This is what Stallman had to say about systemd. Really?!?

[edbarx]

You always attack arguments by saying it is not what you meant, and to add insult to injury, you repeat the same argument with exactly the same hidden message: old people are inflexible, which surprisingly means the same thing. I would be embarrassed to take a position as horrible as racism. Old people can still offer their precious experiences to younger generations.

[mor]

You always attack arguments by saying it is not what you meant,

And yet you still are missing the point.

old people are inflexible, which surprisingly means the same thing.

That is what YOU think he said, no matter how strongly deluded you are in believing it.
He is telling you he didn't say that, now I am telling you that you missed the point (and it is not the first time).

What do you make of this?

I would be embarrassed to take a position as horrible as racism. Old people can still offer their precious experiences to younger generations.

Now arguing that old people are inflexible, which is not what he said, is the same as racism?

WOW!

[goulo]

You always attack arguments by saying it is not what you meant,

And yet you still are missing the point.

old people are inflexible, which surprisingly means the same thing.

That is what YOU think he said, no matter how strongly deluded you are in believing it.
He is telling you he didn't say that, now I am telling you that you missed the point (and it is not the first time).

He directly wrote "As we age, our minds become less open to new things and less flexible. This is known and scientifically established."

Are you just quibbling about the distinction between "inflexible" and "less flexible"?

I know plenty of people who became more open to new things and more flexible as they aged. Being old does not imply less flexible.

[mor]

Are you just quibbling about the distinction between "inflexible" and "less flexible"?

No, I'm quibbling about the meaning of statements.

If I say that as one ages the nose grows bigger and bigger, is it the same as saying that all old people have big noses?
Do you really think it is the same statement?

I know plenty of people who became more open to new things and more flexible as they aged. Being old does not imply less flexible.

"I know plenty of people who became old without getting lung cancer while smoking three packs a a day. Smoking does not imply cancer."

I bet this would be your go-to reply if I was arguing that smoking facilitates lung and throat cancer. You would think that it is the same as saying that smoking "implies" lung and throat cancer.

What "somebodyelse" said, is that with age people become less flexible. You want to challenge that?
Challenge that, not the completely different "being old implies inflexibility".
I'm pretty sure that "somebodyelse" will not feel like you're missing the point if you argue against the notion that "with age people become less flexible" (a suggestion, anecdotal evidence, namely "the people you know" is never a good argument).

By the way, that bit I quoted was only interesting and useful to ponder on the notion that saying something like "old people are inflexible", which, again for the thick ones, is not what has been said, can be compared to racism as something just "as horrible".

Because that speaks very well about the minds of the people arguing here.

Bye

[somebodyelse]

I'm very surprised by the response.

Ok... It goes something like this. I am systemd-neutral. I don't know enough about it to take a position. I think things can be bad. I think things can be labelled as being bad without actually being bad. In the context of systemd, I have Poettering and pals on the one hand saying "Would you like some more systemd?" and on the other hordes of angry sysadmins and their ilk saying it is the end of civilisation as we know it. In this polarised climate, I look to two traditional barometers: Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman, neither of whom as it happens gives the slightest crap about systemd. Now, while these men are not infallible, they are considered experts in their domain. For me, looking to have a sense of what is good or bad, their opinions are perhaps the best I can get, under the circumstances.

However, in view of the fact that Richard Stallman has not yet encountered systemd, I am curious to see whether or not systemd does actually compromise software freedom. RMS doesn't really know yet.

In view of this, my point about his inflexibility was about the fact that in the 1980s he started the FSF with a specific understanding of the issues. He has been constant in defending software freedom, according to those parameters in the intervening decades.

Given that your mind does become less able to absorb new concepts as you get older, I wondered whether systemd might obey the letter of the law (the GPL) while not respecting its spirit (freedom for software users) and that because he only imagines the problem in terms of the letter of the law, whether he might not miss things like this.

If you think at 50, you have anywhere near the learning power you had at 25, you're seriously deluding yourself. I can dig some articles and some graphs out if you like but if you're over 35, it's all downhill I'm afraid. Organisms are born and then they die (slowly). I didn't think this was a controversial opinion. Sorry.

PS. I hope you choke on systemd.
PPS. I'm putting the second half of this sentence in bold because I like adding emphasis just for the sake of it.

[goulo]

OK, this is an increasingly silly tangent, but:

If you think at 50, you have anywhere near the learning power you had at 25, you're seriously deluding yourself. I can dig some articles and some graphs out if you like but if you're over 35, it's all downhill I'm afraid. Organisms are born and then they die (slowly). I didn't think this was a controversial opinion.

I certainly agree that learning power declines.

