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For those that are kneejerkingly chastising Stallman, understand his point of view. OS X and iOS are not free, and Apple led by Jobs changed the way that peopl

For those that are kneejerkingly chastising Stallman, understand his point of view. OS X and iOS are not free, and Apple led by Jobs changed the way that people thought about installing Applications on desktop operating systems as something that requires manufacturer approval (App Store), which led the way for others like Intel to make AppUp, etc. This restricts what the user has access to install is more of a setback for the free software movement than anything Microsoft ever did. Jobs also changed the licensing program for Macintosh clones, making it too costly for the manufacturers to continue making machines. If there were Mac clones, then eventually perhaps freedom would have flourished. Basically, Jobs was the ultimate technology monarchist and Stallman the ultimate technology anarchist. (I almost said capitalist and communist, but Stallman is all about free, not about centralized distribution and control.) I'm not saying I agree with the man, but this is what he means by jail.

smoyer 15y ago
Yes ... And most of the enlightened (here at HN) seem to approve of Jobs - voting with their wallets. I don't own a recent Apple computer, but I have a Powerbook (Wallstreet) that's still running after after more than 12 years ... I think that says something about the quality of the engineering.
- yesreally 15y ago
  I'm curious- what do you mean by "enlightened"?
  - chippy 15y ago
    lightened of money from their wallets?
  - smoyer 15y ago
    I mean that the readership here is much more likely to understand the DRM and license implications of purchasing Apple products and services and yet there seems to be a disproportionately larger percentage of Apple users here than in the general population ... Or perhaps my perceptions are just plain wrong?
2muchcoffeeman 15y ago
Someone died though. The polite thing to do would probably be to say nothing at all ...
- llambda 15y ago
  This is just it. Implying the world is better off without Jobs or what Jobs did (however you want to slice that part of his comment) is insensitive beyond measure: someone is dead. Show a little respect if for nothing else than the fact he was a fellow human being, be him your greatest enemy or your dearest friend, where is the fucking humanity? Better to have said nothing at all than to make such a distasteful post.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  Why should people be stifled just because somebody died? What exactly are we concerned about? Steve Jobs becoming disgruntled, rising from his grave, and sucking the blood of virgins during the night? This "dead people are off limits" thing is a relic from the superstitious dark ages. If we can praise the actions of dead people, we can criticize them too.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - jsavimbi 15y ago
    Because people have feelings.
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      Why should it hurt anybodies feelings to point out that Steve Jobs wasn't all fairy dust and benevolence? This need to whitewash people when they die is truly bizarre.
      - 2muchcoffeeman 15y ago
        We're not trying to whitewash it. It's just empathy. Would it have been so bad to wait a week or 2 after the funeral?
pushingbits 15y ago
Makes me wonder whether a free software Steve Jobs (equivalent) would be possible. Maybe you need to be a powerful autocrat to generate enough directed force to dent the world? It certainly seems like the divide between computer consumers and computer developers is getting ever wider. One side has their computer experience made ever simpler, whereas the other has to deal with ever more complexity (cf. Ryan Dahl rant). The ultimate revolution might be to simplify programming to the point where anyone can do it.
- fuzzyman 15y ago
  Shuttleworth is trying... :-)
- yesreally 15y ago
  The ultimate revolution is to provide an operating system and applications simple enough that anyone could use them. Programming on the other hand should be easy and fun- simple doesn't have to play into it; something can be complex and still fun, and fun is what keeps people coming back.
Delmania 15y ago
I think your comparison of Jobs and Stallman are spot on, they are essentially polar opposties of each other. I know I will misststae this, and I hope someone more eloquent than me can rephrase it, but what I find interesting is how much they share in common, in terms of how much control they want. Jobs's total control of the walled garden, Stallman's total control over the source (i.e. you must give others access to the source). In that sense, Jobs favors the ditributor, and Stallman favors the recepient. Neither approach favors true freedom, in the sense that the creator decides how she wants to distribute her product...
ramanujan 15y ago
Look, all respect to Stallman for writing Emacs and the GNU toolchain. Among technologists he's clearly one of the few figures on par with Jobs. Indeed, he's also personally a difficult figure and a bit of a totalitarian about his craft, much like Jobs himself. [Though I don't think Jobs would ever publicly emit something like Stallman's "eulogy".] Where Stallman falls short is in supposing that open, hackable systems are an unmitigated good. "Just works" and "highly configurable" are often antonyms, rather than synonyms. Should open, hackable systems always exist or be developed as a check on Tivoization? Yes. Are they ever going to get a dominant market share, in the sense that the masses making voluntary decisions will choose Free software/hardware? No. more of a setback for the free software movement than anything Microsoft ever did. No. iOS exists because it can make tons of money to pay back its development costs. Android exists for the same reason. And at some point, a true mobile/touch Linux (perhaps a fork of Android) will also exist, and the free knockoff will owe a great deal to the hundreds of billions in dollars in capital plant installed worldwide by the for-profit, closed originals. Indeed, Linux itself exists because of the fact that AT&T could make a profit off Unix, and that IBM could make money off selling computers. So: iOS is not a setback for the free software movement. In the long term it's a massive boost in the arm.
- bluekeybox 15y ago
  more of a setback for the free software movement than anything Microsoft ever did. Of course RMS would say something like this. Microsoft's business practices gave RMS followers; Steve Jobs took them away. As any RMS-style self-proclaimed bearded prophet/politician/priest/father-figure knows, it's never been about making things but about gaining followers. The beard is not ironic.
  - prodigal_erik 15y ago
    Stallman has never left any room for doubt that his motives are genuine. It's not about followers. There's no shortage of people telling him how to moderate his message to attract more, yet he won't do it. I think this is another thing people are going to grudgingly acknowledge he was right about, after a decade or two—but that might have happened more quickly if not for the harsh delivery.
api 15y ago
And yet, the market has spoken, and here's why: Only technology monarchism has been able to deliver a good user experience. The organized chaos of OSS has delivered excellent technology but a piss-poor user experience by comparison. I can't imagine using Linux as anything other than a web-netbook without having a thorough understanding of it, and the UI still blows by comparison with anything by Apple. Microsoft's UIs aren't that great, but that's because Microsoft's corporate culture is a lot less monarchistic than Apple's. Too many cooks in the kitchen. A fundamental requirement of good aesthetics is to have someone who can say "no" repeatedly to "ideas" that just clutter everything up. Minimal is a synonym for good.
- RexRollman 15y ago
  When it comes to computing, it seems to me that most people would rather have a pretty prison than freedom.
  - gnoupi 15y ago
    Mostly because freedom is not really accessible for most people, in matter of computing. You can have freedom to install what you want, the way you want... only a minority ultimately knows how to. The rest is left without a clue in front of their supposed freedom. When the iPad is presented to people, of course it's no "revolution" to most of us. But for the regular person, it's an easy way to access something which they could have had difficulties to access, before. At this point, choice matters less than the actual possibility to use something, even if this thing is framed and safely guarded, for most.
    - _delirium 15y ago
      There are some people who do think freedom and accessibility can coexist; interestingly enough, some of the very people whose work Apple built on (but focusing more on the accessibility part of their work). For example, Alan Kay and Ted Nelson have both long pushed the idea that computer systems can be both hackable and user-friendly / broadly accessible, rather than having to be split into a dichotomy of consumer-appliance versus hackable-nerd-toy.
aespinoza 15y ago
I am not a Mac fan, in fact the only thing I have from Apple is the iPad. I have an Android phone and I have a windows machine. Still, Stallman, as a public figure should have remained silent. These kind of comments don't help anybody, specially not the community. Now I do understand his point of view, what I do not understand is why he can't see the whole picture. That is all. He should have remained silent if he had nothing good to say. His comments have no value at all to anybody.

