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Is Richard Stallman the Enemy of Freedom?

Off-Topic discussions about science, technology, and non Debian specific topics.
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kutjara
Posts: 87
Joined: 2008-05-01 02:50
Location: Lalaland

Re: Is Richard Stallman the Enemy of Freedom?

#16 Post by kutjara »

craigevil wrote: What OS do you use? Debian Ultimate Home Edition Extreme, sounds so much better than just Debian GNU/LInux doesn't it?
It really does. And it sounds even better when compared to "Lenny" or "Sid."

Alice: "What OS do you use/"
Bob: "Debian Lenny."
Alice: "D. B. and Lenny? What are you talking about? I'm asking about operating systems, not the latest cop buddy movie."
Bob: "No no. Debian Lenny."
Alice: "What the hell is a 'dubion?" Some unholy cross between the President and an onion? And why are you calling me Lenny? My name is Alice."
Bob: "You're not listening. Debian is a GNU/Linux operating system, and Lenny is the current testing version that will be released later this year."
Alice: "Are you using narcotics?"
Bob: "No! Debian Etch is the current stable version, Debian Lenny is the testing version, and Debian Sid is the unstable version. See?"
Alice: "Sid?"
Bob: "Sid is the unstable version, yes."
Alice: "There's an operating system called "Sid"?
Bob: "Well, a version of one, yes."
Alice: "Why?"
Bob: "Why not?"
Alice: "Because it sounds silly?"
Bob: "Actually, it's cute. You see, all the version names are taken from "Toy Story" characters."
Alice: "Riiiiiigt. It all makes perfect sense. OK, I have to go stand over there now."
Last edited by kutjara on 2008-05-15 05:41, edited 1 time in total.
My Linux/BSD Menagerie:

Acer Aspire 4315-2535 - Debian Lenny/Sid
HP tx1420us - sidux 64
Sony Vaio VGN-TX650P - PC-BSD 1.5.1
Sony Playstation 3 - Yellow Dog Linux

Arkaaito
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#17 Post by Arkaaito »

ROTFL. kutjara, I love it so much I changed my desktop.

Image

Bonus points for using Alice and Bob.

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kutjara
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Location: Lalaland

#18 Post by kutjara »

Arkaaito wrote:ROTFL. kutjara, I love it so much I changed my desktop.

Image

Bonus points for using Alice and Bob.
I love the lettering! Just this side of totally unhinged, like the user is so excited about Debian Ultimate Extreme, they've nearly gone off the deep end.

After years of reading about their covert long-distance relationship in cryptography books, I thought I'd finally give Alice and Bob something to say to each other. :)
My Linux/BSD Menagerie:

Acer Aspire 4315-2535 - Debian Lenny/Sid
HP tx1420us - sidux 64
Sony Vaio VGN-TX650P - PC-BSD 1.5.1
Sony Playstation 3 - Yellow Dog Linux

Primetime
Posts: 18
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Re: Is Richard Stallman the Enemy of Freedom?

#19 Post by Primetime »

Jackiebrown wrote:Look at OS2. If was open source, it would have carried on despite the problems it came against.
No, some petitioned IBM to make it open source. IBM couldn't, though, because it contains Microsoft code.
Cope57 wrote:Primetime, Where do you get this material?
I wrote it. I got most of the information for it from Wikipedia.
BioTube wrote:The first, of course, is the attention pandering: GNU/Linux is nothing but.
Thank you. Ironically, most of Stallman's GNU applications are (by his own admission) clones of those written by AT&T for UNIX! If that's the case, why don't we call it "AT&T/Linux?" It'd be like AT&T telling us to call phones "Bell telephones." He wants to take credit every time we say the word Linux. Even if we did call it "GNU/Linux" we wouldn't be crediting MIT for the X Window system; HP for ACLs; Conectiva for Synaptic; or BSD for virtual memory, soft links, sendmail, man, and so on.

By the way: thanks for not flaming me, guys. I was convinced that was going to happen.

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MeanDean
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Re: Is Richard Stallman the Enemy of Freedom?

