Comments on: St Stallman: A Hero of the Highest Order

By: Terebi

Terebi — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:50:53 +0000

iGor milhit: “The free software movement impose nothing to no one”

Not sure if it can be put that way. For example, GPL (which came from the free software movement and Stallman himself) can impose quite a lot of stuff.

Not that I agree or disagree with the license, but the (moral?) statement “there are no impositions” is not true.

By: greg

greg — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 14:08:13 +0000

valuation for the “free”

Try Metcalfe”s Law. The value of the system is a proportional to the square of the number of connected users (n2). (should have suppertext for the two)

The trillion $ valuation is the easy part. finding the buyer with the ready cash is harder.

By: Timo Mihaljov

Timo Mihaljov — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:40:28 +0000

Thanks for an interesting read! It left me wondering what it really means to win the war that Stallman’s waging, since neither you nor the linked interview define what a victory looks like.

I don’t know what Stallman himself would consider a victory, but based on his writings I suspect that it might be irrelevance of proprietary software instead of its eradication. Maybe his definition of victory is a world in which people can choose to use free software for all their computing needs and never be inconvenienced by their choice. That doesn’t sound completely impossible.

Free software is not quite there yet for everyone, but the fact that Stallman himself can go about his life (albeit with difficulty) without using any proprietary software at all — not even a proprietary BIOS — is a testament to how far towards winning the free software movement has already moved.

When talking about winning, it is also easy to fall prey to the fallacy of grey. [1] You may be right in saying that Stallman will never win, because an absolute victory — the perfect white in the analogy — is impossible. But he may also be right in saying that he can win by reaching a shade of gray so light that it could pass for white.

[1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/mm/the_fallacy_of_gray/

By: Eyolf Østrem

Eyolf Østrem — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:18:30 +0000

Of course not. In principle, I have a Creative Commons licence on the site, but now I can’t find the logo — it must have disappeared in some redesign. But go ahead and trranslate.

By: iGor milhit

iGor milhit — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:46:52 +0000

The free software movement impose nothing to no one, it only gives freedom to the ones who want to. I’m very grateful of this.

Thank for this text. I’m wondering if I’ll try to translate it in French. Would you mind?

By: Gerry Hinchon

Gerry Hinchon — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:10:45 +0000

Eyolf,
I dont understand slash chords. Could you write something about them, please, or give a link to somewhere that I can see them all? Although you name when you when you dissect the songs, you do not always depict them and I am often puzzled.

Best wishes and thanks a lot for an excellent site.
Gerry.

By: Owen Kahn

Owen Kahn — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:01:58 +0000

Although it’s hardly a common practice, that much is true.

By: Owen Kahn

Owen Kahn — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:59:38 +0000

Paul, you ought to fact-check your analogies… Open source car companies do indeed exist. http://www.local-motors.com/

By: Paul O'Toole

Paul O'Toole — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:41:52 +0000

No, the main problem with RMS is not eating stuff off his feet, it’s the fact that he has created a morality based around the idea of free software which he then fully expects everyone else to adopt.

He talks about free software as though everything else is a violation of basis human rights, as though anyone who rights software and then says yes, people can use this, but they can’t see how it was written is somehow inherently evil.

That is like saying that if you buy a car, the company selling the car to you must also include detailed plans for the cars construction.

It is one thing to hold these belefs, quite another to try and impoe them on everyone else.

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:09:26 +0000

The main problem with RMS is that he eats stuff off of his feet. DURING a lecture!

Just for those who haven’t seen the video, here it is:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6390784544771380326#
Fast forward to about 1:38:00 or 1:39:00 or so.

Though to be fair, RMS is a really great guy for making all of the GNU stuff. I <3 GCC.

He just needs to not eat his feet.

By: Eyolf Østrem

Eyolf Østrem — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:34:54 +0000

Hey, I didn’t expect a celebrity in here — had I known, I would at least have cleaned up the place and had some coffee ready.
Just so that it is clear: the parenthetical comment was tounge-in-cheek, but I don’t doubt the estimate.
Thanks for the link — I promise to read it. :)

By: Bruce Perens

Bruce Perens — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:29:20 +0000

How to figure 1 Trillion? I am just estimating the amount of business done around Free Software. Lots of systems sold, lots of jobs in the economy, etc.

If you want a valuation of the code itself, use Wheeler’s method. He wrote an Open Source tool for costing code called sloccount. See http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html
This paper hasn’t been updated since 2007, but it gives you the method if you want to calculate today’s number.