Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
Summary: Free software's founder says, "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone."
Some stuff you can't make up. While many of us sorrow at Apple founder Steve Jobs' death, and others acknowledge Jobs' genius while also admitting that he had his flaws, Richard M. Stallman, aka rms, founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), stated on his blog that "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone."
Stallman's complete posting, reads:
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.
OK, we get it that the father of free software isn't going to think anything nice about proprietary software's biggest champion, but come on! As my grandmother used to say, "If you don't have anything good to say, then don't say anything at all."
I'm glad to say that the vast majority of open-source developers don't agree with Stallman's myopic views. Yes, free software is important. Yes, the GPL was essential for the creation of the modern technology world which runs on such open-source projects as Linux, the Apache Web server, and the MySQL databases. But we also know that Jobs was also essential to our modern computing world. Jobs was our generation's Disney, its Edison. The bottom line is almost everyone I know in open-source circles admired Jobs. RMS is the exception not the rule.
By choosing to use the occasion of Jobs' death for one more public jab at proprietary software, Stallman did neither his personal causes nor the larger ones of free and open-source software any good.
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Talkback
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
Not dead, but just gone.
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
any sane person values liberty of FOSS over the Apple's cool jail.
Actually no....
Pagan jim
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
Such advice is fine in the context of social gatherings, but not appropriate to all discourse. Voltaire offers a corrective: "To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth."
Freedom includes the freedom to choose
And I disagree that "any sane person values liberty of FOSS over ... Apple's cool jail." Part of "liberty" is having the freedom to choose -- even if that means choosing a closed system. Personally, I'm comfortable with Windows, Linux and various flavors of Unix, including Mac OS X. And when it comes to choosing a platform and software for it, I look to the tools that will help me get the best results -- for myself, for my clients, for my employer. Quite often, that's a mix of tools from the open-source and closed worlds. And as long as I and others are fully aware of the trade-offs (and there are trade-offs to FOSS, too) then what's the harm? We're free to choose the best solution to suit our needs.
Oh, and I agree with SJVN that there's little to be gained by speaking ill of the dead. Personally, I admired Steve Jobs greatly. I've followed his career since the Time cover story on him and Apple way back in 1976 or 1977. Technologically, I was probably most impressed by his NeXT years. Marketing-wise, it's hard to argue with his second stint at Apple: he grew it into the highest valued company in the world. (It continues to swap the spot almost daily with Exxon-Mobil.) That's no easy feat.
And contrary to the thought-provoking quote from Voltaire, I do believe that folks who earned respect during their lives also deserve it in death. There's little to be gained by trampling on one's grave.
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
I want to meet you so I can look a world class jack @ss in the eye.
I have been an ardent supporter (and code contributor) of FOSS for many years but Stallman's comments turn my stomach. Stallman is a world class d0uche bag. He disgusts me as a person. He is what normal people call a "D!ck".
Apple and Mac p0wn Linux and FOSS straight up. You keep on being a puritanical technocrat and the rest of us will lap and P0wn you in terms of professional development because we do not have artificial and self imposed limits on what software we can and cannot use as IT professionals.
I have a question. Is ok for me to like my iPhone ?
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
Each has its strengths.
Even three competitors, using the same hardware, is more of a choice than being forced to one.
What you should be concerned about is so-called "cloud computing", especially as bandwidth caps become more common because, like this is a shock, that more people are using bandwidth.
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
I agree 100%. No one ever forced me to purchase any computer. Seems The Linux Geek needs to look up the word liberty in a dictionary.
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
...'cos if you had tried, you wouldn't be 'tangle70' - you'd be 'tangleinfinity'
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
I agree. Stallman is not taking pleasure in Jobs death. He just showed his strong disagreements to Jobs contribution to the computer world, unlike Obama, Gates and many actually did.
Stallman was right. Jobs had not really contributed much to society! Jobs was just a great designer and businessman. That's all. I do feel sorry for his death, but I won't memorize him.
Have iproducts ever changed the way you live, the way you work? To my experience, No. My friends use ipads/iphones to play games on their way home, to browse internet during classes, and to just show off to girls. They rarely use ipads/iphones for study or work. iproducts are so revolutionarily distracting!
iproducts, unlike Edison's light bulbs, is never a must-have in my life. After my excitement faded, I found my $100 Nokia is more suitable than iphone for making phone calls. It simply lasts longer(1 week without recharge).
Ask yourselves "have iproducts made your life more productive? can you live without iproducts" before acting as parrots.
