Richard Stallman vs. Steve Jobs: No Jails Found
Steve Jobs died about three weeks ago, but the web is still very much buzzing about him. It’s hard to read tech news without running into literally dozens of stories about him, and in recent days much of it is fueled by the just released biography by Walter Isaacson.
However, I would like to go back to something Richard Stallman said about him within days of his death, and which caused a fair bit of ruckus in the Linux and FOSS communities. The reason I feel compelled to comment, albeit perhaps a bit late, is my history with the Free Software movement, and my former admiration for Richard Stallman.
For those who might not know Richard Stallman (often abbreviated as RMS) is the founder of the GNU Project, Free Software Foundation, and the architect of the GPL, the most popular Free Open Source Software license. He is considered a defacto founder and leader of the Free Software movement which advocates for freedom of software users to copy, share and modify the software they use.
RMS’ statement was the following:
“Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has 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.” Nobody deserves to have to die – not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs’ malign influence on people’s computing.
Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective.”
Given that Richard Stallman himself enjoys quite a cult following in certain circles there was no shortage of reactions in the blogosphere. His words were put under a microscope, every word analyzed, interpreted, and reinterpreted. While some saw it as distasteful, and out of touch others tried to point out how he didn’t really mean it like that or how he really meant something else. I found it interesting how much his fans acted like “fanboys” that they often accuse Steve Jobs fans of being, and reminds me of what I used to be like.
I believe it is good to be blunt and brutally honest sometimes, but I would say that his statements were lacking in tact. However, anyone who knows RMS in any capacity probably knows that he is easily out of touch with the world most of us live in, and so lacking in tact shouldn’t come as so much of a surprise. He’s immersed in his philosophy, which is his life’s work, and sees things quite differently. Ironically, he easily fits the description of the “crazy ones” that Apple itself is venerating.
The Philosophy
The biggest problem here isn’t so much how insensitive RMS may have been, but the underlying philosophy that he promotes. What he said makes perfect sense if you buy into his philosophy. If you believe in what he says Steve Jobs and Bill Gates really are evil people, or at least do some very evil things. They take away the freedom of computer users world wide.
How do they do that? Well, they don’t provide the source code of their software, and offer their software under terms which restrict you from copying, sharing, and modifying said software freely. Mr. Stallman believes these to be the fundamental “freedoms” that any computer user is entitled to, and therefore sees anyone asking you to give them up to be trying to strip away your freedoms.
The problem with that, of course, is that they are asking for it. They are not ordering you to use their software and obey their rules, so whatever restrictions you end up with they are restrictions you chose to abide by. A “jail” which you chose to enter, and can choose to depart at any time is not much of a jail in my book.
This turns these supposed “freedoms” into nothing more than glorified entitlements. They rid computer users of the freedom and responsibility to choose for themselves, and the producers of software of the freedom and responsibility to choose the terms under which they are to offer their work. In other words, Richard Stallman wants to regulate the software market by dictating what people may or may not agree with, or what software providers may or may not offer.
This is why Richard Stallman is himself a peddler of restrictions that he so often accuses others of being. The difference is that he doesn’t care much for what you would choose personally. To him, choice has nothing to do with freedom, so he opts to choose for you what makes you free, and what makes you a slave.
This is the philosophy which fuels much of the distaste and hatred for companies like Apple, Microsoft, and their leaders though. The sentiments behind it also tend to fuel a lot of the irrational thinking about openness when it comes to software, and technology in general.
Apple is seen as the epitome of closed ecosystems and restrictions in computing, and this is seen as something bad despite the fact that so many people happily make a deliberate choice to play in these “walled gardens”, and don’t feel all that restricted in doing so.
I myself am an example, and I used to be a diehard advocate of Free Software myself. I actually felt much more free when I finally realized the flaws behind this philosophy than when I tried to live by it by “freeing” myself from the “slavery” of proprietary software and closed ecosystems. The result was spending years with software that I can’t use to make music effectively, and which I have to keep tinkering with to make it work the way I want to.
I won’t say I regret all of it as I was more of a tinkerer back then and learned a few things in the process, but I would say that making choices based on it being “wrong” to agree with certain restrictions was a really stupid way of choosing which software to use, and one that can really limit my productive potential.
Openness has nothing to do with freedom if you are free to choose between “open” or “closed”. It is merely a feature that may or may not be a part of a particular offering. It is also just one of the methods by which technology can be developed. Some people manage to do great things by putting the code out there and inviting contributions from people all over the world. Other times great software is built by a company of people held together by mutually beneficial contracts which stipulate following the vision of a single man, like Steve Jobs.
I know for a fact that the closed approach works in certain cases just as well as an open approach works in some cases. I myself am evidence, again, as are the millions of people out there using Apple products every day with ease. Clearly, openness for openness sake doesn’t make sense.
The virtues of a closed approach generally boil down to what is meant by the saying that “too many cooks spoil the soup”. Sometimes this is evidently true, and Linux itself is filled with examples. Insisting on inclusion and openness often results in trying to integrate together ideas that don’t necessarily go together. Just look at the state of Linux audio subsystems, or the war between GStreamer and Xine, or the inconsistent user experience between KDE and GNOME apps.
