New Richard Stallman Interview (Updated: WebM Version)
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2011-12-19 12:00:49 UTC
- Modified: 2011-12-19 19:39:41 UTC
Recent Techrights' Posts
- GNU/Linux and ChromeOS in Qatar Reach 4%, an All-Time High
- Qatar has money to spend, but not much of it will be spent on Microsoft, or so one can hope
- This 'Article' About "Linux Malware" is a Fake Article, It's LLM Slop (Likely Spewed Out by Microsoft Chatbot)
- They're drowning out the Web
- Early Retirement Age: Linus Torvalds Turns 55 Next Week
- Now he's almost eligible for retirement in certain European countries
-
- Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part XI
- By Dr. Andy Farnell
- Links 22/12/2024: Election Rants and More Sites Available via Gemini
- Links for the day
- Links 22/12/2024: North Pole Moving and Debian's Joey Hess Goes Solar
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 22/12/2024: Solstice and IDEs
- Links for the day
- BetaNews: Microsoft Slop is Your "Latest Technology News"
- Paid-for garbage disguised as "journalism"
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 21, 2024
- IRC logs for Saturday, December 21, 2024
- Links 21/12/2024: EU on Solidarity with Ukraine, Focus on Illegal and Unconstitutional Patent Court in the EU (UPC)
- Links for the day
- [Meme] Microsofters at the End of David's Leash
- Hand holding the leash. Whose?
- Deciphering Matt's Take on WordPress, Which is Under Attack From Microsofters-Funded Aggravator
- the money sponsoring the legal attacks on WordPress and on Matt is connected very closely to Microsoft
- Gemini Links 21/12/2024: Projections, Dead Web ('Webapps' Replacing Pages), and Presentation of Pi-hole
- Links for the day
- American Samoa One of the Sovereign States Where Windows Has Fallen Below 1% (and Stays Below It)
- the latest data plotted in LibreOffice
- [Meme] Brian's Ravioli
- An article per minute?
- Links 21/12/2024: "Hey Hi" (AI) or LLM Bubble Criticised by Mainstream Media, Oligarchs Try to Control and Shut Down US Government
- Links for the day
- LLM Slop is Ruining the Media and Ruining the Web, Ignoring the Problem or the Principal Culprits (or the Slop Itself) Is Not Enough
- We need to encourage calling out the culprits (till they stop this poor conduct or misconduct)
- Christmas FUD From Microsoft, Smearing "SSH" When the Real Issue is Microsoft Windows
- And since Microsoft's software contains back doors, only a fool would allow any part of SSH on Microsoft's environments, which should be presumed compromised
- Paywalls, Bots, Spam, and Spyware is "Future of the Media" According to UK Press Gazette
- "managers want more LLM slop"
- Google Has Mass Layoffs (Again), But the Problem is Vastly Larger
- started as a rumour about January 2025
- On BetaNews Latest Technology News: "We are moderately confident this text was [LLM Chatbot] generated"
- The future of newsrooms or another site circling down the drain with spam, slop, or both?
- "The Real New Year" is Now
- Happy solstice
- Microsoft OSI Reads Techrights Closely
- Microsoft OSI has also fraudulently attempted to censor Techrights several times over the years
- "Warning About IBM's Labor Practices"
- IBM is not growing and its revenue is just "borrowed" from companies it is buying; a lot of this revenue gets spent paying the interest on considerable debt
- [Meme] The Easier Way to Make Money
- With patents...
- The Curse (to Microsoft) of the Faroe Islands
- The common factor there seems to be Apple
- Electronic Frontier Foundation Defends Companies That Attack Free Speech Online (Follow the Money)
- One might joke that today's EFF has basically adopted the same stance as Donald Trump and has a "warm spot" for BRICS propaganda
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 20, 2024
- IRC logs for Friday, December 20, 2024
- Gemini Links 21/12/2024: Death of Mike Case, Slow and Sudden End of the Web
- Links for the day
- Links 20/12/2024: Security Patches, Openwashing by Open Source Initiative, Prison Sentence for Bitcoin Charlatan and Fraud
- Links for the day
- Another Terrible Month for Microsoft in Web Servers
- Consistent downward curve
- LLM Slop Disguised as Journalism: The Latest Threat to the Web
- A lot of it is to do with proprietary GitHub, i.e. Microsoft
- Gemini Links 20/12/2024: Regulation and Implementing Graphics
- Links for the day
- Links 20/12/2024: Windows Breaks Itself, Mass Layoffs Coming to Google Again (Big Wave)
- Links for the day
- Microsoft: "Upgrade" to Vista 11 Today, We'll Brick Your Audio and You Cannot Prevent This
- Windows Update is obligatory, so...
