I'd bet there will be a blockbuster movie about this guy within 10 years of him dying and it'll be in the pop culture, and maybe even stoke a temporary privacy / freedom focus for a while in common consciousness.
Unfortunately the world doesn't know how to really appreciate people as much when they're alive for some personality types.
Agreed, but only because of the word "blockbuster," as there will be approximately zero of those within the 10 years (at least) the GP is proposing.
I don't know for sure what the movie business will look like in 10 years, but one possibility is that everyone is able to create their own movies just by describing them, and a small number will say some variant of, "Give me a biopic of this Richard Stallman guy. Base it on his wikipedia entry and whatever else you know about him. Make it factual but an action neo-noir; you know what I like. Probably starring an amalgam of Bogart and Mitchum, the rest you can just make up."
I would think waaaay more people have heard of Snowden than of RMS. If a movie about RMS will get made, than in the shape of a crowdfunded community project.
Well, yea. Because he metaphorically died in terms of US politics. It's one of the few bipartisan issues that sticks out like a sore thumb to the public eye.
I hope it's far in the future, but we'll see how the media spins it when Stallman dies. They can easily sell him up as some Godfather of computers. Or it can just be a small whimper in the corner of HN. I'd still bet on something closer to the former, but it's not a sure bet.
I think you're vastly over indexing in how many people in our circles know about him.
I'd bet less than 10% of professional developers could say who he is, and that a tiny portion of the population has any clue.
There are probably thousands of similarly important/influential people in various subfields that we have never heard of, because they're not our Subfield, and I highly doubt any of those would get a biopic.
There are phases in which change happens: Stallman's preaching to people who can actually make free software (eg, people you might find on HN) has accomplished a huge amount of capacity building. He's tremendously good at encouraging it, and always has been. That provides the raw material for people who are perhaps a little more adoption focused (and apt) which is work that can't happen if there's no capacity.
Well, I am also good at making software, share the goal of a world where everyone fully controls their devices - yet I am appalled by many things around him.
Mostly the "superior" ethical stance. You do things this (my) way, then it is ethical and you love freedom or you are not ethical and don't want freedom.
Sorry, but I just have some different opinions about some things, but I rather feel not like working together with people who consider me lower. So the result is not cooperation but lot's of fragmentation in the free software/open source world. I do not think that helped the common cause. Otherwise we would not be where we are. Lots of open source and free software for tech people - everything closed down for ordinary people.
The ego of anons who are "also good at making software", try to minimize Stallman, then step back into anonymity is hilarious.
You're comparing yourselves to a guy who has changed the face of software and privacy, probably forever- his license is quoted to be one of the most important decisions in Linux by Torvalds himself.
> Lots of open source and free software for tech people - everything closed down for ordinary people.
It just wouldn't get made. Software would be worse without OSS because there would be no fire under Microsoft's ass
Maybe just look at some data, how often the GPL is used in new projects and how often MIT or alike.
And how often projects gets reimplemented because people and organisations don't want to have to deal with copyleft.
That was my point, not comparing my hacker skills with RMS which I do not recall having done with any word. I just said, I won't work together with people of your attitude. And I know I am not the only one, see above.
No, that's not what it is about. I certainly don't choose permissive licenses based on how RMS behaves (that would be stupid), but I also don't choose them because I think businesses shouldn't give back. I choose permissive licenses because I believe that the GPL is hypocritical in claiming to be about freedom, yet placing limits on the freedom of those who use the code. I believe that freedom must include the freedom to do even those things I disagree with personally.
You probably don't think that's a worthwhile ideal, and fine. I'm not here to convince you of my ideals. But your assertion as to the reason behind the increasing prominence of permissive licenses is overly reductive and not true.
>I believe that freedom must include the freedom to do even those things I disagree with personally.
In an ideal world sure. But I'm guessing Stallman made this license precisely so people can't "do whatever they want", which from a business standpoint is taking that code, modifying it in-house, and closing it off. Prevent a tragedy of the commons, so to speak.
