Stallman reminds me more of Steve Jobs than anyone else does:
- 70's wunderkind
- simple, clear belief about what computing should be
- realized his vision, creating permanent improvement enjoyed directly or indirectly by every computer user
- uncompromising in his determination to control his environment
Personally I believe he has some major blind spots -- so did Jobs. The failure of this community to hold him in comparable regard is just that, a failure.
> Could you explain how Stallman is a "software dictator", or how his own version of freedom comes at the "expense of their freedom"?
Richard Stallman believes in the freedom of software, not the freedom of individuals. The GPL ensures that software is always free, by restricting what you as an individual can do with it. To him software being free in more important than a persons freedom. The BSD/MIT/ISC licenses give full freedom to people, including letting people make the software non-free, that is the freedom of choice.
I personally believe in the freedom of people. I believe people should be able to make their own choices, even if I disagree with them. That to me is true freedom. Richard Stallman believes that everyone should do things his way, that people should not be allowed to choose to do things differently. To me that is a form of fascism (http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fascism).
> Richard Stallman believes in the freedom of software, not the freedom of individuals.
Stallman believes in freedom of indivisuals, _including_ the freedom of individuals down the stream. The BSD increases only your (egoistic) "freedom" to cut off other people from water supply, while decreasing everybody elses freedom to get to the water source, so it maximizes only one single peak of freedom, while everybody else loses. The GPL levels the access, it maximizes the total amount of freedom available in the ecosystem.
> That to me is true freedom.
According to that logic, a democracy is "unfree" because you are not allowed to turn it into a dictatorship, which is the "true freedom" then.
"Stallman believes in freedom of indivisuals, _including_ the freedom of individuals down the stream. The BSD increases only your (egoistic) "freedom" to cut off other people from water supply, while decreasing everybody elses freedom to get to the water source"
This isn't true. If I make changes to an app and don't release the changes, the only think you don't get is my changes. The water source is still available for all.
"so it maximizes only one single peak of freedom, while everybody else loses. The GPL levels the access, it maximizes the total amount of freedom available in the ecosystem."
If the GNU were truly free you wouldn't see so many GNU violators being taken to court. The GNU is about as free a s copyright. If you consider that freedom, then yes, it's free.
I would say just don't use GNU software if you don't believe in the licensing, but it's not that easy. The GNU is like a bomb about to explode. As a business owner, if one of your employees uses any GNU software in a commercial app and you have any sort of success, it could be the end of your business if you are forced to release the source. Why? Because someone can and will compile and release it for free, circumventing all of your commercial licensing.
Making software non-free is not something an individual does with software. It is something an individual does to other individuals.
You can do whatever you want with free software. You just can't prevent me from doing the same thing.
Similarly, you might describe freedom of the press as a form of fascism - in a land with freedom of the press, you lose the "freedom" to censor my newspaper.
The way you describe freedom is the way some oppressive regimes start, an individual believes their way is the right way, others will benefit from their way, so their way is forced on people.
With freedom of the press, the press has the freedom to choose what they publish. You as an individual have the freedom to choose not to read what they publish. You don't have the freedom to restrict what or how they publish, that is their choice.
With software licenses the copyright holder has the freedom to pick a license and publish their work how they choose. With BSD-like licenses the receiver of the software also has the freedom to pick a license and re-publish the work as they choose. With the GPL the receiver of the software loses the freedom to choose what they do with it, the copyright holder is imposing their will and beliefs on someone else. With the BSD License people have choice, including the choice to impose their will, but that choice is theirs.
Instead of the press, I think it might be clearer if you think about it as drugs or alcohol. You as an individual have the freedom to choose to sit in your home and get drunk. That is your choice. You do not have the freedom to get in a fight while drunk, or get in a car and drive drunk. Because when you do those things you take away the freedom of choice of others, you impose your will, you take away their right not to get hit.
It's about freedom of choice. The choice of an individual lies with that individual, with freedom of choice you do not get to restrict the choice of others.
You as an individual have the freedom to choose to sit in your home and get drunk. That is your choice.
I like your drugs and alchohol analogy.
With free software, you as an individual have the freedom to do whatever you want with it in your home. That is your choice. You do not have the freedom to prevent others from modifying or reproducing it. Because when you do those things you take away the freedom of choice of others, you impose your will, you take away their right to modify and reproduce the software.
The point you seem to be missing is that licensing software is not something you do to the software. It's something you do to other people.
You make an excellent point. I believe in free software, but I choose not to impose those beliefs on others.
I think there are times when freedom needs to be enforced through law, as the GPL does, because the consequences of losing the freedom is too great (injury or death included). The GPL was and still is important, it helped popularize the free software movement. Twenty years ago the GPL might have been required, maybe the software landscape was such that non-GPL free software would not succeed. I think now, in 2012, it is not required for most projects. I will concede there are projects where it is still important.
If you look at some of the most successful and thriving open source projects you'll see they succeed without laws enforcing their freedom. Things like Apache httpd, nginx, Hadoop, Chromium, and X.org. People and companies contribute to them even though they are not forced to.
