xiegeo ยท 139 points ยท Posted at 16:53:34 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
And we know it works, because Stallman will never use something non-free.
mirhagk ยท 59 points ยท Posted at 18:50:39 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
And funny as licenses like these are, they cause pretty substantial problems. JSLint included a "must not be used for evil" clause which caused major problems as the seemingly free license spread and infected the community, causing a lot of duplicate effort and splitting things.
Colopty ยท 49 points ยท Posted at 21:19:32 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
lengau ยท 25 points ยท Posted at 20:18:30 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Didn't the author of JSLint give IBM permission to use it for evil in the end though?
If he gave that permission to IBM, can I have that permission?
mirhagk ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 20:56:37 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
He did indeed give permission to IBM to use it for evil. If he give everyone that permission then it wouldn't be a problem, and he could do just by stripping out that clause of the license.
The problem is the damage has been done. Unless every project that adopted that license all has Contributor License Agreements then the license is stuck.
oshaboy ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 23:43:35 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Hey. Dr. Doofenshmirtz needs free software as well
There are some libraries I had to dismiss for use in the office simply because they had "funny" licenses. Our lawyers don't like funny.
But my personal pet peeve is the "unlicense". As far as my research goes, that thing simply reverts to "all rights reserved" in my country (Germany). It's proprietary software mocking me with this great "ultra free license" it supposedly has.
If you draft a license, consult a copyright lawyer. And consider international users.
mirhagk ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 01:53:27 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Or better yet don't draft a license. Nobody needs more licenses, choose one already vetted. Even better it it's been tested in courts
I get the problem with jokey licenses, but if your country's courts somehow interprets an explicit statement that something is being placed in the public domain and the author retains no rights as an all rights reserved license, I don't think the problem lies with the author...
explicit statement that something is being placed in the public domain and the author retains no rights as an all rights reserved license,
In germany, an author can't give up his copyright, including the public domain. You always have a copyright to all your works until you die.
The CC0 addresses that fact elegantly:
To the greatest extent permitted by, but not in contravention of, applicable law, Affirmer hereby overtly, fully, permanently, irrevocably and unconditionally waives, abandons, and surrenders all of Affirmer's Copyright
And has a fallback clause granting the important rights individually.
Now the Unlicense text:
In jurisdictions that recognize copyright laws, the author or authors of this software dedicate any and all copyright interest in the software to the public domain.
There is no fallback and no salvatory clause. So, in jurisdictios that recognize copyright law, but don't recognize voluntary release of works into the public domain, the license is void.
There is a small chance of a court ruling that the second paragraph is enough of an explicit license, but to my untrained eyes, it doesn't look like one. And until there is a court ruling on that license, I treat it as "all rights reserved", since it's core aspect doesn't work.
Another fun fact: The warranty disclaimers you find in pretty much all "free" licenses is pretty useless in Germany too. Basically boils down to "gifts don't come with warranty".
The problem is that in Germany it is impossible to dedicate something to the public domain, and if a license tries to do that and doesn't have a clause that takes care of cases like this then it is invalid and the result is the same as having no license at all. Other licenses like CC0 have special clauses that grant the public as many rights as possible in legislations where dedication to the public domain is impossible.
That would be what he meant by the problem not lying with the author. What kind of copyright law is that
nidrach ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 05:23:34 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
A normal one? All Germany does differntly is that the author can't get stripped of certain rights no matter what. He is and always wil be the originator of hia work and there is no legal tool to change that. What he can do on the other hand is that he commercializes i.e. sells to a publisher, his rights of making money from a certain work. He retains other rights like the right to fight alterations regardless of that.
And looking at the number of German publishers for books, music etc. the system seems to work just fine if you deal with it properly.
CamWin ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 20:07:34 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Well why should license makers dedicate a whole clause to Germany? Maybe Germany should have comprehensive laws that deal with international licenses that include concepts not normally covered.
Yeah, I am going to have to agree with this guy on this one. I understand what the German laws is trying to do, but it really should not apply to international works. This law would make sense covering domestically produced works, but I feel that it is probably not alright that it would overrule a license chosen by someone, just because that international license doesn't align with German law.
You're under no obligation to choose a license. However, without a license, the default copyright laws apply, meaning that you retain all rights to your source code and no one may reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works from your work. If you're creating an open source project, we strongly encourage you to include an open source license.