- The Unspeakable National Security Threat: Plasticwares as the New Industrial Standard
- Made to last or made to be as cheap as possible? Meritocracy or industrial rat races are everywhere now.
- Microsoft's All-Time Lows in Macao and Hong Kong
- Microsoft is having a hard time in China, not only for political reasons
- [Meme] "It Was Like a Nuclear Winter"
- This won't happen again, will it?
- If You Know That Hey Hi (AI) is Hype, Then Stop Participating in It
- bogus narrative of "Hey Hi (AI) arms race" and "era/age of Hey Hi" and "Hey Hi Revolution"
- Bangladesh (Population Close to 200 Million) Sees Highest GNU/Linux Adoption Levels Ever
- Microsoft barely has a grip on this country. It used to.
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, December 19, 2024
- IRC logs for Thursday, December 19, 2024
Comments
linuxcanuck
2011-12-19 13:02:22
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2011-12-19 13:04:43
Does anyone know if the interviewer will bother publishing an Ogg Theora version?
DaemonFC
2011-12-20 14:13:29
What I've heard him say on the subject, which could only be misconstrued by an idiot, is something to the effect of...
Sexting (that is taking nude pictures of yourself and sending them to another person via a mobile phone) laws are overkill because they can put a teenager in prison for producing child pornography for taking a photo of THEMSELVES and sending it to a friend of theirs that is about the same age.
I agree.
He did not defend child pornographers, he simply said that someone should not be made a criminal for photographing themselves nude.
He went on to mention that most people by age 16 or 17 have had sex. Unless every survey I've ever seen on the subject is wrong, then that too is correct. I had sex at age 17. OK, throw me in jail for it. ;)
It's obviously not that RMS is a pervert, it's that you are an idiot who is warping what he said to fit your ad hominem attacks.
Michael
2011-12-19 20:45:35
And it is massively pro-open source:
The intro: Utter rubbish. There are many companies who use both proprietary *and* open source software, and many who provide their software in an open format do so with allowing users even *more* rights than those advocated by Stallman. The BSD License, for example, allows users more freedom. And, of course, there is the problem with the ability to sell "Free" software - though really, that is mostly a red herring of the "Free" movement - selling that which you also give away for free is a stupid business model. But it is only the latter that Stallman even mentions.
This makes it sound like the "free" software is as good... which is clearly not the case (though it is *sometimes*, as a general statement it is clearly false - absurd even).
Stallman: Right... when many people want professional software. Not that there is not pro-input into open source software, such as from companies by Apple and Google, but a lot is from just people participating in their hobby. And, sadly, it shows. While there is a lot of excellent open source software, there are big areas where the open source software is severely lacking.
Some other notes: Stallman completely lies and says that proprietary software controls its users. The interviewer lets this go and does not call him on this lie.
Stallman: Another complete lie from Stallman. While you can charge for "Free" software, based on the GPL you also have to make it available gratis. Have to. You are not free to do otherwise.
Stallman: I agree - I am an atheist. But why push that in such an interview? Just bizarre and designed to push people away.
Stallman calls "Free" software "a way of life". Amazing. Just amazing.
Stallman: No. Not really. It is very anti-capitalist to want to take freedoms away as he does. Now to say it should be an *option* is completely consistent with capitalism, but that is not what he wants. If it was, he would already have it and be done.
Stallman goes on and on about how software controls users - but he never says how. Because it does not. He made that up. It is utter silliness.
Question: Why use open source ("Free" for the snotty). Stallman's response: he admits it is not about convenience or quality. In fact, he admits it is worth "making sacrifices". Stallman does not even pretend "Free" software will be as good.
Then the interviewer openly mocks Stallman's BS about "freedom"... I wish he had done a better job of it, but good to see he did.
Then Stallman goes off on how governments *must* use software he approves of an no other. Again, Stallman is pushing *limitations*, not freedom. His claim of wanting freedom is a lie.
The Stallman spreads his lies about Apple products being jails - the only jail in the world you have to pay to get into and can leave any time you want. What a sad liar Stallman is! Even Stallman admits Apple products had high enough quality to make people want them - and he thinks this is *bad*. So not only is Stallman not concerned if open source software is of high quality, he thinks high quality is a *bad* thing - something he "fights against". What a frickin' loon!
