
RMS: Beware of Contradictory “Support” - Tsiolkovsky
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/contradictory-support.html
======
danso
> _There are organizations that proclaim support for free software or the GNU
> Project, and teach classes in use of nonfree software. It 's possible that
> they do some other things that really support free software, but those
> classes certainly don't. On the contrary, they work directly against the
> free software movement by promoting the use of the nonfree software. That
> increases the magnitude of the practical problem it is our mission to
> correct._

Just to throw out an extreme example for discussion: the Mozilla Foundation
would seem to be one of the free-software organizations that RMS critiques.

One initiative they've supported is Software Carpentry: [http://software-
carpentry.org/scf/partners/](http://software-carpentry.org/scf/partners/)

One of Software Carpentry's packaged lessons is for MATLAB: [http://software-
carpentry.org/lessons/](http://software-carpentry.org/lessons/)

To be fair, the current MATLAB lesson plan includes asides for how GNU Octave
can be used...but the fact that the curriculum is titled "Programming with
MATLAB" certainly counts as promotion of non-free software.

Edit: by "extreme", I mean that Mozilla is in most people's minds a passionate
advocate for free software, and the number of their affiliations with
proprietary software lessons is extremely small as far as I can tell.

Edit 2: FWIW, RMS's definition of non-free software may be much more expansive
than most people's:

[https://stallman.org/airbnb.html](https://stallman.org/airbnb.html)

> _Airbnb requires you to run nonfree software (an app, or Javascript). It
> puts you in a data base easily available to Big Brother (just like a
> hotel)._

JavaScript is many things, but nonfree isn't one of them.

~~~
emp_zealoth
I've tried to use Octave, I really did. Passed few classes with projects made
in Octave. Then I nearly failed some classes because of simple, reproductible
bugs no one gave a flying fuck about. None of PCs I've installed the thing on
could produce a fully working figure with subplots. For example in 5 subplots
number 3 would not render at all. Or the plot would not export to png if you
had too many data points. Octave bug reports were shrugged off as "not our
problem - it's GhostScript" (or whatever does the png conversion, I don't
remember now) GhostScript didn't bother to answer. All I can tell you the
whole modularity concept is broken in practice because it promotes playing
pingpong with issues. "It's not module A! It's how module B uses module A!"
Unless people get off their high horses and actually fix broken shit the whole
cult of free software is just delusional. And let's not forget that apart from
riddiculous bugs Octave is really missing A LOT of functionality, even without
going to Simulink

~~~
joelthelion
I don't get why people are still advocating Octave as a Matlab alternative.

The real alternative is Python + Scipy. It's A LOT better than Matlab.
Depending on your application domain, you might also want to look at R or
Julia.

~~~
letitleak
> I don't get why people are still advocating Octave as a Matlab alternative.

Because it is the closest thing to a drop in replacement, which is what you
need when taking a class or following a tutorial based on MATLAB. Trying to
use a different language and follow along is a much more advanced challenge
and can be borderline impossible for a MOOC with an autograder or a class with
a dusty professor.

I wasn't very happy with octave and I wouldn't use it for an independent
project.. but I can't say how much of that is the pesky little octave specific
bugs and how much is that I wouldn't like MATLAB's syntax when it is perfectly
implemented. I suppose I could make the same criticisms of R as much of its
frustratingly odd behavior comes from its history in emulating an old
proprietary language's syntax..

~~~
Sylos
I did take a class which worked with MATLAB and was using Octave to develop
for it.

Well, and I guess it already says enough that I actually had MATLAB installed,
but still preferred using Octave.

Just the minor annoyances in MATLAB like it taking probably a minute to start
up, being in general really sluggish and having an annoying (read: not
particularly bash-like) command-line were already enough to make up for the
just as minor compatibility-problems I occasionally had to correct before
handing in.

So, at least up until the stuff that you can get to in one semester, the
compatibility was pretty good and I only really once had a problem which
couldn't be fixed by a simple find+replace.

And in that case, it was actually something where I didn't understand why it
didn't work in MATLAB (if I remember correctly, you for some reason couldn't
use `hold on/off` with multiple `ezplot`-instructions in it).