Sometimes controlling everything end-to-end is the best way to ensure that everything works well together, and that the user experience is consistent and cohesive. Steve Jobs effectively approached his work as an artist and an architect. As he said, Apple was in the business of building the whole “widget”. He would design the whole package and offer it up to you for such price at such terms, and you can take it or leave it. Many people took it, so apparently what they created does something right!
Finally, defenders of Richard Stallman would often point out to other reasons why Steve Jobs really was evil or did evil things, and I would like to set the record straight about those as well.
Patents litigation
This is where I don’t defend Apple, and find it unfortunate that Steve Jobs believed in the backwards ideas that fuel the patents war. I can understand the desire to be credited for something you came up with first (although each such innovation tends to build on innovations by others), and even the desire to ensure customers don’t confuse the products of others with those of your own, but it is literally impossible to steal an idea.
You can own an idea while it is a part of your own brain, because you own your body, but the moment you relay it to someone else you’ve made a separate copy that now resides in the brain of another. The only reasonable way you have of controlling what the other person does with it is through a contract, but once you release a device like the iPad to the masses, ideas that people form in their heads by looking at the device are their own.
That said, attempts to control ideas through the patent system and patent litigation is not something unique to Apple alone. So long as the patents system exists pretty much all corporations will be one way or another compelled to take advantage of it. The problem here isn’t any one corporation, but the system that enables this distortion to continue.
The use of sweatshop workers
This argument is often used to make Apple appear evil, yet most tech companies rely on cheap asian labor. In fact, a lot of those computers used by Free Software advocates themselves probably contain parts which were made this way. Putting Apple on a pedestal of evil over this is then quite disingenuous.
Secondly, as sad and cruel as this reality may be, the alternative these workers have to their grueling work is probably starvation. As bad as they may be these jobs keep these people alive, and provide for their families. This is why there is seldom a shortage of people willingly applying for these jobs, and being happy to get them when they do, if only because the alternative is worse.
This is still not a good situation though, but the problem is again far deeper than any specific corporation and their manufacturing policies. It has to do with the system that forcefully distributes value the way it wouldn’t be if they stayed out of it. Over-regulate local business while under regulating the major corporations.
Again, how exactly is someone like Steve Jobs responsible for backwards politics that even many of the Free Software advocates themselves are indirectly supporting? If it ever became a law, Free Software itself would be one of those stifling regulations that fuel these kinds of distortions.
Balanced view of Steve Jobs
I think the best view to take of Steve Jobs and his legacy probably wouldn’t involve any kind of an extreme. If you think he was an angel that blessed the world with his innovative technology you would be wrong. If you think he was the devil that fooled computer users into slavery on the backs of sweatshop labor you would be wrong too.
Why do people so easily miss the subtleties, and why do we have to view things in such stark contrasts?
I think he was a visionary that had a talent for recognizing and propping up some good ideas that turned out world changing. Not everything he propped up was his own invention, for sure, but good ideas that never see the light of day aren’t worth much. A scientist, an engineer and a business person are all crucial to the process of changing the world to the better.
If I had to pick the biggest positive impact he had on the world it would be the humanization of technology, making it accessible to the masses. Even if you never used an Apple product you were probably affected by their influence. Even Linux desktop environments like GNOME and Unity seem hugely inspired by Apple. We could argue that someone had to do it, and if Steve Jobs or Apple didn’t, someone would. The fact is, Steve did it, and most others followed.
On the other hand, he was also an asshole to a lot of people around him, sometimes dishonest and irrational, and standing by a few rather backwards ideas (like the patents system).
The point, however, is that the so called “closed garden” approach to building technological devices was not one of those bad ideas, and that he did have a lot of positive to offer.
How does Richard Stallman stack up to that? With a fundamentally flawed philosophy fueling his work all that’s really left is his spearheading of Free Software as a development model, and software itself that this model spawned, as an alternative choice. Having more choices is a great thing, but that’s what they are: choices. Freedom is about making them, not about proclaiming one choice as more right for everyone than the other, which is the step too far that he takes.
In that sense, there’s actually something Steve Jobs and Richard Stallman have in common. They both contributed a model that spearheaded the development of great new choices, however starkly different they may be.
I just wish Stallman inspired “making great things” that demonstrate the virtues of his model a little more than criticizing what others are doing. This could be the biggest reason why Apple is everywhere while Free Software purists make up only a marginal niche.
Luckily, Stallman is still alive.
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This is perhaps the most fair, reasoned and detailed “takes” on Jobs and Stallman that I have seen online. I have made many of those point in to Usenet groups – a Mac one and a Linux one – and in both cases the “cult members” there have freaked out.
One addition I would like to add: the comments Stallman said about Jobs, being in poor taste as they were, are hardly Stallman’s biggest sins.
