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An Indian site, YourStory, has an unusually broad ranging interview with Richard Stallman. While much of the background and goals will already be familiar to SN readers, the interview is interesting not only for its scope but also that India is starting to take an interest in these matters.
To know Richard Stallman is to know the true meaning of freedom. He's the man behind the GNU project and the free software movement, and the subject of our Techie Tuesdays this week.
This is not a usual story. After multiple attempts to get in touch for an interaction with Richard Stallman, I got a response which prepared me well for what's coming next. I'm sharing the same with you to prepare you for what's coming next.
I'm willing to do the interview — if you can put yourself into philosophical and political mindset that is totally different from the one that the other articles are rooted in.
The general mindset of your articles is to admire success. Both business success, and engineering success. My values disagree fundamentally with that. In my view, proprietary software is an injustice; it is wrongdoing. People should be _ashamed_ of making proprietary software, _especially_ if it is successful. (If nobody uses the proprietary program, at least it has not really wronged anyone.) Thus, most of the projects you consider good, I consider bad.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @08:20PM (32 children)
Slave Labor + Investment Scam == Profit
Freedom does not enter the equation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @08:26PM (2 children)
Write code? For fun?!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @08:37PM
RMS has gone on record to say programmers should write code for fun, and they should work retail jobs if they want to get paid.
You can't make a living on the street making faces, unless you are Michael David Crawford.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:36PM
I know, right? Who the hell is masochist enough to do that?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @08:35PM (2 children)
Private ownership will have limits, all land will have something similar to the UK with the right to pass through. You can't camp on someone else's land, but going through it is not trespassing and owners have to provide accessible gates. The private ownership / individualistic model in the US is no longer sustainable. Greed is unsustainable and will be punished when it is excessive.
You can no longer own slaves, as one example of changing rules.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:47PM (1 child)
> You can no longer own slaves, as one example of changing rules.
You can, you just have to call them "inmates".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @10:33PM
And call your orange buddy when people finally figure out what you're up to!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 30 2017, @08:43PM (7 children)
It always amuses me when I run into people who seem to be outraged by the very existence of FLOSS.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:09PM (6 children)
FLOSS doesn't outrage me. What outrages me is Zuck is a billionaire who built his fortune on the backs of volunteers who got nothing for their generous efforts. Gates the great satan himself at least sold a product to earn his riches. Bezos likewise sold many products. Zuck takes free software and exploits it, producing nothing.
The tragedy of the commons that is the "tech" industry outrages me. More like the "take" industry since all they do is take, take, take.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:19PM
Fair enough.
Some people seem to think it's philosophically impossible to make money with FLOSS, to which I would usually point to Red Hat, but...well...we've seen what direction that's headed recently :-/
.
Re: Zuck
Hmm, hadn't heard about that last part. Super ethical, that.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:38PM (4 children)
Wrong. He doesn't provide a product but he sure as hell provides a service. You, of course, are free to make your own though, most of the code being OSS. Let me know how that turns out.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:50PM (3 children)
Too true. We live in a world of scarcity where there's only one SoylentNews. As was said long ago regarding the slashdot effect, you can only fit so many cocks into CmdrTaco's anus.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 30 2017, @10:08PM (2 children)
Junior, if you're gonna try to troll someone, at least try to have your response remotely related to their comment. That was just stupid and saddens me re: the quality of trolls on the site.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @10:43PM (1 child)
Who's trolling? You're providing a service called SoylentNews, aren't you? People come here for your service, don't they? And I can't start my own identical service and expect to use the same domain name, now can I?
There's only one soylentnews.org just like CmdrTaco has only one anus. I wish I could find that old quote about cocks in taco's anus. It was funny.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @09:18AM
Your trollfu is weak, save you be trolling weakly as a means to troll those who enjoy intelligent trolls, in which case well played, sir.
The service provided is not "soylentnews.org", but news aggregation and public commentary on the same. You're trying to make a false argument equal to one in which the service Wal-Mart provides is not selling cheap crap at deceptively high prices, but occupying a specific geographical area with squat, ugly cinderblock buildings.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:23PM (17 children)
Business model?! We don't need no stinking business models!
Seriously though, you can easily find an honest job writing FOSS. As for striking it rich... I doubt it's possible to become rich by playing it fair in any market. Economy of scale + the inherent advantage of cheating means that market leaders will always be the most unscrupulous monopolies given time.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:44PM (1 child)
RMS has been incredibly lucky to be at the right place at the right time to be the first guy to start a free software movement and then have people literally throw free money at him so he can live with the luxury of never earning a wage. The rest of us cannot ever follow his example because RMS already did it. The rest of us "do something else" like RMS said because he was first. The rest of us work can "go work retail" like RMS said but never stop contributing to free software like the idle rich because free software is a moral imperative. Nights, weekends, quit your job like RMS did, whatever it takes, never stop coding. Meanwhile if you are really lucky enough, facebook will take your code and use to make another billion dollars, but hey, you have fun eating ramen or whatever. And! Never! Stop! Coding!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @12:27AM
others... On the speaking circuit.
For other examples, look to Obama, Clinton(s), Gore, Bush(s), etc.
