
Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter - bpierre
http://alexeymk.com/dear-dr-stallman-an-open-letter/
======
belorn
When it comes to well formulated talks about free software, none seems to beat
those from Stallman's lawyer, Eben Moglen. He knows very well how to speak to
a crowd, and tends to use local references and languages to explain concepts
(professor of law and history of law). Stallman has excellent skills in seeing
problems in software before they get noticed by everyone else, but when I want
to introduce someone to the philosophy of free software I would rather put on
a talk like _Freedom of Thought Requires Free Media_ from 2012 or the now 11
year old talk _Die Gedanken Sind Frei_ from 2004.

1:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKOk4Y4inVY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKOk4Y4inVY)

2:
[http://www.archive.org/download/3_do_t1_11h_3-Moglen_a/3_do_...](http://www.archive.org/download/3_do_t1_11h_3-Moglen_a/3_do_t1_11h_3-Moglen_a_64kb.m3u)

~~~
teddyh
Video of the second one:
[https://archive.org/details/3_do_t1_11h_3-Moglen](https://archive.org/details/3_do_t1_11h_3-Moglen)

------
rosser
Look, Stallman doesn't care who he alienates. He doesn't care if you disagree.
He doesn't care if he offends you.

That's what zealots do.

But as creepy, and petulant, and obnoxious as I tend to find him, I'm grateful
every day that he's out there, because there are things he's right about,
about which he's pretty much the only person with any visibility or
credibility at all to say something.

More to the point, _he wouldn 't have that credibility_ if he compromised and
made his position more palatable.

~~~
crimsonalucard
In all I think society is better off with zealots like Bill gates and a
Stallman sitting at opposite ends of the table fighting it out tooth and nail.

~~~
thesteamboat
Is Bill Gates a zealot? I'm not sure what I would have thought 10 years ago,
but today that doesn't ring true to me.

(Perhaps Steve Jobs is a better example?)

~~~
crimsonalucard
Perhaps, but I thought Bill Gates/microsoft better represents a person that
sits at the opposite end of the table.

------
angersock
There's a great deal to be said on message-crafting. Leave that up to more
moderate folks, like ESR (and yeah, that kind of tells you how extreme rms is,
that Eric Scott Raymond is a moderate).

Stallman and the FSF are basically the platinum standard by which all free
software rhetoric is judged. It is of utmost importance that they not bridge
one iota. They are the reference implementation for what it means to have
truly free software, what it means to value philosophy over culture, and to
value ideals over pragmatism.

That's cost them, and yeah, that doesn't make them popular. But you know what?
Their track record has been pretty correct. The number of infringements and
abuses of power they have warned against have only multiplied--and will
continue to multiply.

They're going to lose, of course, because the people they're trying to help
don't want help. The people whose freedoms they hold dear forsake them and
mock them and sell out at the smallest sign of convenience. It's a forgone
conclusion--so, they might as well fail as martyrs instead of salesmen.

~~~
jfb
The problem is that ESR and the "open source" people have a fundamentally
different understanding of software freedom than do the FSF. I'm not judging
one over the other, but I think it's a mistake to conflate the two. It's not
simply the narcissism of small differences; they have fundamentally
incompatible motives, even if their means can be seem as congruent.

~~~
angersock
I think it's worth observing that the FSF position--absolute as it is--is _by
construction_ incompatible with any other motive.

It seems like the best that can be done, for now, is to have congruent means.
:)

------
cwyers
...am I the only person who didn't know that Stallman is a 9/11 truther?

~~~
mark_l_watson
I try to listen to all of his talks on the web and I don't think that I have
ever heard him say that, but I might have missed it.

BTW, those four images are inflamatory. I can't find them on the fsf.org web
site. If the author placed those there, and they have nothing to do with the
FSF or Stallman, then this article should be hell banned, if that is possible.
If Those four inflamatory images are from FSF or Stallman's web properties
then I would like to see evidence (URLs please). Shame, shame, shame on the
author if he just placed those images to be provacative.