For that, in my view, look at what Stallman says about sex and children; about how it should be fine in public schools for kids to have uncensored access to porn. Stallman even goes so far to say we should relabel such porn as “educational material” and that blocking kids from this is harmful to them. Just utterly repulsive stuff. For more, do a Google search for the words: stallman sex scandals
Stallman is a repulsive man who does more harm to open source than good those days. Linus Torvalds and Mark Shuttleworth are much better faces of open source, even if you do not use Ubuntu.
” For more, do a Google search for the words: stallman sex scandals”
What I found was a lot of hack-jobs without a lot of evidence The exact quote is.
“29 March 2010 (Bikini Atoll off limits)
Internet filtering in schools blocks access to educational materials. While that article focuses on blockage of the educational materials that prudes would admit, porn is also very important for education. Blocking adolescents’ access to porn, or keeping them ignorant of sex in any way, is likely to stunt their emotional growth and make them vulnerable to mistakes that can hurt them badly.”
Who cares if it’s repulsive to you anyways? Even if a high school student stumbled upon porn, it would be harmless at worst. U.S Culture is weird about sexuality. Every day you are bombarded by images of nearly naked men and women, but the minute a 15 year old wants to see a bit more. OMG that’s just so repulsive.
/* This could be the biggest reason why Apple is everywhere */
Apple powers super computers…web servers across the internet…embedded devices in businesses and households appliances…Yep Apple is everywhere…
I was talking about “Free Software purists” specifically, not Linux in general. Linux has input from a far broader type of people, a lot of which very much disagree with RMS’s philosophy.
..and I am sure that the people at Apple didn’t agree with Jobs philosophy and he was removed from Apple some years back…what is your point…you will be hard pressed to find any community where everyone agrees
The point is I’m talking about that specific philosophy, not everything that made Linux what it is. As you know there is a pretty big “open source” camp in there as well.
I’d be hard pressed to call all of Linux a community actually, which is why I used the plural: “FOSS communities”. Steve Jobs and Apple today are pretty consistent with each other philosophically which is why I can contrast the whole of Apple with a specific FS subgroup.
TL DR:
I find myself a lone wolf when it comes to computers. I oscillate monthly between linux and windows, and I hate most user interfaces that exist today (Tiling interfaces being my favorite). I hate apple and what it stands for. I do think apple takes away freedoms in many ways; not from the people who buy apple, but from those who are affected by the side effects of apple being popular. i.e., those who are disgusted by the close box system of apple. I think apple computers are ugly, as is the interface within. I think it limits usability and I will argue to death with anyone who tells me there is a good reason to buy an apple computer beyond the “cute” looks (which I hate). All that said, all is fair in subjective matters (aesthetics and needs). I don’t think apple is evil. I don’t think RMS is evil either. I do think that both have philosophies that seem abhorrent to me. I do, however, think it is very interesting to have a personality like RMS, who embodies a decent and morally pretty ideal taken too far…to the point of it being borderline scary. It serves as a reminder that I need to be careful of how I express my philosophies and opinions.
Regarding interface, I want to say that it is very weird to say that unity and gnome3 (both of which I dislike and find extremely unproductive) are inspired by apple. To start, gnome3 uses a mostly new desktop metaphor which only shares the dock with apple (Not an apple invention, and merely a glorified, or simplified, taskbar). Similarly with Unity, you could say the same except that maybe the top bar is mac-like. As true as that could be, it does not feel (in practice) like the apple bar. Here I exclude all other interface aspects which are too different to even bother with. It’s needless to say that Unity is eons more productive for those who actually study interfaces and use them to every corner of their functionality. As such, I presume that the basis for your comparison is simplicity. To this, I can say that it is half untrue and half disappointing from their part. It is half untrue because simplicity is a trend in modern times, specially in aesthetics; one not started by apple. It is half true because I’m sure that the figures of people (who don’t represent even a fraction of the people who take computers as more than tools or social/gaming plataforms) pushed Cannonical and the people at gnome3 to try and get their attention. This is dissapointing because they alienate those who truly consider computers (hardware, interface whatever the type, software, etc) to be worthy of amateurish study, tinkering and experimentation. It is also disappointing because it puts you in a sort of “jail” that forces you to adapt to it, as opposed to having the software adapt to you.
Maybe this last idea is what RMS means…or not? RMS has said worse things, this one being mild in comparison. But as with my strong opinions, we are all entitled to extrapolate opinions to philosophies of living and of being. RMS thinks that what he says was not tactless, and I can only question that. I think apple is truly detrimental to the world of computing, but I can only dissuade people from buying them. It’s only the influential people/companies that have their voices/actions affect people. I can’t help but feel that whatever reaction we have towards these types of philosophical clashes, is an over-reaction that will only amount to anything if we are wrong in our opposition of ideas.
About GNOME and Unity being inspired by Apple, I am indeed referring to the dock, top menu, but also the design of Nautilus (which reminds a lot of the Finder), and various applications. I agree that they might feel different in practice though, but that doesn’t necessarily mean their aesthetics weren’t Apple inspired at all.
