> Because we're talking about him and not about free software. It's that simple.
No it's not that simple. Because the other side of this is that we are talking about Free Software because of him, indluding his personality. Few people would stand up for this thankless job. Few people would have created and promoted the GPL.
We are taling about RMS because some people decided to attack him unfairly. There may be people better suited for the job. But that is a different argument from the one you made.
> RMS is sometimes disparaged as a loon and an extremist. The Free Software movement as a whole is often disparaged as impractical and out of touch with reality.
> People using free software criticizing RMS as an extremist.
I agree with these views, but it doesn't mean that I don't respect him.
> It is not clear that RMS is driven by ego. He's motivated by a very clear goal to keep free software free.
No, he's driven by a very clear goal to prevent non-free software, even if that means preventing free software that might, potentially, in the future, be used by someone, somewhere, to create non-free software.
And I think there is a certain amount of ego in there that gets in the way of good judgement on means, in that he tends to take actions which will naturally result in the free software he protects from being involved in producing non-free software losing mindshare to either non-free software or free software not wrapped around with his preferred restrictions, which is contradictory to his purpose -- since it means that not only does software that isn't crippled in features to prevent its utility in contributing non-free software wins, but that that software is also itself either non-free software, or non-copyleft free software that can more readily directly contribute to non-free software as well as being used by people who might build non-free software through use of the features of the software.
It was RMS that wrote those GNU principles so I'm assuming he agrees with us as well. I see the straw man in saying that it's RMS fault if "many (most?) GNU developers [...] still consider RMS to be GNU's rightful leader". That's the opposite of GNU's, and therefore his, objectives.
> I believe that's what Stallman intended when he wrote "I am still the head of the GNU Project (the Chief GNUisance), and I intend to continue as such."
When we agree between us that he does not fire people that do not consider him the head of the GNU project, does not code, does not design software and therefore does not "run things", Stallman also agrees. He never said he does these things.
What RMS said instead is:
- he would like to be called GNU's "head", whatever that means
- the work he wants to do as GNU's "head" is to act as a guarantor for new projects to be included inside GNU and spend time advocating for free software
I think the reason is he wants to contribute too and considers himself the better candidate for these tasks. I don't know if that's true, but the fact he believes to be indispensable to GNU it's probably not.
> People don't listen to RMS because he makes no effort to be listened to and constantly takes absolutist stances which only harm what he defends.
I used to feel the same way quite a long time ago before I sat back and asked myself "what is the root cause of my distaste for his method of communicating his ideals?" I found that it was because I hadn't fully grasped his views on an emotional level. This argument that "even though RMS was right, the way he said it was reason not to listen to him" falls back to an appeal to emotion -- the fact he has very strong convictions is not relevant to the discussion of whether his arguments are valid.
But to explain why he is so absolutist, look at things from his point of view. From his view, all proprietary software is an injustice with no exceptions. Any attempt to take away user freedom is similarly an injustice. Now, if you fully accepted that view, how would you act as RMS? Would you make concessions on your sense of morality and ethics? Personally, I wouldn't and I don't.
> In the case of DRM, many people have been talking about this problem for a long time.
And RMS has been talking about the more general problem of user freedom since the very beginning. Not sure what your point here is. RMS is the single reason why we have the free software movement, and that movement came from a philosophical view that is fundamentally inseparable from the other pro-user-freedom sub-movements.
> Who do you fault for alternatives not developing/not catching on in the ebooks/video world? Consumers for making the wrong choices? Companies for not trying hard enough? Governments for not regulating consumer rights?
Governments pandering to publishers for several decades in strengthening the power of copyright through WIPO and similar treaties. Those publishers then had an enormous amount of power over artists. Combine this with the propaganda campaign by those publishers of "intellectual property"[1] to indoctrinate people into thinking that the ethics of property are at all applicable to things that aren't property.
So, at the end of the day, it's the fault of publishers making the government write laws that then unfairly strengthens the publishers' grip on the industry (where the industry is basically any artistic industry), and then using that control to convince the public that the status-quo is entirely justified and not unethical.
By the way, publishers mistreat artists all the time. So literally the only people that benefit from this system is publishers, not the people who actually make the things that you enjoy.
>And how did his political rants help the FSF (and the Free Software movement as a whole) lately?
