Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

[Posted June 13, 2011 by ris]

TechRadar covers a Linux Format Magazine interview with Richard Stallman. "In fact, when the open source philosophy spreads a lot - which it has - it tends to close people's minds to the ideas of free software. It even tends to cover up our existence. Most of the articles that talk about the GNU system, they don't call it the GNU system and they don't call it free software. They describe it as open source, and they give the impression that we - its developers - agree with the open source ideas that the readers have heard of already, and would never guess at what we're really standing for."

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 9:40 UTC (Tue) by danieldk (subscriber, #27876) [Link] (59 responses)

Without intending to troll, but what's new here?

So the 'iMoan' and the 'iBad' are fundamentally bad.

In this is exactly the childish campaigning that moved my to stop my FSF associate membership. While I like the 'open source' approach more, I always felt that FSF did a tremendous job with GNU that should be supported, but in recent years they seem to have resorted to immature campaigns such as 'DoSing' genius bars, Bad Vista, and Windows 7 Sins.

It's preaching to the converted, and alienating the rest.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 10:32 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (2 responses)

Terminology is one of RMS's specialities - how to be clear that you are not endorsing the thing you're talking about.

"iBad" and "iMoan" aren't among my favourites, but I wouldn't be alienated by something as simple as two mediocre names (among dozens of other proposed terms).

Some of the new stuff in the interview is his discussion of what should be illegal. He previously said that if he could make proprietary software illegal tomorrow, he wouldn't do it - laws that don't have the support of the people are tyranny. So here he has suggestions for things that could be made illegal (aside from software patents, DRM, etc.) such as selling hardware without specs, and selling computers with an OS (or maybe just a non-free OS) pre-installed.

It's not an interview with big ground-breaking statements but there are new precisions in most of the answers.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 15, 2011 6:01 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (1 responses)

He previously said that if he could make proprietary software illegal tomorrow, he wouldn't do it - laws that don't have the support of the people are tyranny.

If he really said that, it is an improvement on what he said in the GNU Manifesto:

Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones [ie, the ones selling proprietary software] are banned.

such as selling hardware without specs, and selling computers with an OS (or maybe just a non-free OS) pre-installed.

And what makes him think "the people" would support making these things illegal? Most people -- including everyone who buys an Apple product -- want the OS pre-installed. Most people don't care about hardware specs, they just want it to work on their computer, which, for most people, means Windows or Mac. Moreover, the line between computers and phones is now somewhere between blurred and non-existent. It would be absurd to demand that phones be sold without a pre-installed OS.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 16, 2011 9:25 UTC (Thu) by lyonya20011 (guest, #75725) [Link]

> If he really said that, it is an improvement on what he said in the GNU Manifesto:

> Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones [ie, the ones selling proprietary software] are banned.

Here in Manifesto he is talking about why people program in the first place and not about other issues. And he didn't mean high-paying organizations are the ones who sell proprietary software. Reread.

> Most people -- including everyone who buys an Apple product -- want the OS pre-installed.

Most doesn't mean _all_, I -- and many -- would like to get new hardware without any (non-free) OS pre-installed.

> It would be absurd to demand that phones be sold without a pre-installed OS.

It's not absurd, given that you have hardware specs and OS to choose and install.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 11:21 UTC (Tue) by danielpf (guest, #4723) [Link] (55 responses)

The sometimes childish behavior of Stallman is completely unproductive. I had the occasion to attend a conference by him at our university, where he made his usual excellent arguments against proprietary software. Overall, at then end of the talk the impression to people having never seen him was, to my feeling, acceptable. But then he started to behave in such a way as to loose all credit by "normal" people: he would take away his socks and start to treat conscienciously his feet during questions, and finally felt inspired to dress like a priester and behave like a fool. This is a clear sign in my opinion that he has lost some contact with reality. Jokes that can be done with students will be considered as grossly lacking of respect by a well mannered audience.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 11:23 UTC (Tue) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

His demeanor and behavior are just weird, even by geek standards. It's extremely off-putting, regardless of what you think of the FSF message.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 12:19 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (53 responses)

You might be underestimating the audience.

If an audience can't take the idea of an old man massaging his feet when they get sore, then rethinking the social and legal frameworks of software might be beyond them.

My experience is that neither pose a real problem for most people. I've put him infront of a business audience and his St. iGNUcias comedy routine got a great laugh. It's some fun after an hour+ of serious stuff.

Now, there are some limits to RMS's effectiveness. I remember when he came to the European Parliament to help the lobbying against software patents. He asked for appointments to be set up with politicians who otherwise took ethical standpoints but hadn't yet made up their mind on software patents, and with politicians who were against software patents but weren't being active on the issue. He's good at convincing inspiring those people. On the other hand, he said not to bother setting up appointments with staunch right wingers as he can make a bad impression to them.