Ethesen ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 16:12:46 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
"Unlicense" is the name of a particular license.
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 02:27:46 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Sorry for the late response: I wouldn't use it at work, but I have a lot less trouble with the WTFPL for private use. I even used it myself a couple times before discovering the MPL 2.0, which is way more suitable for my usual hobby projects.
I don't think RMS cares much about the "Debian Free Software Guidelines". The ones he created (or at least helped create) and adhere to are the "Four essential freedoms" from the FSF. Of course, the license still violates freedom 2, so the end result is the same.
It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users.
I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click!
I wonder if that type of thing is enforceable. The local poker room near me uses crap software and pays a buttload for it, and I'm considering writing better software myself and open sourcing it with a license that says anybody can use it for free, but if you're a card room you have to pay me back for the rake if I play at your card room. Is that doable?
although it would be easier to just consider and decide against it
AI221 ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 05:54:08 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Time to make my "Anyone But People Who Have Used The Anyone But Richard M Stallman License License".
Now I can dump hundreds of hours of work into something completely useless because of its legally dodgy license that no sane company or individual will ever touch with a 10ft pole! YAY
But this project isn't serious, haha, it's just for jokes, see, hahaha... I put it all the effort of a real project and spent my time on my code instead of with friends or family, I'm slowly deteriorating mentally and physically, wallowing away behind this screen of changing lights, 84 keys and moving wand but its just a joke, i wrote it in javascript and there i go, i said the tirgger word, there goes the mental hahaha
๐๏ธ der_iraner ยท 14 points ยท Posted at 09:16:17 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Bro are you ok
AI221 ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 22:21:38 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Can someone fill me in on the backstory behind this? Is Stallman known for "you made this? I made this" shenanigans?
bautin ยท 54 points ยท Posted at 20:01:51 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Stallman is a very unique person. He has very, uh, passionate views about certain things. This is a guy who sends an email to a service that will grab a web page for you and email you the contents. Just so his web use isn't as trackable. He refuses to own a cellphone that isn't "100% run on free software".
Of course, Stallman has never actually held a job as a working programmer. He was a research assistant at MIT for a while, then quit that and has been living off of grants and speaking fees since then. Which is all well and good if your name happens be Richard Stallman, but I wonder just how much of Stallman's political views are influenced by his relatively lucky life. He was able to transition from academia to public speaking. He's never really had to grind out a day job.
[deleted] ยท 33 points ยท Posted at 21:42:31 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
bautin ยท 18 points ยท Posted at 21:57:48 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I'm not saying he doesn't have experience writing programs. Man is talented. Gave us some very clever and very important software. However, he's never had to put his principles to the test. He's been able to do his work gratis, living off of his grants and public speaking money.
If I had the option of having all of my needs taken care of and working on whatever I wanted with the caveat that whatever I created would be given away, I'd take it. But I don't have that option. You likely don't have that option. Most people don't have that option.
Just about everyone else has pretty much taken a job because you need to put a roof over your head and bread on the table. If you get to do something you're proud of, great. If not, whatever.
I haven't personally seen his living conditions, but his "tour rider" pretty explicitly asks people to not buy him anything better than economy class tickets, let him couch surf rather than pay for hotels, stuff like that.
He also mentions that he is gonna be working at more or less every opportunity.
I imagine the average developer in the US has a much higher standard of living than he does.
bautin ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 03:03:20 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Probably so. Dude is pretty much a hippie. And that's cool. It's not about that. It's about the fact that he's never really had to make a living selling software. And that his views on software are probably influenced by that fact.
Contrast him against Linus Torvalds. He went open source out of a practical need. He has no ideological adherence to it. He feels that if a closed source solution is necessary, you should do that.
If RMS was not a fanatic he would take the "easy route" and earn a paycheck. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with doing that, just that the mindset almost certainly came first.
bautin ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 03:29:41 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
His mindset probably did come first. But he's never been in a position where he's had to choose between his ideals and eating.
We can't actually know that, can we? There wasn't always an FSF, and he wasn't always a "celebrity" that people would pay to just exist. FWIW I'm pretty convinced he'd sooner flip burgers than write non-free code.
