It annoys me how willing he is to push the externalities of his decisions onto other people. ("I won't carry a cell phone, but fortunately everyone else does and I can just mooch off of them"). It's like that friend who won't own a car but sure as hell will mooch a ride.
This reminds me of a story my friend told me. Back in the early 90's(?) my friend had his lunch eaten by RMS, several times. I don't think it was malicious--it was more like if RMS was hungry, would just be happy that someone was kind enough to leave him something to eat in the AI lab fridge.
It was kind of considered an honor--after all, what were you going to do, complain, get him angry, and delay the release of Hurd?
It is not a problem if his friends don't object to borrowing him a phone, nor is it Stallman's responsibility to carry a phone so that his friends don't even have to not object.
If someone doesn't like him asking for a phone or lunch or whatever, then I assume it would be up to that someone to reject his request. It's not like Stallman goes around grabbing people's phones or lunches without asking first.
I've been reflecting on this, and I guess my annoyance is that I actually strongly agree with RMS that cell phones have us in a self-imposed virtual surveillance state. But in the end, the devil's deal of owning the phone is one I can't refuse, so I make the choice to bear that burden.
BTW, on second reading, the lunch story came off harsher in my telling than I intended--it was really supposed to be a story of one of his cute eccentricities--"this dude doesn't think like your average person". Which is probably why he's able to contribute so much more to society than the average person. I would totally make lunch for RMS every day, given the opportunity. If he would only tell us what his favorite food was.
Let me put forth another analogy from 'Surely You are Joking Mr Feynman':
Lets say you believe killing someone is evil. Then would you think it is OK to ask some else to kill someone for you ?
There is a reason people may not object to Stallman's request. Whatever that reason is it helps promote the surveillence mechanism that Stallman believes to be cellphones.
I discovered a couple of years ago (when my phone, er, met with a nasty firmware accident) that you cannot buy a phone in the UK over the counter without also buying a Pay-As-You-Go SIM with a traceable means of payment (ie. card). They simply refused to sell the phone to me unless I forked over £10 for a SIM I didn't want. Apparently the French are to blame for this little piece of legislation.
I politely told them that the only reason I was in their shop was because it was an emergency, and I hoped that they enjoyed their future career packing boxes for internet retail, at least until they were replaced by robots. Harsh, but I never said I was a nice person.
his priorities are more to do with freedom then they are to do with tracking. I don't think he would use those phones because those phones do not have their source available.
I know many people who do not own a car. Somehow, the argument here is that those shouldn't now be allowed to use a buss, taxi, train, or go with a friend somewhere in a car? forever doomed to walk and always only walk? Given the city where I live, only about 10-20% of people I know has a car. That would make it kind of depressing if we dictated their lives in the way described.
Thats just don't make any sense. The fridge thing do, but after the first sentence in your comment I have a small distrust regarding if you are giving the whole context here. Maybe the fridge is used for shared purchases of drinks/food/snacks that everyone could take when needed. How did other people use the fridge, and what was the initial purpose when the fridge was bought?
> the argument here is that those shouldn't now be allowed to use a buss, taxi, train, or go with a friend somewhere in a car?
Nope, that was not the argument.
> I have a small distrust
Ha. At best this is a friend-of-a-friend story from 20 years ago, posted on the internet. If there's any consequence to you trusting this story, I'd highly recommend against it.
It's Stallman's own title, but a much more accurate title would be "RMS Opinions"
I think it's interesting for that reason though, because it doesn't say as much about his actual lifestyle as it does what he thinks about other people. For instance:
> As a matter of principle, I refuse to own a tie.
Tells us more about an opinion he's made about other people. If he wanted to be more descriptive of his lifestyle, he could have said that he was aesthetically minimalist (or minimalist with accessories in general). Instead ties become a value judgement, and he sees tie-wearers as "victims" at best.
In fact, though many would describe him as minimalist in lifestyle if they had to sum it up in a sentence, he doesn't use the term. This piece is really exclusively opinions.
> When I wait for my baggage in an airport, I always do one of these two. And I notice the people around me, feeling anxious and getting nothing done. What a waste.
His reasoning in general here seems arbitrary and condescending. If I didn't know who we were reading about beforehand I'd gander they were prone to being capricious. I wonder if we should tell him that trains run non-free software, just like phones.
In general the biggest takeaway I got from this is that he seems to have a very negative view of almost all other people.
"I refuse to own a tie" is a fact, not an opinion.
Much of the following discussion is an opinion.