It's ridiculous. His political statements at rms.org are clearly separated from the FSF stuff. The guy is free to think what he like, practice dance or whatever would please him. And actually his political views are quite coherent with the political ideology of the Free Software movement. And in the same time you cannot remove the fact that he actually created the FSF and GPL.
>He doesn't let the FSF be larger than him. Who's their 2nd in command?
I read the FSF news and information bulletins since something 2016, I don't remind receiving things "signed by RMS". Do you really think that this guy is obsessed by being the number 1 and that there is a number 2? This is a non-profit organisation, with people working for a cause, not a tyrannical political party with people fighting for power.
> I believe RMS is the only person around that can prevent a full corporate take over of Linux.
Conversely, I believe RMS is one of the last people in anything related to open source that can prevent a full corporate takeover of Linux.
He may be the most passionate, but the most passionate advocates for an issue are rarely those who actually make any progress on that issue. The passion itself is off-putting when one is in the direct focus of it, but it inspires others to actually do the work and make the progress.
RMS specifically is so off-putting that it is one of the first things his advocates say about him. His passionate views on free software, as well as everything else, are routinely dismissed entirely by anyone other than his closest adherents. It's hard to see how he can have any reasonable impact on any corporations that might try to "take over" Linux.
> it's also that his philosophical principles will always take precedence over everything else
Exactly. I respect RMS, and his position that proprietary software is immoral, but I also know that position won't be shared by many (maybe even most) of the people who care about free software.
> but it's a community project and at some point the consensus will be that he is just wrong.
No, that's just your prejudice talking. The consensus can just as well be that RMS has a point and that a lone maintainer has no legitimacy to dictate policy, let alone override executive decisions. RMS is the founder of many GNU projects and is also the president of the FSF. Just because some dude has access to a repository of a FSF project that doesn't give him the right to hijack the project to suit his fancy. It's a FSF project and the project's driving policy is set by the FSF.
> and the RMS view is he sees free software as yet another constitutional right
Do you have a source for this? His writings and talks are extensive and I have not seen an instance where he makes this argument. He's said evil and not evil, moral and immoral, but I've never seen him make a constitutional argument. I've never seen him lobby to even make proprietary software illegal.
> So my question is twofold: do we believe that FOSS is a right
Would this right to Free Software be absolute where our other rights are not? Let's say we made Free Software a constitutional right. What about Germany? What about Japan? Would we outlaw the use of nonfree software from those countries? Why stop at software? What about copyright and patents? Isn't in immoral to not copy and share a textbook with someone? To try to only solve this at the level of rights it ignores the sociological and economic solutions and impacts as well.
> where do we draw the line between dedicating our lives to fighting for FOSS, and only using it when its completely convenient.
So to be in favor of Free Software I have to dedicate my life to it? If that's the case then I draw the line at the very beginning. I'm not dedicating my life to Free Software, or even to software for that matter. If you mean am I willing to give FOSS the first look and even ignore some of its warts to use it over proprietary software? Then I do that almost 100% of the time. Am I going to to release any software I have control over under a free license? I do that 100% of the time. I jump through A LOT of hoops to try to use as much FOSS as possible. But... I enable DRM in Firefox and install ffmpeg and nonfree codecs so I can watch streams instead of using Chrome. I use Steam on Linux and use Proton instead of just installing Windows. My life _could_ be a lot simpler if I didn't try to support FOSS as much as possible.
Also, there has been a lot of really cool and really interesting work done in FOSS since the FSF. Like I said my job is almost entirely based on and around FOSS. If you would've told me that in 1998 when I first installed Red Hat for the first time I wouldn't have believed you. I would've hoped it would've been true, but it seemed like a dream. There are so many interesting ideas around FOSS. To focus on the narrow definition and work of just the FSF is a mistake.
The dude wrote EMACS, GNU, GCC and the GPL license. He more or less single-handedly invented the concept of Free software. If RMS isn't a genius, then I don't know who is.
> I disagree, I think his evangelism is dangerous and offensive.
Which is completely irrelevant to what you quoted.
> He goes around telling programmers that they should give their code for free
So I take it you have never looked at his writing or heart him speak, and only repeat fifth-hand earsay? Because if there's one thing RMS does not do it's tell people they should "give their code for free". RMS has (and talks about) issues with freedom-less software, not with paid software.