So, yeah, I don't think at all that it was Octave-specific bugs bugging you,
especially also because the MATLAB-syntax is actually even more annoying than
Octave's.

~~~
emp_zealoth
>I did take a class which worked with MATLAB and was using Octave to develop
for it.

Well, and I guess it already says enough that I actually had MATLAB installed,
but still preferred using Octave.

That is exactly what happened with me. And then we started doing more advanced
stuff next semester and Octave fell flat on it's face.

------
dcgudeman
I really appreciate what RMS has done as far as start a movement that I think
has contributed greatly to the human existence but when he says things like
"The basic point of the free software movement is that nonfree software is
unjust and should not exist." I can't but seriously question his judgment.
It's one thing to personally want to use free software, it's another to claim
that nonfree software "should not exist". If one person writes nonfree
software and another person voluntarily uses it, I don't think anything
"wrong" has transpired. People should be free to offer software under whatever
terms they desire likewise people should be able to consume software under
whatever terms they are willing to agree to.

~~~
rmc
That's been RMS & FSF's position for decades. They view it as wrong that you
have software which you do not have the four freedom for.

Many legal and ethnical systems have limitations on what you can consent to.
You're not allowed to consent to work for less than the minimum wage, for
example

~~~
cpkpad
This is a little bit different. The only reason proprietary software exists is
the copyright clause in the Constitution, which grants the government a right
to issue limited-time monopolies to creators of original works.

Revoking a government-granted monopoly is very libertarian. Revoking mutual
consent is the opposite.

~~~
kiba
This is only an American perspective.

~~~
adrianratnapala
This is one of the cases where the American perspective just gives us a
convenient language for discussing something more universal. By an accident of
history, the US constitution cements inside a legal document the result of
debates and lobbying that was going on all over the western world at the time.

Others at the time were also discussing the propriety of IP, and eventually
agreed in favour of a limited form of it. Over time, it got strengthened
further.

------
Rexxar
In the RMS world you are not good if you support some free software. You have
to support them _exclusively_

From the link:

    
    
        The basic point of the free software movement is that 
        nonfree software is unjust and should not exist.
    

Personally, I completely disagree with this.

~~~
Sylos
That's not true. He for example thinks it's a good thing that Steam is
available on Linux, as it makes it viable for people to come into the Linux
world and from there, they usually end up using more free software. Of course,
he doesn't like Steam either, and would like to get rid of it eventually, but
it's the lesser of two evils for the time being.

~~~
paulryanrogers
Isn't that why he also supported Gnash to replace Flash: as a form of bridge?

Aside: Interesting that Apple's insistence on not supporting Flash became a
bigger influence. Albeit motivated more by battery drain than ideology.

------
macmac
Which organizations is he talking about?

~~~
quantumtremor
My first guess was RedHat. From skimming through
[https://www.redhat.com/en/services/training/all-courses-
exam...](https://www.redhat.com/en/services/training/all-courses-exams), it
seems all of the courses use open source software, that might not be libre.
For example I'm guessing some of Puppet's software are not libre.

------
quitspamming
It's articles like this that make it very hard to continue to take RMS
seriously, and that is a huge shame. He's brilliant and has contributed so
much. Things he created are the reason I get a paycheck.

That said, this tribal religious you're-either-100%-with-us-or-you're-against-
us and I'm going to "condemn you" ("nor have anything to do with it, nor even
talk about it except with condemnation.") attitude makes it almost impossible
to be sympathetic to his cause and puts him on the level of other rigid
religious fundamentalist radicals.

If he IS talking about Red Hat here, as others have theorized, then he is
worse than a fanatic, he's a self destructive jerk.

Red Hat just recently came out and said despite other companies abandoning GCC
for Clang (See Google, Apple, FreeBSD, Android, even the Linux Foundation)
they were still investing in GCC. Without GCC there is no more "GNU slash
Linux" it's just Linux at that point. There are other C libraries, other
userlands, but Linux still needs GCC and Red Hat is backing GCC. Keep
condemning allies like Red Hat and soon they'll wonder why they even try to be
your friend.