It also doesn’t matter so much if GNOME existed before Mac OS X (Mac OS classic existed well before GNOME too). I’m talking about recent modifications.
Also, you talk about people who study user interfaces and people who consider computers worthy of amateurish study, tinkering and experimentation, but those are a minority. Not everyone is a computer geek or a computer scientist, and not being interested in becoming one is not some kind of a sin. It’s the same as not everyone being an architect, or a pilot, or whatever other profession you can think of.
Tinkerers can still have the interfaces that suit them. GNOME3 and Unity, or indeed Mac OS X, didn’t erase Windows, KDE and even things like Xfce, OpenBox etc. out of existence. All these are still there to choose from.
But what about “the rest of us”? Shouldn’t computers be useful for them too without becoming computer geeks? Saying yes to that question is what made Apple what it is, and what made Steve Jobs as influential as he is.
Daniel,
Thank you (from a decidedly non-Apple fan!) for a balanced and fair article. I do have to take exception to the claim: “Even Linux desktop environments like GNOME and Unity seem hugely inspired by Apple” which is wholly untrue and well-documented as such. Gnome pre-dates OSX by just a shade over two years and Unity? Well that’s just a colossal blunder imho. The dock? Linux was 5yrs+ ahead of OSX on that. My point? Please don’t attribute who is copying who without strong due-diligence as we have, in all the present hagiography, so many mis-attributions and simply incorrect statements floating around. In Jobs’ own words (quoting Picasso I believe) “Good artists copy, great artists steal”. Dead or not the man was a thief with the largest dose of hubris since Napoleon.
Just my $0.02
Peter
While gnome does predate OSX, it does also copy it.. The gnome of today is a far far far cry from the gnome of yesteryear.. That’s all fine though.. Windows copies apple, apple copies BSD, BSD copies UNIX.. Everyone copies, it’s absolutely normal and fine.. There are no original ideas… Hell I came up with the pythagorean thereom myself.. I was just several thousand years to late to copyright it. What does it all matter anyway.
“I just wish Stallman inspired ‘making great things’ that demonstrate the virtues of his model a little more than criticizing what others are doing. This could be the biggest reason why Apple is everywhere while Free Software purists make up only a marginal niche.”
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@Daniel Memetic – have you used the internet lately? Was it cheap, or did you pay several thousand dollars a month to get online? Keep in mind, cheap internet wouldn’t be available without the enormous number of cheap LAMP servers that serve as much of the backbone of the internet. And, you wouldn’t have those without GCC, emacs, and all the GNU tools that make a Linux server possible (and that are used in many [most?] of the free BSD server setups).
Stallman wrote GCC. He wrote emacs. He wrote the GPL. He freely shared all these tools and many others that he created or collaborated on with others, allowing thousands of other projects to be created and to be freely shared. To say that he has spent most of his time criticizing others is a bit obtuse. In fact, he is one of a small handful of people including Linus Torvalds and guys like Andrew Morton who have made accessible computing and cheap internet access available to most of the world.
You’re misunderstanding what I said. Did I mention Linux in that sentence at all? I was referring to “Free Software purists“, which seem to be a vocal fraction of the greater FOSS community. Linux contains contributions from a far broader array of people than those who subscribe to RMS’s philosophy without compromise (like I used to).
There’s a reason why the term “open source” exists.
Of course, GNU projects as well as the GPL play an important role there as well, but LAMP includes a far broader set of software than that produced by the GNU Project. Apache isn’t even under the GPL. MySQL actually had a dual licensing model and I doubt they subscribed much to RMSs ideals. PHP/Python/Perl etc. have their own stories as well. Not all of it is due to Free Software purism.
I feel RMS lacks tact and social skills. IF he truly cared about moving free software forward, he would not take so much delight in portraying himself as a controversial, opinionated, idiosyncratic software developer with enough attitude to alienate most reasonable people. His posturing and flippant remarks do more to harm the public image of the free software movement than to aid it. In my opinion, because of his ego, he has lately become more of a liability than an asset.
I don’t deny that what is said re Jobs reveals a good deal of unpleasant behavior and I believe that it is quite accurate. This is not uncommon in strong-willed visionaries. RMS demonstrates some of those same characteristics.
However, where Jobs excels and RMS fails is in PR. When Jobs took the stage, he inspired both admiration and respect to such a degree that people referred to the “reality distortion field” he could create. Whether any of us free software types like him or not does not matter. Jobs inspired people to buy Apple products. Apple enthusiasts became fanbois and fangrrls.
Despite all the brilliant things RMS has done, when he opens his mouth for the public to hear, I immediately do a facepalm fearing what completely tactless thing he might say next.
There is no denying that if you want to further your cause or expand your market presence, you need to understand how to relate to the public. Stallman has NO clue about how to do that. He is the classic example of the socially inept geek.
Personally I have to speculate that he, in fact, is envious because of what he perceives to be an unfair amount of attention given to other people in the technical community.
I apologize if my comment violates any of the guidelines on this site, but I figure if RMS can be brutally honest… well, back at you RMS. Thanks for all you’ve done, but please, when it comes to public relations or expressing opinions, shut up and let someone else handle it.