He knows this. It's his host's job to get the audience right. There are dozens of videos of his talks online, so there's no reason for the host to be unaware of the content. It's not RMS's job to know the audience or to ask the host "If my feet get sore, will the audience lose their minds if I massage them?"

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 13:48 UTC (Tue) by spaetz (guest, #32870) [Link] (52 responses)

> You might be underestimating the audience.

No. I have attended such presentations and people came away saying, "uhh, he was picking toe cheese during his talk and rolling small balls from it". They were so disgusted that they didn't pay attention to what he had to say.

Independent of whether you audience is geeky or not, this is not what I expect from a key note speaker.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 14:19 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (51 responses)

yeh, a few childish jokes get told afterwards. That's the initial reaction from some audience members. They'll get over it.

But let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. When it comes to the content, most keynotes aren't even worth attending.

"Company X loves open source", "Company X loves technology Y", "Rocketing sales of software X is good for education", "stats show that community exists" etc. etc. told by a PR-trained exec. They're the opposite side of the coin: they get good initial reactions, but a month later, who cares?

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 16:50 UTC (Tue) by mingo (guest, #31122) [Link] (50 responses)

Lets start with the basic disconnect that Stallman is showing:

They describe it as open source, and they give the impression that we - its developers - agree with the open source ideas that the readers have heard of already, and would never guess at what we're really standing for.

Why does Stallman pretend to talk in the name of the developers who wrote all this code (collective "we")? LWN has done the stats recently, and the GNU project has only contributed around 8% of the code in a typical Linux distribution.

So why does Stallman still insist on calling it "GNU/Linux"? He did not write it, and the GNU project did not write it. The folks who wrote it generally identify themselves as OSS developers, not as GNU developers.

He has started it and wrote the license, but the larger project has moved on and it is not about his vision anymore. Whether that is for better or worse is immaterial, it is reality, and facing reality is important.

Credit where it's due

Posted Jun 14, 2011 16:55 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (1 responses)

FWIW, LWN didn't create the stats on contributions from the GNU project; we simply pointed to the work done by Pedro Côrte-Real.

Credit where it's due

Posted Jun 14, 2011 21:09 UTC (Tue) by mingo (guest, #31122) [Link]

Thanks for the correction and thanks for the link - that is the data i referred to.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 17:03 UTC (Tue) by tuna (guest, #44480) [Link] (7 responses)

What is "it" that Stallman is calling GNU/Linux?

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 18:21 UTC (Tue) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link] (6 responses)

"the larger project has moved on?" Strange how those who criticize
Stallman for what they call an appropriation of the work of others
feel free to do so themselves. They should remember that it is highly
unlikely that they would even have this ecosystem in which to play
and profit without his really gargantuan efforts to create it.

Is it any surprise that he would defend it against pragmatists, who
would be just as quick to throw it away if it served their
temporary interests?

It is essential to talk about values and freedoms, for precisely
the reasons that Richard makes abundantly clear. The obscurantism,
the half-truths, the sneering and supercilious mocking -- all of
that comes from others who would prefer to rewrite history so that
the values which made things possible are obscured, the better to
cut ethical corners in the present. Sometimes this is done by even
those who have made considerable contributions: more often by those
who would prefer to take more than they give.

The historical revisionists have made some considerable successes.
Stallman now is invited to relatively few high-level conferences
that focus on the GNU+Linux system. This effort at marginalization
was already well underway by the mid 90s, before the rebranding works
of ESR et al. to attempt to gain through language newspeak what they
could not win through logical argument.

And truly dirty efforts at revisionism can be found throughout
the quasi-commercial demimonde. Canonical's lies (from http://www.ubuntu.com/project/open-source):

"Originally coined in 1998, the term open source came out of the free software movement, a collaborative force going strong since the dawn of computing in the 1950s. This early community was responsible for the development of many of the first operating systems, software and, in 1969, the Internet itself.

The open-source community is thriving and today boasts some of the best brains in the business. The aim has not changed: free systems and software should be available to everybody, wherever they are.

Without open source, many of the systems and applications we take for granted simply would not exist. All the big players in computing come from, or owe a huge creative debt to, the open-source community, and continue to rely on its talent and expertise when developing new products."

Amazing: without even blushing, the "free software" movement is relocated
from the 80s to the 50s, and somehow constituted without Stallman or the FSF -- and replaced, of course, long ago by "open source." Have they no shame?

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 20:51 UTC (Tue) by mingo (guest, #31122) [Link] (1 responses)

"the larger project has moved on?" Strange how those who criticize Stallman for what they call an appropriation of the work of others feel free to do so themselves.

I have no problem stating that most OSS developers have moved on beyond the "GNU project", even if this hurts the feelings of the "free software movement", because it is the simple factual truth.

