
Excerpts from Richard Stallman's talk in Mandya, India - nfrankel
https://factordaily.com/richard-stallman-india/
======
jammygit
There needs to be a sustainable free software business model that small and
large companies can easily adopt.

Donations aren't enough.

Support based models like RedHat lead to bad incentives and seems to limit one
to enterprise clients. Its an option however, but then you're not directly
selling your software either, but rather running a side gig alongside
development.

Most other models that I see working involve saas / hosting, which is a good
compromise but also weird: the creator earns nothing if you benefit from the
license and use it to host your own instance, which is unfortunate and yet
amazing for the end users.

There is also the industry association model like Linux uses, which has merit:
various stakeholders buy an interest in a project to fund open development.
This isn't feasible for the average entrepreneur though, although the creator
of Vue apparently has some respectable funding.

The creators of something so great for end users should be able to get rich
for doing so, rather than needing to make personal financial sacrifices to
dedicate their time to the work. It should be more win win.

~~~
stephenr
Complaining about a lack of business involvement in RMS-approved “free
software” is like complaining about sugar in Cadbury’s products.

Plenty of companies create, use and release open source software using
permissive open source licenses.

When the licence itself and the mantra that goes with it are both hostile to
business use, it’s no surprise business doesn’t get involved.

~~~
door5
>When the licence itself and the mantra that goes with it are both hostile to
business use, it’s no surprise business doesn’t get involved.

Obviously, but that's because businesses act unethically -- ie, for private
profit over public good. They absolutely should be called out for that. Or,
more specifically, they should be regulated so that non-free software licenses
are illegal or severely restricted.

~~~
zzo38computer
>Or, more specifically, they should be regulated so that non-free software
licenses are illegal or severely restricted.

I think it is OK to just not have copyrights (and also not have patents). And
then, there is no non-free software licenses because it is not copyright, so
even if they write them they do not have any legal meaning.

Stallman's idea, that practical works you can freely use/modify/distribute/etc
but artistic works it is permitted to be a limited copyright (only a few
years), might also work, I think (although I am not entirely sure; I think it
is probably simpler to just abolish copyright entirely).

I have also seen a suggestion to tax copyright so that you have to pay a
annual tax, and can copyright it for up to ten years, but anyone who pays 100
times the tax rate of copyright can force it into the public domain early. I
think that can do (and if the government likes to earn money, it can help them
too), but still perhaps the copyright should not be applicable for practical
works, which instead are freely usable. (Some works may be hybrid, and that is
more difficult. One idea is if you can separate the parts easily enough then
you can copyright the artistic parts, but if you cannot then it is forced
public domain; making the source code of a computer game available may be one
way to do, so that you will want to release the source codes anyways in order
that you may copyright the artistic non-practical-works of them.)

But whether or not is copyright, there should be a requirement of warning
label on commercial products that use DRM, and there should not be laws to
restrict circumventing them on your own copies of works/devices.

~~~
stephenr
> I think it is OK to just not have copyrights

Without copyright the GPL (or any other license) is unenforceable

~~~
zzo38computer
I am aware, of course. But it is still better than copyrighted proprietary
software, I think.

~~~
stephenr
So a "Free" license that has literally no legal protection from abuse is
better than the mere existence of proprietary software?

This makes zero sense. The companies that are currently publishing copyrighted
proprietary software would then be free to take the GPL software, make
improvements for their own purposes and distributed the compiled binaries and
make profits without providing the improvements back.

As a proponent of permissive licenses I have no qualms about my software being
enhanced and used by others without giving back those improvements - but the
whole point of the GPL is to prevent that - so a GPL without copyright may as
well be MPL or BSD or MIT.

~~~
zzo38computer
Sorry, maybe I was being unclear, because it isn't quite what I meant. I meant
that that I think having no copyright at all is better than copyright
enforcing proprietary software. Yes, you still would be able to distribute
compiled binaries without providing the improvements back (and I think
permissive licenses (I use public domain myself, rather than copyright) are
much simpler than the GPL), but someone can try to reverse it (or to do other
things with it) and they can't arrest them for that (although anyone can still
make complaints about what the company is doing, to give them a bad
reputation; people could still complain about anything they wanted to complain
about). I know what is the point of the GPL, and I like that point, but think
it is complicated, and I do not like copyright.

Of course if I write a program I would like that others who make modifications
(public) that they would also contribute those source codes too, but I do not
like to put in legal obstructions, so you should have freedom rather than
having too many laws and obstructions.

------
hopler
> I refuse to carry a portable phone. I never have one and unless things
> change, I never will. I do use portable phones, lots of different ones. If I
> needed to call someone right now, I would ask one of you, “Could you please
> make a call for me?”

I don't understand how RMS can find this behavior of his non-noteworthy. He
claims to boycott things but admits to having a critical reliance on other
people not boycotting. For someone deeply committed to extend ideals, the
moral flexibility here is huge.

It'd be one thing if he advocate a network of swapping burner phones or
something, but he's acting like an antivaxxer relying on the herd to indulge
and accommodate his desire to get the benefits without paying the costs.