~~~
dunstad
[https://stallman.org/stopping-terrorists.html](https://stallman.org/stopping-
terrorists.html)

In a footnote at the bottom here, he says he believes (believed?) Cheney
played a role.

~~~
emilsedgh
Wow, what a fallacy quote out of context. On the same page you linked he says:

 _I don 't believe that the US government directly planned or instigated those
attacks._

~~~
dunstad
I believe the footnote states that he changed his mind after having written
the article. I also failed to see it the first time I read through, though I
appreciate your desire to get the facts out there.

------
guyzero
Walter Sobchak: Am I wrong?

The Dude: No you're not wrong.

Walter Sobchak: Am I wrong?

The Dude: You're not wrong Walter. You're just an asshole.

Walter Sobchak: Okay then.

------
adamc
Uprated because I think the points Alexey makes are valid, having seen
Stallman speak. I give the FSF money every year because of what they do,
but... Stallman is out there. Then again, if he wasn't, would he have created
the FSF?

Stallman doesn't appear to be very open to honest advice, so there isn't much
you can do to change his approach.

------
ucaetano
Stallman's answer:

"I am skeptical of advice from people who disagree with what I stand for."

~~~
danudey
Which is a great response, considering that the letter was about framing your
message in a way that appeals to people rather than 'stop being so pro-free
software'. Seems like he missed the point entirely, or just dismissed it out
of hand because it was criticism, even though it was highly constructive.

------
pif
> That said, I nor the people that I spoke with about your talk found you to
> be a particularly charismatic or persuasive speaker. The only people that
> seemed convinced by your speech were the ones who had already been leaning
> towards your point of view to start with.

I had the same impression a few years ago when Stallman came and gave a talk
at CERN. I already agreed with him on most of his points, but I didn't expect
anybody to change their mind just because of the talk.

~~~
danudey
I went to a talk Stallman gave when he was in Vancouver a few years ago. I
found him not only uncharismatic, but almost actively so. Rather than
promoting the FSF's agenda, I left with an even worse impression of it than I
had originally had.

I give Stallman credit for his commitment to his cause, but at the same time I
have to criticize him for maintaining his methods.

You want people to stop using Google Docs, because it's proprietary and hordes
your data under Google's control? How about encouraging, spearheading, and
promoting the creation of an open-source alternative? The suggestion of 'Just
don't use Google Docs' isn't practical; people use it for a reason, and he
doesn't seem to understand it, presumably because he doesn't 'collaborate' on
documents the way that teams often have to. But if you put a free alternative
in front of people, I'd wager you'd get a lot more converts.

Hell, how about just some modifications to OpenOffice to allow multi-user
document edits using your native app, facilitated by a central server or peer-
to-peer networking (e.g. zeroconf/avahi). Boom, now your full-featured word
processor, which is _better_ than Google Docs, has all the features you want,
plus a local copy of the file.

Stallman's arguments seem to be 'This thing you like is bad, so just don't
have it'. It's like someone without any children saying "Why do you need a
playpen? And so many toys? And baby gates? Just don't let your kid go near the
stairs, problem solved.' If you don't understand the challenges involved,
which he obviously does not, you can't really provide input on the process.

He's also generally opposed to Clang/LLVM, for the sole reason that it
provides an even more freely-licensed replacement for GCC. Now don't get me
wrong, GCC is ridiculously important, and might be the most important thing
the FSF has ever produced, but it also devolved into a complex, unmaintainable
mess. Very few people in the world were capable of adding substantial
features, and even fewer were willing to do so.