I do have a problem with an 8% minority still stubbornly claiming that it's all about their "vision". This is not what freedom and democracy is about - freedom and democracy will often produce outcomes you personally disagree with. No amount of initial 'vision' can (or should) counter that force.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 15, 2011 16:58 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Note that that 8% is a subjective figure. One could easily argue that the importance of code should be weighted in some way. Most people would not disagree that X% of kernel code is worth a lot more than X% of random client code (some of which are re-implementations of the same thing, e.g. email or IM clients).

One way to weight things might be by the amount it gets re-used, e.g. through function and system calls and any private IPC. So the kernel code would be very heavily weighted, rightly according to many. But so also would things like various GNU libraries. And this model doesn't account for dependence through being interpreted by some other programme, and doesn't account for the value of compile-time toolchains either.

In short, that 8% figure is a very simplistic one and fails to capture dependencies that are so critical to modern software engineering. So I'm not sure I could agree with any argument that rests on that number being small for any particular body of software...

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 21:29 UTC (Tue) by Julie (guest, #66693) [Link] (1 responses)

The historical revisionists have made some considerable successes. Stallman now is invited to relatively few high-level conferences that focus on the GNU+Linux system.

I don't think RMS not being invited to conferences has a lot to do with historical revisionism. Rather, I think coriordan summed part of the problem up when they said 'It's his host's job to get the audience right.' and 'It's not RMS's job to know the audience...'

Someone who has to have an entire audience hand-selected for them is hardly likely to invite mass appeal.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 22:21 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

RMS is good in front of pretty much any audience.

This hypothetical ultra-sensitive audience that only cares about RMS's feet would be an exception. If it really does exist, then yeh, don't bother wasting RMS's time by asking him to talk there.

He has keynoted at most of the big conferences at one time or another. If users of free software knew the extent of his contribution, he might well be invited to more, but his pro-user stances (against proprietary software and against software patents) are problematic for many company-run and company-sponsored conferences.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 15, 2011 6:08 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (1 responses)

Stallman himself admits that "free software" was the norm up until the late 1970s. It did not always satisfy all the definitions laid out by the FSF, but it was normal to share code with others, and there were no proprietary "software companies". Stallman's "free software" movement was an attempt to restore a bygone ethos in the hacker world. Wikipedia has a nice overview.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 16, 2011 4:03 UTC (Thu) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link]

I was around in the 70s too. Yes, software source was exchanged
in the 70s but the practice was not codified nor were there
analyses of the ethics of the practice: it simply was done.
It made it quite easy for proprietary operators to rather
quickly change the playing field, and even academic institutions
like MIT were ill-prepared to fight the change. Stallman almost
single-handedly went against this tradition. It restored
a bygone *practice*, but the ethos was *created* -- by Stallman.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 18:22 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (11 responses)

> Why does Stallman pretend to talk in the name of the developers who wrote all this code (collective "we")?

The "it" in his quote refers to "the GNU system" from the sentence before. He's the main representative of the GNU project, so he can speak for the project.

> the stats recently

Those were nonsense stats, c'mon. GNU contributed in many areas, from licensing to awareness to lobbying to infrastructure to code. That last category is the only measure where anyone can even compare to GNU in terms of contribution. So the blogger looked at just that category and used a nonsense method (counting lines of multiple IRC clients, window managers etc. of which, people at most one - and equating them to libc code).

> why does Stallman still insist on calling it "GNU/Linux"?

So that users might know that the system exists because someone decided to write a system so that computer users could have certain freedoms.

http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html

> facing reality is important

Yes, and so is freedom. *You* might be indifferent about the operating system being hijacked by companies with other interests, but many others want the system to stay free. Awareness of what lead to the system's development are the only way to make this possible.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 20:40 UTC (Tue) by mingo (guest, #31122) [Link] (9 responses)

The "it" in his quote refers to "the GNU system" from the sentence before. He's the main representative of the GNU project, so he can speak for the project.

But what does the "GNU system" consist of? It consists of 92%+ code that was not written by the "GNU project" ...

So yes, he can speak for the "GNU project", which is about 8% of a Linux distribution, but he should stop pretending that he speaks for the whole project ...

He should make that distinction very clear and he should recognize it both privately and publicly that OSS has become a lot more than just the "GNU project". I've never seem him acknowledge that plain fact, he still likes to pretend that it's all about "free software" - and his insistence on the "GNU/Linux" naming show's Stallman's fundamental disconnect with reality.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 22:29 UTC (Tue) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link] (7 responses)

>He should make that distinction very clear

By using a combined name such as GNU+Linux to underline the distinction or something ?

>and he should recognize it both privately and publicly that OSS has become a lot more than just the "GNU project".

The GNU project never was OSS. Furthermore, proprietary software has become a lot more prevalent too. Do you insist he recognizes this privately and publicly too ?

>I've never seem him acknowledge that plain fact, he still likes to pretend that it's all about "free software"

I think it's safe to assume rms is in the free software camp. So he talks about free software. Why should he mention or acknowledge things that don't interest him or he feels are detrimental to his goals ?

