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Why Stallman is right about Steve Jobs
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Comments (69)
Interesting
The right to stink in public
37 earlier comments in the full thread.
> I believe English is a foreign language for a native West Virginian.
It's just that our version of English is archaic, helios. We don't hold no truck with all these new fangled ways, don't you know.
> Those people will shoot you for less.
Yeah, we're more polite up here. Now calling someone a flatlander, them there's shootin' words.
It's just that our version of English is archaic, helios. We don't hold no truck with all these new fangled ways, don't you know.
> Those people will shoot you for less.
Yeah, we're more polite up here. Now calling someone a flatlander, them there's shootin' words.
@dinotrac:
I'm not bitter about Steve Jobs, I never met the man and he never really impinged on my life other than the fact that I use a Macbook Pro at work (supplied by my work). I wouldn't necessarily choose to buy one, but I find it good, reliable and well built kit and it suits me fine. It's running Linux of course.
I don't really have that big an opinion on the walled garden thing, I just don't use it so it doesn't affect me. I prefer to champion freedom and free software to those I meet.
I do find the extensive, over-the-top media coverage to be rather distasteful and I suspect that Steve Jobs would be rather embarrassed about the whole thing.
Steve Jobs was a very successful business man and extremely good at what he did. By all accounts we was not the saint that everyone paints him to be, but that is hardly the point. He ran a successful business that is making a ton of money. However, the way that the media is sucking up to his memory, and the number of famous individuals associating themselves with his name hoping that some of the press attention will rub off on them (including President Obama) is absolutely shocking.
They should canonise him and be done with it.
All that when you consider the other arguably bigger and more deserving names that have fallen by the wayside recently, hardly noticed by the general public at all. Turing was treated disgracefully during his lifetime (I know, they were different times). Dennis Richie more recently, went with hardly a murmur outside of the computing scene, having had a HUGE impact on the systems that we use now.
What makes me bitter is the inequity of it all.
I'm not bitter about Steve Jobs, I never met the man and he never really impinged on my life other than the fact that I use a Macbook Pro at work (supplied by my work). I wouldn't necessarily choose to buy one, but I find it good, reliable and well built kit and it suits me fine. It's running Linux of course.
I don't really have that big an opinion on the walled garden thing, I just don't use it so it doesn't affect me. I prefer to champion freedom and free software to those I meet.
I do find the extensive, over-the-top media coverage to be rather distasteful and I suspect that Steve Jobs would be rather embarrassed about the whole thing.
Steve Jobs was a very successful business man and extremely good at what he did. By all accounts we was not the saint that everyone paints him to be, but that is hardly the point. He ran a successful business that is making a ton of money. However, the way that the media is sucking up to his memory, and the number of famous individuals associating themselves with his name hoping that some of the press attention will rub off on them (including President Obama) is absolutely shocking.
They should canonise him and be done with it.
All that when you consider the other arguably bigger and more deserving names that have fallen by the wayside recently, hardly noticed by the general public at all. Turing was treated disgracefully during his lifetime (I know, they were different times). Dennis Richie more recently, went with hardly a murmur outside of the computing scene, having had a HUGE impact on the systems that we use now.
What makes me bitter is the inequity of it all.
>What makes me bitter is the inequity of it all.
Can't argue with that. We live in a star-system world.
You can't make a movie without writers, props, wardrobe, cameras, and all the folks who make that magic happen, but it's the folks who memorize somebody else's words and look good on camera who get all the attention.
Go figure.
Can't argue with that. We live in a star-system world.
You can't make a movie without writers, props, wardrobe, cameras, and all the folks who make that magic happen, but it's the folks who memorize somebody else's words and look good on camera who get all the attention.
Go figure.
For Helios and Jdixon - "Australian English" does have colloquialisms, but is usually fairly comprehensible by vaguely English speaking countries.......LOL......I refer you both to two lines in Professor Higgin's song in the film "My Fair Lady". The song is called "Why can't the English Teach their Children How to Speak" and the lines are:
"There even are places where English completely disappears........ In America they haven't used it for years !"
Exits stage right in shower of tomatoes.
"There even are places where English completely disappears........ In America they haven't used it for years !"
Exits stage right in shower of tomatoes.
That's about right good Doctor. Spending just short of 9 years in Europe, I learned that many Germans who encounter an American for the first time, are left to wonder who lied to them when teaching them English. I simply tell them that in America we don't speak English...We speak American.
The differences, once considered, are vast.
Ya reckon?
The differences, once considered, are vast.
Ya reckon?
