I know some people on HN do not have respect for RMS, but lest we forget he is a true Hacker who built very useful pieces of software, GCC, ls, GNU Emacs, GNU Bison, just to name a few pieces of code that I almost use everyday. Some interesting facts about him are that he has been awarded 15 honorary doctorate degrees.
Honestly, GCC and the GPL are probably the largest contributions of all time to software development. Although GCC has waned in popularity of late, at the time it truly is what sparked the "Open Source" and "Free Software" movements.
Without those, I couldn't imagine the world progressing as fast as it did. Especially, without someone like Stallman behind it, almost completely devoid of social understanding, he was able to stand up to virtually unlimited pressure and keep to his values.
I agree some people on HN don't respect him, or just generally dislike him. They claim he hurt GCC or Emacs, and to an extent he did through the GPL and/or his lack of technical guidance. However, without him, they wouldn't have existed at all. GCC is still pretty competitive, and at one point was the most competitive free compiler - which is why both movements gained so much momentum.
RMS' fervent defense of freedom has been both his greatest asset, and his greatest weakness. I find it hard to criticize the man who literally dedicated (and in a sense sacrificed) his life to ensure humanity doesn't have to pay for every single piece of software.
Hell, would we still have to pay for web browsers?
Unfortunately the GPL is not magic pixie dust and is often outright ignored. To fix that you need lawyers, such as the FSF or these folks getting compliance:
It's not merely having access; even the source code to Windows is available to those who "need" it. It's about users having the freedom to copy, modify, and distribute modifications to software they receive, and ensuring that users further downstream have the same freedoms. Or for more detailed info, read about the Four Freedoms on the FSF site.
We may never know precisely how much more powerful the ideology of software freedom made us as developers, but there is no doubt in my mind that the work I do every day is on top of a foundation of free software and the compounding returns it yields over time.
Thanks for the software, RMS, but more importantly, thanks for the freedom.
.doc instead of .html was a real possibility at some point. The horror! The horror! We'd be living in a pink & blue Information-disneyland, paying monthly fees to AOL and Microsoft, getting Cyberclippy to play our companies' jingles to non-premium users every 12 minutes.
Software engineering would probably be more of, well, more of engineering, and less of hacking, like all the other —thriving— fields of engineering, implying higher quality and more accountability.
Do you have any evidence to support that? I don't see that any software companies now do anything like engineering. Whether it's open source or not, "Software Engineering" is still basically just hacking.
Mostly just hacking. There are areas where quality and accountability matters. Space and aviation for example.
I'd say Windows and what came of that taught the common user horde to accept junk, so now it is hard to sell quality at a higher price regardsless of free software.
The big pieces of software you mentioned -- GCC and Emacs -- have been weakened in various ways because of RMS though. RMS' fear of proprietary programs accessing certain internals, like the AST means that GCC doesn't have the extensive plugin ability that clang does, limiting the types of code analysis and transformation that can be done [1]. He has also shown himself to make knee-jerk reactions about pieces of free software which are not under control, such as his refusal to merge in basic lldb support into Emacs' gud [2], invoking the bogeyman of Apple in doing so. In the past, he has also told people to memory hole software he personally disagreed with [3]. He has done some impressive things in software development, however, his more recent points of view have had some serious problems in dealing with the relevance of users and developers today. Stallman needs a better team of people around him to advise him on modern practices, otherwise all his efforts will go to naught as people migrate to other Free tools that better recognize and respect more recent software and social practices.
While your statements are true, they are viewed through a lens of popularity. RMS goal is not popularity first. It is freedom, and history has shown that freedom is under constant attack. His positions have sometimes seemed extreme, but ended up vindicated. Try "freedom to read" for one example. The FSF clearly documents their philosophy. Do you see them not following it? https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html
He can also be pragmatic and compromise. See for example the LGPL (note leading L) or one of the audio/video libraries (apologies for forgetting which one) where he was happy with a BSD license, for popularity reasons.
You don't need to agree with him, but there is substance behind it, and for some freedom really does matter.
That's just it, all of what I described were him attacking other Free programs. Telling someone to delete mentions of a Free compiler because it could potentially be used by someone to improve proprietary software harms those working on Free software much more than those working on proprietary software, and discourages future people from working on more challenging free products. His claims of LLVM being an attack from Apple are factually questionable, given that Apple hasn't been a majority contributor to LLVM for a considerable amount of time, plus LLVM being used in a number of Free projects, like Xorg. While he's kept the same dogma, he's not kept up with what users expect from their tooling.