> and his insistence on the "GNU/Linux" naming show's Stallman's fundamental disconnect with reality.

So you want him to make a distinction but you don't want him to call it GNU/Linux ?

rms advocates and is dedicated to free software and not open source software, in the best way he sees fit. Why would one insist he extends his work to include the open source way, if he doesn't feel it is the right way to reach his goals ?

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 22:50 UTC (Tue) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link] (6 responses)

The GNU project never was OSS

That is silly. It is like complaining that you don't want a red car to be called "red". If the GNU project doesn't want their software to be considered open source software, they should come up with some way to violate the Open Source Definition. Maybe the FSF could prohibit people from selling free software, for example, or discriminate against some particularly noxious field of endeavor. Then "free" software would no longer be "open source".

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 15, 2011 0:05 UTC (Wed) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link] (5 responses)

"Never was" might be a little strong, but the GNU project significantly predates the "open source" moniker. It *couldn't* have been open source, and it *couldn't* have build on open source values, because these weren't defined as such yet.
It set out to propagate free software. Later on, when it turned out the software was of better quality, open source was thought up to be a more commercially viable and adaptable term.
So at least until "open source" was coined, the GNU project was not open source. And for some of us, the initial values of the GNU project are more important than the accidental benefits of the software development methodology that are emphasized by "open source".
So GNU being open source is accidental, but it being free software is its purpose. And in that sense GNU never was open source; no more than a car can happen to be coloured red. It undeniably is red, but the colour is not an inherent property of the car.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 15, 2011 1:50 UTC (Wed) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link]

Okay, but that is a little like saying evolution didn't happen because no one was around to call it that.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 15, 2011 1:53 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (3 responses)

Dude, your analogies are bizarre.

Like it or not, the GPL fits the the open source definition. You can language lawyer all you want but I don't think that's going to change.

Yes, the FSF came first. And they rocked the world. Then, much later, some dudes wanted something to describe all the excellent L?GPL/BSD/MIT/Apache/etc. licenses (since they're more similar than different) but there was no term for this sort of license. Thus the open source definition was born. I'm sure the authors benefited greatly from the existence of the GPL and learned from it.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 15, 2011 2:21 UTC (Wed) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link] (1 responses)

>Then, much later, some dudes wanted something to describe all the excellent L?GPL/BSD/MIT/Apache/etc. licenses (since they're more similar than different) but there was no term for this sort of license.

They were called "free software licenses".

>Thus the open source definition was born.

It was born when esr and some other people decided that ethics and the term "free" were complicating things. *Thus* it was born. And it worked well for a while, until it became clear that, the less you have to bother with ethics, the more money you can make. And instead of becoming and easy approachable term for "free software", "open source" became a weaselword and sales term. Fortunately "open source" is slowly returning to its roots, but I doubt this would have happened had there not been some opposition from the "free as in freedom" camp.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 15, 2011 20:36 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Sorry, I should have sad, "there was no clear and well-understood term for these licenses."

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 16, 2011 19:27 UTC (Thu) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]

Before there was any GNU project or FSF, the BSD folks were freeing the code to their system. The whole TeX system has always been open source, since its beginnings in 1978. I fondly remember the vibrant communities to be found in the Usenet comp.sources.* groups in the early 1980s. DECUS had their yearly meeting where tapes with source were swapped (SIG TAPE), at least since 1975. IBM had their SHARE user's group, which distributed contributed code since around 1955. So yes, open source predates the GNU project by a couple of decades. Sure, RMS came up with a very important concept (copyleft), and rallied a bunch of people around it. But he certainly wasn't the first, and far from the only one, to advocate code sharing.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 18, 2011 17:25 UTC (Sat) by linusw (subscriber, #40300) [Link]

> his insistence on the "GNU/Linux" naming show's Stallman's fundamental disconnect with reality

The name is GNU/Stallman. Stallman is only the person.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 15, 2011 20:02 UTC (Wed) by Julie (guest, #66693) [Link]

> why does Stallman still insist on calling it "GNU/Linux"?
So that users might know that the system exists because someone decided to write a system so that computer users could have certain freedoms

But if users at all care and are in the least bit curious about their system makeup they can find out this easily (because they'll research it anyway), without having to listen to RMS over and over again. And if they don't care, well - they _won't_ care a bit more if RMS keeps insisting on calling it 'GNU/Linux'. About Gnu or the kernel. Or maybe any of the other software. If they've heard of 'software'. To them it's probably just a black box with a screen/keypad they paid money for to do a job.