In his talks he says that in that case he'd go for some job that doesn't involve making/selling proprietary software since there are jobs outside of software development he could take (I think his example is being a waiter). So it's false to say the only choices are starve or go against his ideals.
But yeah, it's one thing to say you would do the ethical thing when you don't have to make the decision, it's another to actually do it when put in the situation.
Now imagine having yout table waited by Richard M. Stallman...
bautin ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:33:36 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Exactly, it's always been hypothetical for him. It's easy to say that he'd be a waiter and work on software in his spare time, but it's another to actually have to balance your work life with your down time.
If I had the option of having all of my needs taken care of and working on whatever I wanted with the caveat that whatever I created would be given away, I'd take it. But I don't have that option. You likely don't have that option. Most people don't have that option.
Grants and speaking money don't fall from the sky either. He doesn't have the option to, say, stop publicly speaking.
Unless you are raking in interest from the ten million in your bank account, or you live purely off of charity or social aid, everybody is doing some work to earn their living. If somebody pays you, it is because they believe that the work you're doing is worth that amount of money to them. It is wrong to discriminate against somebody just because their work involves a different set of skills from yours.
bautin ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 02:56:36 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I'm speaking specifically towards his position that all software must be open source and free to modify.
I'm not saying the work he does is not important. I'm not saying what he does is not worth the money he gets.
I'm saying that his views on software are influenced by his particular set of circumstances.
This reminds me of the praise for Rudyard Kipling being fortunate enough to be born in the lap of luxury with the leisure time and drive necessary to become a truly fantastic writer.
bautin ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 03:20:44 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Right and a lot of his themes and politics are influenced by his life. This is the man who wrote "The White Man's Burden". Without irony.
So while he is one of the great writers, not all of his ideas are exactly correct. They're just products of his particular circumstance. So while he may have become just as great a writer had he grown up in a different set of circumstances, chances are those circumstances would have changed the themes of his writing.
In much the same way, if Stallman had been subjected to different circumstances, it's possible he may have different opinions on software.
โNo other licences may applyโ and โDo anything you want with this program, with the exceptions listed under "EXCEPTIONS"โ seem to be in conflict.
bss03 ยท 162 points ยท Posted at 16:36:14 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Non-free license. Violates #5 of DFSG.
xiegeo ยท 139 points ยท Posted at 16:53:34 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
And we know it works, because Stallman will never use something non-free.
mirhagk ยท 59 points ยท Posted at 18:50:39 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
And funny as licenses like these are, they cause pretty substantial problems. JSLint included a "must not be used for evil" clause which caused major problems as the seemingly free license spread and infected the community, causing a lot of duplicate effort and splitting things.
Colopty ยท 49 points ยท Posted at 21:19:32 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
And then those clauses go and cause problems like this.
oxyphilat ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 21:45:18 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Pretend it's YAML!
Kaiserwulf ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 18:27:53 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Ah, Lawful Good meets Lawful Neutral.
lengau ยท 25 points ยท Posted at 20:18:30 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Didn't the author of JSLint give IBM permission to use it for evil in the end though?
If he gave that permission to IBM, can I have that permission?
mirhagk ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 20:56:37 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
He did indeed give permission to IBM to use it for evil. If he give everyone that permission then it wouldn't be a problem, and he could do just by stripping out that clause of the license.
The problem is the damage has been done. Unless every project that adopted that license all has Contributor License Agreements then the license is stuck.
oshaboy ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 23:43:35 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Hey. Dr. Doofenshmirtz needs free software as well
arguablytrue ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 11:24:00 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
For his Delintinator?
NotExecutable ยท 13 points ยท Posted at 01:44:25 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
There are some libraries I had to dismiss for use in the office simply because they had "funny" licenses. Our lawyers don't like funny.
But my personal pet peeve is the "unlicense". As far as my research goes, that thing simply reverts to "all rights reserved" in my country (Germany). It's proprietary software mocking me with this great "ultra free license" it supposedly has.
If you draft a license, consult a copyright lawyer. And consider international users.
mirhagk ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 01:53:27 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Or better yet don't draft a license. Nobody needs more licenses, choose one already vetted. Even better it it's been tested in courts
anarchography ยท 15 points ยท Posted at 02:28:44 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I get the problem with jokey licenses, but if your country's courts somehow interprets an explicit statement that something is being placed in the public domain and the author retains no rights as an all rights reserved license, I don't think the problem lies with the author...
