
Richard Stallman spoke at Microsoft Research this week - Khelouiati
https://www.zdnet.com/article/free-software-advocate-richard-stallman-spoke-at-microsoft-research-this-week/
======
mdturnerphys
I attended this. Here are a few notes:

* This was organized like any other guest talk held at Microsoft Research, of which there are ~5/week, mostly by academic guests.

* His host was Microsoft's Chief Economist, Michael Schwarz. Michael did his PhD work on free software and got to know Stallman then.

* After hooking his computer up to the projector 10-15 minutes before the talk began he displayed a quite provocative political cartoon of his regarding the invasion of Iraq.

* As mentioned elsewhere he prefaced his talk with a number of requests for Microsoft.

* At one point he did state "Sometimes there is a use for windows."

* That statement was immediately preceded by "It's getting rather hot in here. Can we do something like adjust the temperature or open some windows?" :)

* Someone in Q&A questioned whether he would have come to Microsoft a few years ago and asked what has changed for him. He said he's just hadn't been invited and would have been happy to if he had been.

For those in the Seattle area, he appears to be speaking at the central branch
of the Seattle library this afternoon: [https://www.fsf.org/events/richard-
stallman-free-software-an...](https://www.fsf.org/events/richard-stallman-
free-software-and-your-freedom-seattle-wa-1)

Related article from 2005:
[http://suseroot.com/rms.php](http://suseroot.com/rms.php) (note well the
date)

~~~
pedrocx486
>* At one point he did state "Sometimes there is a use for windows."

Did hell just freeze over?

~~~
mdturnerphys
Read the next bullet :)

~~~
jsgo
to be fair, I initially stalled on that one too. Then kept reading and then
was like, "oh, okay. Kind of like the 'Mac supports Windows' with a MacBook
propping a window open joke. Got it."

~~~
pedrocx486
I didn't even thought about that joke, seems out of character for Stallman in
my view. But nice.

------
ChrisSD
An English language article: [https://www.zdnet.com/article/free-software-
advocate-richard...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/free-software-advocate-
richard-stallman-spoke-at-microsoft-research-this-week/)

Also Pedro Paulo explained what the content of the talk was:

> Mostly standard talk. Importance of free software, GPL v3, GNU vs Linux.
> However, he had a list of "small requests": make Github push users to better
> software license hygiene, make hardware manufacturers to publish their
> hardware specs, make it easier to workaround Secure Boot.

[https://twitter.com/pedrovc/status/1169616695935172608](https://twitter.com/pedrovc/status/1169616695935172608)

~~~
userbinator
Agree strongly with the last two requests, but not so much the first one (but
I guess it's to be expected for RMS.)

~~~
mikekchar
I'm not sure exactly what he meant by software license hygiene, but if it's
what I imagine, it's a significant problem. Often people don't quite
understand the licenses they choose and they get into trouble as a result. For
example, there is a free software game that I follow which is licensed under
the GPL. The author made a passing statement that the game is under the GPL,
but none of text of the game is (it's an RPG, so there is a significant
story). When I looked, they had mistakenly added the GPL to all the files that
contained the story! They thought that since it wasn't source code, it
couldn't be covered by the GPL.

It's clearly a well intentioned mistake, but it's the kind of thing that can
bite you later because someone will _accept_ the license and use it for
something you never intended. At that point it's a really big headache.

It gets even more complicated when people try to mix licenses that are
incompatible -- it works fine until somebody challenges it. At that point it's
an absolute pain. The _last_ thing you want on your project is to have someone
say they are going to sue you because you don't have permission to use their
code. It's really, really important for people to follow the licenses
correctly and GitHub is in a wonderful place to help with that. It's a win for
everybody. I would say even if people realise that they can't use GPL for some
project because it is incompatible with the license for other code they are
using, it's better than going for years and having a problem!

~~~
Beltiras
Story sounds like data to me. Data should not be in the repo, just the means
to fetch it.

~~~
lkschubert8
Isn't there value in having the story version controlled as well? Separating
them just sounds like needless complexity.

~~~
jsgo
I certainly wouldn't fault them for putting the story under source
control/versioning or even the location they did it, but there'd be benefit in
separating them into two different projects/solutions as you could essentially
have a separate "engine" project that could be reused for future games and
then different projects with assets/story/etc for any game that comes down the
pipe.

Now, if the intent is a one off and they have no intention of drinking from
the same well so to speak, go nuts.

~~~
Beltiras
Thank you! This, a million times this!

------
thesuperbigfrog
Without sounding too sacrilegious, Dr. Stallman is the Free Software Jesus--he
preaches the gospel of Free Software to the whole world and associates with
"sinners" calling them to repentance. If he can bring "the truth" of Free
Software to Microsoft employees and help them "see the light", why wouldn't
he?

He certainly looks the part of Free Software prophet when dressed as Saint
Ignuicius: [https://stallman.org/saint.html](https://stallman.org/saint.html)

Having met him in person, he is extremely sincere about his beliefs and
practices and really does "practice what he preaches".

~~~
farisjarrah

        >  Sainthood in the Church of Emacs requires living a life of purity—but in the Church of Emacs, this does not require celibacy (a sigh of relief is heard).
    

Now there's a quote that didn't age well... That whole page is just...
strange...

