Stallman Spreading FUD about Gates & His Charity Fund

http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/richard-stallman-expert-in-the-art-of-fud/

by ComputerGuru • 18 years ago

6 6 18 years ago

captain-m• 18 years ago

I agree that Stallman's stab at the gates foundation is cheap and uncalled for. However, if you're going to write an article accusing someone else of FUD you'd better make sure you're not guilty of it yourself.

>"Is Richard Stallman seriously suggesting that it’s right to illegally obtain copyrighted software?"

No he isn't. He's suggesting that Bill Gates should have allowed people to share his software.

>"It’s one thing to say that Gates should never have charged for his software and another to say that it’s OK to use it without paying."

Stallman is saying that the software should have been free as in speech, not free as in beer. Nowhere did he imply that it's OK to use the software without paying.

narag• 18 years ago

FWIW, Stallman wrote long time a piece saying that it might be simpler and braver to make dozens of copies of expensive commercial software and giving them away on a street corner. He didn't do that and instead tried to create alternatives. But it was some kind of "what is wronger" question.

1gor• 18 years ago

The author is clueless about RMS:

>is Richard Stallman seriously suggesting that it’s right to illegally obtain copyrighted software?

Software is recored knowledge. Human progress means always building on top of somebody's knowledge. "Ownership" of knowledge is immoral and takes away human freedom. 'Copyrighted software' has no more rights to exist than 'copyrighted math'.

PieSquared• 18 years ago

I disagree. Code is more like literature than software. It is wrong to take it without prior owner's permission.

Algorithms, and software ideas, however, are like math. So patents on software make no sense. There's a difference between code and algorithms; algorithms shouldn't be copyrighted/patented; code, on the other hand, is the property of whomever wrote it, and thus it may be copyrighted.

bayareaguy• 18 years ago

Code is more like literature than software.

What code are you talking about? All of the code I have is software.

It is wrong to take it without prior owner's permission.

Is that always the case? It certainly isn't always true about literature. As an american I'm happy my country's founders didn't have to worry about getting permission to use the ideas that went into the literature of our government.

Algorithms, and software ideas, however, are like math.

They aren't just "like" math, they are math. They may be other things as well.

Code is the property of whomever wrote it, and thus it may be copyrighted.

Not all code is or should be that way.

If you're going to compare code and literature, please keep in mind that the early history of literature was almost entirely devoted to maintaining social order and mundane matters of business transactions.

jgrahamc• 18 years ago

You think that's bad?

ESR just compared Obama to Hitler. No, I am not kidding.

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=301

Quote: "There is a pattern in the lives of the really dangerous charismatic tyrants that they tend to have originated on the geographical and cultural fringes of the societies they came to dominate, outsiders seeking ultimate insiderhood by remaking the “inside” in their own image. Hitler, the border Austrian who ruled Germany; Napoleon, the Corsican who seized France; and Stalin, the Georgian who tyrannized Sovet Russia. And, could it be…Obama, the half-black kid from Hawaii?"

Stallman Spreading FUD about Gates & His Charity Fund

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