Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7487060.stm

by nickb • 18 years ago

25 69 18 years ago

news.bbc.co.uk

I stopped reading after it turned into a rant about how all software should be free. While I understand and agree with some of the complaints about Microsoft, the extreme 'commercial software is bad' position is kind of ridiculous.

logjam• 18 years ago

You must not have read very carefully, because nothing in that article said anything about "commercial" software being bad. His points about Gates and his unethical and harmful business tactics are right on the money.

mattmaroon9• 18 years ago

Commercial software largely means proprietary, especially in the area of web applications. It can have APIs and interact with other programs much the way Windows does, but it is proprietary nonetheless.

swivelmaster6• 18 years ago

Okay, then it's a matter of word choice. He actually was talking about 'proprietary' software.

"But Gates didn't invent proprietary software, and thousands of other companies do the same thing. It's wrong, no matter who does it."

That is an outrageous statement.

mattmaroon9• 18 years ago

It's his religion, and no matter how mathematically intelligent he may be, he's as blind to rational thought in that area as the most zealous Imam.

There are different types of intelligences, and it seems pretty obvious that he is incredibly strong in some and weaker than the average Wal-Mart shopper in a few.

tx3• 18 years ago

He seems to dislike Gates more than you dislike him, yet he managed to avoid personal insults against Bill's intelligence, despite his own limited (according to you) mental capacity.

jrockway• 18 years ago

I don't think you understand arguments. When you are arguing for a cause, taking a "reasonable" middle ground doesn't get you anything. You have to argue for the extreme, so that the other side agrees to meet you half way. Then you get what you really want. (If they met you half way to your half way, then you'd not be satisfied.)

RMS needs to say "all non-Free software should go away" so that some of it will.

rplevy2• 18 years ago

It's important to ask whether society benefits from proprietary source code whether it be controversial claims to patents on genetic data or software. Proprietary ownership of code harms society by limiting farmers, scientists, end users from having their rightful freedom and flexibility. The short term benefit to individuals gained by selling licenses does not excuse the resulting restriction of freedom, because it is viable to make money on free software. Stallman is an idealist who bases his demands on what an ideal world should be like. The case for software freedom (including the case for its economic viability) has been made repeatedly, most notably by Stallman. But the anti-freedom argument has never been convincingly spelled out, to my knowledge.

mattmaroon9• 18 years ago

The "anti-freedom argument" (which should actually be called the pro-proprietary argument, because nobody sane is against free software) is fairly simple: there can be both and both can coexist peacefully. We can (and do) have Linux and Windows, and use them for different things. The market and individuals decide which is better for what task.

Some people say Ubuntu is finally a usable desktop OS for average Joe. Even if that's true, it took how many decades for free operating systems to reach that mark? They're at least 20 years behind in crossing the line (though perhaps now gaining ground rapidly).

The financial incentive enabled by proprietary software gives us things like Photoshop (sorry, GIMP still sucks) and Illustrator, Flash, Windows or OSX.

Certainly nobody would suggest that the open source community be legally prevented from making a Photoshop or Outlook or IE competitor. So why can't we have both and let the market decide? Why must proprietary be evil?

rms• 18 years ago

>Why must proprietary be evil?

Because rms says so

bayareaguy8• 18 years ago

Why must proprietary be evil?

Personally I think it's a mistake to argue along the lines of good/evil.

The biggest problem with both proprietary and free software actually lies in the ignorance of the people who license and deploy either form without understanding the consequences, especially the technical and legal ability to access data and historic documents.

rplevy2• 18 years ago

The fact that the two coexist does not constitute a valid argument for how things should be, in a better world. There are many less-than-ideal things that coexist together with superior alternatives. For example there are countries where women are required to cover their entire face in public, but the fact that they coexist with secularly governed nations does not validate theocracy as not being oppressive. Similarly we have two ways of doing things coexisting with free and proprietary, and the world would be a better place if one of the alternatives was simply not present.

The line about financial incentive is very disputable as it is all about personal preferences. I personally prefer emacs over eclipse (emacs just rules), gimp over photoshop (photoshop is bloated, doesn't run in Linux as far as I know, and I know how to use Gimp better), Inkscape is awesome, Flash sucks big time, and Windows is needless to say, horrible.

