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They didn't overreact immediately...

Posted Dec 19, 2007 17:10 UTC (Wed) by i3839 (subscriber, #31386)
In reply to: Insufficiently free? by flewellyn
Parent article: Insufficiently free?

I skimmed the start of the thread, and it all started reasonably quiet. My impression:

Richard Stallman made some statements that people proved to be wrong, taking away the initial
reason given to not consider OpenBSD free enough. If he would had admit his wrong then, there
would be no news, but as he didn't and apparently continued discussing/arguing, Theo de Raadt
had enough of it and started flaming him.

After that I stopped reading.

Or in other words:

*poking*

"Hey, stop poking us! What did we do wrong?"

"You ate my sandwich."

"Err, no, we didn't."

"Oh..."

*continues poking*

...

(Log in to post comments)

Posted Dec 19, 2007 20:03 UTC (Wed) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link]

> Richard Stallman made some statements that people proved to be wrong,
> taking away the initial reason given to not consider OpenBSD free enough.

I don't think this is true.  RMS's statement is that the OpenBSD ports system contains ports
for non-free software.  That is a fact that is not in dispute.  In his OPINION, that equates
to OpenBSD recommending non-free software, so he chooses not to recommend OpenBSD.  There is
no "proving" that RMS's OPINION is wrong, unless you prove that the facts that he used to form
his opinion are wrong--and they are not.

Of course anyone is free to THINK that RMS's opinions are wrong, just as much as he is free to
have them.  But, there's no reason why he should be blamed for not "admitting" he is wrong
when nothing that was said changes the facts.  Flaming him for not changing his mind simply
because you think he should is not a reasonable response.

Actually I can't understand why the OpenBSD folks care whether RMS recommends their software
in the first place.  They obviously almost universally despise the man out of all proportion
to any affront he's done to them.  Sometimes I think that deep down they just enjoy flaming
for flaming's sake.  Breaks up the monotony of coding I guess.  Certainly they're far from
alone in this.

As far as I can tell, RMS's positions are internally consistent.  Just because they don't
always inform the real-world "grey areas" most of us wrestle with doesn't mean that he's a
hypocrite.

They didn't overreact immediately...

Posted Dec 19, 2007 21:52 UTC (Wed) by i3839 (subscriber, #31386) [Link]

You're probably right, I'm just a not very interested outsider, so I might have gotten the
wrong impression (not going to scan the list again to double-check). But I can understand if
people get the impression that, after each reason was refuted, another one popped up or
wriggling happened (I'm not claiming that either of those actually did happen). So although
RMS stayed calm, he might not have given a very sincere impression.

As for the ensuing flaming, it's indeed very baffling that they react so strongly about
someone's opinion they don't really care about. But what interests me here is that it started
all right, and only later into the thread, after all points of disagreement/misunderstandings
were discussed, it went wrong.

They didn't overreact immediately...

Posted Dec 19, 2007 20:10 UTC (Wed) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link]

Richard Stallman made some statements that people proved to be wrong, taking away the initial reason given to not consider OpenBSD free enough. If he would had admit his wrong then, there would be no news, but as he didn't and apparently continued discussing/arguing, Theo de Raadt had enough of it and started flaming him.

RMS said that he does not recommend OpenBSD because its ports systems includes specific instructions/code to install specific pieces of non-free software. No one disputes this fact as far as I can tell, although of course people can disagree with his conclusion.

What you are referring to instead, is people going after tangential points, such as the imprecision of his phrasing that the ports system "includes" non-free software (he responded here). They also attacked other points even less relevant to his position—statements that he explicitly disclaimed he wasn't sure of, e.g. whether OpenBSD includes binary firmware blobs (he was happy to hear that they don't) or whether the OpenSSH license is GPL-compatible (he said he couldn't remember, but that it didn't matter to him because it was free software).

Whether it is ethical to recommend non-free software, or give instructions on how to use it with your system, is an issue over which reasonable people can disagree, of course. (And, like many disagreements about ethics, ultimately seems to be a difference in value systems rather any factual/logical disagreement.) But let's not stoop to rhetorical tricks.