Q&A RMS
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| ColonelPanik Nov 18, 2008 11:45 AM EDT |
Dickie Stallman might just be a hardliner but he does walk what
he talks. Will there ever be a common ground for the two groups? |
| vainrveenr Nov 18, 2008 12:28 PM EDT |
Quoting:Will there ever be a common ground for the two groups?One POV is that Stallman's steadfast pull to the Left may indeed alienate those persons or groups who themselves are too far to the Right --- copyleft vs. copyright?, http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/ --- yet at the same time causes and allows many more persons and groups to effectively reach the middle/"common" ground. In other words, Stallman's adherence to his views and his effectively "walking the walk" together end up keeping at bay those who are ultimately, and more importantly, are CONTINUALLY(!) seeking to somehow erode the very foundations of Privacy and FSF Freedom. |
| npan Nov 18, 2008 6:24 PM EDT |
People attach labels such as hardliner, extremist, zealot or fanatic to RMS. I think this is because people fail to comprehend what he is preaching about. As for me, I also initially thought that his views were "quite harsh to call proprietary software evil" - after all, proprietary software made my computing "convenient to use". Over time I thought about RMS's principles and came to conclude the same things as he has: society cannot live in freedom whenever they accept proprietary software. When I came to understand this point, it was clear that I should rid myself of all proprietary software and invest my effort and money into developing and promoting freedom. The thing that is common between "open source software" and "free software" is the licensing criteria. RMS will never care for the open source movement and he explains why this is so: there is a difference in philosophy and values between the two. RMS cares about the right to freedom (the right to help yourself as you wish) as well as the right to social solidarity; RMS doesn't care about any software development method. If RMS didn't walk his walk, not only would he be hypocritical, he would also feel terrible for giving up his right to freedom. RMS would rather have nothing than relinquish his right to freedom. The good news is that instead of giving up software altogether, he put his effort into creating an alternate world, one in which people had the right to live in freedom: he started the GNU project in order to give people a chance to escape to freedom. |
| claus Nov 18, 2008 8:15 PM EDT |
@ Colonel Panik: I believe, there will never be common ground for the two groups. Richard Stallman believes that "non-free" software is evil, and therefore, all software should be "free software". For his movement, this is a dogma -- an "established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization, thought to be authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogma] Obviously, suppporters of open source don't share the dogma and, thus, have no problem with people offering closed source, in general. In other words, these two are fundamentally different belief systems. Would you say that may change one day? I don't think so. |
| DiBosco Nov 18, 2008 8:19 PM EDT |
Something I wonder about (and this is *not* intended to be inflammatory) is this: I use a very nice cross platform IDE on Linux for programming embedded microcontrollers. It is proprietary. I think, that if it wasn't, it wouldn't exist, because I don't know how the chaps who write it would make a living without them charging for it. They can only charge for it, by making it proprietary as far as I can see. If they opened it up, you just know that the majority of people would just use it and not pay for support. This is a limited market for them, the number of people wanting to use it compared to a word processor is tiny, so even if some companies wanted to pay for support, then I believe it would not be enough for them to make a living. I don't mind paying for this software because it's very good and sensibly priced, but of course, if there was a free version, I am sure I would use that instead (were it good enough of course). It would theoretically be possible to have the IC manufacturers pay for these third parties to write IDEs as, after all, it is these IDEs than enable people to program, use and buy their devices. Problem is, that where do you draw the line and say there are enough IDEs for a particular chip? Also, when companies like Freescale and TI take too much control of these pieces of software they become very poor indeed. |
| npan Nov 18, 2008 8:35 PM EDT |
@DiBosco
You fail to understand RMS's issue. What you understand is the point of view from the software proprietor. Free software is not about price, free software is all about freedom. You seem to believe that people cannot make money through free software; this is false. You can charge as much as you want for software as long as you give the users their essential freedoms. Software proprietors make their money by requiring users to give up their freedom in order to use that proprietary software. The way they do this is by making the software attractive and convenient for today. Your software may work today but you thought about the future when your software requirements change? With proprietary software are completely at the goodwill of the software master to help you when your software needs change; you lack the freedom to help yourself and so, you are helpless to help yourself. Don't be short sighted and rely on proprietary software. Value your freedom and invest your effort into improving free software. I don't understand what you are saying in the last paragraph. Would you please rephrase it? |