I don't know for sure about the purchasing demographics of Android, but I'm willing to bet there are users out there who have it just because it's 'Google's cool smartphone' and not because they have any idea it's Linux-based, know what that means, or would care if they knew. Loads of promo stuff I've seen from mobile phone contractors or vendors and others pushing Andriod doesn't even mention Linux. I don't see kernel hackers everywhere throwing hissy fits about this or claiming not calling it 'Linux-slash-Android' is hiding their work from the world or demeaning their contributions or dismissing whatever philosophy they have. I think quite simply they (and developers in general) have too much sense and more to do with their time than to spend it thinking up manifestos on the politically-correct way to talk about operating systems and software.

Users indeed owe a debt of gratitude to lots of teams and collaborative groups - including _but not limited to_ GNU and the FSF. I express this with donations and support, but I don't have the least problem with anyone not doing the same because I take 'free' to also mean 'free as in freely given'. And I find it irritating that I could call my system 'GNU/Linux/LinuxFoundation/Xorg/TPF/Kubuntu/KDE/Mozilla/wine/ASF...' and the _only_ time there would be a complaint is if I missed out the 'GNU'.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 18:33 UTC (Tue) by dbruce (guest, #57948) [Link] (25 responses)

Well, calling a distro "Linux" is even less accurate, and is the more prevalent error. I don't have any problem with calling Debian simply "Debian", rather than "Debian GNU/Linux".

I'm not a GNU developer, but I am a hobbyist coder in that other 92% in the typical distro, and I'm certainly more in the "Free Software" camp than the "Open Source" camp. Just speaking for myself, I think the original GNU vision is very much alive, and not just in official GNU projects.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 20:59 UTC (Tue) by mingo (guest, #31122) [Link] (23 responses)

Well, calling a distro "Linux" is even less accurate, and is the more prevalent error. I don't have any problem with calling Debian simply "Debian", rather than "Debian GNU/Linux".

Neither do i have a problem with that - people can (and will) call their stuff whatever they want to - i never corrected anyone who said "GNU/Linux" to me.

I do have a problem with someone trying to force a specific, self-serving naming on others though.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 22:36 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (22 responses)

It's not forced on anyone. It's a reasoned and polite request.

If he wanted to somewhat "force" it on people, he could have put something related to naming in the licences, but he didn't.

Forced

Posted Jun 14, 2011 23:27 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (20 responses)

In my dealings with the FSF, I've been told repeatedly that if I fail to write "GNU/Linux," or if I wrote anything indicating that "Linux" designated something other than a kernel, they would no longer talk with me. A previous director of the organization made it clear that it was out of his hands; if I failed to use newspeak, he would not be allowed to talk to me at all. Whether you call that "force" is up to you, I guess; I believe it goes beyond "reasoned and polite" though.

My response to that attitude has been to simply not ask the FSF about anything at all.

Forced

Posted Jun 15, 2011 0:28 UTC (Wed) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link] (15 responses)

And this surprises you how ?

Say you were writing a piece on global warming from a conservative point of view, and when trying to submit the questions for an interview with some institution they would inform you they do not appreciate the way you suffix every mention of "global warming" with "hoax" or "scam", because, from their point of view, it would be very detrimental to the very thing they are trying to achieve, and they cannot but assume the interview will at least be biased unfavourably.
The FSF asked you to write GNU/Linux, because not doing so would, from their point of view, be detrimental to their goals.

It's not unnatural for persons or institutions to decline dealings they feel will affect them negatively. On a personal level it might not feel very nice, but a personal disagreement and negative take hardly warrants using the laden term "newspeak" in your professional capacity.

Forced

Posted Jun 15, 2011 0:47 UTC (Wed) by jake (editor, #205) [Link] (2 responses)

> they do not appreciate the way you suffix every mention of "global
> warming" with "hoax" or "scam"

so, using "Linux" where RMS would prefer to see "GNU/Linux" is the equivalent of "global warming hoax/scam"? that seems a bit of an overreach ... at worst, even if you agree with RMS, "Linux" is incomplete not pejorative.

deciding exactly which terms everyone *must* use is exactly what "newspeak" is all about, no?

jake

Forced

Posted Jun 15, 2011 1:58 UTC (Wed) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link] (1 responses)

>so, using "Linux" where RMS would prefer to see "GNU/Linux" is the equivalent of "global warming hoax/scam"? that seems a bit of an overreach ... at worst, even if you agree with RMS, "Linux" is incomplete not pejorative.

My example is overreaching, my apologies. Maybe sending a questionnaire to an environmental organisation and insisting on prefixing "whale hunting" with "scientific" (lacking the implied negative connotations of "hoax" and "scam") might have been a better example. No matter where you stand on such issues, it should be obvious the questionnaire will be received less kindly or less seriously by those you want get answers from.

>deciding exactly which terms everyone *must* use is exactly what "newspeak" is all about, no?

But a single journalist asking for interview time and declining the terms is not "everyone *must* use". Number one tried that and didn't agree on the terms. Basically they agreed to disagree on terminology and that should be the extent of it. But in my opinion labeling his personal experience as "newspeak" is unwarranted.

