Richard Stallman Reportedly Steps Down As Head Of The GNU Project

[Guest]

I think this article should be amended with information that the information turned out to be fake.

[azdaha]

Yep, some SJW people of the "Free Software Movement", fighting for extreme position of freedom (emphasis on free as in free beer) to take anything they want, would be quite nice addition to The Circus ;-)

I like, and share, the view, that Free Software is a way to change the world towards a better place. The only thing, that I'm against regarding Free Software, is the extreme leftist position/attitude of some Free Software advocates/proponents. My disagreement only applies to that extreme - these SJW people of FSF, and GPL license.

History confirms, that socialism didn't work well.

Actually, history confirms that lack of Socialism does not end well. French Revolution American Revolution has been attributed to that as well, btw. If you are implying that the Soviet Union failed because of Socialism, you are probably wrong; unless you also mean that the only way to govern is through perpetual militarism.

I better stop, as this thread is all over the place and, yet again, troll central and the original article/announcement was proven to be false.

[agronick]

I wonder how many people who think this is grave injustice would feel the same way if they read his blog posts. I was totally against Stallman long before this came out. His recent issues pale in comparison to the fact that he posted multiple times on his blog that he children should be having sex with adults. Ever since I read those posts I've been completely against him. Add to that the fact that he would harass the women who worked at MIT and his recent statements and this is a no-brainer that he should step down.

Here are some of the things hes posted on his blog over the years:

I am sceptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.

There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children. Granted, children may not dare say no to an older relative, or may not realise they could say no; in that case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel imposed to them. That’s not willing participation, it’s imposed participation, a different issue.

Dubya has nominated another caveman for a federal appeals court. Refreshingly, the Democratic Party is organizing opposition. The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia" also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally — but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.

Some rules might be called for when these acts directly affect other people's interests. For incest, contraception could be mandatory to avoid risk of inbreeding. For prostitution, a license should be required to ensure prostitutes get regular medical check-ups, and they should have training and support in insisting on use of condoms. This will be an advance in public health, compared with the situation today.

For necrophilia, it might be necessary to ask the next of kin for permission if the decedent's will did not authorize it. Necrophilia would be my second choice for what should be done with my corpse, the first being scientific or medical use. Once my dead body is no longer of any use to me, it may as well be of some use to someone. Besides, I often enjoy rhinophytonecrophilia (nasal sex with dead plants).

I've read that male dolphins try to have sex with humans, and female apes solicit sex from humans. What is wrong with giving them what they want, if that's what turns you on, or even just to gratify them?

A parrot once had sex with me. I did not recognize the act as sex until it was explained to me afterward, but being stroked on the hand by his soft belly feathers was so pleasurable that I yearn for another chance. I have a photo of that act; should I go to prison for it?

You can find the source of any of these quotes by searching them on stallman.org like this in Google site:stallman.org "recognize the act as sex until it was explained to me afterward"

Freedom of speach is not freedom of consequences. I can promote pedophilia all I want (which is sex with prepubescent children). I can not expect to say things like this at work and keep my job.

[Guest]

You might be going too far there, actually. Your "research and development" is based on "acquired things for free"; whether it's thousands of years of prior research, learning, and publishing, or the ubiquity of the open source code that helped you to become a developer in the first place. There are valid reasons, obviously, to be rewarded for your work and expertise. However, it would have to be done in a different way; either by providing a service while using the free tools/code for a company or person(s), or by creating an entirely new thing as a developer. Otherwise, you are guilty of the same thing that you accuse users and proponents of GPL to be; namely, a lazy person (developer). In case that's somehow not clear: If you are using open source software (i.e. GPL licensed) to create something on top of it, then you are being lazy for not doing it the hard way. You are being lazy and accepting something for free as the foundation of your own "work".

If, however, you feel that your work will be beneficial for others long after you stop developing, then you are glad to contribute to the advancement of human development. Whether it's on a small scale, like giving another young person the ability to learn from your contributions; or on a bigger scale, by allowing tools and technology to be built upon your work.

If everything is obfuscated and hidden to everyone but the person/company that owns it, we will be reinventing the wheel over and over again. Worse yet, companies are charging for research that had been done with public funding, freely licensed, or even completed hundreds of years ago. The GPL license is a necessity if for nothing else but to counter those same perverse actions that have been ongoing for a long time and that will continue. The stability, security, and the ubiquity of open source software in today's technological age is a testament to the importance and effectiveness of the GPL **and** its cousins, less restrictive open source licenses.

I almost perfectly agree with view above, except I wouldn't call reuse of willingly opensourced base-solutions/frameworks/libraries as being lazy. I'm not demanding anyone to give me things for free. Lazy people, takers, demand things to be free. These SJW people of "Free Software Movement" are demanding things/software to be free,...

