Ever heard of "blame the game, not the player"? Trying to put all the blame on Steve Jobs' shoulder, right after his death, is horrendous.
Steve Jobs wasn't the enemy of freedom RMS paints him as. That he personally wrote letters against DRM on media-stores and against the closed-platform called Flash asking everyone to favor HTML5 made much much difference in those two specific areas than most things Stallman did lately.
(Funny, reminds me that that FOSS advocates here on NH are okay with Android prolonging Flash's life and using closed-source software only as a means to gain market share)
Granted, he never open sourced the whole operating system, but why would he? To see Apple collapse again while Dell/HP and others strive? What's the point? Then we start all over again? We'll have open-source chips manufactured by 2 or 3 companies? What's the fucking point?
Seriously, I'm tired of Stallman's half-assed socialism. It's an offense to me. You don't destroy capitalism by destroying companies, or people. You destroy capitalism by destroying the core of it...
I actually agree with Stallman, not because I believe everything has to be FOSS, but because I believe users should have the freedom to make their own decisions about how they use their devices, and that's something that Apple products work hard to remove - case in point, their refusal to allow Flash to run on iOS. They may not want it there and HTML5 may be the better choice in the long run, but they are denying users the option to decide for themselves.
Stallman doesn't even want that users know about that option. From Wikiquote: "The Adobe flash plug-in is non-free software, and people should not install it, or suggest installing it, or even tell people it exists."
This is different than "people should write their operating systems to proactively disallow installation of non-free software."
Note that the FSF even produces and distributes builds for Windows. Here's an example: http://www.gnu.org/s/mit-scheme . Most FSF projects that don't produce Windows builds directly provide information on where they can be found.
Stallman may not want people raising the profile of proprietary software, but he certainly doesn't advocate cathedral-style control of a users' computing platform.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. The "player" makes the choices, they get the blame.
Every time I see someone talking about how they just do what they have to do to feed their kids someone else steps up to say that they feed their kids without hurting others.
> Steve Jobs wasn't the enemy of freedom RMS paints him as. That he personally wrote letters against DRM on media-stores and against the closed-platform called Flash asking everyone to favor HTML5
Sure, against some DRM. But the iPhone and iPad are locked down.
Really, he was just against the other guy's walled garden while trying to steal bricks from it for his own.
> Funny, reminds me that that FOSS advocates here on NH are okay with Android prolonging Flash's life [...]
I wasn't aware I had to complain against all problems in every post. The love-in for Steve prompted these complaints. If there was a love-in for Android you'd see the anti-Android opinions coming out.
> Seriously, I'm tired of Stallman's half-assed socialism. It's an offense to me.
I don't think you know what the word means. I believe you're pretty offended though.
> You don't destroy capitalism by destroying companies, or people. You destroy capitalism by destroying the core of it...
EDIT: Since you cherry-picked my points and completely ignored what I tried to say in order to attack me, I'll just repeat what I wrote, since it's what I would reply anyway.
Trying to put all the blame on Steve Jobs' shoulder, right after his death, is horrendous.
...made much much difference in those two specific areas than most things Stallman did lately.
(notice the "specific areas")
Granted, he never open sourced the whole operating system, but why would he? To see Apple collapse again while Dell/HP and others strive? What's the point? Then we start all over again? We'll have open-source chips manufactured by 2 or 3 companies? What's the fucking point?
Hey, NH, I'm not the poster, but why is this being down voted? Linux being easier to use and easier to maintain isn't something we all could benefit from?
And for fucks sake, don't say "it's FUD". I had a hard time installing drivers for an NVidia graphic card this month in Ubuntu's latest stable version, running in Dell workstation. I could even put out some videos.
I'm tired of people who had difficulties with Linux being called liars and getting down votes here.
Linux is great, but it's not finished yet. There's room for improvement. (Same with Windows. Same with OS X).
Did you contact Nvidia for support? That driver you were installing was proprietary software delivered by the vendor. Why are you blaming the free software for it not working?
Nope, I didn't. Actually the issue was getting the correct packages from apt-get. DLL hell all over again. In the end I simply formatted the machine with a non-stable version and the drivers installed as expected. Easy peasy.
EDIT: But that wasn't the point. The point is that those kinds of problems still happen with Linux, but only sometimes, with specific distros in specific gear, but when they don't happen (such as with Ubuntu 99% of the time) Linux gets praise and adoption from non-techies.
But that sorta proves his point. Linux isn't good to normal people today just because it's full of geeky magic dust. It is good today because it "Just Works™".
> You occasionally drop a few hundred lines of code on github and then think you are a contributor to Free Software?
Yes I do. Github being is so successful these days is proof that FOSS matters. FOSS is not only about kernels, compilers and emacs. Those things were just the start.
Being able to use a fully open stack from the bootloader to the javascript library and be as productive as with closed platforms means a lot, and it owes not only to FSF's activism, but also to the software community.
Rails wasn't born out of the desire of spreading ~free software~ ideals. It was born out of the desire of changing the world of web development. And why is it open source, then? Because it was the best option, and still is. A community was born around it and the results are as good (or better) than anything a company could make just by hiring.
Today, with things like GitHub, the barriers to free software are pretty much gone. Everyone can contribute. This is infinitely better than Stallman's 'cathedral'. I can not only look at, thinker and modify somebody else's code: I can effectively give back to the creators in a matter of seconds, and then, suddenly, I become one of the creators myself.
Seriously, your post full of fallacies.
Everyone is free to criticize Stallman on this point. Don't try to invalidate their criticism just because they haven't written a GCC or an Emacs.
So, yes, I am part of free software, but I don't want anything to do with FSF or Stallman. I want to win this open vs closed fight by fighting with my code. Not by pissing on someone's grave.
No, Im not saying your code is worthless. Im saying your reasons for contributing and dropping the code wasnt and isnt 'Free Software'. As you mentioned, its 'Open vs. Closed'.
Also, rms did not piss on his grave. He respectfully said that he's happy that Steve Jobs couldnt affect the computer world anymore.
I believe smcfancontrol installs its kext by demand from inside the Cocoa App. I don't know how it's done (I only do UNIX stuff on my Mac =/) but I believe it changes the .kext owner and invokes kextload. You can 'sudo' from inside a Cocoa App by using AuthorizationExecuteWithPrivileges:
About PKGs: I think that they're okay, but, historically, they're maligned for being "black boxes" that install files all over your system. App files, OTOH, are (99% of the time) clean, live on /Applications, and sometimes use ~/Library.
Why do we care so much about genius scientists but dismiss genius dilletantes?
Also, why do we have to dillute our opinion on people and reduce them to the stereotypes? Is it something we do just to feel better?
Saying that Steve Jobs was just a salesman is as incorrect as saying that Edsger Dijkstra was just an arrogant man. I'm sorry, but both were MUCH more than that.
This is impacting news for our industry. Also, it's NH's way of saying goodbye. Please, don't try to ruin this. Don't worry, it will all go away in a few hours.
Just go out and take a walk if this affects you negatively.
Last time my manager asked me to come up with a simple test for interviews I added a question with code and asked what it was: a bubble sort in C#. No one got it right, not even a "it sorts the array".
For fucks sake, why don't we get rid of those anti-Apple (slowpoke) and anti-Google (chugger) types? This is getting ridiculous...