Forced

Posted Jun 15, 2011 12:22 UTC (Wed) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link]

The point is whether or not anyone has been forced to use the term "GNU/Linux". The editors have given their take on the point.

I use the term "Linux" to describe a distribution comprised of GNU software in addition to the Linux kernel. I do this not because I'm being disrespectful of GNU, but because I've been involved with Linux distributions before "GNU/Linux" was coined.

I don't see how referring to a "Linux distribution" means I'm being harmful. It could very well mean I understand and respect the GNU software contained therein, regardless of the terminology.

I suspect I'm not alone.

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Posted Jun 15, 2011 1:32 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (11 responses)

> The FSF asked you to write GNU/Linux, because not doing so would, from their point of view, be detrimental to their goals.

It sounds like they did more than just ask. :(

I don't agree with your analogy at all. They're quite different scenarios.

I would think that continually stirring up useless flaming about GNU/or/not, putting us at each others' throats, and laying down veiled threats is even MORE detrimental to the FSF's goals, no?

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Posted Jun 15, 2011 8:19 UTC (Wed) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link] (10 responses)

This kind of extreme PR blunder is par for the course for FSF, though.

The entire problem started with the name "Free Software." The reason the term "Open Source" is more popular, I believe, is entirely due to the fact that Open Source is better verbiage. Free Software to a layman simply means gratis software; it means Internet Explorer, or to many laymen it even means Windows (as to them it comes "free" with the computer they paid for). Every time you use the term Free Software outside of already initiated circles you have to append a paragraph-long explanation; not to explain what Free Software is, but to explain what it is not. That's just stupid. Open Source might not be entirely self descriptive but at least everyone hearing it for the first time won't immediately assume it means something entirely different in almost every way than what the speaker meant.

We can then carry on to GNU, which is just a very ugly word (at least to most American English speakers). It's guttural, harsh, brings images of a rather non-cute animal, and sounds kind of like a sneeze. Plus it's based on a really, really stupid joke that not only fails to make anyone laugh but kind of hurts mentally the way a really bad pun can. The word Linux on the other hand rolls off the tongue fairly well and has a hip "X" in it which always seems to be cool for some reason.

Then we come to GNU/Linux. As a society (Americans at least), we always lean towards shortening words. We come up with one to two syllable slang words for just about everything. In part this is because English is spoken quite slowly compared to many other languages, and in part because we're just lazy. Point being, even if the status quo for the hackers and hobbyists working on the OS was to call it GNU/Linux, every single layman on the planet would call it something else anyway, because GNU/Linux is long, ugly, and entirely unsexy. And since Linux is the more attractive and less throat-jarring noun you can bet your underpants that laymen would stick with Linux -- not GNU -- when referring to the OS.

RMS is constantly irritated by the fact that he chose a really stupid set of names for his pet projects/ideas and he lost the marketing war with the people who chose less-stupid names.

And now in a (likely final) fit of marketing idiocy he's going to make the FSF and its ideals seem childish, selfish, and petty. Just in order to pretend that it's not his fault that he utterly fails on marketing and that it's everyone else's fault. Everyone else's fault for thinking the way that human beings think and preferring shorter, clearer, or cooler words to describe things.

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Posted Jun 15, 2011 9:44 UTC (Wed) by mingo (guest, #31122) [Link] (9 responses)

[...]
RMS is constantly irritated by the fact that he chose a really stupid set of names for his pet projects/ideas and he lost the marketing war with the people who chose less-stupid names.
And now in a (likely final) fit of marketing idiocy he's going to make the FSF and its ideals seem childish, selfish, and petty. Just in order to pretend that it's not his fault that he utterly fails on marketing and that it's everyone else's fault. Everyone else's fault for thinking the way that human beings think and preferring shorter, clearer, or cooler words to describe things.

Right, that's the core problem.

It's also ironic and a double standard: we use clean concepts in source code, we take pride in having the cleanest code on the planet and we expect clean patches from all our contributors.

Why is clean naming and clean, understandable expression of thought not a must for the self-appointed leader of such a movement?

I.e. why does RMS not see the inevitable conclusion that to nurture such a large group of people you absolutely need to be an expert not just in dealing with lots of code, but you also need to be an expert in dealing with a large group of people?

For such a role you need to be an expert in language, you need to be an expert in communication - and in general, you need to be an expert in social skills. Or, at minimum, you need to have the ability to see your own weak points and should listen to others who have those skills ...

This is an inevitable mathematical conclusion, yet RMS is blind to it.

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Posted Jun 15, 2011 10:15 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (5 responses)

It's also ironic and a double standard: we use clean concepts in source code, we take pride in having the cleanest code on the planet and we expect clean patches from all our contributors.

By "we" I suppose you mean Linux kernel? The GNU C formatting style (the positioning of the braces, in particular) is the ugliest on the planet.