Free OS took 20 years? No I think freedom at the level of the OS was the original way of doing things, from the very beginning. It's the proprietary software that got in the way making it difficult for modern free OSes to catch up by constantly setting hurdles by requiring free software to reverse engineer things that needed to be compatible.

chandler• 18 years ago

I agree with much of your position, however:

> Some people say Ubuntu is finally a usable desktop OS for average Joe. Even if that's true, it took how many decades for free operating systems to reach that mark? They're at least 20 years behind in crossing the line...

Let's look at those 20 years up to the release of XP--would you consider (any flavor of) DOS usable for the average Joe? What about Win95/98, with its dll issues and where simply browsing the internet would blue-screen a computer?

Fact is, by todays standards, it took Microsoft ~20 years to have something suitable for the average Joe.

Additionally, ironically, Free Software is the main advantage Ubuntu has over something like XP/Vista regarding usability for the average. Having a centralized index of freely available software, all of which is downloaded/installed/patched on a regular basis using a unified interface is huge.

(not that a payment system is wholly incompatible with a centralized software repository, but it certainly would be difficult to unify proprietary software due in no small part to the wide variety of DRM implementations)

narag• 18 years ago

I can't see in what way you can call "freedom" restricting individuals from enter mutually-beneficious contracts. Governments must intervene to prevent abusive clauses. There are some limitations that would be reasonable like making a deposit of the source code for cases of disappearing vendors, forcing software vendors to honor the buyers' right to their own data...

But the basic fact is that someone can create and sell licenses for a closed source program that would not be profitable unless it's made for many customers. Sometimes an open source program can be made for the same niche and offer similar quality. But not always.

billroberts• 18 years ago

I don't agree with Stallman. Like probably most HN readers, I use a lot of Free/Open Source software - Linux, MySQL, Rails... and it's incredibly valuable. However I don't expect all software to be free, and to a large extent many major bits of open source software are 'market distortions' created by the big commercial IT companies. Eg OpenOffice is largely StarOffice, bought by Sun and open sourced, mainly in order to (IMHO) piss off Microsoft.

Writing good software takes time and skill (as we all know) and I don't think it's unreasonable that the people who do it should be able to charge end users for their efforts. Expecting all software to be written by public employees or in people's spare time is unrealistic.

HansF2• 18 years ago

The gpl explicitly allows you to charge for your software.

mattmaroon9• 18 years ago

But forcing you to open source it prevents you from being able to, generally.

bayareaguy8• 18 years ago

While true, there is the problem with the GPL that it allows your competitors to leverage your own efforts against you. That's suicide for dumb resellers of commodity applications. But the successful open source companies have proven that for more complex things you can easily make plenty of money if you dual-license your software and use the distribution the GPL allows to build up an established brand.

froo• 18 years ago

Whether you hate Bill Gates for his business dealings with Microsoft or not is a matter of opinion.

One thing we can thankfully all agree on, is Bill is sorely lacking in his ability to successfully dodge food...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gallery/2008/jan/31/bil...

... at least Steve Ballmer does a pretty good job at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S30WdoEHCH4

ComputerGuru2• 18 years ago

I stopped reading the second I reached this: Gates' philanthropy for health care for poor countries has won some people's good opinion. The LA Times reported that his foundation spends five to 10% of its money annually and invests the rest, sometimes in companies it suggests cause environmental degradation and illness in the same poor countries.

I've just lost all my respect for Richard Stallman. He's a total ass if he thinks he can make FSF look good by bashing the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation by spreading what qualifies - by Stallman's own definition - as FUD.

Update: http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/richard-stallman-expert-in-the...

mattmaroon9• 18 years ago

Lol. You definitely won't win many points by bashing the guy who is doing more to cure the worst disease in the impoverished world (malaria) than all of the governments of the planet combined. At least, not by bashing him for doing that.

Tichy3• 18 years ago

So as long as you donate a percentage of your income to a good cause, it doesn't matter how you made that income? Like if you run a serial killer business or the Mafia, you are still good, as long as you donate to cancer research?

Not a judgement about Bill Gates Foundation vs Stallman, I don't know much about it, just questioning your logic.

My qualified opinion from reading lots of crime novels and watching mainstream Hollywood movies is that publicly donating to good causes is established standard practice for villains. (Again, not saying BG is a villain - being able to donate to good causes is one good motivation for trying to hit it big with a startup).

ComputerGuru2• 18 years ago

Gates didn't steal his money - he made it a way that Richard Stallman happens to disapprove of... there's a big difference.