| jdixon Nov 18, 2008 9:15 PM EDT |
Free software is almost always better for your average user than proprietary software. However, there are still many cases where there is no free software available for a specific task, or the currently available free software simply won't do the job in a particular case. In such cases, I think even RMS would agree that there's nothing evil about using proprietary software to get the job done (in fact, I think he's been quoting as saying so on more than one occasion). The case of their not being any free software available is fairly easy to determine. Whether the currently available free software is up to the task at hand is a matter which can only be judged by the person doing the work. |
| claus Nov 18, 2008 10:48 PM EDT |
@ jdixon: In fact, Richard Stallman does not agree. He says you should use "free software" even if its inferior to a "non-free" solution. According to Stallman, you should value "freedom" and therefore be willing to give up some convinience. There's just one exception to the rule: This is when you want to start developing "free software". Since all you need to develop programs with exists as "free" software, there's no excuse to use "non-free software", anymore. @ DiBosco: Your concerns are justfied. Usually, the counter-argument is that one can charge for "free software". npan mentioned it already. And in fact this is true. But the rest of the story is seldom told. Let's say you invent a rather successful programm, and you sell copies for $100 each in your online shop. What happens next is that the RedHats, Ubuntus and Novells of the world redistribute your program for the price of zero because any "free software" license allows them to do so. Then, you face a difficult choice: You either lower your price to zero to be able to, well, "compete". Or you accept to loose nearly all your sales because the majority of people will get your program from the aforementioned sources. Either way, your revenue will drop to (nearly) zero. In effect, you are able to make money by selling "free" software. A few hundred dollars that hardly feeds a family. |
| rijelkentaurus Nov 18, 2008 11:02 PM EDT |
It's hard to make money selling Free Software...fine, point taken, no argument from me. It's also hard to make money selling proprietary software. No one seems to ever say that. Using a proprietary license doesn't automatically mean you're going to be successful selling it. As likely as not, some large company is going to come along and steal your idea(s) anyway, and then dare you to find the funds to sue them. |
| claus Nov 18, 2008 11:23 PM EDT |
Yes, this is true. Making money is never easy because everyone wants to make some. We all want to provide our families a better living. A "non-free" license just gives you a better chance to be able to do so than a "free" software license. Nobody said it provides a guarantee to make money. Also, it's good thing that copyright protects works, not ideas. Otherwise there would be no way to implement certain ideas as open source. In fact, there would be no competition, at all. |
| tuxchick Nov 18, 2008 11:25 PM EDT |
"Dickie" Stallman?? Oh my...somehow I can't picture calling him that. You go first, Colonel :) |
| azerthoth Nov 19, 2008 1:40 AM EDT |
arrg TC wins, I was so trying to avoid making any comments on RMS, but TC's comment forces my hand. Drop the 'ie' from Dickie and I'll beard that lizard in his den. |
| Libervis Nov 19, 2008 4:45 AM EDT |
This interview reminds me of the "good old days". It's incredible, the power of perspective, looking back the way I used to be (some would say a "stallmanite"). Today I could almost put myself in the "open source" camp, but that would be under special conditions, the conditions involving a world that is quite a bit different than it is today. No copyright laws, no legitimized coercion or in other words, no "government" as we know it. This changes the whole perspective on the proprietary vs free (as in freedom) software dichotomy in that the copyright law no longer matters (nor exists that is) and licenses are nothing but contracts that can be agreed to or rejected. And aside from those contracts the only other thing that matters is whether there is source code available or not. That becomes the ultimate differentiator between free software and proprietary software. Hence my being "almost" in the open source camp. :P But this is not the world I'm in. In this world people seldom think about their liberties. They don't realize that while their rights are inherent they wont be recognized and respected until they recognize and demand them themselves. The free software movement thus ends up playing a convenient