But yes, Linux is a cool name -- Linus recognised its competitive advantage back in 1993.

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Posted Jun 15, 2011 13:29 UTC (Wed) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (1 responses)

The GNU C formatting style (the positioning of the braces, in particular) is the ugliest on the planet.

If that's the only objection you have to the cleanness of the Linux source code

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Posted Jun 15, 2011 13:47 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

Er... how did my comment on the GNU coding style get construed as an objection to the cleanness of the Linux kernel? The Linux kernel is most certainly not GNU.

Sidenote about the GNU coding style

Posted Jun 17, 2011 20:20 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (2 responses)

The GNU coding style is interesting because it was designed to encourage understandable code.

The short indent (2 spaces) is a good example: this leaves as much horizontal space as possible so that there's room for identifiers to be descriptive. The code should document itself.

It's a mindset. You're writing the code for others to read. It should be easy for others to re-use your code, and it should be easy for a new maintainer to take over and keep the project going if you lose interest.

Sidenote about the GNU coding style

Posted Jun 17, 2011 20:27 UTC (Fri) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (1 responses)

"The GNU coding style is interesting because it was designed to encourage understandable code."

I really wish I knew how nested functions fit into that.

Sidenote about the GNU coding style

Posted Jun 18, 2011 1:27 UTC (Sat) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Ha :-) Well, yes, there are also Lisp influences in the GNU project.

But nested functions is a GCC feature, there's no suggestion or recommendation to use them in the GNU coding standards:
http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html

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Posted Jun 15, 2011 15:14 UTC (Wed) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] (1 responses)

And if the source code is available, the software is Open Source, right? (given the same layman)

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Posted Jun 15, 2011 19:37 UTC (Wed) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

that's at least a lot closer to what you mean that 'windows is free because it is preinstalled on my computer' is to what Stallman means by "Free Software"

to correct the opensource mistake you can say "close, but you also need the right to use and distribute the source, not just see it", which is a much simpler explanation than the paragraph explaining that free software has nothing to do with cost

Yes, your point is forced.

Posted Jun 17, 2011 14:09 UTC (Fri) by rwp (guest, #75755) [Link]

/This is an inevitable mathematical conclusion, yet RMS is blind to it./

What is mathematical about it?

You yourself are blind to, or at least willfully sidestep, what's truly important about Richard's work, which has nothing to do with his marketing abilities.

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Posted Jun 15, 2011 1:47 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (2 responses)

That's a distinct situation. You're asking them to do something for you (contribute to your articles). Their logic is: Why should they do something for you if you're going to use terminology that belittles their work?

IIRC they place those conditions on just the article for which one seeks their contribution.

Maybe their press interaction policy need fine-tuning, but at the end of they day they're the organisation that's most reliably working to bring about a world where all software users have certain freedoms. Putting them down or undermining them because one thinks one could run their organisation better than they do, is cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.

(All the "one"s because I mean that generally, not specifically for LWN.)

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Posted Jun 15, 2011 2:15 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Um...they have tended to come (occasionally) to us, actually, especially since I realized I didn't like their terms. They, like many groups, ask us to tell the world about what they are doing.

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Posted Jun 15, 2011 4:58 UTC (Wed) by jake (editor, #205) [Link]

> Putting them down or undermining them because one thinks one could
> run their organisation better than they do, is cutting off one's
> nose to spite one's face.

Well, I don't really see anyone putting them down here, nor undermining them, just disagreeing with them. No one that I have seen has suggested that they could run the FSF better than the FSF does either. One can generally agree with the goals of the FSF (I do), while still sometimes disagreeing with its actions (or those of its leader). Let's not forget that these folks are human just like the rest of us and make mistakes from time to time (again, just like the rest of us). Disagreeing with the FSF's occasional missteps is not "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face" by any means.

jake

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Posted Jun 15, 2011 4:35 UTC (Wed) by jrn (subscriber, #64214) [Link]

> In my dealings with the FSF, I've been told repeatedly that if I fail to write "GNU/Linux," or if I wrote anything indicating that "Linux" designated something other than a kernel, they would no longer talk with me.

Wow, that seems out of line. Thanks for a heads up.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 15, 2011 6:18 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

If he wanted to somewhat "force" it on people, he could have put something related to naming in the licences, but he didn't.

Uh, what? You mean, something like "The text of this licence is (c) the FSF, and by using this licence for your own project, you agree to prefix it with the name 'GNU/'"? That would have worked out really well.

This whole GNU/Linux crusade has lost the FSF more friends than anything else RMS may have done.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 15, 2011 2:09 UTC (Wed) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link]

Well, calling a distro "Linux" is even less accurate, and is the more prevalent error

It is certainly accurate if that is what the distribution developers call it, e.g. "Redhat Linux". Calling Linux distributions "GNU/Linux" in general is fine is that what you feel like, but strictly speaking there is no such thing as "Redhat GNU/Linux", for example.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 19:06 UTC (Tue) by nicooo (guest, #69134) [Link]

> He did not write it, and the GNU project did not write it.
Give the guy a break; he recently wrote a song and translated it into Spanish.

