Name: Anonymous 2018-05-08 13:00
The blind hatred of Free Software Foundation President
Richard Stallman toward proprietary programs is such that he
has given speeches in which he advocated for software piracy.
Stallman wrote this the day after Steve Jobs died: "As
Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former
Mayor Daley, 'I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's
gone.'"
If you were to take that as something a bitter loser would
say, you'd be right. Stallman doesn't believe that programs
should compete on either technical merit or on how much users
like them. To the contrary, his speeches, which you can find
on the FSF Europe website, contain material such as this:
I'm all in favour of the principle that it's good to
reward people who do things that contribute to society
and it's good to punish people, one way or another, if
they do things that harm society. This means that people
who develop Free Software that's useful deserve a reward,
and people who develop proprietary software that's
attractive deserve a punishment.
To Stallman, Jobs must have been a double helping of evil --
both Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) software and hardware must seem
almost sinfully proprietary and attractive to him. Since his
"Boycott Apple" campaign failed, and he can't convince people
to change on technical merit or on the facts, what's left?
How about propaganda? For those of us who had to read 1984 in
school, the head of the Free Software Foundation sounds like
he's channeling the Ministry of Truth. If you remember the
party slogan "Freedom is Slavery," you might find this quote
eerily similar: "It's a mistake to equate freedom to 'the
freedom of choice.'"
...
Recall how Jobs ended the demonization of Microsoft (Nasdaq:
MSFT) within Apple, got his people to focus on doing what
Apple does best, and ended up with the most valuable company
in the world? Contrast that with Stallman's approach, which
is held by far too many, and helps explain why "GNU/linux" is
still a rounding error in the desktop market.
Negative campaigns turn people away. Nobody wants to hear
about how "evil" their current software provider is. They
want to hear what you can do better. Telling people they
should pirate software not only makes Stallman look seedier
than he already does -- it reflects badly on open source in
general.
Richard Stallman toward proprietary programs is such that he
has given speeches in which he advocated for software piracy.
Stallman wrote this the day after Steve Jobs died: "As
Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former
Mayor Daley, 'I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's
gone.'"
If you were to take that as something a bitter loser would
say, you'd be right. Stallman doesn't believe that programs
should compete on either technical merit or on how much users
like them. To the contrary, his speeches, which you can find
on the FSF Europe website, contain material such as this:
I'm all in favour of the principle that it's good to
reward people who do things that contribute to society
and it's good to punish people, one way or another, if
they do things that harm society. This means that people
who develop Free Software that's useful deserve a reward,
and people who develop proprietary software that's
attractive deserve a punishment.
To Stallman, Jobs must have been a double helping of evil --
both Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) software and hardware must seem
almost sinfully proprietary and attractive to him. Since his
"Boycott Apple" campaign failed, and he can't convince people
to change on technical merit or on the facts, what's left?
How about propaganda? For those of us who had to read 1984 in
school, the head of the Free Software Foundation sounds like
he's channeling the Ministry of Truth. If you remember the
party slogan "Freedom is Slavery," you might find this quote
eerily similar: "It's a mistake to equate freedom to 'the
freedom of choice.'"
...
Recall how Jobs ended the demonization of Microsoft (Nasdaq:
MSFT) within Apple, got his people to focus on doing what
Apple does best, and ended up with the most valuable company
in the world? Contrast that with Stallman's approach, which
is held by far too many, and helps explain why "GNU/linux" is
still a rounding error in the desktop market.
Negative campaigns turn people away. Nobody wants to hear
about how "evil" their current software provider is. They
want to hear what you can do better. Telling people they
should pirate software not only makes Stallman look seedier
than he already does -- it reflects badly on open source in
general.