I share the opinion, that it's good to share, have community, and improve together, basis for software/application development. Even just using common open source basis, without direct contributement, grows community and brings potential future contributors. However, I disagree, that all solutions, based on willingly shared work, should be enforced to be open sourced.

Perfectly healthy opensource basis for software is licensed under Apache license. You can see it in Java world. There are lots of utilities and framework opensourced under Apache license. There are built proprietary solutions on top of these libraries, which provide specific solutions for specific business domain. However, Java developers work together to create free platform, which is shared then, and allows creation of specific solutions without reinventing the wheel.

My respect goes to people, who developed various GPL software, as they were focused on making software free. I think, that lots of them picked wrong license, which causes dimishing of their software. If they have had picked Apache, they would have built more healthy free basis in software world. It's bit of sad, that effort of these developers is lost, but it's truth. GPL software will mostly dimish, and Apache software prevails.

[Guest]

Actually, history confirms that lack of Socialism does not end well. French Revolution American Revolution has been attributed to that as well, btw. If you are implying that the Soviet Union failed because of Socialism, you are probably wrong; unless you also mean that the only way to govern is through perpetual militarism.

I better stop, as this thread is all over the place and, yet again, troll central and the original article/announcement was proven to be false.

People are inherently a bit, less, or more, lazy, and everybody wants to do as little for as much gain as is possible, just some posses other virtues in their hearts, and some are just plain selfish. People possessing virtues make bigger group of people/society to be the target of gain, selfish people make themselves the biggest and the only target of gain. Lazy people can be hard workers, but only if it's something in it for them.

So, for pure socialism, it won't work without military/police to enforce. As selfish lazy people must be forced to contribute to a society,... Therefore, extreme leftist position, that everybody is free to take what he/she needs/wants, doesn't build healthy society. Everybody musts earn that right, it's not inherently deserved, but one must participate. However, if socialism enforces participation by military/police, then it strips away freedom to organize own time, as one would like. Each right/freedom cuts both way, on one side there is a taker, on the other side there is a giver.

Capitalism, focuses more on personal responsibility, as without valuable (not just being busy) participation one won't get money to live. But, capitalism contributes to money is power, and not really nice people can get power that way. Also, in "socialism", contacts are power.

There are always ways to misuse current social/political system, just find the best way to be a taker in it. None would make world a good place. Only, if people are pursuing virtues in their hearts. That can't be enforced, as people always find way to get around system. Pursing virtues must be wanted by each one. But, how? Religion? Philosophy? Psychology? Correct parental care? Correct attitude of authorities - teachers and politically ranked people?

[moilami]

Yep, some SJW people of the "Free Software Movement", fighting for extreme position of freedom (emphasis on free as in free beer) to take anything they want, would be quite nice addition to The Circus ;-)

I like, and share, the view, that Free Software is a way to change the world towards a better place. The only thing, that I'm against regarding Free Software, is the extreme leftist position/attitude of some Free Software advocates/proponents. My disagreement only applies to that extreme - these SJW people of FSF, and GPL license.

History confirms, that socialism didn't work well.

There is nothing wrong in GPL license. This has been discussed tens of years ago and practice did show that there is nothing wrong in it. Basicly if you are a developer you must chose licenses according to your business and clients.

Some do not want or can't benefit of GPL software, but that does not make the license bad. There are other licenses for those. GPL license need no fixing, even though there is this weird movement who is calling fixes to GPL license and promote "just software license", like GPL would not be just. I have tried to find more details of changes they want, but haven't found any, making their calls to appear as toxic whining.

You should think this as an entrepreneur and not like a shoe maker lacking work because there is so tough competition. Every business faces very tough competition. If there is a profitable business with no tough competition, then it is either a monopoly, a cartel, or business held by a friend of a dictator. If anything GPL open doors for people to make business with software. Without GPL you would be much worse off, you would have empty hard disk and you would be on mercy of software companies to get even the tools you need to make software. Imagine that and compare that to shoe maker, who would never ever get a chance to get free tools to make shoes.

[Guest]

There is nothing wrong in GPL license. This has been discussed tens of years ago and practice did show that there is nothing wrong in it. Basicly if you are a developer you must chose licenses according to your business and clients.

Some do not want or can't benefit of GPL software, but that does not make the license bad. There are other licenses for those. GPL license need no fixing, even though there is this weird movement who is calling fixes to GPL license and promote "just software license", like GPL would not be just. I have tried to find more details of changes they want, but haven't found any, making their calls to appear as toxic whining.

You should think this as an entrepreneur and not like a shoe maker lacking work because there is so tough competition. Every business faces very tough competition. If there is a profitable business with no tough competition, then it is either a monopoly, a cartel, or business held by a friend of a dictator. If anything GPL open doors for people to make business with software. Without GPL you would be much worse off, you would have empty hard disk and you would be on mercy of software companies to get even the tools you need to make software. Imagine that and compare that to shoe maker, who would never ever get a chance to get free tools to make shoes.