role of making people care a little more about the choices they make and the consequences of those choices on their personal power and freedom. This is another reason why I like the term "freedomware" to describe FOSS. I can split it nicely into what I think is the only remaining gist of free software that I support: freedom aware. That awareness is really all that matters. Be aware that you can choose a contract that doesn't require you to give up your property rights to the software vendor by agreeing to a license enforced and artificially regulated by a coercive monopoly on contract enforcement (government). If they start thinking about their software choices they might start thinking about some even more fundamental choices concerning their personal power and liberty. I know I did. |
| nalf38 Nov 19, 2008 4:57 AM EDT |
The things he says make perfect sense to me, but there are always corner cases to every ideology, and that's what makes me wary of him. I value ideals and pragmatism, but RMS doesn't give pragmatism even a passing glance. |
| DiBosco Nov 19, 2008 5:46 AM EDT |
Quoting: @DiBosco You fail to understand RMS's issue. What you understand is the point of view from the software proprietor. Free software is not about price, free software is all about freedom. You seem to believe that people cannot make money through free software; this is false. You can charge as much as you want for software as long as you give the users their essential freedoms. I don't believe I do fail to understand RMS's position. As I said, I am not trying to be inflammatory, but mulling over practicalities of human nature I use free and open source software as much as I possible and always use it when I can. I did not say that people cannot make money through free software (in fact I make the counter arguments regularly when talking to people in day to day life about Linux). What I did say is that there are some situations where because of human nature and the type of people who use IDEs for embedded software, means, I believe, they would not make money, therefore all the work they do would not happen and I wouldn't have this excellent software to use. Quoting: Your software may work today but you thought about the future when your software requirements change? With proprietary software are completely at the goodwill of the software master to help you when your software needs change; you lack the freedom to help yourself and so, you are helpless to help yourself. Don't be short sighted and rely on proprietary software. Value your freedom and invest your effort into improving free software. My alternative to using this software is to run proprietary software on Windows! There is very little FOSS software indeed for developing software for embedded microcontrollers. I simply do not have the software skills to write PC based IDEs. Not to mention the fact that the w*****s who manufacture the embedded micros almost never release their on chip debug commands! Quoting:I don't understand what you are saying in the last paragraph. Would you please rephrase it? I develop software for eight, sixteen and thirty-two bit embedded microcontrollers (micros with flash, UARTs, ADCs, timers etc built into to them). These devices are made by the likes of Texas Instruments, Atmel, NXP (née Philips) and Freescale. These companies can only make sales if people can program their micros. To do that, they need software tools such as the one I am talking about (that is proprietary). Sometimes, the hardware manufacturers do release free (as in beer) tools or sell their own tools. Either way, more often than not, they are crap and they are always proprietary. So, what the IC manufacturers could (and probably should) do is pay these third party people to write their tools for them under the GPL. However, they would be unwilling to pay lots of third parties I am sure. So, in the case of Atmel's AVRs, there were already four or five develoment environments available and Atmel would not pay for this fifth company to develop yet another toolchain. As it happens this fifth toolchain is the best now available and less than half the price of the next best toolchain. Therefore, the only option open to this fifth company is to charge money for their products and they would never make enough money to survive if it was FOSS (because there simply wouldn't be enough people will to pay for their software as a service). Of course, and I am now going to answer a point you will make to me, if the IC manufacturers did pay people to release GPL based IDEs and they had issues, then it would be possible, as an end user, to pay someone to make changes or fork the project to work how people wanted. I don't know whether that's any clearer and I am probably starting to ramble now. I should say, btw, that I do admire RMS and all the work he has done. I am only trying to tackle the issue of practicalities that exist. :~) |
| machiner Nov 19, 2008 8:32 AM EDT |
I'm not so sure I'd want to be in a world without Mr. Stallman. "hardliner" - please. His mind is made until another can change it, that's all. I'm the same way. Labels are too easy. No RMS = no Debian. That's enough for me. Did someone say "hurd"? Practicalities - pfft, it's called making excuses for your ideas to fly. |