If think there comes a time when societies and ecosystems no longer need such strong enforcement of freedoms, and freedom is actually increased by not forcing freedom.
A software license is a form of contract that individuals are free to accept or not. If you disagree with the contract, you are free not to use the software.
Here's another analogy. If I build a restaurant and want it to be non-smoking, I'm not restricting your freedom. You are free not to come to my restaurant.
I knew from the fact that the link title contained the word "Stallman" that it'd get Godwinned. Congratulations.
Do you honestly believe that you can separate what you describe as "freedom of software" from "freedom of individuals"? Does DRM or Tivoization serve the freedom of individuals? Does not being able to modify your computer make you more free?
No. Stallman do care about the freedom of the people. The problem is, he focuses almost entirely on negative freedom[1]. If one restricts oneself to Free Software, he can do whatever he wants with it (except restricting others' freedom, which is precisely what negative freedom is about). But there are additional degrees of liberty[2] to be gained if you also use proprietary software from time to time. Some capabilities just aren't in the realm of free software (the latest fashionable computer game, some device drivers, the Raspberry Pi —it uses some proprietary code).
Now, note that even someone very much aware of positive liberty could act the same way Stallman is acting. This is because we'd all be more capable if all software were free.[3] The only way to do that is stop using and making proprietary software. The problem with that is that it requires a personal sacrifice. At the consumer end, it means not enjoying some software (the proprietary ones). At the producer end, it means making less money.
In other words, we have a prisoner's dilemma[4]. Stallman is currently cooperating, and is urging everyone else to do the same. The GPL by the way is consistent with this: to some extent, it forces you to cooperate. You seem to think this is unacceptable. You'd prefer to be able to defect. But then I ask you: how do you justify this ? If you plan to cooperate, you don't need the freedom to defect. If you plan to defect, what is your moral basis for making the world a slightly worse place ?
This works even if we do not talk about you. If you think people should cooperate, why give them the freedom to defect ? If you let them defect (and they do defect), it again makes the world a slightly worse place. How would you justify this? (Note: my own moral alarm went off when I wrote that last paragraph. I suppose yours have as well. Just remember that this is probably a false positive, for the GPL actually is a give & take licence. Something like a clever Timeless Decision Theory[5] agent that will cooperate if and only if it knows you will cooperate if and only if you know it will cooperate if… infinite recursion resolved by symmetrical information —the text is laid out for all to see.)
[3]: This point is central. If you don't believe it, the rest of my argument doesn't work. That's why if anyone has reasons to reject it, I'd like to know about it (links to high walls of text are okay).
If people were to pick one reason HN has 'gone downhill', disrespectful comment replies would top the list.
A controversial feature request- when a new account reaches a negative karma level within a certain period, HN will display all other usernames associated with the IP address of the throwaway.
I'd suggest something different. Reduce the value of throwaway logins by making it impossible to comment for, say, 40 days. We can then modulate the quarantine period according to the level of hostility present on the site. Of coursesmart, flagging and hellbanning remains as usual.
Yeah. My idea isn't great, just a frustrated response to this person who claims to have been here for a long time yet still feels it's appropriate to make offensive posts about others here.
I like the idea of an incubation period, but I've seen valuable comments posted from new accounts- I bet a ton of people lurk for months before seeing a thread they feel they can make a valuable contribution to.
You may allow them to contribute - just make them work a little for it. Trolls are lazy - they won't go through a captcha just to harass other people - they'll go to Digg instead. And those who use throwaway logins to troll are also cowards, who don't want to be exposed as who they really are. We can work with that too.
We don't have (or, really, want) to prevent the use of quasi-anonymous logins. All we need is to make life more miserable to trolls than they make it for everyone else. With enough frustration, trolls will gravitate towards places where they can sublimate their frustrations more easily and, hopefully, leave HN for those who really want to engage in civil conversation.
How about a "silent shadow" system? When an account reaches a slope on the negativekarma-time graph, just make it so that a very small, random group of users are the only ones who actually see what they posted. To everyone else, it would be as if they hadn't posted at all. All the while, if what they do post gets a large percentage of upvotes compared to the amount that see the post, shorten the "shadow silent" accordingly.
It will not be made known to the user that their posts cannot be seen. They will have no reason to use alts, and we will have no reason to IP tracking, which could affect non-troll users.
While this wouldn't be a bad idea (for this reason) if every IP-number was only linked to a single person behind the screen, I would expect a lot of people on HN to be hidden behind VPN's and other solutions for masking IP-addresses. These normally use the same IP-addresses for several people.
It appears that you have committed the fallacy of composition here. The claim that Jobs and Stallaman have some similar characteristics is not the same as saying that they are the same.
For example, you can objectively say that Hitler was an influential head of state (e.g. starting WW II) and FDR was an influential head of state. These are both true statements, while at the same time, these were two very different men.
I wouldn't call it stupid, so much as superficial. Those qualities, apart from the temporal connection, could be applied to most people who have achieved any notable stature.
He has that same drive, the unwillingness to compromise, Steve Jobs had. I don't find the comparison inadequate at all - not all people with notable stature have that lack of pragmatism both Stallman and Jobs present.
