Richard Stallman was right since the very beginning. Every warning, every prophecy realised. And, worst of all, he had the solution since the start. The problem is not Richard Stallman or the Free Software Foundation. The problem is us. The problem is that we didn’t listen.

  • megane-kun@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’m aware that Richard Stallman had some questionable or inadequate behaviours. I’m not defending those nor the man himself. I’m not defending blindly following that particular human (nor any particular human). I’m defending a philosophy, not the philosopher. I claim that his historical vision and his original ideas are still adequate today. Maybe more than ever.

    This is really an important note. I’ve always maintained that while not every little one of Stallman’s ideas are gold, his ideas on things he’s got expertise on (especially open-source software) are pretty much on point—even if his ideas are a bit too idealistic and are seen as aspirational ideals rather than calls for action and the fact that a lot of them are painful for ordinary people to follow.

    • scrollbars@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, I agree. Stallman’s philosophy has some obvious blind spots (e.g. usability) but a number of his values continue to be proven correct as technology keeps advancing.

      • megane-kun@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yes! For example, his “no javascript please” stance, which is unfortunately nearly impossible to follow if you’re to have any semblance of normalcy in browsing the internet, I take as an “ideal to aspire for”. If anything, his warnings against Javascript reminds me to be ever mindful of the code I invite to run in my machine.

  • JerkyIsSuperior@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    RMS has never stolen my personal data and sold it to criminals, or deprecated my hardware by deliberately throttling its speed. The worst things you can say about him that he’s a wierdo and a bit of a fanatic. But, he’s a fanatic about personal and societal freedom, which is something everybody should be a fanatic about.

    • wargreymon@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      We definitely need GPL-alike mechanism in the early age of AI, we most likely need that too in the distant future.

  • rrobin@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Very timely article and a good reminder for us to 1) release our software under strong copyleft licenses and 2) do not invest our time in software that does not do .1

  • TCB13@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    No. He simply wants tech / society to fail so hard that it actually comes to true. ahaha

    He kinda acts like a prophet of the doom. I’m sure you know about all those who believe that if you want something really hard, if you project / manifest it will happen. Normal people use that in order to get good thing in life, Richard Stallman seems to do the opposite with tech - manifest a bad present / future :D

    • pancake@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Your concept of “failure” might not exactly fit everyone else’s, but I’m sure you can contribute to the conversation!