~~~
lunchables
There was a time when open source software wasn't so intermingled with
commercial interests and people's professional lives that it was ok to make
jokes.

Also, people didn't get offended so easily, which seems like a sport these
days to see who can be more offended. I really miss those days.

------
seamyb88
I am a huge fan of Stallman.He is as close to 100% correct on software ethics
as anybody has ever been. His contribution to computing has been immense.
However, in a world where your social status can go down easier than it can go
up, I think it's nearly impossible for younger, non-established programmers to
live by these rules. We should push society, and the powerful, towards FOSS.
But until that happens, the individual will not have a chance.

~~~
asciident
Agreed, he took a lot of those position when they were immensely unpopular,
and remained consistent without overclaiming when they became popular. I still
think he is right about GPL, walled gardens, hardware, etc. despite now again
losing the popularity contest.

------
fetbaffe
"Stallman asked that there is no video taken using JavaScript"

lol now I like Stallman.

~~~
martin_a
I don't understand this reference, can someone explain it to me? (The
Javascript part)

~~~
aargh_aargh
[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-
trap.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html)

~~~
fetbaffe
Just love Stallmans criteria for nontrivial JavaScript programs, basically
every JavaScript program is nontrivial.

And it is okay to enable JavaScript temporarily so you can send a complaint to
the website operators that they should remove JavaScript.

------
bubble_talk
If Microsoft hadn't embraced open source around the time Satya Nadella took
over, by now they would have probably imploded and become irrelevant (I mean
in the sense of how Bing is more or less irrelevant to most website owners
even though it apparently makes a lot of money).

Its not as if they decided to open source Windows XP.

~~~
teh_klev
> If Microsoft hadn't embraced open source around the time Satya Nadella took
> over

Microsoft were already well down the road to "embracing" open source before
Nadella took over as CEO. The movement inside the company began around 2006
with folks like Scott Guthrie, Scott Hanselman, Phil Haack, Rob Conery and
others pushing for more openness. Two open source licenses were created by
Microsoft to accommodate such works (MS-PL and MS-RL[0]). When ASP.NET MVC was
released in 2009 it was open-sourced and shipped with the MS-PL license.

As with any large organisation it takes some time to build up the momentum to
change their behaviour and strategy.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Initiative#Micro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Initiative#Microsoft_Public_License_\(Ms-
PL\))

~~~
pedrow
Also don't forget Rob Mensching[0] in 2004.

[0]:[http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2004/4/5/windows-
installe...](http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2004/4/5/windows-installer-
xml-wix-toolset-has-released-as-open-source-on-sourceforge.net/)

~~~
teh_klev
Thanks, I forgot about Rob. I'm sure there's loads of others I've missed, Jon
Galloway for example.

~~~
bubble_talk
Your comments would actually make sense if, say, Microsoft wasn't
simultaneously going after Android phone makers to impose an "Android tax"
during that very same period [1].

This is like saying: "I was really getting into open source. But I also wanted
to contradict myself whenever it was convenient and profitable, as long as no
one noticed. Its not really my fault that my left brain doesn't know what my
right brain is doing as I am a large organization". While Microsoft may indeed
be so big as to have such a dysfunctional brain, the rest of us don't suffer
from such debilitations.

[1] [https://www.digitaltrends.com/android/is-android-being-
stifl...](https://www.digitaltrends.com/android/is-android-being-stifled-by-a-
microsoft-tax/)

~~~
teh_klev
I'm not defending MS but....

 _" however Google has not been willing to indemnify Android device makers
against infringement claims"_

Kinda says to me that Google clearly know exactly what they're doing apropos
patent infringement. I'm not saying it's ideal, but at the end of the day MS
are legally permitted to defend those patents (at the very least have working
implementations as opposed to the usual patent troll nonsense).

Also that's a six year old article full of speculation from the dying days of
MS's attempts at getting into the phone biz. Life has moved on and Android has
hardly been extinguished.

------
stiangrindvoll
Good example of combining what you believe the most in and the ability to talk
to the "enemy".

Too many people does not even see that as an option.

------
seanmcdirmid
The only thing more ironic than that is if he had his office in (Bill) Gates
Hall (ie a building Bill Gates dontated a lot of money to have built).
[https://m.slashdot.org/story/44316](https://m.slashdot.org/story/44316)

------
abcd_f
Photographic evidence :)

[https://mobile.twitter.com/ItalyPaleAle/status/1169354916281...](https://mobile.twitter.com/ItalyPaleAle/status/1169354916281778176)

(Not mine, via Mark Russinovich)

------
katzeilla
Shall we change that link to the English version?

------
Tepix
Microsoft has come a long way.

Obligatory Richard Stallman website reference:
[https://rms.sexy/](https://rms.sexy/)