Stallman didn't approach this as some idealist of "we make great code and everyone will share and progress society". Partly because tbf: open source was a lot harder to doiin his time. He came from an angle of trying to combat proprietary software. That's why he didn't make the MIT license (even if it preceded him, I'm not sure).
I realize all that. I disagree with it (or else I would be using the GPL), but that really wasn't my point. My point is that there exist people who use permissive licenses because it fits their ideals better, not because they are corporations trying to capture profit.
Sure, but Stallman was focusing on corporations. A small project isn't going to be modifying much of a GPL library to begin with, so it's less work to document their changes. So GPL wouldn't be as hostile to a small project as a corporation.
> your assertion as to the reason behind the increasing prominence of permissive licenses is overly reductive
Possibly. The push to use MIT/BSD from businesses, however, is very much real. To mention one, Apple methodically purged their OS of pretty much anything GPL. Most businesses involved in opensource insist that everything should be MIT/BSD, and absolutely nothing should even smell of GPL. They certainly don't do it because of philosophical differences.
No, it also is about people wanting their software to be used by everyone, including buisness, without limitations. That can have selfish reasons like wanting money of buisness people, but can also have idealistic reasons.
Not everyone is a fan of enforcing freedom, as that is a contradiction to some.
Like I said, different opinions. Freedom etc. Not accepted by RMS and co I know. Which is why I will continue to stay away from you.
Yes but some companies think they need trade secrets and or licence fees. And GPL companies somehow have not replaced them. So they maybe have a point in todays capitalistic world?
I mean, how many articles and blogs are there about how to make money with foss and how many desperation and frustration is around that topic? How many games exist, that are donation funded?
I mean, please tell me, I want to publish a game, how could I make money with it with the GPL?
Selling it to only one person, who then can publish the code?
Having the code open, but serve ads or ingame purchases, rewarding addictive behavior? Sounds not so ethical either.
That leaves only donations and traditionally people do not value things they get for free. Some do and I hope their number will grow. But as of status quo the majority does not. Some GPL games I know make money, because they sell at steam and the users do not know they could also download it. Is that really ethical? What other GPL buisness modells exists?
A game is not a professional software, people would be willing to buy support contracts for.
I know how you might make money. You build a game. Maybe its fun and ripe for mods like minecraft. Open source it under GPL. Build a community of hackers/gamers who want to learn and collaborate. Have an awesome collection of mods for your game. Once you build a name for yourself, take donations or release a new game or talk at conferences.
Soo, assuming I build something like Minecraft, something that made the developer millions (I think over 100) via the conventional way.
And your proposal for how to make money with such a moneymaker game and the GPL is eventually down the years take on donations and talk at conferences?
Was that irony? Then I missed it. Because the context was someone above claimed that it is only the stupid lawers fault, that companies reject the gpl.
I also hate the "make a name for yourself" angle. I guess even amongst programmers there will be people "working for exposure".
Nah, by that point I may as pitch to some billionaire studio and make a hefty salary that way. Or you know, sell your IP for actual millions if it's that valuable. If "exposure" is the alternate currency I'll happily sell out. I'm not my game IP.
>I mean you're making games. There's not much money in that to begin with.
I know you mentioned Minecraft, but it's not 2010 anymore. That "poor" indie creator sold off the game for 2.5b dollars and it seems like he still got the short end of the stick given how big the game is.
I'm fine with open source games, but the fact of the matter is that mods need a community and community is hard to build. If you're trying to replicate MC's success, note that it also wasn't made with modibility Orr convinent licenses in mind. You gotta make something appealing first and then you can futz about with nodding support if people bite.
This guy made GCC and Emacs. GCC in particular has shaped how most software has been compiled for decades.
His operating system, GNU, is the de-facto UNIX implementation and runs many critical systems around the world.
Anyone who claims that the guy is unlikeable has never truly bothered to hear him speak and isntrad relies on what they've been told by malicious actors. Stallman doesn't attack other people or ideologies.