NotExecutable ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 10:39:00 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
In germany, an author can't give up his copyright, including the public domain. You always have a copyright to all your works until you die.
The CC0 addresses that fact elegantly:
And has a fallback clause granting the important rights individually.
Now the Unlicense text:
There is no fallback and no salvatory clause. So, in jurisdictios that recognize copyright law, but don't recognize voluntary release of works into the public domain, the license is void.
There is a small chance of a court ruling that the second paragraph is enough of an explicit license, but to my untrained eyes, it doesn't look like one. And until there is a court ruling on that license, I treat it as "all rights reserved", since it's core aspect doesn't work.
Another fun fact: The warranty disclaimers you find in pretty much all "free" licenses is pretty useless in Germany too. Basically boils down to "gifts don't come with warranty".
how_to_choose_a_name ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 03:21:49 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
The problem is that in Germany it is impossible to dedicate something to the public domain, and if a license tries to do that and doesn't have a clause that takes care of cases like this then it is invalid and the result is the same as having no license at all. Other licenses like CC0 have special clauses that grant the public as many rights as possible in legislations where dedication to the public domain is impossible.
PutHisGlassesOn ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 03:42:17 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
That would be what he meant by the problem not lying with the author. What kind of copyright law is that
nidrach ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 05:23:34 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
A normal one? All Germany does differntly is that the author can't get stripped of certain rights no matter what. He is and always wil be the originator of hia work and there is no legal tool to change that. What he can do on the other hand is that he commercializes i.e. sells to a publisher, his rights of making money from a certain work. He retains other rights like the right to fight alterations regardless of that.
And looking at the number of German publishers for books, music etc. the system seems to work just fine if you deal with it properly.
CamWin ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 20:07:34 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Well why should license makers dedicate a whole clause to Germany? Maybe Germany should have comprehensive laws that deal with international licenses that include concepts not normally covered.
how_to_choose_a_name ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 03:06:30 on April 25, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Copyright can not be transferred or given up in Germany (or most of Europe I believe), and there's nothing wrong with that.
Jeb_Jenky ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 02:05:38 on April 27, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, I am going to have to agree with this guy on this one. I understand what the German laws is trying to do, but it really should not apply to international works. This law would make sense covering domestically produced works, but I feel that it is probably not alright that it would overrule a license chosen by someone, just because that international license doesn't align with German law.
deukhoofd ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 10:34:26 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Github actually explicitly states that an unlicensed work is all rights reserved
Ethesen ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 16:12:46 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
"Unlicense" is the name of a particular license.
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 02:27:46 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
WTFPL is fine though right?
NotExecutable ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:43:46 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Sorry for the late response: I wouldn't use it at work, but I have a lot less trouble with the WTFPL for private use. I even used it myself a couple times before discovering the MPL 2.0, which is way more suitable for my usual hobby projects.
Beaverman ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 20:33:08 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I don't think RMS cares much about the "Debian Free Software Guidelines". The ones he created (or at least helped create) and adhere to are the "Four essential freedoms" from the FSF. Of course, the license still violates freedom 2, so the end result is the same.
FatFingerHelperBot ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 20:33:13 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users. I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click!
Here is link number 1 - Previous text "FSF"
Please PM /u/eganwall with issues or feedback! | Delete
ShortCircuit908 ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 22:58:24 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Who's a good bot? Who is? It's you!
BitSentinel ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 23:10:20 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Good bot
lennihein ยท 91 points ยท Posted at 13:55:25 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
When your friend asks you what license to use for his private git repository, and then posts your answer on Reddit.
In Love, L
exmachinalibertas ยท 29 points ยท Posted at 19:16:16 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I wonder if that type of thing is enforceable. The local poker room near me uses crap software and pays a buttload for it, and I'm considering writing better software myself and open sourcing it with a license that says anybody can use it for free, but if you're a card room you have to pay me back for the rake if I play at your card room. Is that doable?
Eleventhousand ยท 26 points ยท Posted at 19:19:24 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
IANAL, but it sounds similar to "you may use this software for personal, non-commercial use."
