Richard Stallman is to software what Jean-Paul Sartres was to philosophy during his time and still now. JPS like RMS was living through his convictions and ideas to the point of refusing the Nobel prize because it would have tinted his motivations. RMS would do the same without any questions. Don't get them wrong: these people are not fanatic, they are just living and breathing a cause they started for a good reason. It takes courage not to give up to consumerism from corporates who try to milk everyone for the goal of making money and definitely not for bringing better living to our lives. Apple, Google, Facebook, they have a simple goal: $$$. When I see a guy talented and proficient like RMS defending his cause on a 9" OLPC, that takes guts.
I don't mean to belittle RMS's achievements, but as a general point, I don't think that simply adhering to conviction is courageous. It's the easy way out. It's the way that doesn't address the greys in reality, for the sake of simplicity of what you believe in. You are not tested in your decisions, because you have already refused to make any.
Socially speaking, I find it's easier to see gray. When you run into somebody in a social situation who knows you see him as heinously immoral, or maybe just a little bit of a sleazebag, there's tension. The tension is likely to get to him, causing him to needlessly bring up the issue in some contrived way. At that point, there's a magic phrase to completely banish the tension: "Well, yeah, shit's complicated." Suddenly you can be best friends.
I learned this trick when I was a strict vegetarian. I wasn't eager to confront people about their meat-eating, but when you don't eat meat, people pretty quickly jump to the conclusion that you think they're morally wrong to eat meat. The tension bothers them, so they bring it up in some awkward way. When my girlfriend's father did that (and later at one point her boss, at a company barbecue) I didn't want to get into the details, so I just said, "Well, it's a complicated issue." It was an honest statement, and I really had no idea exactly where I stood on eating meat, but I was so impressed with how completely it put them at ease and averted all conflict that I stored that memory away. Since then, I have used it many times dishonestly to avoid conflict with people who had power over me, my friends, or my family. Seeing gray is a "get out of conflict free" card.
I think the only time it takes bravery to see gray areas is when everybody else sees black and white. Otherwise, the "ability" to see gray helps you paper over disagreements and maintain valuable relationships with people.
Also, it usually isn't correct to think that a person avoids addressing gray areas by being black-and-white on a certain question. I am single, and for me, sex is an endless gray area. I have a conservative Christian friend who doesn't see any gray at all when it comes to premarital sex, but not because he's stupid or unthoughtful. He has to deal with gray areas in other places, such as divorce and state-mandated immunization against HPV. (His daughter will be immunized, and he thinks that's okay. He has friends who think it's not, and who are shocked by the fact that he doesn't resist in some way.) RMS sees gray areas in the use of non-free technology, and he makes concessions to reality. He's proud of his ability to use a completely free computer system, and he understands that it isn't practical for everybody, and he knows that even his success is limited to a very small portion of the technology that contributes to his existence. That's a gray area! I can understand where he's at. When I was a vegetarian, and now as a near-vegetarian, I know some people might think I'm being black and white to subsist on beans and potato salad at a catered barbecue lunch, but I think I'm being plenty "gray" by eating beans from a barbecue joint without asking why they taste so darned good. Everyone's thinking is gray someplace; the perception of "black-and-white thinking" is created by an observer focusing in on a certain place where he expects to find gray and is surprised to find black or white instead.
I seriously feel there should be a way in HN to save / bookmark comments that we like. Currently we can only save the main story thread.
Now I have to add this comment so as to bookmark your comment.
I agree, as a general point. When you are completely dedicated to an ideology, you don't have to worry about how it affects real, actual people. You don't have to morally weigh the consequences of your actions because you've already decided a priori which actions are right and which are wrong. Perhaps that's the difference between conviction and fanaticism.
Perhaps a MacArthur Genius grant carries a little less baggage than a Nobel prize? A MacArthur Genius grant is a no strings attached "do any research or work you want" funded by people who didn't have the huge negative impact on world society that Nobel did.
They're both honors, yes, but incredibly different in the implementation. A MacArthur is much more of an abstract honor ('You have done some great work, possibly in some field that can't even be named because it is so unique, so here is some money that we hope you will use to continue doing great work.'). Many MacArthur recipients would never in their lifetimes be eligible for a Nobel. (On the other hand, many Nobel laureates would never receive a MacArthur either).
A Nobel prize, by contrast, is only given in certain fields, which already constrains the way that it is perceived. With a MacArthur, you're not necessarily competing against others in your field, because you oftentimes don't have a field (what you do is so highly specialized that nobody else really comes close). Furthermore, the prize is a political tool as much as anything else nowadays. (Looking at many of the recent Nobel Peace Prize recipients, I think anybody would agree to that.) The MacArthur has much less political identification, even compared to the prizes for biology/chemistry. It's nice to be able to attach it to your name when convenient as it gets a little bit more respect, but it's hard to interpret it in a negative way (or to see a recipient of a MacArthur as somehow compromising his/her views -- remember that Stallman has rather weak opinions on money per se when it comes to freedom; one can have a FLOSS product that nevertheless generates money).
