Comment by dinkumthinkum | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dinkumthinkum | Hacker News Reader

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You are staying very far in our niche. As much as I understand Stallman and appreciate him, I think what you propose is a little out there. Let's be honest. Stallman's view would make it nigh impossible to have software development as a profession in anything but an "in house" development sort of capacity, or perhaps it may be possible some world where everyone altruistically contributes to the development ... but let's just be practical about it. If Stallman's very ideological view had been with us from the start, it's hard to imagine the technology wheels turning very swiftly.

I'm sure you or any follower of Stallman could debate but this has been debated with Stallman before and Stallman's response is basically (paraphrasing) "yeah, well that's the way it is." If Stallman had his way en toto, then entire industries would crumble; maybe this would be great in some egalitarian fantasy but ... If you actually examine RMS' position, it is much more radical than you might think if you have only a cursory understanding and Stallman does not attempt to hide these ramifications, he merely claims his view is morally superior and the consequences be damned.

> it's hard to imagine the technology wheels turning very swiftly.

On the contrary, tech iterates most rapidly when there are no barriers to sharing. "Against Intellectual Monopoly" has many great examples of this. I think my favorite was about the steam engine; originally patented, it didn't change the world much until ~40 years later (IIRC) when the patents ran out, and a ton of different companies could manufacture them.

It's the same way with software: which stack lets you move more quickly:

  1. IBM-branded big iron hardware, Microsoft OS, Microsoft language, Oracle Database
  2. commodity hardware, Linux, LAMP

I'll bet on #2 every time, and the market seems to bear my hunch out.

You've got to be joking right? Stallman would view your "commodity hardware" as evil proprietary garbage. Also, how is the development of all of these things funded, such as Linux and so on? I'm not debating how to fund open source. I'm debating how to fund your wonderful LAMP stack in the world where Stallman's ideology is the way of the world. You certainly wouldn't have Linux kernel developers working at a proprietary software company like Novell because none of these would exist.

Honestly, on some level, while I do admire Stallman in a certain way, seeing otherwise intelligent people seriously defend the possibility of enacting this paradigm is sort of a totally fruitless endeavor. I mean, I myself couldn't imagine living in such a world. As much as I love open source (which is not something Stallman things is even minutely worthwhile) and can, from a distance, admire the notion of FSF, I can't help but think how crazy it would be for me to seriously think of myself as some sort sinner for even pondering the idea of developing a piece of software and distributing it without the source; it's sort of hard to take seriously for me. :)

You could say the same about a lot of crimes. Prostitutes, hitmen, scammers, drug dealers, a lot of professions are inherently hurtful for the society. Heck, you could say the same about banking, insurances, real estate, utilities: a lot of people would be out of a job if theit companies were honest. Entire industries rely on some degree of scamming. And yet we still complain about dishonest banks, lack of competition, etc.

Stallman's views are pragmatic: some people would lose their job but that's the price to pay to get closer to an ideal society. That's not more extremist than socialism.

Yes but it's ludicrous to equate selling software without providing the source code to hitmen. Stallman's views are not pragmatic in the sense of them being realistic in a world people would really want to live in. I have actually never heard anyone refer to Stallman's views as "pragmatic;" that's a new one for me. I was a little taken aback. :) Also, I don't really understand your examples, beyond the fact that equating those things with proprietary software is a little cuckoo. Presumably technological progress is good, having software that solves our needs is presumably good, no one seriously thinks of having "CD burning software that works well" as being in the same league as "Rapists and murderers," well no one with half a brain anyway, so it's hard to see your point exactly in this way.

If you want to say "Stallman's ideology is morally right and consequences be damned" then fine but don't sit here and compare proprietary software developers to hitmen. Let's be serious.

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