But you didn't mention learning power before. You said "our minds become less open to new things and less flexible", which seems a clearly different issue to me. I guess you meant learning power, but it wasn't at all clear to me. It sounded more like "we become more closed-minded and set in our ways, refusing to listen to evidence that disagrees with our preconceptions" etc, which is quite different from learning less effectively.

Whatever, sorry to continue this silly tangent. On the other hand, I guess it's a change of pace from the endless cycle of systemd debates.

[GarryRicketson]

somebodyelse » Given that your mind does become less able to absorb new concepts as you get older, I wondered whether systemd might obey the letter of the law (the GPL) while not respecting its spirit (freedom for software users) and that because he only imagines the problem in terms of the letter of the law, whether he might not miss things like this.

If you think at 50, you have anywhere near the learning power you had at 25, you're seriously deluding yourself. I can dig some articles and some graphs out if you like but if you're over 35, it's all downhill I'm afraid. Organisms are born and then they die (slowly). I didn't think this was a controversial opinion. Sorry.

Well, at 61, and getting younger every day, I disagree, if anything my mind is able to absorb "new concepts" more then ever, when I was younger, I tended to reject "new concepts", But it still depends, some "new concepts" are totally ridicules, and a older, wiser person, can see that,
Most people under 35 do not have anywhere close to the experience needed to make "wise" decisions, they are often eager to explore "new concepts", but those concepts often only seem
new , because they are still to young, to realize it is nothing new. Nothing irritates me more then a
young "smart aleck" that thinks they know everything.
It is easy to create graphs and articles, that try to "stereotype" everybody", at 35 I was still climbing the "mountain", so to speak, now I can see I have almost reached the top, the view is beautiful, incredible, after reaching the "peak", the journey back down, is a joy, yes down hill, easier, coasting,...

Organisms are born and then they die (slowly)

Well, for "organisms" yes, all organic material, degenerates gradually or sometimes rapidly,...
The human mind is much more the just a "organism", there is no doubt in my mind, now, because I am so close to the "peak" , and I can see all around me, below and above too, there is no "end" to my journey, yes after this "mountain" I will go down, into another valley, then cross that, there are more mountains, oceans, and the universe is unlimited, infinite, it never ends, and "my mind" explores it , I enjoy the "coasting downhill" and well as the "climbing the mountain", crossing the oceans, or deserts, I don't really like that much, because it all ways takes so long, often they seem endless, but they all ways do end, and there are always new "horizons" , as well as "new concepts", these give me "goals" or "points of reference", to move toward.
The organisms, that "evolved" from apes, usually never can grasp this "concept", but that is a entirely different subject.
As far as "systemd" goes, the discussions and arguments are boring and a waste of time, I prefer
using "wheezy" at this time,because I am more familiar with it, but I am also using Jessie, with sysetmd, and exploring, that, so far I
have had no problems, and am actually starting to see many advantages to systemd, which, if the people doing these "meaning less" discussions ever took the time,some research will show, systemd is not a very "newconcept" at all,
When I saw this comment

If you think at 50, you have anywhere near the learning power you had at 25, you're seriously deluding yourself.

I realized this guy does not have a clue as to what he/she is talking about, I don't think I can take anything they say seriously any more.

[somebodyelse]

^ http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2015052 ... -your-life

But thanks for your vote of confidence...

[Randicus]

If you think at 50, you have anywhere near the learning power you had at 25, you're seriously deluding yourself.

Good grief.
I better stop learning languages then. Before being informed that my almost fifty-year-old mind is too deteriorated to learn new things, I was able to learn just as effectively as I did twenty-five years ago. Now that I know the truth, I shall never be able to learn anything again.

I can dig some articles and some graphs out if you like but if you're over 35, it's all downhill I'm afraid.

Articles and graphs made by whom? I can make a graph the "proves" anything I want it prove.

[tomazzi]

Well, at 61, and getting younger every day (...)

Sorry, but I just don't believe You.

Ok... It goes something like this. I am systemd-neutral. I don't know enough about it to take a position. I think things can be bad. I think things can be labelled as being bad without actually being bad.

"Things" can be also labelled as being "just awesome", while in fact they're crap.

I look to two traditional barometers: Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman, neither of whom as it happens gives the slightest crap about systemd. Now, while these men are not infallible, they are considered experts in their domain. For me, looking to have a sense of what is good or bad, their opinions are perhaps the best I can get, under the circumstances.

However, in view of the fact that Richard Stallman has not yet encountered systemd, I am curious to see whether or not systemd does actually compromise software freedom. RMS doesn't really know yet.

Both of them had no problem with criticising crap, until now.
At least several times Linus Torvalds have criticised systemd developers (often using offensive terms). He have also criticised d-bus and udev firmware loader (which are part of systemd).
So: actually he have crtiticised important parts of systemd and called systemd developers "a morons", "code monkeys", etc, but "he has no strong opinion" ?
Really, You must be very naive to not realise that He just can't say anything wrong about systemd - at least not directly...

