I said that Marx supported murder and free shit. I didn’t say anything one way or the other about Communism.
“there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.”
Stallman originally crafted the GPL after he was pissed off by an incident where he gave away, for free to some people who asked for it, some modified printer driver of his devising or Emacs macros or something of that nature. They were happy enough to grab it, but when he heard that they in turn added on some useful changes and asked for a copy, they gave him the cold shoulder. There was nothing he could do, so he came up with a “copyleft” license to specifically disallow that behaviour.
In that sense, the GPL restricts “what you can do” with a piece of software. (The BSD licence has its own mandates.) If you don’t care, or need something different, there is nothing forcing you to license your software under those terms; I don’t see how that’s on the FSF. Nor should it retroactively affect (or infect) your customers who already have BSD-licensed software. Also, the FSF openly and explicitly states that the 3-clause BSD license is GPL compatible.
I realize this is in MPSIMS and threads can wander, but the GPL/copyleft discussion has nothing to do with the fact that RMS appears to be a loathsome individual in his personal life and it’s been ignored/handwaved by the computing world for decades.
Well, I suppose one could say that to some extent the information technology world has a reputation consistent with that kind of thing?
Has he embraced any sort of explicitly anarchist stance where murder, rape, child abuse, etc., are bad not because the state says so, but because it’s morally wrong? I can see how he might start arguing (in bad taste) about statutory rape if he thought the idea of statutes, in general, was wrong. He’s always had his personal home page with all kinds of political stuff on there.
This is interesting. As a member of the computing world, am I responsible for Stallman’s behaviour? Should I reject ideas he’s had because of it? What else do I have to give up lest I be guilty of ignoring/handwaving his personal life?
I’m a member of the computing world too, and I have friends high up in the FSF and at MIT. I always knew he was an ass, but I guess I never knew the extent. And yes, to a degree, I think we’re all responsible for the culture we helped create.
I mostly agree, although as the largest and most visible repository of free software, I think it behooves them to use a license that encourages use of the software, based on the best understanding of the real world software environment, not based on an annoyance that one guy once experienced several decades ago. The current software definitely discourages use of free software in many environments. Maybe those are mostly the environments that Stallman wants to keep free software out of, but I don’t think GNU has benefited from this stance.
No, but it affects them when and if they wish to upgrade to the latest version of my software. In the end I released my software with two licenses, GPL and BSD-like, and the user can choose which one he wants to use.
That must be new. Or new-ish. Or at least, it wasn’t that way 25 years or so ago when I last looked at it. Ah, I see, the 3-clause license didn’t even exist at that time.
I’ve worked a hotel that occasionally had events with paid speakers. The organizers for those events would usually pass along (part) of the speaker’s rider. In my experience the only really odd thing about the accommodations section of his rider is preferring non-hotel rooms and writing it in the first person.
Most riders I saw specified things like temperature, brand preferences, room types/amenities, and instructions for staff on how to communicate with the speaker (usually something along the lines of “run all issues/problems through their assistant, here’s the speaker’s preferred title, and no phone calls to the room”).
Did you mean to quote a different post? Maybe one in a different thread?
It looks like a perfectly on-point response to the last part of what **Telemark **posted in the quote. What’s wrong with it?
I agree, I think it’s part of the discussion.
Stallman sent this email to the GNU programmers’ mailing list last night, a copy of what he sent to the FSF board.
It seems to me that he is still not acknowledging that he’s done anything wrong.
That would be consistent with his past.
Yes. Correct post. Correct thread.
In hindsight, a kneejerk not-all-IT-professionals response sounds kinda lame. It’s still not clear to me what I did to create the horror that is Richard Stallman but if the point is, “don’t aid and abet your co-workers’ asshole-ishness” then I don’t have a real disagreement with Telemark.
I was wrong in MPSIMS. Someone tell that guy in the pit.
I’m sure we’re pretty much in agreement on most things related to this. It has been my experience over my 30+ years in the software business that most male engineers are content not rocking the boat and a few bad apples have contributed to an occasionally toxic environment. I’m just conscious of calling out colleagues when they do stuff that I would have previously let pass without comment.
I read your excerpts.
As Stallman been diagnosed with some sort of autism? Or other clinical condition in the DSM?
And the weird parts of the rider seemed to be related to his preference for “couch-surfing” (as long as the couch is in a room with a door he can lock). Because then you have to get into things like don’t wake me for breakfast, don’t hover around me too much, if you cook for me these are the foods I hate, don’t invite a bunch of people over to meet me without asking me, I can cross the damn street without your help, thank you, etc etc.
My take is that he doesn’t really like staying with real people. He has a fantasy about how great it would be to stay with mythical people that behave the way he would like them to at all times and never annoy him. And he’s never found that but he keeps trying. He should just stay at hotels instead of chasing that dragon.
But then the government would have his name. It’s a Catch-22.
I recently had an encounter with someone claiming to be an ex-security and intelligence agent of some kind. He offered much wisdom about how all the internet companies are turning over all your information to the government.
I refrained from telling him that while all of that might be true there’s a point at which tHe conveniences you avoid to keep your one chapter of a fantasy fiction story out of the hands of the government has diminishing returns.
I always shop at Target so they will think I like Target, in reality I’m just neutral about that company.