I understand he doesn't care about popularity, however, how can you sustain a Free ecosystem if your tooling is generations behind what's available in other, still free, ecosystems. All the small compromises in the world don't matter if you're not willing to listen to people describing what is currently wanted and needed for modern software development. While Stallman has indeed kept the same ideological course, he's not kept up with the social aspects of the industry, to the detriment of everyone. That's the part that he needs to change.
Shame on them! 90% of tools they use either draw inspiration from, or use, or built using, or licensed using his ideas and implementations. Stallman has more fingerprints over the world than any 2-bit hacker here.
I have immense respect for RMS as a person and as a hacker. I also have several points of disagreement on philosophy, ethics, politics, etc. (and occasionally on facts), but that's not the same thing as not having respect for him.
Indeed, I would paint myself much the same. However, I've been around this business long enough that when I look back on areas where I have disagreed with RMS, there are a disturbing number of times where RMS turned out to be right in the long run. So now when I find myself in disagreement with RMS, I think long and hard to clarify exactly why I disagree -- which is certainly a valid definition of respect.
> I know some people on HN do not have respect for RMS
Don't misunderstand disagreement on politics with disrespect. I don't subscribe to his views, but I respect him for strength of his convictions and software that he developed.
While there are people that do not respect RMS, there are others who appreciate the work he has done (both as a hacker and an activist), but are vehemently against the way he goes about advocating free software.
I personally do not like the absolutism he preaches.
I'm new to the comments section here but I find it hard to believe people in this community would not have respect for RMS and what he has done for the industry.
So good to see RMS being recognized for his work. A lot of my interest in computers is due to being inspired by RMS. stallman.org is a good resource for anyone wanting to learn more. Stallman's commentary on politics is also second to none.
I sometimes wonder if the Googles and Facebooks of today would have existed if Stallman didn't have started the GNU movement with their excellent developer tools. In a way, he has created his own demons.
CompuServe and AOL both predated the GNU Project (!), while Prodigy was nearly contemporaneous with it, and I could imagine these becoming or evolving into centralized social media services and huge-scale communications intermediaries -- maybe with or without the web -- if they hadn't encountered the competition that they did. And they were able to make a lot of progress, in their way, without the GNU toolchain.
On the other hand, the ease with which startups could enter this world from the 1990s onward owes a huge amount to GNU and to languages and tools that owe a huge amount to GNU.
It's probably the primaries, but I am reminded of one of the best and worst times in recent American politics; John McCain deflected a woman calling Obama an Arab by explaining "he [Obama] is a good man with whom I happen to disagree".[#]
Stallman is the prime mover behind the Free/Open movement from which we all benefit, and has a coherent and credible world view - with which I may occasionally disagree, but which I cannot dismiss or ignore.
He has stuck to his principles and deserves his recognition. And surprisingly, like McCain, He is never going to "win" - but the game is better for people like him in it.
Love him or hate him, Stallman's contributions have been instrumental in shaping the landscape of technology as we know it today. I have nothing but respect for him and the Free Software Foundation.
DRM is a concept to be taken seriously, and I often wonder who is the equivalent of RMS in the literature world (?).
Imagine for a moment. Kindle books cost 57.59 dollars, only a few dollars cheaper than Hardcopy books. Along with hardcopy books, Kindle books have a concept of "renting", "monthly membership" to read it on your device at your home.
And at any moment, the document in the cloud can be wiped out with you knowing.
Writing software is a similar challenging task as writing a book and Fortunately, we do not face this problem in Software world, where high-quality software under various Free and Open Source licenses are available at all times.
RMS ensured that anything under GPL cannot be taken away in any form from the users.
We need an equivalent of RMS in the literature world so that we can have freedom to read anything, at any time, while at the same time, while ensuring the protection and credit for the author of the original work.
Well I would say that Alexandra Elbakyan of Sci-Hub fame is in the vanguard in this respect. I'm not making an equivalence here because Stallman repurposed the tool that is copyright to make copyleft to underpin free software legally whereas Elbakyan is an out and out pirate as far as the law goes.
I have used Sci-Hub and gen.lib.rus.ec countless times already even though I attend a "developed-world" academic institution and have access to a lot of the material that is shared on those sites. Sometimes it's a simple matter of convenience, sometimes I my institution does not have the required subscription.