Then Stallman talks about how he does not like "open source" and whines about the use of the term "hackers"... and yet the software he pushes *is* open source! He claims to be against the very software he pushes... all over a silly semantic debate. He could have said "open source" includes things which are not "Free" an explained why... but since his ideas are loony he cannot explain anything.
Stallman also talks about how he does what is "convenient"... completely going against his idea of doing what is ethical.
And comments from the original source (of which you give no credit): http://rt.com/programs/spotlight/liberating-software-richard-stallman/comments/#10021
Gospel. Right. It is very cult-like and dishonest and *anti-freedom*.
Well, Stallman is a bit paranoid and insane. How else can he stick to his ideas that we must restrict freedom to be "free".
Pawlerson
2011-12-22 17:09:35
The bsd license allows companies to take Open Source code and sell it giving nothing back. GPL is here to protect Freedom, but in the terms of code licensed under this license. It's not about stupid freedom like bsd. Red Hat, Google does pretty well when comes to selling GPL products. Android beats ios badly.
[quote]I agree – I am an atheist. But why push that in such an interview? Just bizarre and designed to push people away.[/quote]
Stallman's an idiot sometimes. Only idiots say there's no God. It's the same like saying there's no life in the space. How do you know?
[quote]The Stallman spreads his lies about Apple products being jails – the only jail in the world you have to pay to get into and can leave any time you want. What a sad liar Stallman is! Even Stallman admits Apple products had high enough quality to make people want them – and he thinks this is *bad*. So not only is Stallman not concerned if open source software is of high quality, he thinks high quality is a *bad* thing – something he “fights against”. What a frickin’ loon![/quote]
Stallman's right about apple. It's jail for developers and users. Yep, you can leave, but if you want to stay and get updates you have to pay! Apple sells low quality products compared to competition. The Open Source is about the highest quality unlike closed source.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2011-12-22 17:19:35
Michael
2011-12-22 17:48:18
Pawlerson
2011-12-22 21:07:38
@Michael
To say there's no God is, like saying I believe in non probable probability.
Michael
2011-12-23 16:33:08
So, unless you are being pedantic, I pretty much agree with Stallman that there is no God (as in there is no logical reason to believe in one and the one often described cannot logically exist), but I also agree with Roy when he says it was "not wise" for Stallman to talk about this as he did. It was irrelevant and polarizing.
Then again, Stallman says a lot of stuff seemingly just to get attention - with no regards to how it makes the open source world look (or the "free" software movement).
Michael
2011-12-22 17:46:49
Stupid freedom? What? That is just silly. The BSD license allows for greater freedom than does the GPL... the GPL offers greater IP protection. Other licenses offer even greater IP protection. I am OK with all of that - but let us not pretend that the GPL is all about freedom - it is about protecting IP.
Stallman is an idiot a lot of the time (even though the GPL is great.. and would not exist without him, at least not as it is). As far as saying there is no god, it is like saying Zeus is not real. Sure, you cannot prove that... but you are talking in observable terms. There is no logical reason to believe in Zeus... which does not prove he does not exist but most people are perfectly happy to just say that Zeus does not exist and few complain about that.
Stallman calls Apple's devices a "jail" - but there is no jail you have to pay to get into and can leave any time you want. It is a very, very poor analogy. Now I can see his problem with not being able to install non-Apple approved programs on iOS... and if he thinks this tradeoff is a deal breaker for him then he should not buy iOS products. I have no problem with that, either. Others prefer the tradeoffs Apple has made - better security, better user experience, etc. But it is a tradeoff and there are times Apple is just flat out wrong about its choices... and you cannot do much about it when they are.
If I want to upgrade items on my car I have to pay. So what? Some updates are free and some are not. Why is this a problem, unless you are of the mindset that the world owes you everything for free? Heck, if I want to upgrade my hardware are you going to send me a more powerful computer for free? Of course not.
What is high or low quality is, in many ways, an opinion and you are welcome to yours. Looking at the *objective* data, though, we see that Apple products almost always earn the highest user satisfaction ratings. This speaks to high quality. They also have a greater focus on usability, productivity, error reduction and the like. This can be shows with comparisons of system consistency and other at least somewhat measurable metrics. But there are tradeoffs.
