RMS Feels There's "A Systematic Effort To Attack GNU Packages"

[Remdul]

It is inevitable that RMS will eventually be right, since most will disregard him (at first). Otherwise he would be wrong in pointing out the problem, and he just happens to be always right.

[Luke]

This is VERY imaginable to corporations today

RMS believes that you should have the right to tinker and modify any software that you receive. That belief may seem "radical" in today's world, but it comes from a long history of engineering tradition. The idea that you wouldn't be allowed to repair or modify a chair, or car, or hat, or plough, would have been unimaginable to people a hundred years ago.

This is VERY imaginable to corporations today. More and more, they want to ensure that products are sealed, tamper-proof, and with legal penalties for any modification or repair. Remember all those bluffing threats when the iPhone was first jailbroken? This isn't even limited to computers. In the 1990's, when i used to work on old cars, I still remember the sucessful campaign to sink the "design protection act" that would have let automakers copyright everything from fender panels to spark plugs. The bill sank when word got out that in Japan, the same NGK spark plug that sold for a dollar here sold for the equivalent of $7 in Japan. The reason was Japanese laws that make it very difficult to get a car past inspection with any parts on it that didn't come from the dealer.

More seriously, we have companies like Monsanto with their seed patents suing farmers, and Glaxo-SmithKline seeking in every trade deal to prohibit the manufacture of cheap generic drugs. No matter what it takes, corporations that behave like this must be stopped.

[Gps4l]

Everytime RMS has warned about threats to freedom within computing he's been right. Consider that for a moment. The guy predicted the NSA surveillance before anyone esp Snowden had gone public. I would actually sit up and take notice of what he says. Free Software is not a cult, it's one of the most significant freedom movements to have ever occurred in the history of the world. It's definitely going to be crucial in the fight against government surveillance and abuse of power. Computers are the new printing press and the new townhalls for political discussion. Without the freedom to access create and store information as the people/users see fit without worrying about governments, we are all screwed.

I used to think RMS was a joke. Time and watching things play out, has made me realise that the man is actually super intelligent. Perhaps the most intelligent person in the entire computing community.

[Cynical], who cares about freedom, if you can make money ? [/Cynical]

I am shocked by a lot of the reactions in this topic. Most don't seem to give a shit about freedom, which is already taken away from us, in allot of areas.
The claim that windows, has nsa backdoors, is of course just conspiracy talk.

I am not a programmer, just a Linux user, but I don't use linux just because its free. My pc is dual boot, it takes hitting one key to boot windows 7.
I also try to run games I bought through wine, which most game companies already don't like.

I buy a program, but cant use it the way I want ? I love RMS, and his views. (at least the ones I know of) And I do agree with him, and with your post.

[Sonadow]

We're not saying we hate the GPL, we're saying we hate GNU branded software because they would rather have crippled software than software that may(oh no!) enable proprietary usage.
RMS was never for free open source software, he was for spreading his political agenda.

This about sums it up.

It's public knowledge in here that I do not like the GPL; i tolerate it because of its usefulness in software improvement and development. Same way Linus Torvarlds chose GPL for the kernel; he wanted a license where users were required to send back their changes so that the overall stack can benefit, not because of some slimy political agenda.

RMS's own baby, the GPL, does not have a clause granting the FSF (or anybody) the right to block support for competing buildchains just because it's not GNU-branded.

There is only one entity in this world that actively proposes and insists that non-GNU alternatives be put in a disadvantage against GNU counterparts, and that is RMS himself.

[Hugh]

wow

So many negative posting.

I didn't like the GPL when it came out. I wanted the things I created to be freer even than BSD. But as time has gone by, I appreciate the GPL more.

I want more and more of the world's software to be open to me. BSD clearly doesn't accomplish this, and GPL has at least a slight chance.

I'm going to interpret what RMS said, but there's no guarantee that I'm correctly interpreting him. Or, in fact, correct in interpreting other actors.

LLVM was mostly created to avoid the GPL. Various other bits of software have been created for the same reason. The opponents have been companies like Apple and Cisco.