First off your an idiot. Its sad that you really don’t see the picture beyond software. That and you already live in a linux world. Trying to say it only makes up a fraction of computing is really just very poor research. Linux is in your car computer, on your phone most likely, delivers just about every website you visit, powers all of google which i’m sure you use, runs the back end hard work on most databases you access through sites and programs, and yes a fraction a good 3% use it on the desktop. But honestly, to say it really isn’t as significant as Apple or Microsofts crap is absurd.
Also keep in mind that the open source model has been able to accomplish in 10 years what it took Apple & Microsoft to do in 20-25 years. It also pushes these two monopolies to compete with more than just each other for the biggest bottom line. Which we all know far to well companies couldn’t care less about users when it comes to pleasing wall st.
Now lets talk about the freedom side. Your argument is moronic. Its like saying….. serving hitler did get me this nice house i always wanted, and a lot of money(productivity), in my pocket, who cares what he has to do to provide this to me.
Who cares who MS & Apple are screwing over or what anticompetitive behavior they are involved in. And I certainly don’t mind handing over hundreds of dollars for an OS to check my email, browse the web, listen to tunes and do some office work. Well ya i would have to pay for the office software but who cares look at all this stuff i get.
Oh i love apple even though they strip you of the ability to use your hardware that you bought anyway you want. I don’t care if they say I can’t do this and I can’t do that with the gadget I bought. Its so shiny and pretty who cares about stupid freedom. Oh yea and I can get my music stuff done.
Please. If you had actually done and research when you were this supposed “opensource guy” which I think is probably a stretch of the truth. You might have discovered Ardour and been able to accomplish you music stuff with that and other utilities.
Remember what franklin said. Those who give up freedom for security will have neither. Same goes here. Those who give up freedom for convenience will have neither. As a final not I’m sure your a supporter of cloud computing. Mark my words cloud computing is the end of computing and your freedoms to do anything that isn’t approved or permitted by those who are running the clouds and has all your files and programs. But hey screw freedom we need some convenience.
Like I said in two previous comments, I did not even mention Linux in that sentence. I was talking about “Free Software purists” which make up a fraction of people who contribute to Linux and related projects. I agree Linux had a tremendous impact, even if often largely invisible to most people, but I wouldn’t quite say the same for diehard Free Software purism.
Secondly, in addition to contributions I’m also referring to how successful the actual idea is. Steve Jobs idea that computers should “just work” for everyone and provide a great user experience in the process has gained tremendous traction. I don’t see the idea of using only Free Software (which for purists effectively means a handful of blessed Linux distros like gNewSense) taking as much root, and it generally involves a rather foolish sacrifice of much of the purpose anyone might have for using a computer to begin with.
Talking about freedom, you are regurgitating exactly the kind of thinking I am talking about as flawed. Do you believe in the “freedom to choose”? If not then how do you even define freedom? Entitlements? Free stuff?
If you do believe in freedom of choice then isn’t choosing to accept certain terms in exchange for something very much a part of that freedom, an exercise of that freedom? Even a monetary price of something is basically the term you have to agree to if you are to have something. Do you think people charging for stuff are somehow trampling on your freedom?
Freedom != Free Stuff
About the Hitler mention which is incredibly hyperbolic (heh, Godwin’s Law anyone?).. it is an issue of responsibilities. You cannot be responsible for the actions you do not commit. Living in that house does not equate to support for the actions of his owner. Buying an Apple product does not automatically mean I support Apple’s patent litigation. If it were otherwise then everyone would constantly be responsible for everything that happens on Earth, due to the butterfly effect. If I lift a finger someone might get killed somewhere in the world you know. I guess I should just stay paralyzed.
Cloud computing too is just another choice. It does require a bit more trust in those running the infrastructure, but a level of trust is requires for almost anything. You trust the power company, even when it is a monopoly, that it won’t take your money and keep you in the dark. You trust the store owner that he won’t rob you of all your money the moment you enter the store.
Why can we ever trust such things? Well, because if they did dare to do things like this the backslash would be so enormous that they wouldn’t be able to do anything anymore. Plus making people poorer is a great way of killing your customer base. Cloud computing is no different. If you’re paranoid, stay off of it, but don’t call people who use these services to be morons who give up their freedom just because they make different choices from you.
Hmmmm you are arguing, choices, let see, pure evil that doesn’t give a shit about anyones freedoms just their own bottom lines, OR free to use, change, study, alter, collaborate, contribute to, that no company owns, public software that supports everyone.
Yea definitely going with the pure evil. Glad I have the choice to be evil. Its like saying its nice to have the choice between shooting myself in the head or living happily ever after. Hmmm tough choice.
I also noticed you mentioned nothing about your lack of research for music programs and my suggestion of Ardour… No matter you can try it on your jail system because open source provides a version for that platform.