| gus3 Nov 19, 2008 3:42 PM EDT |
Quoting:These companies can only make sales if people can program their micros.All the more reason to be giving away their toolchains. The more people programming their micros, the more programs there will be, and the more reason to buy their hardware. |
| ColonelPanik Nov 19, 2008 7:53 PM EDT |
RMS (AKA Dickie) does his email from the CL. |
| npan Nov 19, 2008 9:20 PM EDT |
Quoting:My alternative to using this software is to run proprietary software on Windows! There is very little FOSS software indeed for developing software for embedded microcontrollers. I think I understand what you are trying to say. You would rather give up your freedom in order to do some practical work today rather than invest your time and resources into developing new software or improving existing free software. While this view is understandable, it is also foolish to live this way. The software works today but you are helpless to help yourself when the need arises; you cannot live in freedom. Quoting:I simply do not have the software skills to write PC based IDEs.I recently built a new house despite my complete lack of house building skills. Can you guess how I managed to accomplish this feat: I hired a contractor and architect to take care of all the intricate details and skilled work for me. The only work I did was to instruct these professionals what features I wanted in my house What I'm trying to say here is your lack of time or skills is not an excuse. The freedom to help yourself comes with the responsibility to help yourself. You need to hire a programmer to work you. Quoting:Not to mention the fact that the w*****s who manufacture the embedded micros almost never release their on chip debug commands! Quoting:... So, what the IC manufacturers could (and probably should) do is pay these third party people to write their tools for them under the GPL. ...Some company takes the time and effort to develop some software/hardware. In the case of the software, this company recovers the cost of software development through artificial scarcity and subjugating users of their freedoms. In the case of the hardware, the company develops a product with antifeatures - reliable documentation is an essential part of this particular product. The company is at fault for not being creative enough to recover the cost of business in an ethical manner. The user of the software is also at fault for contributing to this scheme. These schemes of "lockin" are dangerous to a free society and should be avoided at all costs. "But what if there is no other alternative?" Once again, the issue of responsibility comes into play - the freedom to help yourself includes the responsibility to help yourself. Always remember this: the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Don't be surprised if the price of freedom costs you a significant amount of time, effort or money. |
| jdixon Nov 19, 2008 10:33 PM EDT |
> You would rather give up your freedom in order to do some practical work today rather than invest your time and resources into developing new software or improving existing free software. While this view is understandable, it is also foolish to live this way. You're assuming that he has "time and resources" to "invest". He's stated he doesn't have the skills necessary. He's also stated that in many cases the information to do so isn't provided by the manufacturer. What exactly would you have him do, steal the necessary information and money necessary? > The only work I did was to instruct these professionals what features I wanted in my house And I suppose the money you paid them just fell from trees and all you had to do was gather it up? For most people in this world money=work. > What I'm trying to say here is your lack of time or skills is not an excuse. And you have no authority to say so. He's the only one who can judge the proper use of his time and resources, not me, not you, and not RMS. That's what freedom means. Or do you think the word only applies to software? > Always remember this: the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Especially of folks who would use a comparatively trivial matter like software to take it from you. There's nothing wrong with saying free software is better. There's nothing wrong with saying free software is preferable for a host of reasons. There's nothing wrong with stating that, in your opinion, people should use free software wherever possible. There is something wrong with telling people who are in a better position to judge than you are that they're wrong for making the choice they've made. It's their choice to make, not yours. |
| gus3 Nov 19, 2008 11:50 PM EDT |
Quoting:the information to do so isn't provided by the manufacturer.Then throw in the manufacturers' faces how short-sighted and ignorant of market forces they are. Why are there so many FOSS programs and systems? Why has it taken FOSS less time to produce more programs and systems than even the most nimble proprietary outfits? Precisely because the development toolchains are Open! These people need to fire their marketing staff and get with the program (so to speak). |