(Next / Apple created Objective C as a part of GCC and then were forced to release it under the GPL for obvious reasons. As I understand it, Jobs was very upset.)

(Cisco released a router with a large chunk of my GPLed code in it. They did not even release the source to me when requested. Much later they did comply with the GPL.)

(A US company produced a video device with Linux in it (I could tell by applying "strings" to the firmware). I requested the source code. They publicly threatened me with a lawsuit for breaking a EULA (to which I had never agreed, even in a token way).)

The GPL has enabled an amazing ecosystem. BSD has not been nearly as successful. That's just empirically true. That is in spite of the fact that the BSD contributors had a long lead-time, more sophistication, more professionalism, more institutional support, and more commercial take-up (essentially all UNIX systems).

There have been defeats that Gnu has earned. The control on GCC to prevent modularity was what forced academic compiler researchers to a new platform. That and Apple's funding are what have made LLVM a viable rival.

[ihatemichael]

RMS demanding to remove tux logos from his conference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLBq4vn8_Mk

Fuck all the "open source" traitors.

[Sonadow]

RMS demanding to remove tux logos from his conference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLBq4vn8_Mk

Fuck all the "open source" traitors.

Then put your money where your mouth is and use Hurd.

Can't do it?

Then keep quiet.

[peppercats]

... and he just happens to be always right.

if you've actually read any of his babbling, you'd realize he's wrong a lot. Just a few months ago he furiously defended that absolutely no smart-phones have removable batteries despite never even owning a smart phone.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Luke_Wolf]

if you've actually read any of his babbling, you'd realize he's wrong a lot. Just a few months ago he furiously defended that absolutely no smart-phones have removable batteries despite never even owning a smart phone.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

not only is he often wrong, his ideas are often dangerous... to whit:

http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/su-invocation.html#index-fascism-2365

23.6.1 Why GNU su does not support the ‘wheel’ group

(This section is by Richard Stallman.)

Sometimes a few of the users try to hold total power over all the rest. For example, in 1984, a few users at the MIT AI lab decided to seize power by changing the operator password on the Twenex system and keeping it secret from everyone else. (I was able to thwart this coup and give power back to the users by patching the kernel, but I wouldn't know how to do that in Unix.)

However, occasionally the rulers do tell someone. Under the usual su mechanism, once someone learns the root password who sympathizes with the ordinary users, he or she can tell the rest. The “wheel group” feature would make this impossible, and thus cement the power of the rulers.

I'm on the side of the masses, not that of the rulers. If you are used to supporting the bosses and sysadmins in whatever they do, you might find this idea strange at first.

This perverse extreme of user freedom, is the whole point and policy of the FSF, anyone who doesn't understand this doesn't understand the Free Software movement. The consequences of this are horrifying. Imagine for a moment living in the slum of a major metropolitan area, now imagine that there are no doors, and anyone can walk in and do whatever they want. What do you think is going to happen? In all likelihood you're going to be assaulted, robbed, raped, possibly even killed if you try to resist. Your place might be taken over and turned into a crack house.

A land without locks or doors might be fine in a suburbia or rural area, but that's not the internet. The internet is a harsh slumland, filled with malicious people out to steal or cause harm. We the user need not only doors but locks to lock them and bars for the windows. This is why I disagree with Stallman's vision.

Further let's say I'm a business owner, and I provide computing resources to my employees to do the work I require of them, do I not have the right to restrict their usage to work related tasks? According to Stallman I do not. This is why I disagree with Stallman's vision.

Let's say I'm working on a sensitive document, or am doing something sensitive that I don't wish to share my involvement in (let's say one's browsing history re: porn), do I not have a right to conceal these? Not according to Stallman, remember there are no doors, and as a result no privacy. This is why I disagree with Stallman's Vision.

If you don't understand the basis for these statements please check out anything where Stallman is talking about his MIT days, and stuff where he's talking about software freedom in general.

[ihatemichael]

Then put your money where your mouth is and use Hurd.

Can't do it?

Then keep quiet.

At least I'm not a traitor of free software like most of you.

Go do some "free open source work" for your fascist corporate friends.