Now we have a competitor, an open-source compiler toolchain which provides
better results faster than GCC, while also including tons of new features that
makes a lot of work easier for everyone (e.g. integrating source code parsing
into your IDE so you can find programming errors as easily as your spell
checker can correct words). Clang/LLVM have forced the GCC team to sit up and
start implementing all the things they had no time or interest to implement
before. Now _everyone_ gets a better compiler, no matter what OS you're on or
what you choose to use. GCC is a significantly better compiler, and Apple is
largely to blame. But because Apple is involved, LLVM is bad, because it can
be used in non-free build systems, like Apple's or Adobe's.

And yet, _despite_ Apple's use of it in non-free software, it's still far
better than GCC in a lot of ways. So his fundamental objection is that
proprietary software exists and can be used, and not that it's being forced on
users. Apple and other corporations have advanced the state of computing and
compiler technology, and he's upset about it because of the very reasons these
corporations were able and willing to put the money in to give us all
something better.

I can't take him seriously anymore. He's been tenured for too long, and
disconnected from users for so long. He has a lot to say about how the users
of 1995 should use their computers, but nothing new since then.

~~~
the_af
Re: Clang/LLVM vs GCC, you need to understand Stallman actually stands for
Free Software and considers the aims of Open Source Software as misguided.
Clang is not "more freely-licensed" according to the FSF's definition. Once
you understand this, you'll see Stallman's position is quite consistent.

~~~
danudey
I perfectly understand his position, and that his Freedom has to come via
restrictions (just like our personal freedom requires the rule of law).

I don't think 'more freely licensed' is ambiguous, in the sense that the
license allows more freedom of use of the code. It's not 'more Freely
licensed', and it's not 'more free' (or 'more Free'), but in the end none of
that is really relevant to the point I'm making.

The point, specifically, is that GCC is made better, and people who endorse,
enjoy, and use Free Software have a better product to use, specifically
because Clang/LLVM exist. He doesn't have to like the licensing, but it's an
inherently better product in a lot of ways and his argument seems to be 'it
can be used non-freely so who cares'. He can only plug his ears and sing to
himself for so long before the world passes him by, and by and large that's
what's happened already.

------
cbsmith
Wow. This is written like no one has every said this to Stallman before. These
are old arguments with well thought through answers (even if you don't agree
with them). Ironically the letter demonstrates the same tone deafness it
accuses Stallman of.

------
pokpokpok
I believe that Stallman is going to be Stallman. He made an incredible
contribution to society, but what the free software movement needs with
regards to public awareness is a Neil Degrasse Tyson / Temple Grandin / Steve
Irwin.

~~~
yepguy
I think you're looking for Eben Moglen.

------
vezzy-fnord
Previously discussed here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2477586](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2477586)

------
scrame
> You don't get somebody off heroin by lecturing them about how they should
> value their freedom; you switch them over to methadone for a while and let
> them slowly detox.

Really bad analogy. That's like saying the best way to quit smoking is to
start chewing tobacco to give your lungs a rest.

~~~
wanda
Well is that not the point of nicotine gum and patches?

Anyway, it's a bad analogy because apathy regarding privacy is not an
addiction. It's just apathy, informed or uninformed. Anybody who was likely to
care about privacy but was ignorant/uninformed should not need to be weaned
off privacy-abusing services. Anybody who was never going to care about
privacy need not be pursued further.

~~~
chimeracoder
> Well is that not the point of nicotine gum and patches?

Methadone really isn't analogous to the patch, though. It really is, at its
core, replacing a socially unacceptable drug (heroin) for a socially
acceptable variant (methadone).

The patch is used to help taper off the craving for nicotine by administering
the _same_ drug, but in a regulated dose which gradually decreases, and using
time-release (skin absorption is much slower)[0]. Methadone doesn't use this
model.

Interestingly, when heroin is administered in the same controlled setting that
methadone is, it has _better_ success rates and _less_ recidivism than
methadone does. These are known as "diacetylmorphine maintenance" programs.

[0] In other words, think of the patch or gum as "extended release" versions
of cigarettes.

------
phazmatis
Observation: People have been writing this exact letter since day 1 of the GNU
project.