smoyer 15y ago

Yes ... And most of the enlightened (here at HN) seem to approve of Jobs - voting with their wallets. I don't own a recent Apple computer, but I have a Powerbook (Wallstreet) that's still running after after more than 12 years ... I think that says something about the quality of the engineering.

yesreally 15y ago
I'm curious- what do you mean by "enlightened"?
- chippy 15y ago
  lightened of money from their wallets?
- smoyer 15y ago
  I mean that the readership here is much more likely to understand the DRM and license implications of purchasing Apple products and services and yet there seems to be a disproportionately larger percentage of Apple users here than in the general population ... Or perhaps my perceptions are just plain wrong?

2muchcoffeeman 15y ago

Someone died though. The polite thing to do would probably be to say nothing at all ...

llambda 15y ago
This is just it. Implying the world is better off without Jobs or what Jobs did (however you want to slice that part of his comment) is insensitive beyond measure: someone is dead. Show a little respect if for nothing else than the fact he was a fellow human being, be him your greatest enemy or your dearest friend, where is the fucking humanity? Better to have said nothing at all than to make such a distasteful post.
burgerbrain 15y ago
Why should people be stifled just because somebody died? What exactly are we concerned about? Steve Jobs becoming disgruntled, rising from his grave, and sucking the blood of virgins during the night? This "dead people are off limits" thing is a relic from the superstitious dark ages. If we can praise the actions of dead people, we can criticize them too.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- jsavimbi 15y ago
  Because people have feelings.
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    Why should it hurt anybodies feelings to point out that Steve Jobs wasn't all fairy dust and benevolence? This need to whitewash people when they die is truly bizarre.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 15y ago
      We're not trying to whitewash it. It's just empathy. Would it have been so bad to wait a week or 2 after the funeral?

pushingbits 15y ago

Makes me wonder whether a free software Steve Jobs (equivalent) would be possible. Maybe you need to be a powerful autocrat to generate enough directed force to dent the world? It certainly seems like the divide between computer consumers and computer developers is getting ever wider. One side has their computer experience made ever simpler, whereas the other has to deal with ever more complexity (cf. Ryan Dahl rant). The ultimate revolution might be to simplify programming to the point where anyone can do it.

fuzzyman 15y ago
Shuttleworth is trying... :-)
yesreally 15y ago
The ultimate revolution is to provide an operating system and applications simple enough that anyone could use them. Programming on the other hand should be easy and fun- simple doesn't have to play into it; something can be complex and still fun, and fun is what keeps people coming back.