You're correct. GPL and FSF definitely heavily contributed to the open software world, as we see it now. My full respect goes to people, who actually contributed to make that happen, and put lots of effort into it

So far, there had been a huge gap between opensource world, and proprietary, in past. GPL is extreme leftist license, which denies freedom to base proprietary solutions. That position might have been needed in past, to not get consumed without reward by corporations.

Nowadays, that extreme position of GPL is cause of its decline. There are permissive licenses, and corporates work together to develop free software providing benefit to both FOSS world and proprietary one. One example is rapid adoption of LLVM. Other is spring framework, and apache foundation projects. That's just a future, and nowadays it's not worth it to work on GPL software, because it cuts many adoption paths, therefore it cuts off many possible contributors.

And, about shoe making,... Tools/hardware are not free, but research and techniques are free to use.

[azdaha]

I wonder how many people who think this is grave injustice would feel the same way if they read his blog posts. I was totally against Stallman long before this came out. His recent issues pale in comparison to the fact that he posted multiple times on his blog that he children should be having sex with adults. Ever since I read those posts I've been completely against him. Add to that the fact that he would harass the women who worked at MIT and his recent statements and this is a no-brainer that he should step down.

Here are some of the things hes posted on his blog over the years:



You can find the source of any of these quotes by searching them on stallman.org like this in Google site:stallman.org "recognize the act as sex until it was explained to me afterward"

Freedom of speach is not freedom of consequences. I can promote pedophilia all I want (which is sex with prepubescent children). I can not expect to say things like this at work and keep my job.

This borders inappropriate discussion, granted. If you are attempting to purely discuss a controversial issue on an intellectual basis, however, it does deserve to be taken with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, despicable people exist in all forums of life; whether it's academic or religious institutions, every-day-life, or even on the internet. Using that as a basis for expanding a police-state to the internet, which affects ALL of us (as presented in the Snowden documents) should be of concern to ALL of us. Whether it's "terrorism" or "pedophilia" (quotes added to indicate intended scary trigger words) or any other specific reason for a basis of garnering support around an issue, personal freedoms have been eroded and will continue to be eroded with the auspices of serving the public good. That's how and why this issue is seen by me. I am far from an apologist of any kind. If you are aiming to counteract a threatening phenomenon through intellectual means, however, you have to weaken its foundation through analysis and sometimes even speculative hypotheses.


Again, looking at some of the quotes there from an intellectual perspective, the question is posed of scrutinizing the psychological effects on children from varying types of sexual abuse. The case could be made that Stallman had nothing to do with that type of work. However, as I eluded in my previous remarks, if you look at the overall issue as it pertains to the internet (or even privacy and personal freedoms in the US), you can see how Stallman's idealistic views align with counteracting such sweeping efforts by governments and multinational corporations.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90208133/orwell-knew-we-willingly-buy-the-screens-that-are-used-against-us

[azdaha]

People are inherently a bit, less, or more, lazy, and everybody wants to do as little for as much gain as is possible, just some posses other virtues in their hearts, and some are just plain selfish. People possessing virtues make bigger group of people/society to be the target of gain, selfish people make themselves the biggest and the only target of gain. Lazy people can be hard workers, but only if it's something in it for them.

So, for pure socialism, it won't work without military/police to enforce. As selfish lazy people must be forced to contribute to a society,... Therefore, extreme leftist position, that everybody is free to take what he/she needs/wants, doesn't build healthy society. Everybody musts earn that right, it's not inherently deserved, but one must participate. However, if socialism enforces participation by military/police, then it strips away freedom to organize own time, as one would like. Each right/freedom cuts both way, on one side there is a taker, on the other side there is a giver.

Capitalism, focuses more on personal responsibility, as without valuable (not just being busy) participation one won't get money to live. But, capitalism contributes to money is power, and not really nice people can get power that way. Also, in "socialism", contacts are power.

There are always ways to misuse current social/political system, just find the best way to be a taker in it. None would make world a good place. Only, if people are pursuing virtues in their hearts. That can't be enforced, as people always find way to get around system. Pursing virtues must be wanted by each one. But, how? Religion? Philosophy? Psychology? Correct parental care? Correct attitude of authorities - teachers and politically ranked people?

True enough. Which would mean that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Therefore, a democracy with capitalism as the economic foundation provides solutions for some of those problems. Where it falls short, that's where social policies come in. Criticizing those, however, as somehow being a vice, rather than a necessity or even a virtue has become a popular habit; which, you have to admit, is evident in your own previous comments on here.

Finally, my comments regarding perpetual militarism focus more on US vs. USSR, which saw the US (flushed with wealth from old world Europe) outspend the USSR on military technology.

[tildearrow]

Then in this hostile context, Linux fragmentation it's a good thing because, no single corporation/organization/entity can control it.

But it too is a bad thing. This is why we have GNOME and KDE (and a thousand other desktops).