| jdixon Nov 20, 2008 12:45 AM EDT |
> Then throw in the manufacturers' faces how short-sighted and ignorant of market forces they are. I'm sure that's been done. Probably a number of times. Lord knows it's been tried with Creative, Broadcom, and Intuit. I've personally notified Intuit of my position wrt Quicken at least twice. And what should he do when they don't listen? I agree completely that they're being short sighted. I even agree that they're ignorant. But, like it or not, they can and will do as they want and not necessarily as we would like. If they refuse to open their products and support open software; he can either not use their products (in which case he's probably out of work), or he can use proprietary software. Saying use only free software is easy, but sometimes difficult decisions between values must be made; and given the choice between feeding my family and only using free software, I know which one I will choose. There are more important things in life than software. These are difficult decisions to make. There's room for reasonable people to reach different conclusions about where to draw the line, especially as no two people are in exactly the same situation. As long as we agree on the principles involved, there's room for such disagreement. Calling people wrong for drawing the line at a different place only divides and weakens us. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 20, 2008 2:54 AM EDT |
@jdixon: Considering that Creative did a 180 and opened up, complaining does help sometimes. Now we need broadcom to do the same. |
| gus3 Nov 20, 2008 3:39 AM EDT |
ATI also opened up. Nvidia needs to follow suit. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 20, 2008 3:48 AM EDT |
I must say that I care less for Nvidia than I care for Broadcom. Two reasons: 1) ATI is an excellent alternative for Nvidia and it's really easy to find things with ATI or Intel chipsets. Unlike wifi where broadcom seems to be about everywhere and it becomes very hard to find something that does not have a broadcom chipset. To boot, Video cards are always well advertised but it is nigh impossible to find out what chipset is in a laptop or wifi usb stick. 2) Nvidia does provide good binary drivers. They are not quite as up to date as the ATI ones (no xrandr 1.3 for example) but they do work smoothly. Broadcom not quite so. For years we have had to rely on Windows drivers and the broadcom cutter. Broadcom does supply native Linux drivers these days (from their website), but quality and ease of use is still lacking. |
| gus3 Nov 20, 2008 4:54 AM EDT |
Nvidia cleaned up their drivers when the KernelOOPS project got started. Nvidia drivers were an embarrassing source of oops'es; when the KernelOOPS project started actually tracking them, Nvidia couldn't just stick their fingers in their ears and say "la la la can't hear you!" as they had with forum postings. |
| DiBosco Nov 20, 2008 6:56 AM EDT |
Quoting: You would rather give up your freedom in order to do some practical work today rather than invest your time and resources into developing new software or improving existing free software. Actually, no, I would love to put time and effort in and in fact I could learn the skill to write good GUI programs for PCs. However, I need money in the meantime to pay for mortgage, food, petrol etc! Which comes back my original musing about the practicalities of these issues. Your point about moaning at the manufacturers is a good one and yes, I moan at them all the time. I suspect at the moment they prefer it the way it is because they probably have to pay people like IAR, Keil etc a lot less money (if any at all) if they [the toolchain vendors] can release proprietary software they can charge for. |
| jdixon Nov 20, 2008 11:16 AM EDT |
> ...complaining does help sometimes. Eventually and sometimes, yes. Which is why I still do it. |
| jezuch Nov 20, 2008 4:17 PM EDT |
Quoting:ATI is an excellent alternative for Nvidia Absolutely. Unless this is your work laptop assigned to you by The Compay. I mentioned to my manager that the fact that my new machine has an Nvidia chip borders on malice. Before that they did wonder why I pushed for it to be AMD-centric with an ATI chip... Quoting:Nvidia does provide good binary drivers. They are not quite as up to date as the ATI ones (no xrandr 1.3 for example) but they do work smoothly ...sometimes. I get pixel junk constantly in about every application and switching to a desktop with Konsole running means several seconds of waiting (I read somewhere that's because the KDE folks used a part of OpenGL standard that Nvidia folks thought nobody used and skipped its implementation). I heard that the latest and greatest version of the driver fixed those problems, but I'll have to wait for it to get packaged by Debian :) |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 20, 2008 6:33 PM EDT |
My current PC has an Nvidia 6600GT and it works fine (using the older drivers that come with Debian Etch). I am going to replace it with an ATI card soon, but the only reason for that is xrandr 1.3 support. I have two 19" monitors and my 6600GT only has one output. |
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