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

[Luke_Wolf]

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.

Or just plain trolling.

[bellamyb]

I got to say that this is the forum conversation that finally got me to post...

I'm going to start off by saying that I am a long time user of Linux (since 1999) and I use it exclusively at home. I use it not because I want free stuff but because I'm curious about the stuff that I physically "own." Linux provides me a usable platform to explore pretty much all of it. I'm infinitely grateful for all the effort that so many people have put into free software. I'll admit that I don't contribute much back to the community, I mean, I have a lot of personal programming projects, but they're pretty much all half baked and are really just to facilitate the aforementioned exploration. Anyway...

I strongly believe that people like RMS serve as a critical balancing agent opposed to people who'd rather bait you with shiny (and useful) gadgets to rob you of your control (and privacy.) I don't agree with a lot of RMS's philosophy but I feel his gut feelings are right. There is a ever-increasing value on intellectual property (IP) and with that come innovations in DRM, laws, and other methods to maintain control of it often at the expense of your freedom to control the devices you own and to tinker. Someone has to fight that fight to keep that balance.

On kind of a side note: Binary blobs are among the scariest things to me. I understand that they exist to protect IP while providing a(n often) necessary service. But at the same time, you have no idea what's in that blob. Which is kinda the point, right? It's among the ultimate in trust... because that code is generally running at the permission level or ring that can do anything, unchecked. What if some malicious code was put in?

If you think RMS is crazy.. He most certainly is. But it's because he has PTSD. This stuff exists out in the wild and it's only a matter of time before we're all accepting of it and therefore enslaved by it

- Beau

[brent]

The amount of RMS/GNU cultism is really frightening. "RMS' predictions were always right" - well yeah, except when they weren't.

[curaga]

If LLVM had a license which required source changes to be made available, but which did not require all of the SURROUNDING source code to be published, I don't think that would impact its usage. In a perverse way this is another DRM scenario, where mechanisms put in place to avoid abuse (the viral aspects of GPL were added with the best of intentions, ie to ensure that added features & extensions to a GPL project were also covered by the GPL) ended up having unintended consequences, eg using gcc as a shader compiler in a proprietary graphics driver would require the whole graphics driver (and possibly more) to be released under the GPL. I doubt that was the original intention.

The real solution here IMO is some kind of "CGPL" license, where changes to project code must be published back, extensions and additions that fall within the project scope must be pushed back, but static linking of project code into an obviously unrelated project does not require source for that other project to be published.

FYI, this already exists: LGPL plus static linking exception. Examples: libstdc++, FLTK.

[rdnetto]

So much about "the GPL is here to give you freedom". The obvious answer to this would be to make GDB better, not to shut down LLDB support.

Classic paranoia symptoms, I wonder if RMS is slipping into dementia in his old age.

This is nothing new - the GPL was always designed to prioritize the freedom of users over developers. This is particularly obvious with the GPLv3.

I don't believe GNU packages are under attack, I think they are just in danger of losing their dominant position. Part of the reason Clang has had such a major uptake in usage is because the GCC project had actively opposed attempts to make it more modular, due to concerns about people linking to it in violation of the GPL. Clang didn't have to be as good as GCC, it just had to be usable, and there was enough interest from people interested in doing all sorts of cool things, it got improved to the stage where it' s basically on par with GCC (except for OpenMP support and less common architectures). Unsurprisingly, when you compromise technical aspects for politics, it isn't hard for someone to make a better product, and most people will happily use it because BSD is free enough.

Stallman has always been a purist, and I think that could be his downfall. The community will clearly use whatever is technically superior, and if he hamstrings the GNU project in order to push their politics, their influence will wane.

I also think it's worth noting that it's been a long time since Stallman was actively involved in software development (as far as I'm aware). Contrast his position to that of Theo de Raadt, Linus Torvalds, etc. - major open source figures who are involved in actual development are far more pragmatic.

If random posters show up on every thread on every Internet forum when RMS is mentioned with same "get rid of GNU. stallman is evil" nonsense, that means that there is that attack thingie that Stallman is tallking about.

It's probably more accurate to say that Stallman is religious in his spread of the free software ideology.
Now, whether religion should be considered evil or not is a fairly controversial point...

Meanwhile the open source movement is simply about creating the best things, under the premise that opening up your things to contributions, and allowing people to make them how they want, makes them better.

This is why I'm in the open source camp.

QFT.

[gnufreex]

uhuh... Except that I, peppercats, and Sonadow have been here for years and are relatively consistent posters to this forum, as shown by their multi-hundred post count and my almost 1200 post count...

There's only one poster with <100 posts against RMS, and about 4 or so including yourself who are in favour of him, and you personally are showing quite the cult behavior. If there was an actual systemic attack the opposite would be the case.

You are showing Phoronix cult behavior if you think that number of posts on Phoronix is anything important. That is exactly why I don't post much here, too much freedom-haters, starting with the great guru who doesn't pass an oportunity to make anti-FSF article.

Off to set addblocker for this site.

[techzilla]

STFU, and stop misstating where he does bring wisdom

The amount of RMS/GNU cultism is really frightening. "RMS' predictions were always right" - well yeah, except when they weren't.

Listen very carefully,

Stallman being human and all, will inevitably make statements which are not correct, he is not a prophet but merely a man with piercing insight. So when Stallman talks about technology in general, OK yes you could be very reasonable to take that with a grain of salt. When should you actually deeply consider his statements?

When he predicts an economic or state interest in using technology against the user. That's where he shines, because it's not about how technology will progress... but how those who benefit economically from reducing your freedom will ALWAYS try to do exactly that. If it's theoretically possible, but not practical, they research ways to make it practical.

He did clearly state NSA many years before Snowden. In other words, he does indeed know how systemic interests seek to use technology. It's a plain fact, they wish to reduce our freedom for their economic interests. Stallman has enough insight to see where they be very interested in doing that next, and what it would take to actively fight back.

Those who wish to bash GPL, they have economic interests in doing so. LLVM would have NEVER existed if companies weren't forced to give up on compiler part due to GCC. This is why LLVM is a huge boon for developers, but those benefits... well they never trickle down now do they? How free am I on my Google Nexus, compared to my home GNU/Linux system? Exactly, it's the Android system that removes my freedom, it's the GNU heavy system that protects it.

You must choose,
freedom for all users, from those who wish to restrict them technologically? Or profit from intellectual property, you do not get to have both, history has proven RMS correct on this point.


BTW, give me committed ideologies ANY DAY, compared to those who are economically interested in removing our freedom.
FSF is not a cult, it's my one of our few defenders.

[brosis]

hm...
From: http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-...#cq_guru_right

1. Stallman designed whole GNU and kept it up.
2. He very often expressed extremely crazy stuff, which in the end turned out to be very exact. He predicted cellphone spionage long before Snowden.
3. (2) happened often enough to assume he is right 99% of the time.
4. If you dislike - fork.
5. In the link "he Guru, his church, and his teachings are always right, and above criticism, and beyond reproach. " yet nothing of this is present. He is guru (1) but he is not always right (he proves to be right as time passes, may times), above criticism or beyond reproach.

So hm, uff, pff as often as you want. The dog bells, the caravan goes on.

[brosis]

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

Can't do it?

Then keep quiet.

Keep quiet, Microsoft junkie.

[MoonMoon]

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.

Feel free to remove any code from the kernel you use that was written by our "fascist corporate friends" and look how that works for you, hypocrite.