~~~
endemic
This bothered me as well. Not carrying a mobile phone works for him, but if
everyone did the same then obviously that strategy collapses. Unless he's
advocating that no one carries a mobile phone, which actually seems reasonable
in some respects.

~~~
LeoPanthera
> Unless he's advocating that no one carries a mobile phone

I'm pretty sure he is advocating that, "unless things change".

If even a significant minority fraction of the population stopped carrying
cellphones, society and industry would have to work around that problem. After
all, we all seemed to get along mostly fine before they existed.

~~~
ThatGeoGuy
I honestly think there's a moral argument _against_ everyone not carrying a
mobile phone. How many people worldwide do you figure use their mobile phone
in emergencies? How many times do you figure having a mobile phone has made
the difference between receiving help when needed and people dying?

It's not to say that mobile devices don't come without their own set of
challenges (surveillance capitalism, social media, the influence on how we
interact with others, etc). However, Pandora's box has been opened here. Even
if we assume that mobile phones only make the difference in addressing
emergencies, and only do so 0.1% for 0.1% of the population, that's 7M people
that are saved.

It strikes me as suprisingly disingenuous that some people are so ready to
eschew technology as inherently "evil" just because there are some challenges
or problems associated with it. You have to weight both sides.

------
ggm
It's nice to read a write-up on RMS which doesn't editorialise what Stallman
says, but just _reports it_ polemicists often get criticised on
interpretations not on their actual words.

------
mark_l_watson
He brings up an interesting problem for smartphone (or any cellphone) use. I
know I will never see this as an available product but I would like: something
like my Apple Watch that had a simple hardware switch that would turn off cell
and GPS connectivity. Then I could occasionally check my messages or missed
calls but most of the time have communications turned off. Note that the Apple
Watch has an "airplane mode" that turns off cell connections (I think) but not
sure about GPS.

I have read about Linux cellphones that do have hardware cutoff switches so
that would be a good way to remain private most of the time.

EDIT: it looks like going to airplane mode also disables GPS: "when the user
activates airplane mode, they will disable Bluetooth, GPS, phone calls, and
Wi-Fi" nice!!

EDIT 2: starting with iOS 10, GPS reception stays on in airplane mode

~~~
ThatGeoGuy
Is this a massive misunderstanding of GPS? What are you hoping to do here?

GPS is a passive antenna / receiver. You don't emit anything with GPS, you
just passively pick up signals from GNSS satellites. You could "turn it off"
by unpowering the GPS receiver, but there's little benefit there, and that may
not be possible because most of these are soldered directly to the mainboard
for power efficiency reasons. These embedded receivers barely use any power
whatsoever, and if your cellular / WiFi is already off, it's certainly not
transmitting it in real time. If you want to stop location logging you would
need to opt out of location logging. I don't know if that's possible with
Apple Watch products, but turning GPS "off" doesn't tend to make a lot of
sense in many contexts.

~~~
pabs3
Turning GPS devices off could allow you to avoid attack over RF against GPS
device firmware. This 2012 paper details some possible attacks, including a
bug that lead to the GPS device continually rebooting.

[http://www.locata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/GPS-
Softwar...](http://www.locata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/GPS-Software-
Attacks-Paper-Carnegie-Mellon-Nov-28-2012.pdf)

------
rajekas
In a strange coincidence, I was flying back from Bangalore in late Jan and the
long curly haired person in the Emirates check-in line looked awfully like
Richard Stallman. That's because it was Richard Stallman and in good Indian
fashion, he was bring dropped off by someone who clearly adored him. I can't
say I reach that level of admiration, but it's good there are people like him
in the world.