Delmania 15y ago

I think your comparison of Jobs and Stallman are spot on, they are essentially polar opposties of each other. I know I will misststae this, and I hope someone more eloquent than me can rephrase it, but what I find interesting is how much they share in common, in terms of how much control they want. Jobs's total control of the walled garden, Stallman's total control over the source (i.e. you must give others access to the source). In that sense, Jobs favors the ditributor, and Stallman favors the recepient. Neither approach favors true freedom, in the sense that the creator decides how she wants to distribute her product...

ramanujan 15y ago

Look, all respect to Stallman for writing Emacs and the GNU toolchain. Among technologists he's clearly one of the few figures on par with Jobs. Indeed, he's also personally a difficult figure and a bit of a totalitarian about his craft, much like Jobs himself. [Though I don't think Jobs would ever publicly emit something like Stallman's "eulogy".] Where Stallman falls short is in supposing that open, hackable systems are an unmitigated good. "Just works" and "highly configurable" are often antonyms, rather than synonyms. Should open, hackable systems always exist or be developed as a check on Tivoization? Yes. Are they ever going to get a dominant market share, in the sense that the masses making voluntary decisions will choose Free software/hardware? No. more of a setback for the free software movement than anything Microsoft ever did. No. iOS exists because it can make tons of money to pay back its development costs. Android exists for the same reason. And at some point, a true mobile/touch Linux (perhaps a fork of Android) will also exist, and the free knockoff will owe a great deal to the hundreds of billions in dollars in capital plant installed worldwide by the for-profit, closed originals. Indeed, Linux itself exists because of the fact that AT&T could make a profit off Unix, and that IBM could make money off selling computers. So: iOS is not a setback for the free software movement. In the long term it's a massive boost in the arm.

bluekeybox 15y ago
more of a setback for the free software movement than anything Microsoft ever did. Of course RMS would say something like this. Microsoft's business practices gave RMS followers; Steve Jobs took them away. As any RMS-style self-proclaimed bearded prophet/politician/priest/father-figure knows, it's never been about making things but about gaining followers. The beard is not ironic.
- prodigal_erik 15y ago
  Stallman has never left any room for doubt that his motives are genuine. It's not about followers. There's no shortage of people telling him how to moderate his message to attract more, yet he won't do it. I think this is another thing people are going to grudgingly acknowledge he was right about, after a decade or two—but that might have happened more quickly if not for the harsh delivery.

api 15y ago

And yet, the market has spoken, and here's why: Only technology monarchism has been able to deliver a good user experience. The organized chaos of OSS has delivered excellent technology but a piss-poor user experience by comparison. I can't imagine using Linux as anything other than a web-netbook without having a thorough understanding of it, and the UI still blows by comparison with anything by Apple. Microsoft's UIs aren't that great, but that's because Microsoft's corporate culture is a lot less monarchistic than Apple's. Too many cooks in the kitchen. A fundamental requirement of good aesthetics is to have someone who can say "no" repeatedly to "ideas" that just clutter everything up. Minimal is a synonym for good.

RexRollman 15y ago
When it comes to computing, it seems to me that most people would rather have a pretty prison than freedom.
- gnoupi 15y ago
  Mostly because freedom is not really accessible for most people, in matter of computing. You can have freedom to install what you want, the way you want... only a minority ultimately knows how to. The rest is left without a clue in front of their supposed freedom. When the iPad is presented to people, of course it's no "revolution" to most of us. But for the regular person, it's an easy way to access something which they could have had difficulties to access, before. At this point, choice matters less than the actual possibility to use something, even if this thing is framed and safely guarded, for most.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    There are some people who do think freedom and accessibility can coexist; interestingly enough, some of the very people whose work Apple built on (but focusing more on the accessibility part of their work). For example, Alan Kay and Ted Nelson have both long pushed the idea that computer systems can be both hackable and user-friendly / broadly accessible, rather than having to be split into a dichotomy of consumer-appliance versus hackable-nerd-toy.

aespinoza 15y ago

I am not a Mac fan, in fact the only thing I have from Apple is the iPad. I have an Android phone and I have a windows machine. Still, Stallman, as a public figure should have remained silent. These kind of comments don't help anybody, specially not the community. Now I do understand his point of view, what I do not understand is why he can't see the whole picture. That is all. He should have remained silent if he had nothing good to say. His comments have no value at all to anybody.