Re: [Sheflug] RMS Talk

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <nospam [at] sk.tsukuba.ac.jp>]

>>>>> "Timothy" == Timothy Baldwin <csyteb [at] comp.leeds.ac.uk> writes:

    Timothy> I suspect parts of the OSM may cause problems may
    Timothy> problems with complex pro-capitalist arguments, but not
    Timothy> as big as problem as Zionists.

I think this unlikely, the "complex" pro-capitalists are generally
economically motivated (ie, by the benefits of free trade).  The
qualitative case for OSS is clearcut in terms of customer benefits and
production externalities.  Where the OSM comes into conflict with
capitalists is when the latter have a naive belief that the right to
own IP is a fundamental human right.  I suspect that in 50 years such
folks will be considered as backward as we consider slavers today.

    Timothy> I stand corrected, IIRC rms did sugest the use of
    Timothy> industral action, that computer programmers refuse to
    Timothy> work on non-free software. Unfortunately I can't find
    Timothy> that statement at the moment.

If it's not in the GNU Manifesto it's probably somewhere in
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ under a heading like "Why Free
Software" or "How You Can Help".

But I hardly consider it "industrial action" when he can't even bring
himself to recommend picketing MSFT and EDS.  :-)

    >> Read the GNU Manifesto again.  People who are not computer
    >> experts are of _no_ concern to the FSM.

    Timothy> Done, it clearly states that users (including
    Timothy> non-programmers) are a concern of RMS.

Yes, and I care deeply about your unborn children.  Have I established
a trust in their name?  I have not.

In the case of rms, of course he claims to be acting on behalf of the
whole world.  But does this "concern" extend to promoting policies
that benefit those he claims he is concerned for?  He has actively
discouraged discussion of the consequences for consumers who will
never read a line of code in their lives (except maybe on your Perl
sweatshirt).  What price concern?

    Timothy> But my point was that people would support the FSM, as
    Timothy> they would support people work in sweatshops, even if
    Timothy> they did not realise that support them would benefit
    Timothy> themselves.

Ah.  Could be.  But this comes down to a purely political alliance.
rms generally avoids such entanglements.  You'll note that even the
FSF and LPF (League for Programming Freedom) are separate organizations.

    Timothy> The difference, as far as tell from material published by
    Timothy> the FSF, is that the OSM cares about code quality, and
    Timothy> the FSM care about freedom.

Yes.  If you read http://www.xemacs.org/About/XEmacsVsGNUemacs.html,
you will be greatly strengthened in that impression.  However, most
XEmacs programmers in fact lean to the FSM side of the dialog.  This
is an important point about the OSM: it is not focused on ideological
purity.  It is quite tolerant of advocacy of freedom, as long as the
latter can coexist with economic and code quality arguments.  But rms
cannot abide those.  rms's charge that there are "pure economists" in
the OSM, who mock advocacy of freedom, is true; but they are few.  And
unlike rms, they do not charge those who deviate from the pole with
"backsliding."

The freedoms the rms faction of the FSM vaunt so are freedoms for
programmers; the GPL only mentions the freedom to _run_ the software
in a gloss.  If running Netscape costs me freedom because I cannot
legally reverse engineer the object into source code and read (peruse)
it, what freedom has a GPL'd Web toaster user who cannot read
(comprehend) Word macros, let alone C++ or assembler, and who cannot
change the code he runs, nor share the executable with other toaster
users, because it's burned into ROM?  (This is precisely the argument
that caused the fork of Ghostscript into GNU and Aladdin versions.)[1]

The FSF cares primarily about freedoms for an elite that is hardly
likely to include a double-digit percentage of humanity in our
lifetimes.

Of course rms would take me to task, and rightly so, for confounding
"political" and economic freedoms as I did above.[2]  But the fact that
I consider that argument inaccurate (though I can parrot it easily) is
beside the point.

The point is that this co-evaluation of political and economic rights
is the foundation of modern socialist movements, and I rather expect
that most SWP types will take the "ordinary bloke's" side and look for
economic benefits as well, rather than exclusively concentrate on
political freedom.  I hardly expect that exclusive attention to
political rights will go down well with a democratic socialist
movement like the SWP.  At which point rms will terminate the
alliance.

    Timothy> Futhermore in disscussion between me and rms, he did not
    Timothy> object to me to trying to gain support for the FSM from
    Timothy> the Socialist Worker's Party.

rms has never refused a no-strings handout as far as I know.  Did he
make a concrete commitment to support the SWP in return?

    >> The motivation for the boycott is not necessarily to change
    >> Amazon.

    Timothy> I can't imagine any other purpose for a boycott, someone
    Timothy> please enlighten me.

Solidarity.  :-)

    Timothy> My point concerning the leaders of the Serbian
    Timothy> revolution, is that should it progress to becoming a
    Timothy> socialist revolution (likely)

Over Kostunica's dead body it will.  :-(

    Timothy> and copyright is abolished, they may be unaware of the
    Timothy> importance of copyleft, and therfore fail to defend

If copyright is abolished, there is neither legal foundation nor
ethical need for copyleft.  In fact, copyleft would become primarily a
tool for invasion of privacy.  I think rms would agree with the
former; it is definitely implicit in his statements about the purpose
of copyleft and the kind of software freedom he considers ideal.  The
latter is admittedly liberal sniping, but I think quite plausible.

    Timothy> it. But one must be aware that socialist revolutions are
    Timothy> conducted democratically.

Historically, not yet.  :-)

    Timothy> It seems that rms is acting like a dictator,

No, he hasn't the power.  Nor sought it.  To his great credit, he has
not ever used the great power that he has as the executive of the
custodian of the copyrights in the GNU system, not even to threaten.
(Of course he has threatened violators, but he is legally obliged to
do that according to the standard assignment papers that most of us
FSF contributors have signed.)

He is something much more dangerous than a dictator.  A philosopher.

    Timothy> though I would not go as far as discribing him as the
    Timothy> Stalin of the FSM at the momment. He certainly isn't
    Timothy> hostile to the SWP (see above) (Stalin would have been).

You underestimate the duplicity of that old Georgian wolf, I think.

But rms would never turn around and try to control, then crush, a
movement directly.  He is a liberal, and a democrat in that sense.

Even in his actively hostile behavior toward XEmacs he restricts
himself to pure persuasion[3], from the bully pulpit in public and in
his attempts to solicit XEmacs programmers whenever we send him
assignments.  (The latter may be perfectly honest, in the sense that
he does so with all contributors, but he does go so far as to make
specific reference to the "unfairness" of competition between the GNU
mainline and XEmacs.  An asymmetry that is entirely self-imposed, I
may add.)


Footnotes: 
[1]  The ASP problem is much more sophisticated and troublesome.  Eg,
if I provide a host that runs a modified form of Emacs, which you
display on your X terminal, I have no obligation whatsoever under the
GPL to distribute source.  This bothers rms, but he acknowledges it as
a necessary consequence of his construction of the GPL.  But I doubt
many SWP members would understand it without a lot of education, while
the "web toaster" analogy would appeal emotionally.

[2]  Toaster users can freely share code with each other at the cost
of a PROM burner and a soldering iron, and a lot of practice.
Netscape users can share the code at the minimal cost of a CD-R, but
only on pain of imprisonment if caught, prosecuted, and convicted.

[3]  I know that he has occasionally descended to less than full
disclosure of pertinent facts, but that's the worst I can say of him.

-- 
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