First: Apple is not pure closed source - they support and use and ship a lot of open source... more than any Linux desktop distro... likely more than all combined. As far as highest quality: there is a lot of very high quality open source software - Apache, WebKit, the Linux kernel, etc. All excellent. But there are also places where open source is not the best choice: MS Office / iWork vs. OpenOffice / LibreOffice, Photoshop vs. Gimp, etc. The closes source programs serve most people better than do the open source. This is easy to see: these programs are open and available to all for free... and yet few people opt to use them. Even when they do, they often do so for cost reasons and not intrinsic quality. And they often later migrate to the closed-source alternatives. We can look at specific features if you like - the idea that the open source programs serve people as well is just not what the data show.
Pawlerson
2011-12-22 21:11:45
Michael
2011-12-22 21:24:49
Pawlerson
2011-12-23 16:26:12
You're right BSD allows people to do what they want with the BSD code, but GPL protects the code from competition. In other words GPL protects the code from being "enslaved" by proprietary projects and that's the freedom I was talking about.
It's stupid freedom when someone wants to compete using BSD license. The license makes BSD projects unprotected from competition. However, it's not stupid when it's not about competing with others.
I don't believe in Zeus neither - there are no single facts or proves Zeus ever existed. Mythology is about... myths! Like the name suggests. :) I'm a Christian and we have something much more than mythology and there are historical facts in the Bible. However, it's still about faith, but let's continue. :)
I think he simplified too much what he meant. Think of a "jail" in terms of your preferences. In example: you like Apple and you want to use their products, but they put you into the "jail" by some of their moves like you described later. While others can make their systems secure then Apple can this too without bad moves, I guess.
Sure, it's not the rule what I said. However, there's also marketing factor here and we both know there are hardcore apple fanboys. :) Once I saw some article with Apples user answering the lack of features in iPhone. They were always defending it and ignoring its weaknesses saying it's unneeded etc. (some features appeared later :>) . In the Linux world it's known as a Gnome syndrome. ;)
To make it straight - they don't support as half Open Source projects as a single, popular Linux distribution. I also doubt if they ship more Open Source - when we take a look at all Linux devices it seems Linux is much more popular - desktops, servers, phones, tv's, routers etc. What's the most important Linux is not only Open Source, but supports FLOSS movement unlike Apple.
It depends. There are many Open Source programs that serve people better - Firefox, VLC, Chrome. There's very popular Linux based Android, too. Linux itself isn't so popular on desktops yet, because desktops are specific target and are very hard to conquer. It's often not only about quality, but also about people's preferences. It seems it's different in server area and enterprise. There are for sure many closed source programs that are better than their Open Source equivalents. I didn't clarify what I meant exactly - it was mainly about updates and security fixes. In the Linux world you get security fixes in hours while you have to wait sometimes few months in the closed source world.
I'm not sure if I described exactly what I mean, but I hope you'll got the point. This site isn't good for debates. ;)
Michael
2011-12-23 17:04:36
Stallman and those of us who like the GPL like it because it is *not* as free, it allows the creators of the code to have greater control, and that greater control allows for some good things. Great. But let us not lie and claim the code allows greater "freedom". That is a lie.
I do not think freedom is "stupid". It is not as if someone using my BSD licensed code hurts me or changes the existing code. But, sure, the BSD license allows for more competition - or at least competition in a different way. So? I have no problem with people picking either license... whatever pleases them. Then again, unlike Stallman and his supporters I am very pro-choice. I understand not everyone is as for choice as I am. I am OK with that, too. :)
Both the Greek and Christian myths have been believed by many through time (though the Greek myths were not as believed as many might think)... and there is no "proof" either is not true. I do not believe either, but have no problem with your believing in whatever you like - as long as you do not try to push your ideas on me. And I shan't try to convince you to be an atheist... if we tried to convince each other neither of us would succeed anyway. Again: very pro-choice here, too. Believe what you want as long as you do not do harm to others.
Android is not as secure as iOS, at least in terms of *actual* risk of infection. The idea that others can make their systems as secure is not true (or, really, not demonstrated to be true... sort of like God :) ). I prefer Apple products for some things, but not all. For example, I do not like their mice at all... they have gotten a bit better since the absurd "hockey puck" monstrosities, but none are even close to being good enough for my needs / preferences. I use an 8 button Logitech MX518. Neither Logitech nor Apple support that mouse on OS X (at least not all of its buttons and not programmable) so I use a third party driver. Apple not only does not discourage this in any way, when I ran into problems they helped troubleshoot - even sent someone to my house because they wanted this to work and could not figure out why it was not (all works fine now). I use lots of third party software on my Mac and my iPod Touch... Apple has no problem with this. But still, as I said, there are tradeoffs... and I use both Windows and Linux (mostly Mint) in a VM on my Mac. I am certainly not against either one (nor Android).