Yes. In the USA and in England, the same short phrase can mean precisely opposite things -- for example, "to table the motion".
Churchill one described the USA and Britain as "two great nations separated by a common language".
Churchill one described the USA and Britain as "two great nations separated by a common language".
when i did my exchange year in the US i heard stories from students coming back to europe, that they would get bad grades in school for using american english in english class. fortunately my teacher didn't do that, and my grades improved...
as for the difference between american and british english, it is smaller than the difference between regular german and swiss german. (swiss german tv gets subtitles translating into regular german!)
greetings, eMBee.
as for the difference between american and british english, it is smaller than the difference between regular german and swiss german. (swiss german tv gets subtitles translating into regular german!)
greetings, eMBee.
My experience (a Canadian living in Europe) is that the British have a enormously deep English language while we North Americans have a very shallow version. Even with all the British programming I was raised on in Canada, there are so many word used in Britain that I have to look up in a dictionary to figure out.
Shakespeare's legacy
And the spelling:
telephone......telefone
encyclopaeda......encyclopedia
and so on.........quite often English uses an "s" to end a word and the American version insists on a "z".
Oh well......fish and chips mean fish and french fries I guess........
telephone......telefone
encyclopaeda......encyclopedia
and so on.........quite often English uses an "s" to end a word and the American version insists on a "z".
Oh well......fish and chips mean fish and french fries I guess........
And chips are crisps.
Not to mention the first time someone said they would "knock me up in the morning". I mean we were friends but sheesh...
In my writing, I will still use the British spelling for words such as colour, flavour, honour, neighbour, rumour, labour, and humour.
It just seems right to me.
In my writing, I will still use the British spelling for words such as colour, flavour, honour, neighbour, rumour, labour, and humour.
It just seems right to me.
Hey Helios.........those are the CORRECT ways to spell the words.......Well done indeed. Take an extra star on the wrist and go to the top of the class !! Leaving out the "u" always seems wrong to me as well, but then I was indoctrinated on the English way of spelling at primary school some 60 years ago.........And before somebody tells me it was the dark ages, it wasn't........ but we did use slates and slate pencils - paper was too important. TV didn't appear for another 10 years and radio was all........Telephones were still the "rotate the handle and get the manual switchboard which closed down at 10pm".......sigh.
Edited update.........I can't ....just CAN'T resist this........we were using Pads of course......wooden frame and erasable writing area made of slate, you could touch them and erase the writing, and you could turn them vertical or horizontal and they still worked........See......told you it wasn't the dark ages !!!!!!!!!
Edited update.........I can't ....just CAN'T resist this........we were using Pads of course......wooden frame and erasable writing area made of slate, you could touch them and erase the writing, and you could turn them vertical or horizontal and they still worked........See......told you it wasn't the dark ages !!!!!!!!!
@Ridcully
Well you beat me by a few years. As I was about to start kindergarten TV was just coming into the homes around us. My first memory of it was watching Gene Autry and being dragged home by my mother for dinner.
I do remember the last of the horse drawn milk deliveries though. Watching the horse automatically take the man to the next customer.
Well you beat me by a few years. As I was about to start kindergarten TV was just coming into the homes around us. My first memory of it was watching Gene Autry and being dragged home by my mother for dinner.
I do remember the last of the horse drawn milk deliveries though. Watching the horse automatically take the man to the next customer.
@Cabreh.......I can still remember seeing my first TV in Canberra........on a small circular screen.....very fuzzy and in monochrome......I think it was green and white........and being totally unimpressed......Ummm.....that was about 1967/68. But I also remember the horse drawn milk deliveries, REAL steam rollers, and the sanitation carts which were necessary because in Brisbane at the time, sewerage had yet to be installed.....and that meant that the "small room" was outside in the wet.........if ever you have read Chic Sale's "The Specialist", I can STILL remember all that impllies.
Correction: Sorry.....my error, it should be 1957/58.
Correction: Sorry.....my error, it should be 1957/58.
@Ridcully
So, Australia was late to the TV game? In Toronto Canada they were being sold in the late 50's. I imagine my first viewing was about 1955 or 56. Black and white of course.
Fortunately, indoor privies in the city were in full force by my time. Do remember the outhouses at camping sites, or at a friend's place down on the east coast of Canada though.
So, Australia was late to the TV game? In Toronto Canada they were being sold in the late 50's. I imagine my first viewing was about 1955 or 56. Black and white of course.
Fortunately, indoor privies in the city were in full force by my time. Do remember the outhouses at camping sites, or at a friend's place down on the east coast of Canada though.
Is it just me or did Howdy Doody give everyone the creeps...?
