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Comment by bigstrat2003

3 months ago

Stallman has a long history of being very abrasive and ideological. He is the kind of guy who makes zero concessions for practicality, and he insists on prioritizing user freedom because he has always feared that otherwise users will be locked out of having the ability to truly control their computers. It's always been kind of easy to laugh at his crusade because of how zealous he is, and how absurd the scenarios he warns about seem to be. The thing is... he seems to have been right the whole time. Companies really do want to lock you out of controlling the devices you own, and do so at the first opportunity. So... Stallman was right.

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bigstrat2003

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simoncion  3 months ago

> He is the kind of guy who makes zero concessions for practicality...

Respectfully, this claim is incorrect. See this 2013 essay [0] for one example out of many where concessions are made to practicality.

Folks who are unfamiliar with Stallman's writing and the general philosophy of the FSF and/or the GNU Project might find spending an hour or so reading through some of the essays here [1] (perhaps starting with this 1991 essay [2]) to be informative.

[0] <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/is-ever-good-use-nonfree-prog...>

[1] <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/essays-and-articles.html>

[2] <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html>

  • bigstrat2003  3 months ago

    From your link 0:

    > The question here is, is it ever a good thing to use a nonfree program? Our conclusion is that it is usually a bad thing, harmful to yourself and in some cases to others. If you run a nonfree program on your computer, it denies your freedom; the immediate wrong is directed at you.

    That is most certainly not making concessions for practicality in my book. So if anything, the citation you provided is IMO evidence for my claim.

    • simoncion  3 months ago

      To continue with the text of the rest of the section (with the footnotes present in the original removed):

        If you run a nonfree program on your computer, it denies your freedom; the immediate wrong is directed at you.
  
  That does not mean you're an “evildoer” or “sinner” for running a nonfree program. When the harm you're doing is mainly to yourself, we hope you will stop, for your own sake.
  
  Sometimes you may face great pressure to run a nonfree program; we don't say you must defy that pressure at all costs (though it is inspiring when someone does that), but we do urge you to look for occasions to where you can refuse, even in small ways.
  
  If you recommend that others run the nonfree program, or lead them to do so, you're leading them to give up their freedom. Thus, we have a responsibility not to lead or encourage others to run nonfree software. Where the program uses a secret protocol for communication, as in the case of Skype, your own use of it pressures others to use it too, so it is especially important to avoid any use of these programs.
  
  But there is one special case where using some nonfree software, and even urging others to use it, can be a positive thing. That's when the use of the nonfree software aims directly at putting an end to the use of that very same nonfree software.

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mrheosuper  3 months ago

> He is the kind of guy who makes zero concessions for practicality

Didn't he give some wiggle room in GPL license ?

  • bigstrat2003  3 months ago

    Inasmuch as the GPL itself is not Stallman's preferred state of affairs (he would prefer to see copyright abolished altogether, at least for software, and copyleft is just a compromise for now), I suppose so. Otherwise I'm not aware of any wiggle room, was there something specific you had in mind?

    • simoncion  3 months ago

      > [H]e would prefer to see copyright abolished altogether, at least for software...

      Oh? From the "Finding the right bargain" section of this 2002 essay [0]

      > So perhaps novels, dictionaries, computer programs, songs, symphonies, and movies should have different durations of copyright, so that we can reduce the duration for each kind of work to what is necessary for many such works to be published. Perhaps movies over one hour long could have a twenty-year copyright, because of the expense of producing them. In my own field, computer programming, three years should suffice, because product cycles are even shorter than that.

      Has his opinion changed since then?

      [0] <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.htm...>