Kontorted ยท 28 points ยท Posted at 13:52:58 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
r i p
romendil ยท 24 points ยท Posted at 17:21:50 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I guess any software derived from this can be relicensed with something allowing poor old RMS to use it too!!
obsessedcrf ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 18:41:51 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Aren't "no other licenses may apply" and "you may do what you want" conflicting clauses for whether it can be relicensed or not?
mirhagk ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 18:52:08 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
It can even be relicensed so that if you make a zillion dollars you don't need to consider buying a homeless person a meal.
how_to_choose_a_name ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 03:23:44 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
although it would be easier to just consider and decide against it
AI221 ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 05:54:08 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Time to make my "Anyone But People Who Have Used The Anyone But Richard M Stallman License License".
Now I can dump hundreds of hours of work into something completely useless because of its legally dodgy license that no sane company or individual will ever touch with a 10ft pole! YAY
But this project isn't serious, haha, it's just for jokes, see, hahaha... I put it all the effort of a real project and spent my time on my code instead of with friends or family, I'm slowly deteriorating mentally and physically, wallowing away behind this screen of changing lights, 84 keys and moving wand but its just a joke, i wrote it in javascript and there i go, i said the tirgger word, there goes the mental hahaha
๐๏ธ der_iraner ยท 14 points ยท Posted at 09:16:17 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Bro are you ok
AI221 ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 22:21:38 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I'm a programmer.
OverlordGearbox ยท 18 points ยท Posted at 17:02:00 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Richard stallman isn't the maintainer of every GNU project though.
gandalfx ยท 17 points ยท Posted at 19:51:15 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, he's just the CEO of GNUโข inc.
NocturnalLoner ยท 14 points ยท Posted at 19:57:03 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
And Freedomโข
imforit ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 02:57:55 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
"knight for justice" is literally what's written on his office door.
Edit: I was wrong, it's "knight for justice," and not "knight of freedom." in case y'all think I'm kidding
nopinkyfinger ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 19:11:06 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Why does that not surprise me?
imforit ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 21:29:33 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I mean, it's hand written by him, but still
nopinkyfinger ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 21:40:02 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I assumed as much
synedraacus ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 06:46:59 on May 9, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Wait, is RMS also a knight for hot ladies, or is RMS also hot ladies (three-squirrels-with-levitation-and-illusion-rings style?)
imforit ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:13:17 on May 9, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Knight for [justice, hot ladies]
Lionesque ยท 13 points ยท Posted at 18:48:47 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Can someone fill me in on the backstory behind this? Is Stallman known for "you made this? I made this" shenanigans?
bautin ยท 54 points ยท Posted at 20:01:51 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Stallman is a very unique person. He has very, uh, passionate views about certain things. This is a guy who sends an email to a service that will grab a web page for you and email you the contents. Just so his web use isn't as trackable. He refuses to own a cellphone that isn't "100% run on free software".
Of course, Stallman has never actually held a job as a working programmer. He was a research assistant at MIT for a while, then quit that and has been living off of grants and speaking fees since then. Which is all well and good if your name happens be Richard Stallman, but I wonder just how much of Stallman's political views are influenced by his relatively lucky life. He was able to transition from academia to public speaking. He's never really had to grind out a day job.
[deleted] ยท 33 points ยท Posted at 21:42:31 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
bautin ยท 18 points ยท Posted at 21:57:48 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I'm not saying he doesn't have experience writing programs. Man is talented. Gave us some very clever and very important software. However, he's never had to put his principles to the test. He's been able to do his work gratis, living off of his grants and public speaking money.
If I had the option of having all of my needs taken care of and working on whatever I wanted with the caveat that whatever I created would be given away, I'd take it. But I don't have that option. You likely don't have that option. Most people don't have that option.
Just about everyone else has pretty much taken a job because you need to put a roof over your head and bread on the table. If you get to do something you're proud of, great. If not, whatever.
Apocolyps6 ยท 15 points ยท Posted at 02:53:38 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I haven't personally seen his living conditions, but his "tour rider" pretty explicitly asks people to not buy him anything better than economy class tickets, let him couch surf rather than pay for hotels, stuff like that.
He also mentions that he is gonna be working at more or less every opportunity.