And I say let Timmy stay down in the well for a while...he fell down the da#* thing every week it seemed.
And I say let Timmy stay down in the well for a while...he fell down the da#* thing every week it seemed.
But Lassie couldn't let poor Timmy stay down a well!
@Cabreh......apparently Australian tv transmissions began in Sydney circa 1956, however I didn't ever see any television until around 1957/58 as I noted above......My apologies too........I accidentally put 1967/68 in my entry above.......I shall edit same. It was all valves of course, and "do it yourself".....I can still remember an electronics monthly periodical with full instructions, circuit diagrams etc. on building your own tv......Ahhhh.......men was men in those days.......Nowadays we quail at changing a light bulb.
I remember standing in the radio transmission room for the ABC radio network in Canberra and being absolutely awed by the output stages of the system......Huge glass water cooled valves with a double envelope through which the water coolant flowed and the anodes with glowing cherry pink patches on them........And Helios, I cannot remember watching Howdy Doody........I'm afraid I was well out of those years by the time tv was common place. Bugs Bunny, the Roadrunner and a couple of others were my favourites.
I remember standing in the radio transmission room for the ABC radio network in Canberra and being absolutely awed by the output stages of the system......Huge glass water cooled valves with a double envelope through which the water coolant flowed and the anodes with glowing cherry pink patches on them........And Helios, I cannot remember watching Howdy Doody........I'm afraid I was well out of those years by the time tv was common place. Bugs Bunny, the Roadrunner and a couple of others were my favourites.
I have the benefit of growing up in one of the earliest environments for competitive cable TV, in Eastern Pennsylvania. It's still pretty competitive here. We had no less than two cable TV providers fighting for our business since the mid 1960s. My father, being a physicist, was big on having it available. I don't remember a time we didn't have cable and a color TV.
If you're going to call hypocrite, it would help to be right
Stallman is a nasty jerk.
Let's look at the line Varghese quotes so approvingly:
"Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died."
Stallman chooses his language very carefully, so it is fair to parse his statements carefully.
"The pioneer.."
"The" is singular. It implies a unique and exalted (or infamous) position. "Pioneer" is somebody who ventures into new areas.
So....
Whatever Jobs may have been, he was there at the beginning and he was alone.
"jail made cool".
That's an interesting thought all by itself, but let's try to figure out what that means, in light of Job's unique pioneering status.
He could be referring to all of the parents given little choice but to take their kids to see Toy Story, Monsters, Inc, The Incredibles, Wall-E, etc. But..."The pioneer"? Disney went down that road years ago with "Fantasia", "Sleeping Beauty", "The Lion King", etc. That jail was built years ago. And it was cool right from the beginning. Pixar made it more fun. They didn't invent the idea of trademarks, copyright, or being forced to stand in line at the concession stand. They did, however, make some nice movies that let grown-ups enjoy the same thing their kids were watching. Maybe Stallman objects to people having a good time.
He could be referring to Apple computers. Apple was there in the early days with the Apple II. Jobs and Wozniak certainly were among the pioneers of personal computing. But that jail thing...
The Apple II -- reflecting Wozniak more than Jobs -- wasn't exactly a jail. It was chock full of slots and empty space inviting hackers to fill them up. All kinds of non-Apple stuff, including a Z-80 card (made by Microsoft!!!) running CP/M found their way into those slots. Sounds like a freedom machine, not a jail, esp with reference to contemporaries like the TRS-80.
If he's talking about computers, he'd have to be talking Mac, which was very Jobs-driven. The Mac OS has always been proprietary and, except for a brief period when Jobs had been exiled from Apple, available only on Apple hardware. But the Mac came out in 1984, well after the IBM PC, and TRS-80, early Atari computers and a slew of others, not to mention big iron world where IBM had always been proprietary as hell. For that matter machines like the Commodore 64, the soon-to-be released Commodore Amiga, and the Atari St also used proprietary Operating Systems. CP/M could be used on a variety of hardware, but the OS itself was proprietary.
In that regard, Jobs was just One of the Crowd, not that unique Satan on Earth, "The Pioneer". That first Mac, if it was a jail, wasn't even especially cool. It was a feeble little device that didn't find a market until postscript laser printers let it become a desktop publishing engine. Then it "severed fools from their money" in much the same way that Video Toaster equipped Amigas (much cooler than Macs) severed fools from theirs: It let them do sophisticated work for a fraction of the cost of the dedicated proprietary hardware of the day. Hmmm. Sounds like it saved those fools a whole bunch of money and...maybe that's not so foolish.