~~~
el_cujo
I always see pictures of him in exotic locations/nature on his laptop, I
wonder if he's actually doing stuff or if its just for the photo-op.

~~~
DonHopkins
JSol, RMS, the gerbil, Liz, and MG, at Kabuki in Cambridge. The expression on
Richard's face is saying, "I don't know, why do you wrap gerbils in duct
tape?"

[https://www.donhopkins.com/home/catalog/images/jsol-rms-
gerb...](https://www.donhopkins.com/home/catalog/images/jsol-rms-gerbil-liz-
mg.jpg)

------
weiweiwei
This zdnet post seems to confuse free with open source

------
kokwak
copy paste from RMS: open source != free software, and GitHub has already done
enough damage to encourage developers to ignore the existence of software
lincences

~~~
farisjarrah
If you make a public repo, Github literally shows you a little chart that
shows you how "Complete" your repo is. And if you don't have a License,
Contributing, and Readme files, then that chart never shows as completed. What
about that is Github encouraging developers to ignore software licenses?

------
baybal2
What he was doing there?

~~~
w8rbt
Telling them to use GNU/Linux.

~~~
de_watcher
They already do. Just need to ditch everything except WSL - and we've got an
acceptable MS OS.

~~~
toyg
NT is not a bad OS, it makes some different tradeoffs than traditional POSIX
systems and in some cases it’s objectively superior.

It’s just the ecosystem on top that is a pile of flaming trash.

~~~
dcolkitt
> it makes some different tradeoffs than traditional POSIX systems and in some
> cases it’s objectively superior.

I'm curious if you (or anyone else) have examples here. I haven't touched a
Windows system in nearly 20 years, so I'm genuinely curious.

~~~
toyg
Just the other day I ended up on this:
[https://speakerdeck.com/trent/pyparallel-how-we-removed-
the-...](https://speakerdeck.com/trent/pyparallel-how-we-removed-the-gil-and-
exploited-all-cores)

There is also that whole thing about kqueue/epoll vs Overlapped I/O which I
think is pretty cool.

The more I read about Windows, the more I find the cool stuff is underneath,
buried under a mountain of developer-hostile commercial choices, a
philosophical rejection of the command-line that dates to the '90s, bad
tacked-on security, sprawling and messy APIs, and a forever-incomplete UI
wavering between garish and spartan. Once you get past all that (and all the
terrible software built on top of it), NT is actually a very interesting
system to play with.

------
RickJWagner
I did NOT see that one coming.

------
vadasambar
The link is in French.

------
sleepysysadmin
Edit/Sorry it was a joke about RMS.

~~~
im3w1l
What do you mean?

------
jaboutboul
Monumental moment in both free software and Microsoft’s history. A decade ago
he was probably the most persona non grata.

Look at how far we’ve come.

To all the people who were bashing them in the comments a few days ago about
the OIN patent grant, you guys still bitter? Cause it looks like RMS isn’t.

~~~
craigsmansion
Contrary to what you seem imply, this is not some sort of vindication for
Microsoft.

Anyone can invite rms to speak, and given some minor conditions, he will come.
He will come and talk because he believes that _everyone_ deserves Free
Software.

This is not monumental in any sort of "MS and the FSF coming closer together"
sense.

It was very nice of Microsoft to invite him though, but not more impressive
than, say, a University or hackfest.

~~~
Fnoord
> Anyone can invite rms to speak, and given some minor conditions, he will
> come. He will come and talk because he believes that everyone deserves Free
> Software.

Oh? Here [1] he wrote this:

> I am selective about the events I participate in. If you are inviting me to
> speak at a larger event, please inform me now of the overall nature of the
> event, so I can make an informed decision about whether to participate.

Mr Stallman was at Microsoft _Research_ , btw. It is a specific department of
Microsoft.

[1]
[https://groups.google.com/a/mysociety.org/forum/m/#!msg/myso...](https://groups.google.com/a/mysociety.org/forum/m/#!msg/mysociety-
community/zkyZpOXjgoQ/_8xyXSxv9zYJ)

~~~
tannhaeuser
RMS used to publish academically when he was at MIT. I remember reading a
paper about Prolog backjumping written by him which had nothing to do with
software licensing.

~~~
markjenkinswpg
That was before anyone did permissive licensing and at a time when it wasn't
even clear if software was copywritable.

------
moonbug
I hope they've complied with all the requirements of his rider

[https://groups.google.com/a/mysociety.org/forum/m/#!msg/myso...](https://groups.google.com/a/mysociety.org/forum/m/#!msg/mysociety-
community/zkyZpOXjgoQ/_8xyXSxv9zYJ)

~~~
jasongill
His rider isn't really that bad, it's common sense stuff for someone who
travels and does a lot of speaking engagements. All he really asks for at the
event is some supplies to make tea and possibly 2 Pepsi's, which isn't exactly
over-the-top

~~~
saalweachter
I don't know, man, the supplies needed to make 2 Pepsi's seem pretty intense.

~~~
mark-r
It would be easier if Pepsi released the formula under GPL.

