
Interview with Richard Stallman - octopus
http://www.tildehash.com/?article=interview-with-richard-stallman-2011
======
angrycoder
>" Torvalds rejects the goal of freedom for software users, and when people
attribute the development of GNU/Linux to him, he uses his influence to lead
them to devalue their own freedom. Giving the GNU Project equal mention will
help give us equal influence to counter that."

As someone who isn't intimately familiar with the open source or free software
world, what does that mean? I thought Stallman and Torvalds were both the good
guys. This makes them sound like mortal enemies.

~~~
adolfojp
RMS is an idealist. Torvalds is more of a pragmatist.

Quote from Linus:

There are "extremists" in the free software world, but that's one major reason
why I don't call what I do "free software" any more. I don't want to be
associated with the people for whom it's about exclusion and hatred.

And another one

Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go
suck on rms. I'm not interested. 99% of that I run tends to be open source,
but that's my choice, dammit.

~~~
bane
_RMS is an idealist. Torvalds is more of a pragmatist._

and pragmatists ship.

~~~
lambda
Emacs never shipped? GCC? GNU Make? glibc? GNU binutils? Bash? GNOME?

The only really significant project from GNU that never shipped was the
kernel. And Hurd wasn't RMS's project; it was just the project that got the
GNU label. He shipped plenty of code in his day.

~~~
maxharris
But what a critical thing that kernel is!

With Stallman running the show, you'd still be waiting for HURD. No Tivo, no
Android, no drivers, routers, etc. (I suppose they'd all be running FreeBSD,
though. But the point remains - it wouldn't be Stallman that did it, and that
really pisses him off.)

Also, can you really think of him honestly as the driving force behind GNOME?
He had something to do with initiating it over the Qt licensing tiff, but I
don't think he did a hell of a lot else for it.

Edit: Software isn't "free" if only experts can use it, or if what it does is
a decade behind the current technological standard. And what usability there
is in "free" software is more than offset by being years behind commercial
software in features. Take, for example, my iPhone. It has zero learning
curve, yet it is loaded with awesome advanced features. I'm _actually_ free to
enjoy my life by virtue of having such convenient, well-designed software and
hardware that I never have to futz with. Retina display? Front and back-facing
camera? HDR photos? Video recording/chat? Music whenever I want, with controls
on my earbuds? Awesome battery life? Slim design so it fits in my pockets?
It's all there, and I've had it for eight months. I have the freedom to enjoy
all this great stuff with an iPhone, but _none_ of that freedom if I limit
myself to the tiny world of "free" software. But GNU acolytes say that this
isn't the kind of freedom they mean. What then, do they mean? Why does Apple
(or to a lesser extent, Google, Microsoft, etc.) have these kinds of features,
but GNU does not? I think the difference is that I'm talking about enjoyment
and freedom _in reality_ , not RMS's Platonist/ascetic make-believe world.

~~~
puppetmanbeast
"When we started developing the Hurd, there was no free kernel. Our motive was
to get a free kernel. Since we now have a free kernel that works, namely
Linux[-libre], it's no longer essential to develop the Hurd. We are continuing
to work on it for two reasons: 1) It has a more powerful design and that will
provide some advantages. 2) It would be a GNU kernel, from the GNU Project."
-Richard Stallman

P.S. It's obvious you have less than a 4th grade education on both software
and linguistics. "Free" means "Freedom" only one definition out of like 10, in
every dictionary, defines it as "free of cost". Stallman wants (and now has),
the freedom to edit source code of all software he uses, he also wants
everyone to have access to gain the same freedom if they so want to obtain it.

And your whole iPhone argument is completely ridiculous, Android has more
power (and now equal market share) because of its underlying OS tools are Free
Software. An iPhone out of the box can't do very much, you add apps to get
more functionality. You do know that someone has to develop those apps, right?
Having more of the platform liberated allows for developers to take more
advantage of the platform, meaning more apps, more advanced apps, and easier
proliferation of those apps and features across different hardware. Also, an
Android phone will be the first to be quad-core powered. Know how hard Apple
would have to work to get that to work on an iPhone? Yeah, a whole primary
kernel module rewrite, and a $900+ price tag.

~~~
rimantas
> Android has more power (and now equal market share) because > of its
> underlying OS tools are Free Software.

Uhm? Xcode is free, and it compiles my iOS apps with GCC… go figure. And
somewhere there is LLVM in the works, and Apple supposedly had some say in
making it happen. And the there is WebKit somewhere in the picture.

> An iPhone out of the box can't do very much, you add apps to > get more
> functionality.

Android does everything without apps? Interesting.

> meaning more apps, more advanced apps, and easier > proliferation of those
> apps and features across different > hardware.

Last I heard there was no shortage in quality apps for iOS. How far is iPhone
apps market lagging behind that of Android? How about possibility for
developers to sell apps on Android market compared to that of App Store? Last
I checked I still could not neither sell nor buy apps on AM in my country.

Are you really thinking that Android market share is equal to iOS because it
is open? Not because there are more than one manufacturer and more than three
devices they make with android?

How open is Android when it gets to under control of carriers? Where do you
get source code for Google navigation app, or Google Voice?

------
callumjones
"certain amount of sacrifice"

Consumers just want to use a device and get on with their lives. These
movements such as boycotting Flash & H.264 for WebM or taking VLC off the App
Store to protest against Apple benefit no one.

Having said that I'm very grateful to have GNU Linux and GCC around with us
today.

~~~
noibl
'These movements' have nothing to do with protest. They change the world by
providing (or at the very least, opening the door to) better user experiences
over the long term. (See: Darwin, LLVM, WebKit.)

The vast majority of criticisms like this one are based on short term concerns
related to a given state-of-play in the market. Concerns like the ones that
killed Linux stone dead back in the '90s, web standards in the mid-2000s, and
*ndroid.

------
drinian
Looks like he's still reading websites via an HTML-to-email gateway; good for
him!

Interesting that he mentions Diaspora, but not GNU Social.

~~~
burgerbrain
_"However, even if I could browse a site daily, I couldn't afford the time to
do it myself. I can barely keep up with the work I have to do."_

A very valid point.

~~~
billmcneale
Most of the "work he has to do" is to receive HTML pages in email and decoding
them (I'm guessing mutt or similar).

No wonder he doesn't have time for anything else.

~~~
burgerbrain
Really?!? You think RMS reads mail in mutt? Are you not familiar with this man
at all?

~~~
billmcneale
[shrug]

Maybe mutt is not GPL, I don't know. You get my point. He lives on a different
planet.

~~~
burgerbrain
He invented Emacs man, I would stake money on him using it for _everything_.

I'd be surprised if he even used X. I bet he uses Emacs in a framebuffer VT.

~~~
puppetmanbeast
He has said before that he hardly ever leaves Emacs, and he starts X when he
needs to do something graphical, which is rare, but he does do it from time to
time. And yes, he reads his email in Emacs, and maybe views HTML files in
something like Links. I don't think Emacs has an HTML viewer, but I could be
wrong.

~~~
phaer
Of course you can view HTML in emacs! Nowadays most people use emacs-w3m as
HTML viewer/browser in emacs. It's quite easy to integrate it with gnus, rmail
or other emacs mail clients.

------
runjake
There are a lot of "we should's" in the answers. Meanwhile, nobody seems real
interested and their HURD kernel still isn't up to snuff after decades.

~~~
pjscott
In happier news, the GNU userland software continues to be important and
useful. Please don't downplay the GNU project's contributions. Argue with them
if you like -- there's a lot to disagree with -- but at least acknowledge what
they've done.

~~~
billmcneale
Gnuemacs.

Can we ignore them for real now?