Gates took his capitalist profits and put them to good use treating malaria in 3rd world countries - doesn't smell like the mafia or organized crime to me; but what do I know.

krschultz2• 18 years ago

I agree with you on the point you are making. For example Hezbollah in Lebanon gains much of their power from their charity work - and uses that power for terrorist actions. BUT I don't think you can equate BillG with the mafia, villians, or terrorists. So in this instance, RMS is WAY off base, and winning himself no favors. In fact he just looks like a whiner.

greendestiny• 18 years ago

I'm not sure I follow your logic? ComputerGuru hasn't suggested that the Gates Foundation exonerates Bill Gates in anyway, just that its hypocritical of Stallman to use FUD.

rincewind• 18 years ago

I think Stallman was referring to this: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx0...

parenthesis2• 18 years ago

Maybe (I hope, but doubt) Gates is investing in such companies so that he can influence them to 'clean up' their act.

mynameishere2• 18 years ago

And:

Also announced was the decision to "... spend all of [the Trust's] resources within 50 years after Bill's and Melinda's deaths

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_Melinda_Gates_Foundati...

Most foundations exist eternally to provide welfare for social workers. I'll credit Gates for preventing that. Stallman didn't do basic research on the matter.

Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and the rest, offer you software that gives them power over you.

Nope, sorry, you're wrong. I don't mind laying down 40 dollars for a million man-hours of work. I don't consider this an unethical requirement. What I do consider unethical is expecting developers to work for nothing as their moral responsibility to me.

tjr• 18 years ago

For about 15 years, Stallman had several programmers on paid staff for the Free Software Foundation. I don't think he's expecting developers to work for nothing.

bayareaguy8• 18 years ago

Stallman doesn't have any problem with you laying down 40 dollars for a million man-hours of work if that's what you want to do.

He has more of a problem that your choice to do so contributes to the likelyhood that a billion others will have to pay for something when that is not their choice.

Think about how much money Microsoft is getting from people and organizations who don't want their stuff, but pay for it anyways because that's the only option they know. Do you think that kind of business is ethical?

pavelludiq• 18 years ago

You know that a lot of the famous idealist of the past have been laughed at for being diluted and not in touch with reality. RMS is not blind, he just sees what he wants to see. He knows the reality and knows that a lot of people laught at him for some reasons, but doesn't care. Look at him, he doesn't give up, he pushes harder and harder. I don't support his extremist ideas, im a more moderate free software fan, but his impact has been mainly positive. Did he cost any real harm to technology? Are his ideas killing jobs, destroying businesses? No, they are just supplying alternatives. We are now more ahead, if we didn't have free software. We may not be extreme as RMS, but we get pushed by a complete nutcase to do good. Im pretty sure RMS doesn't have any illusions and knows that he can never win completely, but he sees that he has positive effect and just goes on.

P.S. Gimp sucks, but Photoshop's prise tag sucks more.

swivelmaster6• 18 years ago

Photoshop is worth it if your business depends on it. Gimp wastes your time. It takes a few weeks to work off the price of Photoshop vs the time you'd lose trying to get Gimp to work properly.

edw519• 18 years ago

rms should stick to software. He'd make a lousy district attorney.

Of all the evil Microsoft did to the world, "prosecuting" them for writing propietary software is an unwinnable argument. Instead of presenting arguments against illegal monopolistic practices he chooses the one thing Microsoft did that most people agree with: creating IP. And by arguing against IP, he disqualifies himself from attacking Microsoft's biggest crimes: hijacking others' IP.

The U.S. government couldn't get Al Capone on any of the big stuff, so they went after tax evasion to put him away. At least that was also a crime.

Create3• 18 years ago

At least that was also a crime.

Ah yes, those were the days my Friend...

ctkrohn• 18 years ago

It's a little strange to attack the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for only giving away 10% of it's wealth per year and investing the rest. They give away a far larger proportion of their endowment than most other foundations. Notably, they recently announced that they intend to give away all their wealth within 50 years of Bill Gates' death. This is much different from other foundations funded by personal wealth: think of the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Carnegie Foundation, etc. that have effectively become self-perpetuating entities.

tlrobinson• 18 years ago

Bash Microsoft, and all proprietary software: ✓

Refer to DRM as Digital "Restrictions" Management: ✓

Point out the Linux kernel is one "small" part of the GNU operating system: ✓

Richard Stallman on Bill Gates: "It's not the Gates, it's the bars"

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