Nice Balanced Article. When you get your facts straight write a proper retraction. Steve Jobs was anything but balanced. Steve Jobs wanted you to live in a gilded cage and like it, as long as you kept paying Apple for the privilege. Apple is a company that is now built on free software turned proprietory (allowed by the BSD license). The fact that Steve Jobs gets credit for obvious innovations to others ideas [he was not the first to do anything – ie invent, he just innovated or stole. Prior Art exists for all of the Apple line, gui included. Advertising and marketing hype accounts for the success of Apple. Its a shame that the patent people don’t realize that “wireless” is still just a radio with a modem attached to it. Apple should have to release its source code for review just to ensure there are no ‘copyright’ violations lifted from GPL’d software and stolen ideas its trying to patent.
Sigh.
Why does it seem to me that most people who look like they dealt with Free Software for a fair amount of time still don’t get what this movement is all about.
I think the problem which most of you people have is that you mix up “Free” with “Open Source”. While the latter specifies a certain development model for software and is as such easily comparable to proprietary models, the former goes way beyond this by defining the freedom to study, change and share of software as a basic right. It has absolutely ZERO to do with how the end product looks like.
Too hard to understand? Let me give you an easy example: Today, many major countries on earth agree on a set of fundamental rights called “human rights”. But why is that? Did those “human rights” produce any better products than, for example, slavery did? I don’t think so. “Human rights” won’t build you gigantic pyramids for the cost of a few dollars spend on keeping your workers alive. But I think you do understand that this is not what human rights are about. They are not an alternative model to slavery that we decided to give ourselves the freedom to choose from; they are something that, without any consideration of productivity, we just consider to be “the right thing”, without any physical proof of better results. They are on a moral level. And just at such is the principle of Free Software.
The first point you make of why the Free Software philosophy is flawed is that a jail, as RMS calls Apple’s ecosystem, which you can freely leave or enter, is not really a jail, and therefor not really “unfree”, and that RMS in reality restricts users by propagating that they have to use free software. This is NOT what his philosophy is about. It says that all software should be free, not that all users of software should be bound to free software. If all software were free, it wouldn’t matter to him at all what kind of software you use. If you see the requirement that all software shall be be free as a restriction itself, well, yes, it is, just as human rights restrict you from enslaving other people. That’s what fundamental rights are all about.
You then go on to accuse free software of locking you into “software that [you] can’t use to make music effectively”, basically saying here that, because the free software movement may have resulted in poorer software quality than its proprietary counterparts, the philosophy itself is flawed. I’ll say it again: Free Software has NOTHING to do with the quality of produced products, it is about a user’s rights. I think what you rather mean is Open Source, which is all about the development model itself. But please for the love of [almighty creature] don’t confuse those two. And I’m not even going to mention that you just picked a personal negative experience to pose for all of Open Source software (Compare installing Ubuntu in one step to having to install hundreds of drivers and endless reboots when trying to do the same with a MS counterpart, for another totally personal and unrepresentative example). As much as I am sorry for your bad experience with said software (and I had plenty of my own with Open Source, trust me), again, as I tried to outline above, the end product has nothing to do with RMS’ philosophy. Actually, many companies face a similar problem in that they have to abide to certain laws (at least in Germany) which state that there is a minimum that you have to pay a worker. Their solution? Just freeing themselves from these stupid restrictions by producing in eastern countries which don’t have similar laws, to beautifully raise productivity and lower cost. Thank you China for cheaply producing my Ipod!
“Some people manage to do great things by putting the code out there and inviting contributions from people all over the world. Other times great software is built by a company of people held together by mutually beneficial contracts which stipulate following the vision of a single man, like Steve Jobs.” (sorry for the long quote)
This is not at all mutually exclusive with RMS philosophy. However, what you main again is “Open Source vs. Proprietary”. It has nothing to do with Free Software principles.
“I know for a fact that the closed approach works [...]. Clearly, openness for openness sake doesn’t make sense.”
Same end product fallacy as above.
“[..] ideas that don’t necessarily go together. Just look at the state of Linux audio subsystems, or the war between GStreamer and Xine, or the inconsistent user experience between KDE and GNOME apps.”
Albeit the same fallacy, this I think again is too personal again. What you call “mess” I call “diversity”. It is something very fundamental to humans, if you just look at language and culture, and this is, by far, the thing which really excited me for Open Source. It is because humans are given freedom, that the software ecosystem takes the shape of themselves.
And by the way, the examples you give are kind of bad in my opinion. On my desktop (Fedora 15) qt and gtk apps (I think that’s what you were referring to) look almost identical (slightly different font on buttons), and I never tinkered with anything at all. State of the Linux audio subsystems? The “mess” is long gone. Use PulseAudio if you’re an average user, Jack if you require ultra low latency. PA is fully supported in most major apps, and where it isn’t most likely ALSA is, which plugs nicely into PA. Games use openAL, which plugs nicely into PA too. GStreamer fighting Xine is something I cannot comment on, as the “mess” never shined through to a user like me that just want’s to listen to some music (I use Audacious btw.).
Sometimes controlling everything end-to-end is the best way to ensure that everything works well together [...] So apparently what they created does something right!”
