
Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars" - nickb
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7487060.stm
======
ComputerGuru
I stopped reading the second I reached this: _Gates' philanthropy for health
care for poor countries has won some people's good opinion. The LA Times
reported that his foundation spends five to 10% of its money annually and
invests the rest, sometimes in companies it suggests cause environmental
degradation and illness in the same poor countries._

I've just lost all my respect for Richard Stallman. He's a total ass if he
thinks he can make FSF look good by bashing the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation by spreading what qualifies - by Stallman's own definition - as
FUD.

 _Update:_ [http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/richard-stallman-expert-in-
the...](http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/richard-stallman-expert-in-the-art-of-
fud/)

~~~
Tichy
So as long as you donate a percentage of your income to a good cause, it
doesn't matter how you made that income? Like if you run a serial killer
business or the Mafia, you are still good, as long as you donate to cancer
research?

Not a judgement about Bill Gates Foundation vs Stallman, I don't know much
about it, just questioning your logic.

My qualified opinion from reading lots of crime novels and watching mainstream
Hollywood movies is that publicly donating to good causes is established
standard practice for villains. (Again, not saying BG is a villain - being
able to donate to good causes is one good motivation for trying to hit it big
with a startup).

~~~
ComputerGuru
Gates didn't steal his money - he made it a way that Richard Stallman happens
to disapprove of... there's a big difference.

Gates took his capitalist profits and put them to good use treating malaria in
3rd world countries - doesn't smell like the mafia or organized crime to me;
but what do I know.

~~~
Tichy
If you read what I wrote, I am not claiming that Bill Gates is running the
mafia. I am merely making the strictly logical point that doing something good
doesn't prove that your other actions are not bad.

I usually defend the business practices of Microsoft in discussions (for
example <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=229715>) - I am in general for
capitalism (I say in general because people might have varying definitions of
capitalism in mind). But if what Stallman says is true, that behind the scenes
Microsoft is investing in damaging industries, I think it is fair to take that
into account. Again, I have to stress I don't know the substance of Stallman's
accusations - but something tells me you won't notice that I wrote that
sentence anyway... In general, I like Bill Gates, I think he is a very capable
guy.

------
swivelmaster
I stopped reading after it turned into a rant about how all software should be
free. While I understand and agree with some of the complaints about
Microsoft, the extreme 'commercial software is bad' position is kind of
ridiculous.

~~~
mattmaroon
It's his religion, and no matter how mathematically intelligent he may be,
he's as blind to rational thought in that area as the most zealous Imam.

There are different types of intelligences, and it seems pretty obvious that
he is incredibly strong in some and weaker than the average Wal-Mart shopper
in a few.

~~~
tx
He seems to dislike Gates more than you dislike him, yet he managed to avoid
personal insults against Bill's intelligence, despite his own limited
(according to you) mental capacity.

~~~
mattmaroon
I don't dislike him at all. I consider him the computer science version of a
communist. Well meaning, but misguided and suffering from a severe case of
tunnel vision.

Saying he has limited mental capacity has a little different connotation than
what I meant. Perhaps I didn't express it well. He would appear to be genius-
level intelligent in certain regards (math/logic type) and the opposite in
others (social, if his Craigslist personals and appearance are any
indication). The free software thing is sort of a mixture of the two.

~~~
asimjalis
Also you managed to insult Imams and Wal-Mart shoppers for no particular
reason, even though as far as I know neither takes a position on open source
versus closed source software.

~~~
bayareaguy
The selection of software at Wal-Mart is probably limited to closed source.

------
pavelludiq
You know that a lot of the famous idealist of the past have been laughed at
for being diluted and not in touch with reality. RMS is not blind, he just
sees what he wants to see. He knows the reality and knows that a lot of people
laught at him for some reasons, but doesn't care. Look at him, he doesn't give
up, he pushes harder and harder. I don't support his extremist ideas, im a
more moderate free software fan, but his impact has been mainly positive. Did
he cost any real harm to technology? Are his ideas killing jobs, destroying
businesses? No, they are just supplying alternatives. We are now more ahead,
if we didn't have free software. We may not be extreme as RMS, but we get
pushed by a complete nutcase to do good. Im pretty sure RMS doesn't have any
illusions and knows that he can never win completely, but he sees that he has
positive effect and just goes on.

P.S. Gimp sucks, but Photoshop's prise tag sucks more.

~~~
swivelmaster
Photoshop is worth it if your business depends on it. Gimp wastes your time.
It takes a few weeks to work off the price of Photoshop vs the time you'd lose
trying to get Gimp to work properly.

------
billroberts
I don't agree with Stallman. Like probably most HN readers, I use a lot of
Free/Open Source software - Linux, MySQL, Rails... and it's incredibly
valuable. However I don't expect all software to be free, and to a large
extent many major bits of open source software are 'market distortions'
created by the big commercial IT companies. Eg OpenOffice is largely
StarOffice, bought by Sun and open sourced, mainly in order to (IMHO) piss off
Microsoft.

Writing good software takes time and skill (as we all know) and I don't think
it's unreasonable that the people who do it should be able to charge end users
for their efforts. Expecting all software to be written by public employees or
in people's spare time is unrealistic.

