I read this interview of Richard Stallman at KernelTrap and I found it very interesting.
However I really find some of these ideas disgusting.
First of all I hate all this arrogance of the "freedom" thing. We all know freedom is good, but the definition of what is freedom is not something that simple; and by no means it's what a single person or a small group of people think it is. Saying this is freedom, this is not, you should get your "freedom" doing this and not doing that, seems to more like another control system, only that this one is camouflaged. Everything in order so we all do exactly what Richard Stallman wants. In the end that will lead to a world where all the software is "free" (freedom); which is not something bad, but the means for that end are to do whatever Stallman says. That doesn't seem like too much freedom to me.
I think no one should tell some other what to do. We should all respect each others' opinions and instead teach each other the facts that made us think that, so other people may think it by themself. Saying that people that write proprietary sofware are anti-social and that they should better not write anything at all, makes me think he is just standing far away from them... throwing rocks.
He seems to know a lot of why not to do so something he doesn't understand (creating proprietary software). Everything that exists, exists because it works, so does proprietary software. Probably there are much better approaches, but that doesn't mean proprietary software is wrong. The same holds true for Free Software, it's not the best thing to do, since nothing is perfect. We should not be so eager to say what we all should do, and what not.
You have to know your enemy, and your enemy must know you. Maybe in fact learning enough of both will make you understand, as I think I do, that radical solutions are just as bad than not doing anything at all. Not just throw "truths" in the air and say everyone that's not doing exactly as we say is just wrong, that's to understand so little of human nature: we are inperfect, and hence: we make mistakes.
To throw away Linus Torvalds' huge contributions as well as the amazing group of people that have made Linux what it is, including all the people that have been discussing design issues for user-space stuff and all that, just because Linus started it esentially for fun is plainly stupid. Good things are good things, it doesn't matter if they where done because of a strong philosophy or something else.
I think Stallman's assertion that 100% freedom is good, and everything else is wrong seems completely sortsighted to me. It's surely not because of the ammount of thought Stallman has put to the subject; it's probably because he has not taken the time to understand the "enemy", or writters/users of proprietary software, which is basically everyone.
6 comments:
I think 100% freedom is a fine goal.
But I also think that you should be free to create closed-source software.
- mibus
Yes, I agree that 100% freedom will be good. But let's be realistic, there isn't 100% anything, maybe 99.9999999% or something. The more you reach the 100%, the more difficult it is to advance.
Besides, it's not like: 100% freedom is good, so we all in the world should fight for that. Things aren't that simple. We all have problems to solve, and for someones it's more important to have a good job and raise a good family than to risk everything for a 100% freedom that anyway they'll not get if they risk that.
We all have priorities, and I think we should slowly move to that 100% freedom at the pace we can, considering those priorities. But if I myself go on a slow pace, and I don't take the extremist resolution to never develop proprietary software, I don't think I should be called anti-social or any other advetive that states that I'm doing something evil for the humanity. That's for me the thing I don't think it's good.
Ah, but what is freedom?
Stallman's idea of freedom is that source for a shipping application *must* be shared. Where is the freedom in that? Any "must" is something that detracts from freedom (I think).
Thus, any 100% free society will be able to choose to have closed-source software. Any society where that choice is removed is not 100% free, so 100% free is achievable, while still putting bread on the table.
"I think Stallman's assertion that 100% freedom is good, and everything else is wrong seems completely sortsighted to me"
Then what, according to you, must be the longsighted goal of the FSF??
Its very easy to comment on RMS and say this is bad and that is good, but can you suggest a solution for what you think is bad??
Manish: This is a real world with real issues, not some idealistic dream where everything is 100% white or 100% black.
I would suggest some reality checks. There are a lot of thing wrong in this world that would be a lot easier to fix with technological advances that open source can bring. Freedom is important, but you can't say 99% freedom is wrong, that's unrealistic.
First of all, thanks a lot for taking my comment in a sportive manner!! :)
Thats right, this is the real world with real issues and thats what Stallman thinks too.
He says "...Many people can only keep on fighting when they expect to win. I'm not like that, I always expect to lose. I fight anyway, and sometimes I win."
He doesn't expect to win.
But that doesn't stop him from trying and neither should we.
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