Some of them have secondary businesses as well, but a large part of their income and in at least a couple of cases their 'seed funding' for their companies and/or non-profits, is due to that exact same speaking circuit.
There are literally thousands to tens of thousands of other examples in the world, following the exact same business plan and telling others either what they want to hear, or what they feel they need to hear.
In that regard RMS is just like anybody else.
A much better example of the same concept is the guy who started Project Gutenberg. Many parallels to RMS, but he spent his whole life couch surfing while building up a huge literary resource for generations to come.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:52PM (14 children)
My entire ass. I've done quite well for myself doing work-for-hire contracts using quite a lot of OSS. Well enough that I've been able to take two and a half years off after moving to Tennessee. And I'm about to start back up using the same kind of arrangement here in a week or so.
As for being rich, you have no idea what you're talking about. The only thing I would have had to do to be rich instead of comfortable is to have hired more people and worked more than I cared to. I turned down easily as much work as I ever took on and after the first year or two I didn't even have to network or advertise.
Here's the formula I use: Find something that people could really use but nobody is selling and offer it to them at a price they can afford. Guaranteed riches if you have half a brain and the hustle to sell yourself.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @10:55PM (7 children)
If you don't have the hustle to sell yourself, just quit your job like RMS did, and eventually some Rockefeller or MacArthur or somebody will just throw genius grants at you. You might have to live in your office and sleep on a pile of tapes, like RMS did, but the money will come soon because you're worth it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 30 2017, @11:23PM (6 children)
If you don't have the hustle to sell yourself, that is a personal problem that you may remedy at your convenience.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @11:57PM (5 children)
Really? So when exactly did RMS remedy his personal problem? He was working at MIT explicitly because he doesn't have the hustle. Then he quit his job and became a traveling clown. I have seen him perform his Saint Ignucious act in person. Nobody would pay to see his horrible clown act if he wasn't already famous for writing some obsolete versions of software which has since been rewritten by other people.
RMS didn't have to fix his personal problem because he got lucky and people just started throwing lifetime achievement awards at him.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 31 2017, @12:03AM (4 children)
That choice like my own, is his business and he does not get to complain that he is not rich.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @12:32AM (3 children)
No, he doesn't complain that he is not rich. RMS does however claim that all programmers should be poor. Everyone should work low paying jobs and give away free work in their spare time. To choose any other lifestyle is immoral, but he himself does not even need to choose because he is already comfortably wealthy from charity.
Do you want to continue ignoring the point? Do I have to quote the words directly from the horse mouth of RMS for you?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 31 2017, @12:59AM (1 child)
You realize now you're arguing something entirely different and nearly opposite what you started out arguing, yes?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @01:12AM
I don't realize anything. Hustle to argue myself I don't have. I like chewing on skunks!
Riches not guaranteed, no hustle required, just get lucky. All night to the sun.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @01:35AM
RMS does not argue that it is unethical for programmers to not be poor, so that is just a straw man. You're confusing 'Not all methods of earning money are ethical.' with 'You should be poor!', and for being unable to distinguish between the two, you are an idiot. Agree with RMS or not, at least understand what he's saying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @02:43AM (1 child)
"Selling yourself" is more a demonstration of whether or not you'd make a good used car salesman as opposed to whether you're someone worth hiring.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 31 2017, @11:18AM
Selling yourself is necessary if you want someone to buy you. Until you have a reputation at least. They've been sitting where they are not buying you their entire lives, why should they change now?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday August 31 2017, @10:13AM (3 children)
Hiring more people and growing is when you start competing over big contracts with increasingly larger entities. When your opposition is making blatant lies knowing they can afford litigation over failing contractual obligations and bribing middle management you'd either stop growing, fold or start playing dirty yourself. When you fight over employees but can't afford them since you need cash in your war-chest for when it's time to bid over a contract, you'd start cutting corners and excusing it as "standard industry practice". When a project finishes and you end up noticing it's cheaper to hire new guys for the next project rather than using the current ones, you'll either let them go or watch your competition doing it and being able to win over the following contract thanks to their cheaper overhead, or end up doing the same. This just goes on and on as operations expand...
The big leagues aren't managed like a mom's and pop's shop. Suddenly, everyone knows how to go to the bank with a business plan and get a loan. They know where and how much to advertise. They have procurement specialists that spend all day long making calls to factories to find the best prices. As you grow, your own technical skills are marginalized in favor of your social skills; i.e. the ability to exploit people. Assuming everything stays the same without even playing at that field is exactly what having "no idea what you're talking about" is.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 31 2017, @11:22AM (2 children)
Not in the field of work I chose. There was absolutely nobody doing what I did when I started doing it. Anyone else entering the field would have been playing catch-up with me rather than the other way around. Which is precisely why I picked the gig I did.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday August 31 2017, @12:17PM (1 child)
So your ethical economic model is for everyone to be uninhibited natural monopolies and supply niche services or for the market to enjoy perpetual experiential growth so no one will ever become too competitive against the original market leaders?
compiling...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 31 2017, @01:06PM
Not at all. But if you're looking to be rich, that's a damned fine way to start out.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.