(And as for the awards, I agree - at this point in my life I would probably be satisfied with either one!)
Don't get them wrong: these people are not fanatic, they are just living and breathing a cause they started for a good reason.
AKA Fanaticism. He's become an inflexible, computerized hermit. His dogmatic adherence to a demonstrably untenable principal of "freedom" has relegated him a permanent state of pre-1995 digital stasis.
He's not principled, he's dogmatic. At best, he's a cautionary tale demonstrating the state of the world if he had his way.
> At best, he's a cautionary tale demonstrating the state of the world if he had his way.
How do you know what the state of the world would have been if he had his way? All you know is his state in our current world, which is vastly different from a world with nothing but free software. You think hardware manufacturers wouldn't use free software if that was all that existed?
You have no idea what the world of technology would look like if we had nothing but free software. And neither do I, and neither does Richard Stallman. But we do suspect it would be better. At the very least, don't discount the possibility.
" he's a cautionary tale demonstrating the state of the world if he had his way."
Almost all of the things you consider modern in the computer world are built on top of his creations. OS X, google, facebook, HN, etc ... all built on the foundation RMS laid. Without his creations we would be closer to your idea of a "pre-1995 digital stasis"
While I'd agree that much of the foundations of modern computing were built upon some form of free software, I disagree that it's primarily Stallman's work. For one thing, OS X is based upon FreeBSD and Mach, neither of which are affiliated with the FSF. And I'd argue that the foundations of Google and Facebook are PHP, Apache, Python, etc. which are also not FSF.
Of course it's a difficult exercise to try to imagine how things would be different had the FSF not been created, or what influence it had upon the creation of software that wasn't directly affiliated with it. Obviously gcc has been one of the most prominent GNU toolsets featured in modern operating systems, although that appears to be changing too (Xcode replacing gcc with LLVM).
"I disagree that it's primarily Stallman's work. For one thing, OS X is based upon FreeBSD and Mach, neither of which are affiliated with the FSF. And I'd argue that the foundations of Google and Facebook are PHP, Apache, Python, etc. which are also not FSF."
OS X used all the major GNU tools, and was built with GCC. Without his creation you wouldn't have been able to build OS X.
The foundations of Google and Facebook are ultimately the GNU toolset. Everything you mentioned, php, apache, python, are built on top of the GNU tools.
GCC is the most significant piece. So your point is that nearly all modern software is built on top of GNU, but some only use a small portion of the GNU stuff. I think you agree with my original point ;)
And how many of those things would be around if they weren't generating revenue for someone?
He's a living, breathing demonstration of the limits of free software. A world where progress slows to a crawl because the only people who have the time to write code are hobbyists and people who can get paid to lecture about how everything should be free.
That's the main issue I have with his ideas, they are thoroughly disconnected from reality. Not in a "Everyone should be nice to each other all the time way," but a "I'm going to ride my dragon to work," way.
Free software is a nice sentiment, but impotent. Nothing that has happened in the past 10-15 years in computers happens without a profit motive. Without a profit motive you may get a spreadsheet program, but no one motivated enough to get it distributed.
Free may get you on the path, but it doesn't get you very far down the road.
Not really. It's the cognitive dissonance of the Free Software Movement.
Software is either free or it's not free. It's either restricted or it's unrestricted. It's either proprietary or it's open.
Using hyper-capitalistic entities like Google and Facebook as a defense of the viability of free software is an interesting way to go. If anything, I'd argue they are almost perfect subversions of Free Software. Going a little deeper, a place like Y-Combinator is an even further subversion because, at it's core, it is a company that specifically exploits the profit motive of developers.
That aside, I think it's not particularly useful to argue that Stallman's contributions to the field are a vindication of his basic philosophy. Especially when those contributions are being used in a way that subverts it.
> And how many of those things would be around if they weren't generating revenue for someone?
I've visited the building where Red Hat has their Brazilian office (or, at least one of them). Nice place for a non-profit.
The argument it's not possible to make money and, at the same time, respect the rights and freedoms of users is an old one. We shouldn't be hearing it anymore.
Sartre's relevance or value depends on the relevance or value his arguments, not his age or affiliations or sex life. It happens that I think he was full of steam, but it wouldn't make him any better simply to be a woman, or young.
I think what I was trying to get at is that when I was younger, I looked up to certain bearded "wise men" and professors as archetypal "guides" or role models or whatever, but that was a mistake. Now that I am a bit older, I realize that it was wrong for me to look up to such men while ignoring others because by emulating the "wise man" directly I might have "skipped" a very important stage in a man's life: adulthood, when you're strong, aggressive, competitive, and otherwise awesome.
It is my philosophy that one should go through all stages in life in order, otherwise one will never be happy, though timing is not as important as order. I've seen old people get bitter and resentful when they see youth partying and going out -- because they themselves had never done so when they were young.
One of my favorite quotes from Nietzsche (though this guy also had a messed-up/nonexistent sex life): "Man is something to be surpassed, but only a buffoon thinks that man can be overleapt." Surpass but don't skip.
