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To save everyone the time, here's a typical Internet thread about Stallman: - He's crazy! - But he's right! - Right? He's just been stating the obvious all t
by throwawaykf02 13y ago
To save everyone the time, here's a typical Internet thread about Stallman:
- He's crazy!
- But he's right!
- Right? He's just been stating the obvious all this time!
- NSA surveillance!
- Hadn't anyone heard about Echelon?
- He stands for freedom of users!
- But users don't care about those freedoms, they just want something that works!
- He's antisocial and extremely rude!
- Autism spectrum.
- But he's not diplomatic at all, we don't want him as a spokesperson for Open Source!
- It's GNU/Linux, not Linux.
- See? It's nitpicking things like GNU/Linux that make even open source enthusiasts hate him!
- Only the userland is GNU anyway.
- GPL!
- Emacs!
- GCC!
- HURD!
- Toejam.
- salient 13y agoDon't forget "who can trust anyone with that hair?"
- AlexanderDhoore 13y agoThere should be an XKCD about this...
- jawns 13y agoI feel like he could reduce the crazy vibe by hiring a web designer to overhaul this page. Well-designed crazy usually looks a little more sane than poorly designed crazy.
- theboss 13y agoWeb designers aren't free software......
- varjag 13y agoI don't know. Most of the stuff on the page is factually correct, although a number of entries are sensationalized. If it's crazy, I'd argue it's 2nd-amendment-advocate-crazy, not timecube-crazy.
- nly 13y agoSo, not Tom Cruise Crazy?
- FiloSottile 13y agoI think he has thoughts along the lines of http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/
- why-el 13y agoThis should amuse you a bit. http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/
- phaer 13y agoIn my opinion his page is quite well designed. It's easy to navigate, it's obvious whats navigation and whats content. The page is very readable, you see links easily. The page loads fast and is responsible in the sense that it usable on all devices and clients i tried (including my phone and w3m in a terminal). I guess what you mean by "well-designed" is more colors and and images, but i prefer his page over those ajaxy blogspot-themes, which get completely unusable if you are on a phone-line-connection in a remote area, and a few other pages. And that even though i have nothing against good modern css in general :)
- interstitial 13y agoNeeds more parallax. I feel like I'm reading or something: I get the annoying sensation of thinking. I want to feel like the internet is washing over me and flowing through me. That I am one with magic electrons and the thought-beams of narcissists and sycophants.
- panacea 13y agoAs a web designer... I say the linked page is beautifully designed.
- ams6110 13y agoThis style of site (plain HTML with no styles) is pretty typical for a CS person who pre-dates the world wide web.
- krapp 13y agoIt's a site designed on behalf of a man who, as I understand it, would rather use some complicated web scraping/emailing scheme to view websites than even touch a web browser. It is probably exactly what he intends the web to be. Or at least his little corner of it.
- berntb 13y agoWell, it becomes simpler if we note that: Most reasonably informed people should agree that the [software] world is a better place because rms is in it. And not only for gcc, emacs, etc. The rest is just a question of how many years before today he is, this time. (And yes, sometimes the world he is years before isn't our planet. But his hit statistics isn't bad.)
- rrich 13y agoIt is. His contributions have been immeasurable. He is a classic representation of how one's presentation doesn't equate to one's contribution. Something we all battle with at one time or another in the software industry. As rough around the edges as he can be his underlying message should be undoubtedly considered.
- na85 13y agoI've always viewed rms as such: The world needs someone like Stallman quite simply because his views are so extreme. You need an extremist so that moderates can seem reasonable.
- loup-vaillant 13y agoCome to think of it, this is true of many causes. I recall the LGBT and atheism movements: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YxdM1WChHc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YxdM1WChHc (She says at some point that despite the infightings, radicals and moderates actually complement each other.)
- dreamfactory 13y agoThere's something off about that cosy consensus view, quite apart from the fact that it is so open to manipulation. It's basically highly conservative and only accepts the status quo. The reality is that what may have seemed a completely out there view can become the new normal within a surprisingly short time when the environment or culture changes. Apart from politics, you see this in everything from fashion to music, business etc. (e.g. predicting the death of print or record shops, or 'did I really think I looked good in that - what the hell was I thinking?')
- jfoster 13y agoHis ideas aren't bad, but he is terrible at selling them.
- bmelton 13y ago"It is a foolish buyer, he who evaluates the product being sold on the quality of the person selling it."
- atmosx 13y agoadd to the above quote that the guy literally sneezes and he is front-page on HN and some hundred thousand linux/OS related forums... Which means that he is the exact opposite of a nobody in the tech community and you have a good bargain reading what he says.
- lazugod 13y agoIs this quote from anyone in particular? I don't mind Stallman, but to decry all boycotts and competition-of-personal-values is itself foolish. We should care about who gets our money and our attention.
- bmelton 13y agoNo, I just made it up. I can see your point about vendor discretion, but that's not really the same thing. I try to avoid companies whose values do not align with my own wherever possible. In many cases, I even consider my opinions to be well founded, or even informed. That said, I still understand them to be value judgements, and while I'm happy to discuss those values to whomever, it isn't my place to push my values onto another, and it would be silly of me to ignore the good aspects of somebody because they also possess aspects I consider to be negative. Moreover though, it is foolish to discount good advice because you don't like the source. It is, I believe, the height of pettiness, and should be avoided at all costs by pragmatists.
- unclebucknasty 13y ago>No, I just made it up. So, you were quoting yourself?
- twelvechairs 13y agoto actually focus on the linked article however - this isn't just an opinion but an actual reason why Facebook has lost its huge earlier momentum of use and user signups. though there's quite a big social network inertia, over time its going to be hard to justify the high-profit 'all your personal information is ours to sell and market' model.
- lazyant 13y agoyou forgot about the parrots
- mrobot 13y agoThat doesn't save time, it works directly against this by reducing it to a bunch of superficial funny bullets, it's an attack on preserving privacy, as usual. Let's talk about the article at least a little bit if we're going to talk. Just wanting something that works is the same as having nothing to hide is the same as not understanding or caring about privacy.
- repulsebo 13y agoThe problem is that people are shooting the messenger and focus on a guy living by his words which is quite unusual. The same happened here where most comments discuss stallman and not the actual matter of the post. This is a nice list of sourced documentation about facebook dangers, I happen to maintain one myself for future reference and it is quite useful to have.