As soon as llvm.linuxfoundation.org gets Linux written in C instead of GCC,
there will be no more GNU slash Linux or GNU plus Linux or whatever RMS wants
it called. FreeBSD, Android, and then Linux will be fully capable of ditching
GNU, FSF, and RMS and GPL'd software (save for the kernel which is GPLv2 and
only nominally so, they never actually sue for violations like binary blobs)
altogether. And who would be sad? Linux didn't "win" because of the
philosophical views of RMS. Linux won because it worked. What happens when
Linux, and companies like Red Hat, don't need this kind of garbage anymore?

------
willvarfar
Metacomment: a few years ago anything by RMS would have been jumped on within
minutes of posting with lots of comments against him and his principles. Is he
now being looked at in a different light by the wider software development
community?

~~~
bdcravens
Years ago HN had a higher percentage of Slashdot refugees or whatever you want
to call them, where what I'd call hard-nosed OSS was part of the dialog and
the arguments were fresh. These days, there's many who see him less as a
controversial figure within "their" community, and more of a crazy old guy
with extremist views.

~~~
cageface
The more time goes by the less crazy he seems. His goals may not be realistic
but his predictions about the dangers of dependence on commercial software
have been vindicated in many instances. And things might get much worse still
if the trend towards authoritarian leadership in Western countries continues.

~~~
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
A bit nit-picky, but RMS is perfectly fine with commercial software (software
that is sold for money), he objects to proprietary software (software that you
cannot read and modify the source code of). Freeware is not commercial, but
proprietary. When you buy a Linux distro CD, that's commercial, but might be
non-proprietary (depending on the distro).

~~~
paulryanrogers
Yet selling software--not services--seems incompatible with RMS's insistence
on the freedom of end users to distribute without cost.

~~~
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
It's not incompatible in the slightest. If I write software and give it to you
only in exchange for money, licenced under the GPL, then I am selling software
completely in agreement with RMS's principles.

Also, RMS doesn't insist on any freedom of end users to distribute without
cost. Only on you not limiting their redistribution.

Now, that makes some licencing models impossible, sure, but those are hardly
the only way to sell software.

------
mark_l_watson
I converted this year to using Linux on all of my computers, and with some
compatibility of FSF and Apache 2 licenses, this is 'easy' to do (e.g., the
community version of IntelliJ is Apache 2, so a decent IDE slips into my
mostly GNU based working and writing environment). I like to wear FSF tee
shirts, and I feel like I am being true to the cause, even if I do have an
iPad and Apple TV to watch Netflix. I am a member of the FSF and I personally
feel like it is OK to have these non-free devices around as long as my working
and writing environment is libre software.

------
legulere
Or to paraphrase it: All other goals have to bow before the goal of everything
being free software as defined by Richard Stallman.

I also think that open source is nice, but by far it's not the most important
thing there is to software.

~~~
cpkpad
Or to paraphrase you: "I don't know how to read. Ouch. Big words hurt my
brain. I know! It's too complex for me, so I'll mock it."

~~~
legulere
"Even worse, that grants nonfree software legitimacy." ⇒ "nonfree" software
has no legitimacy, no matter what.

This totally ignores that there might not be free software for that use case,
the free software alternative might be worse (very often the case). This
article totally ignores those concerns and thus depreciates them as less
important.

What you're doing is calling me an idiot, you could have at least tried to
come up with a counter-argument.

~~~
PeterisP
The article doesn't ignore those concerns, but it makes an explicit statement
that yes, in their opinion "nonfree" software has no legitimacy, no matter
what and _even then_ using, creating and improving free software should be
done instead of using the better non-free alternative.

What counter argument do you want? FSF explicitly states their position, which
seems incompatible with your position, so they acknowledge that your position
is what they want to fight against, you are their "political enemy" and ask
you to not call yourself their ally/supporter or claim FSF endorsement, as
some of the targeted companies do.

It's a statement of values and goals, which are obviously different for
different people and organizations.

~~~
legulere
> What counter argument do you want?

I expect no counter argument or faulty ones if I'm right in my view, and good
ones that change my view if I'm wrong. I don't expect to be attacked just by
insults without any explanation why I'm supposed to be wrong.

I just pointed out with my original comment that the FSF doesn't tolerate
other definitions of liberties and doesn't care if it tramples on them on
their way to "replace and eliminate"(from this article) everything that
doesn't follow their definitions. It also puts its own cause above everything
else.

This seems pretty extremist and totalitarian to me