Later Macs could as easily be characterized as Freedom Machines as jails. Many of the people buying Macs are moving away from the also proprietary Windows platform, and doing so willingly. Those Macs can run Linux, if you choose, and are built on top of a BSD kernel which --- lo and behold! -- can natively run a great big pile GPL'd software.
One place where "the pioneer" fits is iTunes, a truly wretched and DRM-infested piece of work inflicted on millions upon millions of somewhat innocent victims. But.... remember the genesis -- iTunes started out as an online music store making major label recordings available for download. The record labels were not going to let their cash cows go out the door for free, and they were not going to let them go up for download without protection. The alternative to iTunes was not Napster -- which got sued out of existence -- it was taking a trip down to the record store (remember those/) to buy expensive CDs full of music just to get one song they wanted. iTunes was and is a jail. I suppose it's even cool in some dysfunctional way. Severing fools from their money? Maybe, but...those fools are saving a lot of money by downloading just the songs they want instead of buying whole CDs.
The truth is that Steve Jobs was a businessman. He did many of the bad things businesspeople do. That is not what made him special. Many others walked that road before him. What made him special was the way he drove products that people wanted and enjoyed, products that made their lives better. Other people try that and end up making Zunes. And he did it right up to the end of the life, even making a deal with the devil (Microsoft) to save the company he founded and others destroyed in his absence.Jobs may not warrant hero-worship, but accolades are well-earned in much the same way we can celebrate Thomas Jefferson and George Washington even though both men owned slaves.
Richard Stallman, on the other hand, was a true pioneer and a free software giant who seems determined to go out as a nasty little troll.
Kind of a shame given what we owe the man.
**edit**
Hmmm. As I noted earlier, Jobs was pushing forward to the very end. I notice that today's LXer postings include a story on the sorry state of high-profile Gnu projects. Maybe Stallman should pull his foot out of his mouth long enough to right the ship.
Let's look at the line Varghese quotes so approvingly:
"Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died."
Stallman chooses his language very carefully, so it is fair to parse his statements carefully.
"The pioneer.."
"The" is singular. It implies a unique and exalted (or infamous) position. "Pioneer" is somebody who ventures into new areas.
So....
Whatever Jobs may have been, he was there at the beginning and he was alone.
"jail made cool".
That's an interesting thought all by itself, but let's try to figure out what that means, in light of Job's unique pioneering status.
He could be referring to all of the parents given little choice but to take their kids to see Toy Story, Monsters, Inc, The Incredibles, Wall-E, etc. But..."The pioneer"? Disney went down that road years ago with "Fantasia", "Sleeping Beauty", "The Lion King", etc. That jail was built years ago. And it was cool right from the beginning. Pixar made it more fun. They didn't invent the idea of trademarks, copyright, or being forced to stand in line at the concession stand. They did, however, make some nice movies that let grown-ups enjoy the same thing their kids were watching. Maybe Stallman objects to people having a good time.
He could be referring to Apple computers. Apple was there in the early days with the Apple II. Jobs and Wozniak certainly were among the pioneers of personal computing. But that jail thing...
The Apple II -- reflecting Wozniak more than Jobs -- wasn't exactly a jail. It was chock full of slots and empty space inviting hackers to fill them up. All kinds of non-Apple stuff, including a Z-80 card (made by Microsoft!!!) running CP/M found their way into those slots. Sounds like a freedom machine, not a jail, esp with reference to contemporaries like the TRS-80.
If he's talking about computers, he'd have to be talking Mac, which was very Jobs-driven. The Mac OS has always been proprietary and, except for a brief period when Jobs had been exiled from Apple, available only on Apple hardware. But the Mac came out in 1984, well after the IBM PC, and TRS-80, early Atari computers and a slew of others, not to mention big iron world where IBM had always been proprietary as hell. For that matter machines like the Commodore 64, the soon-to-be released Commodore Amiga, and the Atari St also used proprietary Operating Systems. CP/M could be used on a variety of hardware, but the OS itself was proprietary.
In that regard, Jobs was just One of the Crowd, not that unique Satan on Earth, "The Pioneer". That first Mac, if it was a jail, wasn't even especially cool. It was a feeble little device that didn't find a market until postscript laser printers let it become a desktop publishing engine. Then it "severed fools from their money" in much the same way that Video Toaster equipped Amigas (much cooler than Macs) severed fools from theirs: It let them do sophisticated work for a fraction of the cost of the dedicated proprietary hardware of the day. Hmmm. Sounds like it saved those fools a whole bunch of money and...maybe that's not so foolish.