I imagine the average developer in the US has a much higher standard of living than he does.
bautin ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 03:03:20 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Probably so. Dude is pretty much a hippie. And that's cool. It's not about that. It's about the fact that he's never really had to make a living selling software. And that his views on software are probably influenced by that fact.
Contrast him against Linus Torvalds. He went open source out of a practical need. He has no ideological adherence to it. He feels that if a closed source solution is necessary, you should do that.
Apocolyps6 ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 03:22:25 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
If RMS was not a fanatic he would take the "easy route" and earn a paycheck. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with doing that, just that the mindset almost certainly came first.
bautin ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 03:29:41 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
His mindset probably did come first. But he's never been in a position where he's had to choose between his ideals and eating.
Apocolyps6 ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 04:00:23 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
We can't actually know that, can we? There wasn't always an FSF, and he wasn't always a "celebrity" that people would pay to just exist. FWIW I'm pretty convinced he'd sooner flip burgers than write non-free code.
qKrfKwMI ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 05:44:30 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
In his talks he says that in that case he'd go for some job that doesn't involve making/selling proprietary software since there are jobs outside of software development he could take (I think his example is being a waiter). So it's false to say the only choices are starve or go against his ideals.
But yeah, it's one thing to say you would do the ethical thing when you don't have to make the decision, it's another to actually do it when put in the situation.
_PM_ME_CUTE_PONIES_ ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:33:17 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Now imagine having yout table waited by Richard M. Stallman...
bautin ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:33:36 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Exactly, it's always been hypothetical for him. It's easy to say that he'd be a waiter and work on software in his spare time, but it's another to actually have to balance your work life with your down time.
Abdiel_Kavash ยท 13 points ยท Posted at 01:27:25 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Grants and speaking money don't fall from the sky either. He doesn't have the option to, say, stop publicly speaking.
Unless you are raking in interest from the ten million in your bank account, or you live purely off of charity or social aid, everybody is doing some work to earn their living. If somebody pays you, it is because they believe that the work you're doing is worth that amount of money to them. It is wrong to discriminate against somebody just because their work involves a different set of skills from yours.
bautin ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 02:56:36 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I'm speaking specifically towards his position that all software must be open source and free to modify.
I'm not saying the work he does is not important. I'm not saying what he does is not worth the money he gets.
I'm saying that his views on software are influenced by his particular set of circumstances.
Abdiel_Kavash ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 03:01:37 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Ah, alright, I agree with that. Programmers definitely deserve to eat as well.
zephyrsong888 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 02:25:42 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
This reminds me of the praise for Rudyard Kipling being fortunate enough to be born in the lap of luxury with the leisure time and drive necessary to become a truly fantastic writer.
bautin ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 03:20:44 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Right and a lot of his themes and politics are influenced by his life. This is the man who wrote "The White Man's Burden". Without irony.
So while he is one of the great writers, not all of his ideas are exactly correct. They're just products of his particular circumstance. So while he may have become just as great a writer had he grown up in a different set of circumstances, chances are those circumstances would have changed the themes of his writing.
In much the same way, if Stallman had been subjected to different circumstances, it's possible he may have different opinions on software.
red_nuts ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 00:37:23 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
This is also sort of true of Thomas Jefferson. Turns out thinking is work, and some get paid for it.
anacrolix ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 10:31:35 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Off of = on
c_delta ยท 23 points ยท Posted at 18:57:57 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I think it is more about protesting against the viral nature of the GPL.
indrora ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 00:37:43 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
No, stallman is just... An asshole. Go listen to him speak, then go listen to a street preacher speak.
You'll hear something similar.
Consider that Microsoft donates a fair amount of dosh to the FSF, from what I understand, and the FSF is fairly cagey about their donors list.
its_that_time_again ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 20:30:16 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
/r/StallmanWasRight
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UnicornRider102 ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 04:18:26 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Richard Stallman is an important figure in the free and open source world. This license is a joke at his expense.
mimi-is-me ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 20:56:02 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
โNo other licences may applyโ and โDo anything you want with this program, with the exceptions listed under "EXCEPTIONS"โ seem to be in conflict.
6CyOXbt-mq5E_hvYlT4m ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 05:37:24 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
It's still the same license
cobra447 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 23:57:21 on April 23, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Also known as the toe jam license.
[deleted] ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 09:20:20 on April 24, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Christ. Talk about petulant and childish.