> and he belittles anyone who doesn't follow his advice.
Meanwhile you call him and his ideals "dangerous" and "offensive" for what you imagine are disagreements with your position?
> I'm not sure how anyone can take RMS, and by extension the FSF that he controls, seriously anymore.
Well, if it makes you feel any better (or, alternatively, worse, I guess, in which case I apologize :(), I do (to be explicit: take RMS seriously). I didn't in 2002, which is part of why I can pull these examples do quickly: I considered Stallman an extremist and I found his definition of "freedom" confusing. I often had to cite these various email exchanges.
However, over the course of the last ten years of being a developer of open-source tools, I've entirely reversed my opinion. I have found myself more and more frustrated with the attitudes people take towards open source contributors, and I have seen the licenses on my open work become more and more defensive against these abuses (sometimes even using AGPL).
In fact, this whole Apple/Clang debacle was one of the things that pushed me over: this only became "a thing" when gcc moved to GPL3, and seems mostly about Apple wanting to maintain and expand a fully-closed ecosystem, not about technological advantages. In my opinion, the "great GPL purge" of Mac OS X is going to lead to some dire consequences on computing.
> Nobody can make a case that RMS is a swell guy, he's awful. Still, he's without a sliver of a doubt the single most influential activist for FOSS that there's ever been.
Amen to that. The sentiment around seems to ultimately be "I just don't like him because he might have made people uncomfortable, make him go away".
> Yelling at people when they use the wrong words, which is his main and constant strategy, does not help the cause of free software.
Arguably the reason you're using the term "free software" is because of RMS' incessant chastising. The only thing as relentless as RMS are the forces that continually eat away at the central thesis of his movement--the necessity for users to have access to the source code of the software they use as requisite for softwarefreedom.
Does the movement need RMS going forward? I don't know. I'm not even sure it can stay as strong as it is, regardless of his participation. I have more certainty, however, that it wouldn't be as successful as it was and currently is without him. His conflation of the utilitarian and political character of software was rather unique. Even today the vast majority of people find the comparison either impractical, trite, or otherwise inapposite. Comparable concepts, like Lessig's "code is law", aren't quite the same and in any event haven't had the staying power.
You can say that again. I believe he's pretty far on Asperger's?
I view RMS as one pole of the philosophical spectrum of free software (the other being entirely proprietary). An uncompromising absolutist, his views can't survive contact with the real world intact, but they can influence the landscape as he exerts pressure on it.
And he has proven visionary and right time and time again.
I don't agree with many things he says, but I do appreciate the direction he's pulled the industry in. For that, he has my continued respect.
RMS is a politician, dude; calm down. Let's look at the preceding sentences:
> The Clang and LLVM developers reach different conclusions from ours
because they do not share our values and goals. They object to the
measures we have taken to defend freedom because they see the
inconvenience of them and do not recognize (or don't care about) the
need for them. I would guess they describe their work as "open
source" and do not talk about freedom.
That's much more nuanced than "anything that isn't GNU isn't free". He thinks that their license is a lot different, because he has a particular definition of "free" that he's championed for decades. Putting "and this is what I mean by 'free'" into every statement would be more PR-friendly, but redundant for... anyone who's heard RMS speak or breathe for 30 years.
If anything, this is a reasonable statement from a politician: "The Clang and LLVM developers reach different conclusions from ours because they do not share our values and goals." Maybe save the "what an asshole" comment for if he ever says, "LLVM hates freedom, GNU rules, BSD drools."
The answer is obvious based on your own personal principles, or based on RMS's stated principles?
>The only issue could only ever arises if he claimed "Free Software is more important than human lives"
He claimed that it is categorically not good to use non-Free software, with one exception for using non-Free software to develop a replacement for that software; and that "we must resist stretching [that exception] any further": https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/is-ever-good-use-nonfree-prog...
Both are not true. People shared software based on the same ideas for many years before RMS.
Not to mention that the whole scientific world has been sharing knowledge while also respecting authorship and providing citations in ways very similar to FOSS for a century.
No it's not that simple. Because the other side of this is that we are talking about Free Software because of him, indluding his personality. Few people would stand up for this thankless job. Few people would have created and promoted the GPL.
We are taling about RMS because some people decided to attack him unfairly. There may be people better suited for the job. But that is a different argument from the one you made.
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