If anything his biggest mistake was using Linux as a kernel for people decided to call the GNU operating system "Linux" and it eventually took most of the funding and development away from the OS and its ideology.
"If anything his biggest mistake was using Linux as a kernel for people decided to call the GNU operating system "Linux" and it eventually took most of the funding and development away from the OS and its ideology."
Well, what other kernel could he have used instead? Hurd? And linus is writing code till today and activly leading the developement.
What relevant contributions did RMS made, since gcc and emacs? So do you really think it is accurate saying "his" operating system is so much used today?
>What relevant contributions did RMS made, since gcc and emacs?
Let's be fair here: stall man's last technical contributions were when he was Linus's current age. Some people will code to their deathbed but I don't think that is a requirement to properly champion tech. He's more than paid his dues there.
Tech is relatively young and Stallman is one of the oldest living people left. Older than Gates, older than Jobs if he was still alive today. I see Linus less as a comparison so much as a torch Stallman's generation passed on.
Yet there are enormous amounts of cooperation within free software. There are the various organisations like the GNOME foundation, the Free Software Foundation, Debian, and many more beside. Thousands of volunteers keep these things going to produce well integrated, usable software.
Not to mention the common principles in most free software around interoperability and loose coupling. Apple and Microsoft (and the rest) have less to do on this, because they don't have to make their software nearly as generic. Microsoft famously fixed something in SimCity at the OS level. Google and Facebook don't have to worry about interoperability, which undoubtedly removes a lot of complexity for them. In some ways, free software has a greater burden to carry.
The problem with usability in free software is not one of culture or cooperation, it is one of capital. The fact is, Apple and Microsoft have at this point invested hundreds of billions in finding the best engineers and designers around the world and paying them to focus on polishing their operating system. By comparison, Debian's (very impressive) 3500 or so developers, maintainers, and contributors, are almost exclusively volunteers and working at most part time on their chosen packages.
If you want to see better free software, what I'd suggest to you and everyone else is this:
Next time you want to buy a phone, pick something cheaper, and donate the difference to a developer of free software. If you're an iPhone user and you switch to a Fairphone 5, say, you can throw £600 at someone like Joey Hess, or just pick an organisation that makes good stuff and give it to them if you don't want to find a specific author. Let's remind ourselves that if 1000 people did this, it'd be £600k of funding to improve free software.
Personally, I'd recommend a donation to the NLNet foundation: https://nlnet.nl/
So can you install gnu/linux on someones desktop and he can just use it on his own without the terminal? What do they do, when the next update tells them that some pgp keys are invalid?
Free software works for devs and geeks, yes and I happen to be one of them. But for common people? Usually not very good, as they don't know the terminal and don't know config files. I know, because I tried to spread linux. It is hard work.
May I recommend you try Debian and its package `unattended-upgrades`.
Besides, I recommend servicing the device every so often. People create weird failure modes (putting too many files onto the device, clicking at random in menus). I also recommend setting up a backup.
As a figure of speech: Nobody is expected to service a car on his own. You'll get professional help every so often.
"May I recommend you try Debian and its package `unattended-upgrades`"
I will try that.
"As a figure of speech: Nobody is expected to service a car on his own. You'll get professional help every so often."
And also windows computers can have serious problems, but usually they are easier to solve for beginners, compared to when I try fix someones linux computer, that has not been updated in a while ..
Didn't have much of an issue when I installed Ubuntu on my dad's laptop with his limited computer experiences, didn't have many issues. Have you never encountered issues with Windows or MacOS? My experiences with Windows had many very frustrating experiences where I am sure won't be good either for common people.
"Does it matter? His message isn't for non-programmers."
I see. Well then, carry on.
But maybe then do not wonder when the rest of the world does not care about software freedom and also don't donate or support it in any way.
Oh and Plato is well known as a philosopher, but yes, most people do not know that he proposed a very totalitarian state and is rather known for platonic love.
>But maybe then do not wonder when the rest of the world does not care about software freedom and also don't donate or support it in any way.
