

How I do my Computing - ari_elle
http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

======
endgame
People mock rms for his stubbornness on many issues, but it's becoming
increasingly clear that he simply saw further than the rest of us.

~~~
stephenr
Care to elaborate?

~~~
endgame
DRM:

His story, The Right to Read ( <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-
read.html> ) would be one example. His vision is a bit more extreme, but we're
heading in that direction.

The default state for anything we electronically "buy" is now "indefinite
rental, until the central server crashes/the company running it goes out of
business/the company decides not to run that any more/..."

We now have bookreaders which can have their contents remotely removed (
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18ama...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html?_r=0)
). I know that they claim that feature's been disabled, but it's probably
still there in the code. Besides, similar remote deletions are possible on
other systems ( [http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/06/apples-ability-to-
deacti...](http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/06/apples-ability-to-deactivate-
malicious-app-store-apps/) , [http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-8-apps-can-
be-deleted-rem...](http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-8-apps-can-be-deleted-
remotely-by-microsoft) )

Software Freedom:

Back in the day, the GPL forced NeXT to release the source to its Objective-C
compiler. There was a similar situation where CLISP had to go GPL because it
used GNU Readline ( <http://www.clisp.org/impnotes/faq.html#faq-gpl> ). And
then there are the various BusyBox GPL violations (
<http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/10437.html> )

These days, the GPL is largely neutered because of two forces: the rise of
BSD/MIT/WTFPL-licensed code and the rise of web services (because GPL'd code
triggers on distribution). The AGPL was a response to the web-services
loophole (just like GPLv3 was a response to the Tivoisation loophole), but it
never really caught on.

Here's what I fear. The next generation of technologists aren't going to know
what they missed. They missed a world where you could easily mess with your
machines. They missed a world where users and developers respected each other
(When doom came out, iD software asked the community not to make mod tools for
the shareware version. They didn't. DeHackEd, an exe-hacker for doom, would
refuse to operate on known pirate versions.) They missed a world where you can
run your own code on your own devices, and you didn't have to exploit a bug to
do it.

As with the recent discussion about DRM in HTML video, people are splitting
hairs about mechanism and policy. Why are we talking about building the
mechanisms when there is literally no policy that is good for the user?

Further reading: "Richard Stallman was Right All Along"
<http://www.osnews.com/story/25469> , and an old HN discussion here:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3417033>

~~~
stephenr
Some people consider mit/bsd to be a more "free" licence as it doesn't force
other people to do anything - they are free to use the code as they wish, as
opposed to rms' view that we should all, always write code that is given away
freely, and live on a communal stew made from our own toe jam

~~~
endgame
Regardless of your opinion of his personal hygiene, even with BSD-style you
are not free to do as you wish. That's why there is a license and not just a
renunciation of copyright.

All the GPL asks is that if you distribute the code, you offer the source
under the same terms that it came to you. Is that so wrong?

~~~
stephenr
BSD/MIT give much more freedom to downstream developers than GPL - GPL makes
demands about distribution of products that include the code. BSD/MIT don't
make any such demands.

------
michaelwww
> One other advantage of this machine is that Windows has never supported it.

I'm having trouble understanding how this is an advantage.