RMS has GNU - and GNU has dmd

Regards.

[alansmithee]

I have utmost respect for Mr Stallman and highly recommend that his LibrePlanet keynote from which the quote was taken be viewed in its entirety.

However, ...

“<...> I know it’s free software, so ethically speaking, it’s not an issue – it’s just a convenience question.”

This assertion is not necessarily true -- and is inconsistent with Mr Stallman's willingness in the past to find issue with other projects despite the fact that the software they provided qualified as free software.

He has fully admitted that the OpenOffice word processor is free software, yet he and his organization, the FSF, initiated a campaign against it for providing links to non-free extensions and its choice of a GNU-recommended, though permissive, free software license. This campaign eventually evolved into the LibreOffice fork, which has been endorsed by the FSF as preferable to OpenOffice.

Consider also his long-standing defense of his GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) not including the capability to provide external access to the internal abstract syntax tree (AST) generated during compilation. Providing such access would in no way confront qualification of GCC as free software, yet he has thus far remained strongly opposed to adding this functionality as doing so might facilitate creating non-free development tools and extensions based on GCC.

These, and other situations (e.g. Mono, Firefox, MySQL, even the non-endorsement of Debian GNU/Linux), demonstrate his recognition that there can be more to consider than an unequivocal "it’s free software, so ethically speaking, it’s not an issue"; thus it would be misguided to ascribe too much significance to his off-the-cuff response during a Q&A session.

[thepointystick]

Mono is written in the MS patent encumbered C#

Firefox has trademark issues, proprietary plugins, etc, hence GNU Icecat.

The openoffice.org situation is simply about Stallman's/FSF's low tolerance/dislike of permissive 'BSD style' licences. Old news.

Debian includes and maintains non-free software in it's repositories and makes it easy to obtain and install.

systemd fits none of the above categories, so it's easy to see why Stallman doesn't have any problem with it.

Stallman has no background in UNIX and is not a UNIX sysadmin, so the "UNIX Philosophy" argument is also irrelevant there (and someone mentioned emacs earlier in thread).

Torvalds has not come out against systemd either. Yet again people are distorting the facts and ignoring/misconstruing Torvalds' own comments. Criticising it and some of it's developers/code, is not in any way equal to opposing it.

I would urge people to do proper research and not be led by the nose by a few bored trolls trying to whip up users into a frenzy for their own entertainment.

[alansmithee]

systemd fits none of the above categories, so it's easy to see why Stallman doesn't have any problem with it.

I did not mention systemd. I merely showed the logic of rms' "there's no ethical issue" syllogism to be faulty. Therefore peremptory dismissal of criticisms of the ethics of systemd based on such logic is ungrounded, regardless whether that dismissal is from a systemd apologist or from Richard Stallman.

[buntunub]

systemd fits none of the above categories, so it's easy to see why Stallman doesn't have any problem with it.

I did not mention systemd. I merely showed the logic of rms' "there's no ethical issue" syllogism to be faulty. Therefore peremptory dismissal of criticisms of the ethics of systemd based on such logic is ungrounded, regardless whether that dismissal is from a systemd apologist or from Richard Stallman.

It's easy to misplace Stallman and Torvalds as leaders in the Linux world, because they are not. They follow very strict ideologies that really have nothing at all to do with systemd's purpose.

1. Systemd has an LGPL license, which fits precisely into what Stallman wants for free software. Therefore, his comments should have been predictable.
2. Torvalds cares only about his Kernel and nothing else. Again, should be no surprise when conflicts arose with systemd related projects trying to merge shoddy code into the Kernel. I really don't think Torvalds gives a f#ck about systemd or anything related to it, but he DOES care about his Kernel and wants to make sure the codebase is clean and that those who contribute to it have a good work ethic.

If you are looking for leaders in the anti-systemd movement, you need to look for the real leaders of that movement, and good luck with that. The open source ecosystem really does not do well with organized anti-software movements. It tends to operate more on the "vote with your wallet" principle. I.e. if you don't like it, don't use it.

[tomazzi]

Stallman has no background in UNIX and is not a UNIX sysadmin

Well, usually trolls are far smarter than You, cause they at least know some basics on the topic in which they are trolling.
Apparently, You were so lazy, that checking the Richard Stalman's wiki page was too hard for Ya...

Really, I'm amazed that such morons still can exist today, especially when their trolling can be so easily verified:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Manifesto

...when he was working at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, You haven't even existed.

And FYI: Richard Stallman have started GNU project only because UNIXes was completely closed and prioprietary systems at that time.

...what a jerk...

[golinux]

Stallman has no background in UNIX and is not a UNIX sysadmin

Well, usually trolls are far smarter than You, cause they at least know some basics on the topic in which they are trolling.
Apparently, You were so lazy, that checking the Richard Stalman's wiki page was too hard for Ya...