30+% of my country can't even be damned to vote for their next president. Getting the layman to care is really hard, which is why advertising is a trillion dollar business.
Perfect enemy of good and all that. Lawyers for 99% of their cases don't rely on public sentiment to get their argument through. At least not active public sentiment.
Everyone wants to fully control the devices they own. But more importantly they want their devices to work. So a half working open source lineageOS mobile is less valuable to them (and me), than a closed source, but working blob.
But if you can get them to understand, that open source eventually means consumer friendly, that the device will be fully under their control(no ads, no restrictions) and working if OSS gets more support, they will listen. But since they largely do not know all this, I think it is exactly because most free software preaching evolves only around devs.
True, yet most users don't care about the details in any meaningful way. They just want to be able to use a convenient service like Spotify...who cares that they don't OWN the music anymore? Who cares that they don't pay artists as much as they could?
The only time it's a problem is when an artist doesn't release their music on a certain platform and it's now work to try and go download a second app, make an account, possibly pay a subscription, and THEN listen to the new album. These are the kind of things users actually care about, not whether the app/backend is FOSS or not.
HN is a power user community so it's easy to improperly extrapolate our experiences and what we tolerate to what "normal users" will tolerate.
Sure, and arguably RMS has had a pretty significant indirect impact on the lives of people who don't care about technology but still use free software in their day to day lives (it is everywhere). But those people don't really think about his message anymore than the average person contemplates the impact of neoplatonists on their present cultural context.
[Before anyone gets offended, this is just a metaphor. Obviously plato had a much more significant impact on the world than RMS did]
He doesn't have to be. Tech luminaries who can understand compromise will figure out what will practically work after listening to him rant. The world still needs raving mad prophets like him to help us understand where the poles are.
I'd say he's known for Linux and the building the base of TiVo, then Android, Chromebook, and MacOS (all of those impressions are wrong, but bear with me).
Most people don't know what the kernel is, but they do see user space, and that was largely GPLed for a while. I think IBM ran some super bowl ads about how amazing Linux and open source were, about ten years ago.
Also, stuff like raspberry pi and ssh exploits (yes, BSD, I know) also show up in pop culture. The Matrix and Mr Robot come to mind. During the end of the dot com boom, I think people were largely aware that Apache + Linux were what things ran on.
Even as someone who has been a dev for 5 years I only know him as that gross guy who likes free software. Note that 'gross guy' is the main point here. He has failed to communicate any nuance to his message. Another person might have 80% the same opinion as him but be able to reach 200% of the people as him by way of not having such a bad reputation. If the free software 'movement' wants to move anyone they need to get out of their own way.
He founded the idea of Free software. Him being "gross" is completely orthogonal. "I would have agreed with the guy who fought against slavery if he didn't pick his nose in public."
It's crazy to think how back in the day, software devs were basically hard science engineers, needing to be proficient in hardware and the nitty gritty of CPU architecture to be effective programmers. All so they could be paid $60-80k/yr in today's dollars for 50-60 hour work weeks.
Whereas nowadays you can do a few weeks of a javascript crash course and land a $100k job organizing text windows on a webpage for a few hours a week from your bedroom.
As a devil's advocate: while you had to know the nitty gritty it was legitimately possible to have the entire machine's architecture in your head. Maybe a few heads shared at worst. Microsoft' humble beginnings started with a dozen people who would make what most people type on daily.
No one person knows the entire modern x86 architecture. And ofc those who know a lions share are paid top dollar. Maybe still underpaid for the value they bring to the entire world, but very comfortable.
Don't have much to say about the web dev stuff. Just note that CoL is still kinda crazy in the places with most demand. I'm not gonna say "100k is so hard to live on" like some spoiled CS students but it does cut a lot more into your spending power than you'd expect.
Well, that’s because demand for sales-y engage-y web pages is furious while demand for exquisitely refined self-balancing distributed power grids (for example) is at the “call me back when the tech has become a 0.02 commodity” level
But what is he known for, outside tech circles, if he is known at all?
When you want to deliver a message, it matters a lot, how you deliver it.