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Comment by billpatrianakos | Hacker News Reader

Oh boy. RMS wrote yet another opinion that we just have to read. I'll be hated for this but I must state the obvious. This is a list of really boring opinions. Interesting for rms fanatics but many are barely explained and most aren't realistic to actually try out unless you want to be a software philosopher for a living. Did people just see Stallman in the title and up vote? Come on.

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I get it, you don't like RMS, but just because it's on the front page doesn't mean you have to read this story. The way HN works is people vote up stories they find interesting. Since different people find different things interesting very often there will be stories on the front page that you don't find interesting. Every time that happens you shouldn't write a comment complaining that the story is boring and the people who voted for it are dumb. Instead you should just ignore it and move on.

Or try this:

http://www.thoughtocean.com/what/dilution

If you do not find it interesting, do not up-vote it. I find your opinion really boring. Interesting maybe for Bill Patriankos fanatics, but barely explained. Did people just see Patriankos and up vote? Come on.

I was surprised to see that there were no rules whatsoever on the consumption/conservation of energy (nutritional or electrical) - such as avoidance of corn flakes encumbered by Montasano patents.

i.e. "I only drink rain water and pure grain alcohol"

Well this page is specific to how he does his computing.

Commercial software licenses are trying to take our precious bodily fluids!

Ditto. Stallman is an enormously interesting figure in the history of software development. But who really cares how he reads his email or books his speaking engagements? (And the less one knows about his personal life is probably for the better.)

Well that was my initial thought but to be fair those things certainly can be interesting if you're a fan of his.

That said, this is really nothing new. I've read this same list many times and it's actually been linked here several times. The difference is just that in its other incarnations it was in plain text form or some other variation of the same HTML list.

Then there's the fact that it really is just a self-righteous sounding list. Like if I said "I'm browsing HN on my iPad because I find it convenient for reading and I can smoke cigarettes in my garage while I carry it around". Those ridiculous details are the kind of thing you find in his lists. And of course no one is going to go all plain-text when using a computer but the way Stallman makes it sound seems like he's saying he's superior to us because he's cool enough to not need all those fancy GUI dealies. So what?

>Stallman makes it sound seems like he's saying he's superior to us because he's cool enough to not need all those fancy GUI dealies

I think you are completely missing his point. He is not claiming to be superior because he uses those tools, he thinks his freedoms are not restricted by them.

I count three of you now who cared enough to post here mocking him.

Not mocking. Definitely being a little sarcastic. But why do we have to get into a holy war over Stallman. You know as well as I do that what I said is true but unfortunately Stallman's cult following absolutely must punish anyone who points out the obvious. So I said what I needed to. I was actually being sincere, not trying to outright mock him for the sake of mocking him.

Like most people, I find Stallman strange. His methods are quirky, and his language grating. He alienates his allies more often than his enemies. He picks fights at the wrong times. He stands behind principle in circumstances where it clearly hurts his cause.

But... he's right. Almost always, he's right. He's made a 40 year career now of being right: often decades before the rest of us figure it out. That's enough for me to cut him as much slack as he wants.

Nattering detractors like you have been around for almost as long as he has. I used to be one 15 years ago (when, damn it, I was sure he was going to tank the coming open source revolution; except he didn't, and he was right). He just draws that kind of attention.

Serious question. What exactly is he right about?

I don't know what the grand-parent was talking about, but if you want to read something that he foresaw before everybody (AFAIK) check the Right to Read essay (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html)

So, what is he right about?

About the increasing restrictions on the tools needed to program generated by the attempt to restrict what you can do with an electronic device. He foresaw the kind of restrictions that appeared both in the iPhone and the german legislation.

Having control over the software that runs on the devices you use to interact with the society of which you are a part is extremely important and the more that computation and networks are used as mechanisms of the state and statelike entities, the more important it gets.

That DRM would eventually lead to unusable computer systems. That a completely free software OS was possible. That software patents were bad things. That chasing profit in the LISP machine market would destroy the MIT hacker community. That "look and feel" lawsuits would hurt free software. That a copyleft license would not hurt software adoption by commercial vendors.

You want me to go on? He was on all this stuff (some of it critically important, some of it less so) before, in many cases years before the rest of us caught up.

Let me turn it around then: find something he was verifiably wrong about. There aren't that many cases, and what there are are mostly tactical things (e.g. picking the fight about GNU/Linux was, I believe, counterproductive), not factual ones.

He is right to fight for Free software because it empowers the weak, the poor, the oppressed, and also hobbyists, even though there is certainly non-Free software that does so as well (routers for example may carry speech freely but may not be Free themselves). He takes this philosophy to extremes to make his point.

Hand waiving, hand waiving. Last I heard oppressed were quite empovered by twitter, facebook and mobile phones—those parasitic and evil tools, according to rms. I am talking about Arab Spring. That's the best example that he is talking bullshit. I see no point of admiring man just be cause he is too stubborn not to ignore reality. Would I admire young earth creationist sticking to his believs despite all the science? No way. rms has zero understanding of all things social, about what makes "normal" people tick. His fantasies have little to do with the reality and the future. In the world where everyone is a programmer his vision might hold some water, but the days when all computer users were programmers and sysadmins are long gone and will never return.

And I'm sure rms would do more good if he fought for food and water for poor in Africa.

The point is, he did not resolved to do it, just like his resolve is not fighting dictators. If not helping folks oppressed by tyranny government, then we all are talking bulshit, although it's less true with regard to Stallman, since free software helped Twitter and Facebook happen.

Twitter and Facebook at least benefit from Free software, and people benefit vicariously. You don't have to be a programmer to benefit.

I'm not at all clear on how I mocked Stallman.

But since you brought it up, the man has some very well documented personal eccentricities, beyond his choice in laptops. I'm sure anyone who would be interested in his email-reading procedures are equally interested in those other things too.

Down-voted. There's no need for comments like this:

  I'm sure anyone who would be interested in his
  email-reading procedures are equally interested
  in those other things too.

Your attempt to passive-aggressively insult people that like content that you obviously don't want to see on HN is not welcome here.

Many people enjoy reading about the computing experience of 'tech famous' people, or else this site wouldn't exist: http://usesthis.com/

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