Comment by simoncion

20 days 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>

8 comments

simoncion

bigstrat2003 20 days 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 20 days 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.

bigstrat2003 20 days ago

Thanks, I wasn't trying to cherry pick or anything. But I don't think that the full text changes the substance of what is laid out in the first couple of paragraphs. The FSF (and by extension Stallman) refrains from calling the user names if he chooses to use nonfree software, presumably because they recognize that freedom must include the freedom to run any software at all, even if they consider it harmful. But they are quite clear that they do consider it harmful both to oneself and others to run nonfree software, even if it is useful. That, to me, is very much refusing to make concessions to practicality within their ideology. The only concession they do make is an explicitly ideological one, not a practical one! So again, this piece seems to me to support my claim, not to disprove it.

5 replies →