On the other hand, what Stallman did is real revolution. He initiated a world with free softwares, without which this site might not even exist. Without the idea of 'free', will there be apache, mySQL and firefox? Just imaging a world where all servers runs on crashy Windows servers and you are using IE browsers. There is not even Apple's BSD-based OS X and webkit-based safari.
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
Jobs was a non-conformist, too
I'd argue, however, that that's precisely why Jobs was the way that he was. Had he been a conformist, Zerox's inspiring GUI and mouse might very well have remained gathering dust on a shelf somewhere in Palo Alto and folks would still be forced to interact with computers through a command line interface. That undoubtedly would have prevented countless millions from ever really experiencing the freedoms that modern (GUI-based) computing affords. That could very well have been enough to stifle countless innovations. Imagine our world without GUIs, and desktop publishing, no Photoshop, no InDesign, no way to watch videos on our computing devices, no smartphones since they'd have only number pads and keyboards for input, no satellite navigation, no World Wide Web, no Google, no pretty HTML email.
I remember the days before GUIs. I remember programming my Apple IIe in Assembly Language and even in machine language. I remember using GUI-less apps and having to remember countless commands. I remember having to remember cryptic instructions to cause 300 baud modems to dial into text-based bulletin boards. I remember awful dot matrix printers. All that stuff was hard to use and delivered (by today's standards) horrendous quality and output.
I'm not saying Jobs deserves all the credit for all that. Someone else mentioned that he didn't invent this stuff and they're right. But he was a master of embracing and championing new technologies -- new, non-conformist approaches -- that could improve how we got things done.
FOSS, too, has had an obvious role in improving people's lives, for the reasons that many others have mentioned, and many others.
But to belittle Jobs' contributions to the world -- specifically those surrounding computing and technology -- is hugely disrespectful, and shows an ignorance of how the world doesn't function in a vacuum.
The irony, to me, is that while Jobs was obviously a proponent of closed systems that he could control more easily, his contributions to the computing industry and to the world in general helped pave the way for some of FOSS' biggest contributions.
After all, had Apple not introduced the Apple I and Apple II, IBM might never have seen a market for "Personal Computers". And God help us if we had all had to stick with Altairs, TRS-80s, and CP/M machines. The world would have been a very, very different place indeed, had it not been for Steve Jobs. And for that, he deserves acknowledgment for his accomplishments -- even if they're counter to FOSS' goals.
RMS has all the rights to speak up his ideas
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
Hey, kid - here's a quarter and a sense of history.
First off, remember that Jobs was instrumental in bringing the GUI to the public, thus beginning the process of de-arcanizing and making computers accessible to the general public. (And yeah, yeah, Xerox PARC, and if he hadn't licensed the desktop metaphor from them, it would have been stillborn like almost everything else phenomenal developed at PARC.) If the GUI hadn't been popularized by the splash the Mac made, I daresay that the current cultural landscape would look rather different.
Secondly, RMS did not "initiate a world with free softwares" - that would have been the people at MIT's computer labs starting in the late fifties/early sixties, and then moving westward to SAIL and also spreading through the late sixties/early seventies counterculture. People like Gosper, Greenblatt, Milhon, Felsenstein, Pittman and others were the true groundbreakers in that regard - RMS was simply trying to hang on to that time. It wasn't until almost a decade later that some Torvalds kid came in and kickstarted it back up. (Someone who Stallman has a grudge against, mind you - a combination of ideological differences and minor jealousy, I'd wager, although I couldn't begin to guess in what ratio.)
Stallman doesn't care about usability - he cares about ideology, and it's ideology uber alles for him, damn any other concerns, no compromises at all.
If you don't like Apple products, no skin off my nose. Not every product is for every person, and for some people they aren't a good mesh. (People who need a minitower for some reason, for example.) But for all the Apple Fanbois I always hear people complaining about, I see more pure zealotry in Apple Bashers.
And for Ford's sake, do the research before you post. Don't be your username.
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
Agreed. I may not always agree with RMS but I have huge respect for him and there are a load of issues I do agree with him - Jobs then again, while I never take pleasure of anyone dying I believe that I have never felt any real respect for him and there have been a lot of things I despise about him - and his company. I do believe that his influence has had a lot of negative impact on IT world so what can I say?
Let it be also stated that I'm all for personal freedom to buy or not buy apple products - or even to respect this man or not - so please, nobody start with that on me...
R.I.P.
RE: Free software founder, Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone
I could go into a dozen tangents, and would love to, but won't. Those arguments can wait for appropriate times...