I will say I do not respect when companies go beyond being inspired by the competition and work to make knock-off products... but that is inevitable, too. I do think when they go too far, though, there should be legal remedies. Apple thinks Android and Samsung (and others) went to far. With Samsung I have seen (and shown) what I think is overwhelming evidence of this... with HTC and even Android itself I think the evidence is less clear (or, really, I have not seen as much of a "smoking gun"). Roy, however, likes to pretend that the question here is already answered... and that Apple somehow is always wrong no matter how much others work to rip them off. But I digress...
Apple has earned fans based, largely, on its products... OSS has earned fans based, largely, on its philosophy. As far as "missing" features, Apple tends to focus a lot less on a bullet point of features than it does on making a unified whole... this is a point lost on many folks who look just as specs. Apple is one of the few tech companies that understand it is just as important what you leave out as what you put in. With that said, I often disagree with their trade-offs here (I can give you quite a few examples if you wish). Still, it is better to be missing a few features than to toss in dozens which most people will not only not use but which add complexity and confusion to a device. You can always add features later, but it is not always easy to remove them (for marketing purposes). Again, though, I do think Apple sometimes errors on the side of not including stuff they should... and I can see where that would turn some people off. Tradeoffs. In the end, though, Apple products almost always earn the highest user satisfaction ratings... Apple earns loyalty and trust from its users. This is twisted as people being "fanboys" and worked to be a bad thing - as though pleasing your customers more than others is somehow bad. That is just silly. Pleasing your customers is a good thing... and Apple generally does it very well.
I was clear with the comparison being *desktop* Linux distros. I do realize Linux is in many other places. And I have no problem with that (in fact I think it is a great thing!) As as "supporting" the FOSS movement, Apple supports its users. I think that is more important. In doing so, though, they benefit the OSS movement a great deal.
I think each of those is fine... and each has tradeoffs. I use all three as well as Safari and IE (though IE mostly for testing websites) and I use VLC, QuickTime and sometimes others.
Right: on the desktop Linux does not compete well. In other areas it competes very, very well - servers, embedded devices, etc.
Desktop Linux does not serve people's "preferences" well... and the environment is clearly far behind in many areas: image editing, some forms of web development (though in others it is excellent), screen casting, even word processing and presentation development... on and on and on.
And on servers and elsewhere I think Linux is an excellent choice. I have multiple websites - all hosted on Linux, even though it would be absolutely trivial to migrate them on Windows and not hard to migrate them on OS X. Linux simply serves me best in that area.
I understand. Or at least I think I do. :)
Michael
2011-12-20 14:59:55
http://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20June%202006%20(Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party) The idea that some pedophilia is "voluntary" is just sick. I have heard some of his cult claim that he *must* mean fringe cases, you know, where we are talking an 18 yr old and a 16 yr old or something... but that is just made up - not at all from what Stallman says.
http://stallman.org/archives/2010-may-aug.html#09%20August%202010%20(Demonization%20of%20child%20pornography%20endangers%20US%20national%20security) Merely certify on films that no kids were sexually abused but do not make it outright illegal? The man is grotesque.
But those are not even the most directly offensive, to me:
http://stallman.org/archives/2010-jan-apr.html#29%20March%202010%20(Bikini%20Atoll%20off%20limits) Stallman wants to dishonestly redefine porn (including, if you look above, child porn) as "educational material" and make it available, uncensored, in public schools. Not only does he want it available, he wants public schools students to be *educated* by porn *in school*.
Stallman is advocating a form of sexual abuse of children - which is not to say *in this case* he is advocating having sex with children (though he also says he is fine with that as long as it is "voluntary pedophilia".)
The man is utterly repulsive. Beyond disgusting.
Nothing to do with the quotes of his I was noting.
In that quote, sure. But that is not the quote being referenced.
Again, not relevant to the comments of his I was discussing.
Clearly you were thinking in terms of very different quotes that I was - which proves my point about the media giving him a pass on this. To get the word out I planning on contacting media outlets who have had him on or will be having him on. Let them know of these quotes before they interview him so they can ask him about them. People should know how repulsive he is as a person...
Pawlerson
2011-12-27 14:31:13
It's not silly when such people mean their code will not land in non free environment. It depends on context.
Michael
2011-12-27 15:22:40