#20 Post by MeanDean »

Primetime wrote: Thank you. Ironically, most of Stallman's GNU applications are (by his own admission) clones of those written by AT&T for UNIX! If that's the case, why don't we call it "AT&T/Linux?" It'd be like AT&T telling us to call phones "Bell telephones." He wants to take credit every time we say the word Linux. Even if we did call it "GNU/Linux" we wouldn't be crediting MIT for the X Window system; HP for ACLs; Conectiva for Synaptic; or BSD for virtual memory, soft links, sendmail, man, and so on.

By the way: thanks for not flaming me, guys. I was convinced that was going to happen.
first of all - it isn't Stallmans GNU it is simply GNU....
second - it isnt flaming when you are simply and obviously wrong about many things
third - you are simply wrong about many things you stated in your original post

bonus - How exactly does HE get the credit when we say GNU???

Primetime
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Re: Is Richard Stallman the Enemy of Freedom?

#21 Post by Primetime »

MeanDean wrote:bonus - How exactly does HE get the credit when we say GNU???
Richard Stallman founded GNU and is its de-facto (and perhaps official) spokeman. He is also the president of the Free Software Foundation, which runs GNU <http://www.gnu.org/people/people.html#r>. Why else would he make such a big deal out of its name?

I don't know what you mean in your second point. I wasn't being sarcastic, if that's what you mean. I was sincerely thanking you for not flaming me (or at least not badly).

kinematic
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#22 Post by kinematic »

BioTube wrote:GNOME - I understand where it came from, but it's really something that oughtta go.


So just because you don't like it it's gotta go :lol:
I happen to like Gnome more than KDE so following your reasoning KDE has gotta go :roll:
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.

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BioTube
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#23 Post by BioTube »

I don't see what GNOME has over KDE - it's not even prettier.
Image
Ludwig von Mises wrote:The elite should be supreme by virtue of persuasion, not by the assistance of firing squads.

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muskrat
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#24 Post by muskrat »

Frist of all just because it's on the wiki doesn't mean it's true. On the internet you had best get your info from several sources each independent from the other.
He also created his own version of RPM (deb). I
My understanding is Debian has been around longer than RedHat, and debian a package management system before anybody else.
For example, he started Gnome, which diverted volunteers from KDE
If he really did this, then praise God, because Gnome is a better desktop for me!
Steve - Muskrat
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diveli
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#25 Post by diveli »

muskrat wrote: If he really did this, then praise God, because Gnome is a better desktop for me!
He didn't

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jonny_noog
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#26 Post by jonny_noog »

So I'm confused... the original post really isn't a joke??

Well, if it's not a joke, it's pretty funny.
I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.

diveli
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#27 Post by diveli »

In my opinion it's neither. It's just a troll.

Maybe it was Stallman himself ;)

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jonny_noog
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#28 Post by jonny_noog »

Mmm. I guess.

I read this post some time ago and fully made up my mind that it was a joke, had a chuckle and moved on. Then when the OP came back and said it wasn't a joke, I still fully thought he was just being ironic. That in its self is kind of funny to me.

So if it is a joke, it's kind of funny and if it's not, it's still kind of funny.

And if it's neither, then it's still kind of funny.

So win/win/win I say. :lol:
I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.

diveli
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#29 Post by diveli »

At least Yale had a bit more guts to take him on than post about it on forums!

:)

Primetime
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#30 Post by Primetime »

sossego wrote:Gnome was started when the Qt toolkit for KDE was still a proprietary source licensed environment.
Qt's source code was always available for free under the FreeQt license. You just couldn't modify it. People were already developing the Harmony toolkit to replace it, too, but GNOME was started anyway. It's a shame, because it's inferior to KDE.
muskrat wrote:Frist of all just because it's on the wiki doesn't mean it's true. On the internet you had best get your info from several sources each independent from the other
I wasn't writing a research paper. I usually do that when I write a paper for a class. If there's a part you dispute, let me know and I'll look it up in an e-book. As for deb, I'd have no problem admitting I was wrong about that so long as you provide a link that gives the date it was released.
diveli wrote:In my opinion it's neither. It's just a troll.
I am a troll, but I don't think what I posted was trolling. I was just telling the truth, but I guess you can't handle that without crying about it. 8)
At least Yale had a bit more guts to take him on than post about it on forums!
So you'd fly across the world to beat up an old man? That doesn't sound very courageous. Just get a girlfiend. That'll keep you busy. :wink:

By the way, whether Stallman did all the work on these projects himself is irrelevant, since the project he runs keeps doing them and diverting volunteers away from other projects.

diveli
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#31 Post by diveli »

I'm not crying, and I'm not having trouble 'handling it', I'm just wasting quality work hours :)

I have a girlfriend and she's been a Debian user longer than me (and also happens to be a ninja), so I'm quite busy already but thanks :)

I was just unsure of your connection of Stallman to Gnome, since I believe Miguel de Icaza and perhaps another guy founded Gnome, then founded Ximian with Friedman to progress Gnome, then got snatched up (would you call this diverted, incidentally?) by Novell.. last I checked Stallman had nothing to do with it

Why don't you e-mail Stallman and ask him to explain himself? I'd be interested to hear what he says

diveli
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#32 Post by diveli »

P.S, I'm also confused about this 'diversion' you keep shrieking about.. starting projects doesn't divert volunteers from other projects. Volunteers divert themselves, if they feel like it, to whatever else they feel like...

Now I see some other topics have just been started while I type this. They're going to divert me to read these new posts, of which the authors are now, by your logic, enemies of freedom for having published them.. :)

Primetime
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#33 Post by Primetime »

P.S, I'm also confused about this 'diversion' you keep shrieking about.. starting projects doesn't divert volunteers from other projects. Volunteers divert themselves, if they feel like it, to whatever else they feel like...
The biggest problem Linux faces today is that there are too many distributions. There are also too many applications that do essentially the same thing. Microsoft develops one or two versions and patches a few other versions of Windows at a time. People make it sound like the Linux volunteer effort has been an overwhelming success, but the fact remains that individual distributions have comparatively little developers compared to other operating systems. Consequently, Linux is too buggy and hard to use to compete with Windows or Mac OS X.
Now I see some other topics have just been started while I type this. They're going to divert me to read these new posts, of which the authors are now, by your logic, enemies of freedom for having published them..
Good analogy. I'm not sure how those qualify as separate projects, but OK.

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#34 Post by Lavene »

Freedom is always riddles with problems, the main one being too many choices.
Bread: In a normal grocery store here I have to choose between some twenty different types of bread. This is a problem both for me and the bakeries. Bakeries are constantly going bankrupt because they can not sell all their bread because there are too many others and many consumers choose to buy from other bakeries. We only need one type of bread to survive.

Politics: In my country we have too many political parties. Too many politicians work for smaller parties. I'm sure their effort could be put to better use if we only had one political party. Seem to work out well in many parts of the world.

Cars: Why so many types of cars? One ubercar would suffice. It worked in old Soviet Union after all.

A agree, I really can't stand all these freedomhaters that keep providing choice. All in all freedom sucks!! You have to make choices, make decisions and, worse off all, it's counter productive! In stead off all people thinking in unison, pulling in the same (correct) direction and work towards the only truth we get these freedom hating terrorists that's only goal is to divide and concur by injecting choices.

diveli
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#35 Post by diveli »

Primetime wrote:The biggest problem Linux faces today
Your mistake is deciding for us all that it's a problem. I don't disagree with a lot of what you say, until you tell me it's a problem. Then I disagree. A good example follows:
Consequently, Linux is too buggy and hard to use to compete with Windows or Mac OS X.
So your argument is that it shouldn't compete. Finally I agree. I don't use Linux because I think it does a better job, or because Windows or Mac OS X is worse. I use it because I like it.
Good analogy. I'm not sure how those qualify as separate projects, but OK.
Sorry, I forgot to tell you to apt-get install rocketscience first obviously... they qualify as something *different*, is my point, and just because they're different, doesn't mean the current subject suffers for it. Your logic fails because you seem to have decided that something can only be good if it can successfully compete and win against something else.

Would Linux compete better if it standardized and became more like its competitors, in order to defeat its competitors? I don't think this should be the question, whether or not it's true. I think the question should be, so long as you have an alternative to 'teh enemy' that works for you, what difference does it make if it defeats teh enemy on a market level? You shouldn't give a ****. If you're still thinking like that, you should be using something else, because you expect a different sort of self-satisfaction out of using the product, that has nothing to do with its quality, so long as it's defeated something irrelevant.

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