Sorry, same fallacy. I bet RMS never even mention once that proprietary software was badly designed or didn’t function well.
“Again, how exactly is someone like Steve Jobs responsible for backwards politics that even many of the Free Software advocates themselves are indirectly supporting? If it ever became a law, Free Software itself would be one of those stifling regulations that fuel these kinds of distortions.”
I don’t know what users choice of hardware has to do with the philosophy behind software they use. I Free Software became a law, money-making and innovation would continue. They always have. Just because slavery was abolished doesn’t mean we weren’t able to construct gigantic monuments (although it has become quite expensive without slavery.. very stifling and restricting indeed).
Oh, and how is Steve Jobs responsible? For making a shit ton of money off customers in the 1st word (us), and still paying those workers the bare minimum they need to survive. If Apple didn’t do so, suddenly most workers would aspire to work for Apple, and at some point, would maybe even (gasp) expect other companies to pay them the same! What a sad day for efficiency that would be…
“How does Richard Stallman stack up to that? With a fundamentally flawed philosophy fueling his work all that’s really left is his spearheading of Free Software as a development model [...]”
Thanks for confirming my first theory that you simply misunderstood Free Software.
Oh, and lastly, before you accuse me of fanboyism (how I hate that word) or anything comparable, let me tell you that I, personally, do disagree too with RMS viewpoint, although on a whole different level, and that the reason I use mostly Open Source is, funny enough, the one reason most people hate it for: diversity.
Jonas, I understand everything you’re trying to tell me because I was thinking exactly the same way. I just don’t agree anymore. What you see as misunderstandings are probably a reflection of this disagreement combined with the fact that acknowledging every detail of how Free Software supporters think is beyond the scope of the article.
If you want proof that I do understand look at what I used to write on two of my sites Libervis.com and Nuxified.org, like this and this. Back then I would’ve been making arguments just like the ones you’re making here.
I know RMS doesn’t care what specific program I choose to use, and I wasn’t even saying he wants to control that. I’m saying that he wants to control the terms under which software is offered, and by extension what software users may choose to agree with.
You seem to acknowledge that a “jail” you choose to enter isn’t much of a jail, but if it isn’t a jail then why try to exert this control? If I freely choose to agree with the terms you consider restrictive, and therefore act within my freedom then why do you or RMS still say that these restrictions are akin to slavery? It simply does not make any sense whatsoever.
This is also what makes this issue a lot different from the issue of actual slavery. Those slaves didn’t choose to work for their masters and live the way they did. They were forced to and punished if they tried to escape. They were treated as property, not as individuals who can decide the terms which they deem acceptable.
When I buy an Apple product I am not treated this way. I am neither forced to buy it nor forced to keep it once I do buy it. I am treated like a human being who can decide for himself. That Steve won’t give me an iPhone unless I agree with certain terms doesn’t change that. He is simply exercising his right to choose his terms, but he is not forcing me to close the deal.
For me to realize that I had to think deeper about ideas like self-ownership, property, and what actually follows when you take that old saying about freedom all the way: “whatever floats your boat so long as it doesn’t sink mine”. As it turns out the only thing that really matters is for an individual to be able to make his or her own choices, and the only “restriction” here is implied in the word “own”. Those choices have to pertain only to everything that is your body and your property, but no more. Within this domain of your body and property, however, everything goes because if it didn’t that would mean someone else is in control of a part or whole of your domain.
So trying to control what terms a software developer wants met before he gives out the product of his labor is actually intruding in this personal space, and that’s what RMS wants to do. He himself denigrates the idea of “freedom of choice” by saying “choice of masters is not freedom”. What he misses on is the fact that being able to choose in the first place makes YOU the master of yourself.
Nobody forces us to buy things, but that ignores the effect it has on the technology ecosystem. The ability to limit what users can install on their computers has been a wet dream of Microsoft’s for years, but their users would have been horrified by such limitations. Apple comes along and makes it cool, and now Windows 8 will be limiting what users can install. So Windows users will now have new limitations, irrespective of whether they chose to buy iPhones. Stallman doesn’t think Jobs was dangerous because of what he created, so much as the effect he had over the technology ecosystem.
Richard Stallman has never said that he doesn’t care about personal choice. How exactly does he “choose for you what makes you free, and what makes you a slave”? What he does is teach people about why software freedom is the right choice, and of course he spells out exactly what he believes makes us free and makes us slaves. We get to decide for ourselves. And none of his software limits what else you can install on your computers.
Just because people don’t FEEL restricted in their walled gardens doesn’t mean they’re not restricted, or wouldn’t prefer fewer restrictions. They merely prefer convenience over freedom, because they don’t fully appreciate what’s at stake. You FELT more free when you had the convenience of “making music effectively” because you’re confusing convenience with freedom.
If you had your choice between a hotel that offered free WiFi, a swimming pool, and jacuzzi but had a curfew enforced by armed guards, and a hotel without these ameneties but no curfew, which would you choose? Would it depend on whether you anticipate leaving the hotel during the curfew? If nobody patronized the hotel with the curfew, they’d go out of business, and the “limited” hotel would have plenty of cash flow to invest in WiFi, a swimming pool, a jacuzzi, and maybe a gym, since software freedom encourages innovation.