Later Macs could as easily be characterized as Freedom Machines as jails. Many of the people buying Macs are moving away from the also proprietary Windows platform, and doing so willingly. Those Macs can run Linux, if you choose, and are built on top of a BSD kernel which --- lo and behold! -- can natively run a great big pile GPL'd software.
One place where "the pioneer" fits is iTunes, a truly wretched and DRM-infested piece of work inflicted on millions upon millions of somewhat innocent victims. But.... remember the genesis -- iTunes started out as an online music store making major label recordings available for download. The record labels were not going to let their cash cows go out the door for free, and they were not going to let them go up for download without protection. The alternative to iTunes was not Napster -- which got sued out of existence -- it was taking a trip down to the record store (remember those/) to buy expensive CDs full of music just to get one song they wanted. iTunes was and is a jail. I suppose it's even cool in some dysfunctional way. Severing fools from their money? Maybe, but...those fools are saving a lot of money by downloading just the songs they want instead of buying whole CDs.
The truth is that Steve Jobs was a businessman. He did many of the bad things businesspeople do. That is not what made him special. Many others walked that road before him. What made him special was the way he drove products that people wanted and enjoyed, products that made their lives better. Other people try that and end up making Zunes. And he did it right up to the end of the life, even making a deal with the devil (Microsoft) to save the company he founded and others destroyed in his absence.Jobs may not warrant hero-worship, but accolades are well-earned in much the same way we can celebrate Thomas Jefferson and George Washington even though both men owned slaves.
Richard Stallman, on the other hand, was a true pioneer and a free software giant who seems determined to go out as a nasty little troll.
Kind of a shame given what we owe the man.
**edit**
Hmmm. As I noted earlier, Jobs was pushing forward to the very end. I notice that today's LXer postings include a story on the sorry state of high-profile Gnu projects. Maybe Stallman should pull his foot out of his mouth long enough to right the ship.
This seems to be my 'metoo dino' day. It is never effective to wag the finger of shame and tell people "You must not do this." Or to call them fools, or to rant how stupid they are for using The Wrong Stuff. That never works. Duh. What works is a positive approach that highlights the advantages of Free Software. If we can't offer an attractive alternative, if Free Software can't attract people on its own merits, condemnation and judgment surely are not going to fill the gap. I'm rather appalled at how many supposed free software fans don't understand the difference between being effective and being a jerk who chases people away. It's a broad, bright line.
Darn it, tuxchick,
I just can't get the rating button to work. Karmic 5 stars to you.
I just can't get the rating button to work. Karmic 5 stars to you.
@tuxchick: I fully agree with you. I've attended quite a few LUG parties around here over the last ten years to see what harm zealotry can actually do. Tell folks they got it all wrong, and all you do is chase them away. I have a nice hands-on example of how things *can* work out. More often than not, I have to install a lone Linux server in a SOHO network, in replacement of a Windows server. Client machines are usually a mix of Windows XP, Vista and Seven. I setup my Samba server, connect all the clients, show employees how to use the thing, and sometimes, I get the chance to sneak in an additional Linux client. What I do in that case is teach one employee how to use the machine. More often than not, folks call me back and ask me if they can take the migration a step further, until the average scenario for client machines is nine Linux clients and one single Windows client to run the accountant's MS-only software on. Use the Force, but don't force :o)
dinotrac: you are a few steps ahead of me. i can't even 'find' the rating button!
tuxchick, you have now fully redeemed yourself for some of your comments against kde4.0. thank you!
greetings, eMBee.
tuxchick, you have now fully redeemed yourself for some of your comments against kde4.0. thank you!
greetings, eMBee.
Their is a rating button?
@koriel -
If you click the ruby slippers together three times while saying "I want to rate this comment", it will appear.
If you click the ruby slippers together three times while saying "I want to rate this comment", it will appear.
Ahh i see, so this rating button is in Kansas then.
Quoting:Ahh i see, so this rating button is in Kansas then.
No, only in the Land of Oz. :-)
Wonderful land of Oz
>No, only in the Land of Oz. :-)
Which can be mistaken for Kansas if Happy Hour goes too long.
Which can be mistaken for Kansas if Happy Hour goes too long.
Thanks, DIno, for saying what I assumed I'd be flamed to hell and back for saying.
Tuxchick: I agree, I've been saying that for years but I feel like no one ever listens :-
Perhaps people do, though.
Tuxchick: I agree, I've been saying that for years but I feel like no one ever listens :-
Perhaps people do, though.
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But one thing Stallman has never been is a hypocrite. So like him or loath him, his comments should not have come as a surprise.