~~~
HansF
The gpl explicitly allows you to charge for your software.

~~~
mattmaroon
But forcing you to open source it prevents you from being able to, generally.

------
rplevy
It's important to ask whether society benefits from proprietary source code
whether it be controversial claims to patents on genetic data or software.
Proprietary ownership of code harms society by limiting farmers, scientists,
end users from having their rightful freedom and flexibility. The short term
benefit to individuals gained by selling licenses does not excuse the
resulting restriction of freedom, because it is viable to make money on free
software. Stallman is an idealist who bases his demands on what an ideal world
should be like. The case for software freedom (including the case for its
economic viability) has been made repeatedly, most notably by Stallman. But
the anti-freedom argument has never been convincingly spelled out, to my
knowledge.

~~~
mattmaroon
The "anti-freedom argument" (which should actually be called the pro-
proprietary argument, because nobody sane is against free software) is fairly
simple: there can be both and both can coexist peacefully. We can (and do)
have Linux and Windows, and use them for different things. The market and
individuals decide which is better for what task.

Some people say Ubuntu is finally a usable desktop OS for average Joe. Even if
that's true, it took how many decades for free operating systems to reach that
mark? They're at least 20 years behind in crossing the line (though perhaps
now gaining ground rapidly).

The financial incentive enabled by proprietary software gives us things like
Photoshop (sorry, GIMP still sucks) and Illustrator, Flash, Windows or OSX.

Certainly nobody would suggest that the open source community be legally
prevented from making a Photoshop or Outlook or IE competitor. So why can't we
have both and let the market decide? Why must proprietary be evil?

~~~
rplevy
The fact that the two coexist does not constitute a valid argument for how
things _should_ be, in a better world. There are many less-than-ideal things
that coexist together with superior alternatives. For example there are
countries where women are required to cover their entire face in public, but
the fact that they coexist with secularly governed nations does not validate
theocracy as not being oppressive. Similarly we have two ways of doing things
coexisting with free and proprietary, and the world would be a better place if
one of the alternatives was simply not present.

The line about financial incentive is very disputable as it is all about
personal preferences. I personally prefer emacs over eclipse (emacs just
rules), gimp over photoshop (photoshop is bloated, doesn't run in Linux as far
as I know, and I know how to use Gimp better), Inkscape is awesome, Flash
sucks big time, and Windows is needless to say, horrible.

Free OS took 20 years? No I think freedom at the level of the OS was the
original way of doing things, from the very beginning. It's the proprietary
software that got in the way making it difficult for modern free OSes to catch
up by constantly setting hurdles by requiring free software to reverse
engineer things that needed to be compatible.

~~~
mattmaroon
But how things should be is the way they are, with both existing and the
market deciding. Why should RMS decide how they should be, rather than the
market and the individuals who comprise it?

Comparing a free market, in which free software competes with proprietary, to
an oppressive theocracy is pointless.

------
ctkrohn
It's a little strange to attack the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for only
giving away 10% of it's wealth per year and investing the rest. They give away
a far larger proportion of their endowment than most other foundations.
Notably, they recently announced that they intend to give away all their
wealth within 50 years of Bill Gates' death. This is much different from other
foundations funded by personal wealth: think of the Rockefeller Foundation,
Ford Foundation, Carnegie Foundation, etc. that have effectively become self-
perpetuating entities.

------
edw519
rms should stick to software. He'd make a lousy district attorney.

Of all the evil Microsoft did to the world, "prosecuting" them for writing
propietary software is an unwinnable argument. Instead of presenting arguments
against illegal monopolistic practices he chooses the one thing Microsoft did
that most people agree with: creating IP. And by arguing against IP, he
disqualifies himself from attacking Microsoft's biggest crimes: hijacking
others' IP.

The U.S. government couldn't get Al Capone on any of the big stuff, so they
went after tax evasion to put him away. At least that was also a crime.

~~~
Create
_At least that was also a crime._

Ah yes, those were the days my Friend...

------
tlrobinson
Bash Microsoft, and all proprietary software: ✓

Refer to DRM as Digital "Restrictions" Management: ✓

Point out the Linux kernel is one "small" part of the GNU operating system: ✓

------
froo
Whether you hate Bill Gates for his business dealings with Microsoft or not is
a matter of opinion.

One thing we can thankfully all agree on, is Bill is sorely lacking in his
ability to successfully dodge food...

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gallery/2008/jan/31/bil...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gallery/2008/jan/31/billgates?picture=332309801)

... at least Steve Ballmer does a pretty good job at it.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S30WdoEHCH4>