Much of the innovation we take for granted now is fueled by the free software available. Steve Jobs’ “vision” would have been impossible without Mach, FreeBSD, WebKit, GCC, and many others. By choosing free software, you are part of the solution, but we all have to make trade-offs. Make the right choices for you. Stallman refuses to make trade-offs or advocate them because he’s an unrelenting idealist. You may call him extreme, and that’s fine, he kind of is. But just because he vehemently argues for a certain choice doesn’t mean he’s saying you shouldn’t be allowed to make your own choice.
The philosophy that it’s better to maintain absolute control so everything works well together is the essence of socialism. It’s a form of tyranny, irrespective of how benevolent the dictator. Freedom means wasted effort and messy incompatibilities, but it also means more innovation, more choices, and ultimately, even more convenience. It does move toward this end more slowly with much volatility along the way, but it’s worth it to me. Whether it’s worth it to you is up to you. It depends on your needs and how much importance you place on your freedom.
If this effect on the technology ecosystem that you talk about is a result of people making choices of their own free will then I don’t see the problem. You may be in a minority that chooses otherwise and so people like you have built up a choice that fits you: Linux and Free Open Source Software. I don’t see anyone crying foul over this situation except those of you who somehow think your choice is objectively better than the choices of other people.
Just because certain chosen restrictions sound so terrible to you doesn’t mean you get to call them “slavery” or compare them to such things as military curfews or socialism.
And really, socialism? Why do you people confuse terms of use or license agreements of specific products (voluntary contracts between people) to entire political systems which get imposed on people without even giving them any choice as to whether they want them or not? It’s like saying that the owner of a house who sets some ground rules of behavior for his house guests is comparable to a dictator of an entire country. How in the world does that make sense?
If you don’t like his house rules don’t visit it! If you don’t like the terms under which someone offers a product, don’t buy it! It’s not like you were born an Apple subscriber, and the only way to escape is to uproot your life and move to another country (which is how it “works” with political systems).
Sure, RMS allows you to make your own software choices, yet he has himself stated that proprietary software should be illegal. So it turns out he supports our freedom to choose so long as we don’t choose the way he doesn’t like. Oh I know he has this entire philosophy built up around this dislike that transmutes this dislike into an immutable moral truth to make his crusade against certain kinds of personal choices to appear just and noble.
But it isn’t, because it makes no rational sense. All it is, is an attempt to regulate the choices of others, supposedly for their own good. Where have we heard that before? Talk about socialism.
Cancer is the effect of smokers making choices of their own free will, and yes, there is a problem. That doesn’t mean we need to outlaw smoking, but it does mean that it’s extremely important that people be informed of its dangers. I don’t think disparaging the smokers helps much either, so I disagree with some of RMS’ style, but not his principles. RMS considered Jobs a dangerous man in a similar way that a vehement anti-smoking advocate considers a cigarette marketer a dangerous person. I wouldn’t say my software choices are “objectively better” any more than I would say not smoking is objectively better. But it’s certainly healthier, and free software is certainly freer. Whether you think it’s “better” to be free is your choice.
Yes, socialism. Free software is primarily a political movement. Comparing to political tyranny gives a sense for just how much is at stake. It doesn’t seem like such a big deal right now, but look around you. Watch how quickly technology is transforming our lives. Every day, more and more of our lives are shaped by and tied to the machines in our lives. Increasingly so, to have control over our lives, we must have control over these machines. For centuries, people have fought and died for liberty and democracy, the idea that WE have the power, not the powerful few. That’s what is at stake here, nothing less. I fully appreciated this when I learned about Diebold and the voting machines. We the people did not have access to the software running those machines. We literally signed over our democracy to a single corporation merely for the sake of convenience.
I indeed don’t like Apple’s house rules, and I have not visited it, just as I don’t visit Microsoft’s house. But as these houses permeate our entire culture, it gets to be like saying, “if you don’t like the government, then leave!” I am a part of this culture, and this culture is part of me. I’m deeply affected by it every day, whether or not I specifically visit these houses, much like non-smokers are affected by second-hand smoke. So, yes, I’m going to have some strong opinions about it. If I don’t like the government, I don’t leave, I educate and advocate. I’m the same way with my software.
I’ve never heard RMS say that proprietary software should be illegal. I did a quick web search and haven’t found anything like that attributed to him. I would be grateful if you could point me to a source. If he said this, I definitely disagree with him, and I’m sorry his extremism has alienated you. Personally, I’m okay with cherry picking what he says that works works for me. Sometimes he sounds a little nuts, but I admire his idealism. As Thomas Paine said, “Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.”
It’s clear that you value your freedom of choice. In that, we are in complete agreement. Freedom of choice and expression are more important to me than free software. So I’m glad you’ve made a choice that is right for you, and I’m grateful for this dialogue.