't libel anyone''. You cannot use your ``freedom'' to contradict the freedoms of others. Thomas Jefferson said something like ``Rightful liberty is unrestricted action within the circle drawn by the equal rights of others''. Note the last phrase: ``equal rights of others''. Yes, other people have rights, and Thomas Jefferson, Richard Stallman, and other radical fanatics expect you to respect those rights!
No, if we had ``freedom for all'', in the
sense of ``Free Software for all'', then every one would have Free Software. If ``freedom for all'' is a right, then everyone has a right to free software. So, the ``right'' of developers to produce proprietary software would be in violation of the rights of users, and so no true right.
So, if developers have a ``right'' to BSD-style licenses, then they have a right to produce proprietary software. (Otherwise a BSD-style license would be meaningless.) Other developers, however, would also have a ``right'' to produce proprietary software, hence conflicting with the ``right'' to BSD-style licenses. So, your ``freedom for all'' is:
Maybe Stallman's model isn't freedom, but neither is yours.
Yeah, and if Roosevelt had really believed that Free Countries are better than tyrannies, he wouldn't have fought the Japs, since freedom would win out. I'm not saying that what software hoarders do is as bad as what the Japs did at a Pearl Harbor, or elsewhere, but in both cases the point is: sometimes you gotta fight. George Orwell said, ``Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist.'' I say ``BSD-pushers are objectively pro-proprietary software.''
<snip>
News flash: ``freedom'' is something you've got a right to; something you can fight for if you don't get it. However, you don't want me to have any legal recourse if anyone tries to take this ``freedom'' away from me. Sorry, but your idea of ``freedom'' is not even consistent, much less freedom.
<snip>
Sadly, I cannot agree with you that your model is self-consistent.