Proprietary software keeps users helpless (TechRadar)

Posted Jun 14, 2011 21:13 UTC (Tue) by jrn (subscriber, #64214) [Link]

> Why does Stallman pretend to talk in the name of the developers who wrote all this code (collective "we")?

Indeed, part of the appeal of open development processes and copyleft licensing is that they provide a basis for people to cooperate without having the same motivations, or even knowing each other's motivation.

While Stallman's phrasing was unfortunate, it's consistent with this. It seems likely to me that many people working on open source projects do not necessarily agree with the open source ideas that the hypothetical reader has heard of already (about technical excellence, based on the Cathedral and the Bazaar, maybe? I don't know). They may have other ideas, for example about tit-for-tat, or helping out fellow practitioners of the same craft, or a will to give back, or a preference for empowering users, or dislike of waste and the business model of selling licenses.

ideas more important than personalities

Posted Jun 17, 2011 13:40 UTC (Fri) by rwp (guest, #75755) [Link] (2 responses)

Point one: for all practical purposes, the FSF is Richard Stallman; for all practical purposes they are one and the same. Point two: Richard likely suffers from autism or aspergers syndrome. An official medical diagnosis would be most helpful, but anyone with personal dealings with Richard would likely concur.

Richard Stallman changed the course of history. The significance of his work will outlive us all, by many generations.

People are quite right to point out that Richard has a difficult time affecting the trite personal nuances that imbue ordinary human interaction. Nike will never hire Richard to sell tennis shoes. If Richard ran for any kind of political office, he would be completely crushed.

I fail to see how this has any relevance to the import of his most important work. You might disagree with Richard's philosophy, but calling him to task for his personal idiosyncrasies is a low blow of the sort you'd expect from teenage school girls, not mature adults. Would you pick a fist fight with a blind man?

I've seen Richard's work first hand. I did a brief stint as webmaster for gnu.org. As you can imagine, all kinds of queries, both polite and full of vitriol are sent to webmaster@gnu.org. Richard responds to all of them. Personally. Even if responding to a question that has been answered a thousand times before, he composes an individual response. No matter how vitriolic the query, he carefully crafts a polite rejoinder.

If you want to pick a fight with Richard, or with the FSF, instead of veering off point with petty unoriginal notes about Richard's marketing savvy or his toes, instead focus your attention on what matters most, the thing that has changed the course of history, his licenses. If you want to compare GNU to Open Source, compare the GPL to other licenses. That is what matters. The rest is just personalities and trite immature bloviating.

ideas more important than personalities

Posted Jun 17, 2011 23:33 UTC (Fri) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link] (1 responses)

Except it isn't unimportant. A movement intended to spread a powerful idea that fails because a single individual is incapable of spreading that idea efficiently is a damaged movement.

Marketing matters. It matters a LOT. There's a reason companies pay such ridiculous amounts on it. Games for instance typically spend 30% of their entire development budget on marketing.

The simple fact is that people aren't going to believe in or support an idea if they don't know about it or don't understand it.

So the licenses and ethos are important. They'd be significantly more pervasive if someone other than RMS called the shots when it comes to naming and evangelism. Not every great thinker is suited to being the frontman for an organization. There's also a reason why you rarely see engineers as CEOs. :)

ideas more important than personalities

Posted Jun 18, 2011 18:47 UTC (Sat) by rwp (guest, #75755) [Link]

No argument here - I agree with you: marketing is important, and the Free Software movement has likely suffered on account of poor marketing.

Personally, I find Richard's earnest unwavering devotion to his cause endearing. Richard's personality is certainly peculiar, but I have a difficult time concluding he suffers any kind of handicap. The forces arrayed against his ideas have staggering resources at their disposal: lawyers, marketing professionals, and many many billions of dollars. That one man has made such an impact on the computing ecology under such duress is truly amazing. Would anyone not suffering from Richard's so-called "handicap" have been able to accomplish the same thing? I don't personally know anyone else possessing such obdurate persistence. Throw most people a few millions dollars, and away they go. Not Richard. Richard Stallman is a rock in the face of extreme adversity.

Why have so few taken up the gauntlet? Is it because Richard's ideas lack merit, or because most people are too weak to put ideology before personal reward? Richard is not entirely alone, of course. He has Eben Moglen at his side. Bruce Perens is on the team. So are many others.

So yes, marketing is important, and Richard isn't so good at it, at least not by any ordinary measure of how one should comport oneself. But how does one explain, then, the extraordinary impact of his ideas in the face of such overwhelming opposition? If it's not the pure force of his ideas, then how do you explain that?