I suppose the Open Access model in the academic publishing world is the ideological equivalent to what Stallman was a part of building in the software world but it seems to be playing out a lot differently. In the wider world of literature I couldn't say.
I've mentioned this before here at HN and I will do it again. I think Stallman contributed a lot.
Licensing such as GPL has been instrumental for the expansion of open source. That is what helped open source to expand and become integral part of everyone's lives.
I was also surprised to see Michael Luby there. I know he's a brilliant guy and I'm appreciative for his contributions to Fountain and LT codes, however the old debate of software patents come to mind. I wish we had a better system in place.
I might be wrong, but I think I've sometimes seen it here; in any case it definitely happens in many "programmer" online circles (say, programmers.stackexchange: search for questions about the GPL or GNU or open source software): RMS is sometimes disparaged as a loon and an extremist. The Free Software movement as a whole is often disparaged as impractical and out of touch with reality. I cannot say these people self-describe as hackers but... I dunno... they are asking and answering questions in a stackexchange community about programmers...
I do remember this also happened in Slashdot occasionally. People using free software criticizing RMS as an extremist.
Which is pretty disappointing, given that many of the people doing the disparaging are using software borne out of the efforts of said free software / hacker movements.
> RMS is sometimes disparaged as a loon and an extremist. The Free Software movement as a whole is often disparaged as impractical and out of touch with reality.
> People using free software criticizing RMS as an extremist.
I agree with these views, but it doesn't mean that I don't respect him.
I don't know about you, but I consider it pretty hard to hold both views simultaneously: to respect someone and consider him/her an extremist loon who is out of touch with reality.
"I respect this lunatic whose views are divorced from reality"... isn't this damning him with faint praise, and therefore confirming user _RPM's first sentence?
I don't think you can. Some (most?) of those contributions were made exactly to promote those views on politics and society. To separate those contributions from that is disrespect in and of itself, almost by definition.
It's quite possible to comprehend, admire, and appreciate the labor and discoveries of renowned scientists and technologists, without sharing in the motivations and beliefs they possessed.
Science is intertwined with the accomplished legacies of hated figures whose beliefs were shaped by prejudice, yet whose works became recognized and included in established theory.
Computing fields tend to venerate their idols with a religious-like fervor, unfortunately.
I dont dispute that. Comprehend, admire and appreciate are all words that would fit in the paragraph I objected to. It was precisely the word respect I objected to.
So you're saying it's impossible to respect a person you don't agree with? Be careful; saying that disagreement and disrespect are the same thing takes you on a very very slippery slope. Plenty of tyrants around the world justify illiberal laws and cruel policies citing such assumptions.
No no, I respect a lot of people I do not agree with.
What I'm saying is that even if you disagree you can respect only if you recognize the motivations behind someones labor.
To say that GNU is good technology but don't agree with its premise is disrespectful because, by definition the design has failed if you don't agree with the agenda.
So you could say that you respect the effort but think it has failed, or you can say that you like the result but don't really respect its origins.
> To separate those contributions from that is disrespect in and of itself, almost by definition.
Uhm, no. People do great things for strange motives all the time. Stallman may have written Emacs for some ideological crusade which I don't care about (and consider counter-productive to the world at large), but I can not pretend that it's a great technological achievement.
He's out of touch with economical and political realities of modern society, and his views on these matters are complete lunacy - however, I still respect him for strength and sincerity of his convictions. He's also a great programmer and software systems designer.
Could you clarify? I don't understand the extreme reaction.
I was responding to this: "hold both views simultaneously: to respect someone and consider him/her an extremist loon who is out of touch with reality"
I gave an example of someone generally considered to be an extremist loon, yet obviously (he did in fact gain power) with unusual skill.
Is it just that people are uncomfortable with the idea that his supporters were normal regular supposedly civilized people, and how this implies something about most of us?
Sure, I'll take the bait: what women or people of color have done as much for the field as, say, Stallman? Exclude folks that have already gotten recognition (like Hopper).
I am not on any search committee for future award recipients, but I'm surprised by your comment because there have been women (three in the past decade) and people of color who have received the far more prestigious Turing award, you know (not, BTW, Grace Hopper, who has been awarded much fame but not so much with actual academic prizes). Specifically for the prize Stallman has received (for developers of successful/important software), a few men of color received it before him, and only two years ago a woman did, too (for Coq).