Really, I'm amazed that such morons still can exist today, especially when their trolling can be so easily verified:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Manifesto

...when he was working at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, You haven't even existed.

And FYI: Richard Stallman have started GNU project only because UNIXes was completely closed and prioprietary systems at that time.

...what a jerk...

There does seem to be a flood of them lately, doesn't there . . . I suspect that this 'n00bie' is an already existing FDN member with a new 'stick' . . . oops, nick.

[thepointystick]

cause they at least know some basics on the topic in which they are trolling.
Apparently, You were so lazy, that checking the Richard Stalman's wiki page was too hard for Ya...

Perhaps you should take a break from ranting and just read Stallman's own words?

Really, I'm amazed that such morons still can exist today, especially when their trolling can be so easily verified:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Manifesto

What has the GNU manifesto or Stallman's career got to do with this?

https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

(the word "unix" appears twice - read the paragraph)

...when he was working at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

And read your own links and read about what he was doing there and what he studied.

And FYI: Richard Stallman have started GNU project only because UNIXes was completely closed and prioprietary systems at that time.

Where was that even brought up in thread or questioned? (read MY link to see why Stallman started GNU).

Also: https://gnu.org/gnu/gnu-history.html

UNIX was used as a model as users were already familiar with it. It was not a complete UNIX reimplementation (a la 'BSD). This is because Stallman was not and is not a "UNIX sysadmin" and did not set out to reimplement UNIX in it's entirety, warts and all.

...what a jerk...

Nice - and your post is a 'knee jerk' - and an ill researched one at that. I'm the 'troll' yet you use anonymity to fling insults at strangers on the web. I haven't "trolled", I've just posted opinion, yet because it's at odds with your views, it's "trolling"? The only trolling I see here is the aforementioned "bored trolls" who are seizing on every bit of FUD imaginable to get more users on their side.

[oswaldkelso]

systemd fits none of the above categories, so it's easy to see why Stallman doesn't have any problem with it.

1. Systemd has an LGPL license, which fits precisely into what Stallman wants for free software. Therefore, his comments should have been predictable.

Being a conspiracy theorist I'd look at this https://github.com/systemd/systemd/comm ... 24a067e3d8

[tomazzi]

What has the GNU manifesto or Stallman's career got to do with this?

Just about everything?

RMS was working with UNIX OSes before most of us (including You and me) have learned about the existence of such a "word" (shortcut).
So, to put it simply: You've showed to be a moron by accusing RMS of being *not familiar* with UNIX - while this is the OS which he was starting with...

BSD *did not exist at that time*, and FreeBSD was released *after* Stallman have convinced the devs to do so...

...so please.

...I do understand that feeding trolls is generally harmful, but maybe this time it'll lead to some valuable conclusions...

Being a conspiracy theorist I'd look at this https://github.com/systemd/systemd/comm ... 24a067e3d8

Take it easy - as for now, indeed You'll have to switch to a systemd-shim (although even the name is frightening), but I'm working on a *not-a-sysshitd* - and I'll give an info, just after it'll be ready for testing...

[thepointystick]

RMS was working with UNIX OSes before most of us (including You and me) have learned about the existence of such a "word" (shortcut).

You can speak for yourself in that respect but not for me. Did you read the link I provided? Do you have any citations except wikipedia articles which don't actually verify your claims?

So, to put it simply: You've showed to be a moron by accusing RMS of being *not familiar* with UNIX - while this is the OS which he was starting with...

Did you read the link I provided? Where did I state that RMS was "not familiar with UNIX"? I said that RMS has no "background in UNIX". Which according to Stallman himself - in the link you didn't read - is true.

If I was never a blues musician and decided to learn guitar, reinvent blues and turn it into rock & roll that doesn't retroactively make me a blues musician.

I'm not knocking Stallman's achievements at all, but some of the mythology about this man is breathtaking. Don't style a man a "UNIX veteran", when he doesn't even consider himself as such.

BSD *did not exist at that time*, and FreeBSD was released *after* Stallman have convinced the devs to do so...

...so please.

No, 'please' cut out the silly dramatics. BSD predates Linux and GNU, it was founded by someone with a 'background' in UNIX - namely Bill Joy. FreeBSD and NetBSD were forks of 386BSD. Do some basic research: https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO88 ... story.html

...I do understand that feeding trolls is generally harmful, but maybe this time it'll lead to some valuable conclusions...

Take it easy - as for now, indeed You'll have to switch to a systemd-shim (although even the name is frightening), but I'm working on a *not-a-sysshitd* - and I'll give an info, just after it'll be ready for testing...

And why should anyone take any notice of you when you spout this garbage? How exactly am I trolling and how is that not trolling...?