He's not a "minimalist", he is a freedom activist. He believes ties impinge on freedom.
The passenger does not run the train software. The train owner can choose what kind of software they want to use. RMS's trains (of which he has none) do not run non-free software.
RMS has thought deeply through these issues for decades, you aren't going to discredit him with 5 minutes of snark.
> he seems to have a very negative view of almost all other people.
And yet he dedicates his life to improving theirs, even though he could easily accumulate a few million dollars and retire. I'll take enemies like him over friends to make an effort to personally attack strangers for having a principled lifestlye, any day.
> > As a matter of principle, I refuse to own a tie.
> Tells us more about an opinion he's made about other people.
This being HN, jokes have to be pointed out. So to you - This is a joke:
"The first time I visited Croatia, that country had a major PR campaign based on being the origin of the tie. ("Cravate" and "Croat" are related words.) You can imagine my distaste for this — therefore, I referred to that country as "Tieland" for a while."
I think it's interesting for that reason though,
because it doesn't say as much about his actual
lifestyle as it does what he thinks about other
people.
But that's part of what makes his lifestyle his. I don't think you can have a lifestyle, much less live a life, without considering what you think about other people yourself. It's quite important, actually, because what you see in other people is a reflection of yourself. So, in effect, it tells us more about Stallman himself and Stallman's lifestyle than if he had just iterated some of his aesthetic preferences.
We all know that person that takes his counter-culture shtick too seriously. Hell, maybe many of us were that person at some point. I know I did although I never reached RMS-level. The difference is that regarding RMS this is consequence of his substantial and well warranted philosophy on free software and freedom in general and he has his life's work to prove it. In short, he is not doing out of self-righteousness or to be perceived "cool".
While his eccentricities mirror those of a mad scientist (or really just an institutionalized person, depending on whom you ask), you cannot deny that RMS is a genius. His work in free software has enabled much recursive work in the computer science fields that wouldn't be possible without his contributions. gcc is without a doubt still the most advanced compiler available today. The GNU coreutils are nowhere near the simplicity of the old UNIX and BSD userland utilities, but they improve upon them exponentially, and offer far more ease of use and efficiency bar perhaps the Plan 9 userland. While I don't use emacs (VIM junkie), I think emacs is still brilliant operating system, and the editor is actually finally good enough for daily usage.
While his strict insistence on accurate semantics, such as GNU+Linux versus Linux and "free software" vs "open source," seems annoying, pushy, and generally weird, he has valid reasons to back the insistence up.
What reasons do you have to back your criticism of him up?
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
The point you might be overlooking is that the GNU userland was established back in the 80s. Most UNIXes (there were many, and at least a dozen "common" ones) shipped with AT&T or custom or (later) BSD versions of these userland tools.
GNU was brilliant because it was portable to most of those pathologically differentiated UNIXes, and it meant that arguments and behaviors were predictable, after you installed the GNU tools.
Then along came Linux. Of course it used the GNU tools. Everyone used GNU tools. The different part was that the kernel was free and not BSD (which had recently emerged from serious political and licensing drama, and -- if the old story is to be believed -- Linus was completely unaware of).
Soon there were dozens of operating systems sharing that kernel. The important categorization of them is that they were all Linux. And yeah, they ran the GNU userland, like every other non-pathological UNIX that wasn't BSD. Any other choice would have been hugely surprising (and doomed Linux).
So yes, GNU deserves prominence. But "GNU" wasn't omitted from the common naming due to any hostility or ignorance. It was just obvious, and not new or noteworthy in that sense.
It hurt RMS's feelings, and he has been vocal about it. Everyone agrees that GNU deserves much respect, but many people are turned off by the way RMS has reacted to his feelings of disappointment.
It's not fair, but few things in life are, and many people have difficulty sympathizing with RMS.
Just FYI: the text of the parent's post is taken verbatim from a comment RMS once made but this text is probably best known as the most popular "copypasta" (reposted text) on 4chan's technology board (called "/g/" from the Japanese word for "technology"). You shouldn't reply to the poster in earnest.
Interestingly enough, /g/ is obsessed with RMS and the regulars' attitude towards him is the epitome of a love-hate relationship. The sheer number of images they've produced featuring him is quite impressive.
While I agree that GNU software makes up an important part of a Linux system, I do not see a reason to include it in the name – doing so with every important part of my computer would result in the short and easily pronounceable name Opera/Pidgin/Claws-Mail/Xfce/Debian GNU/Linux. Or something like that.
So I really think that it is perfectly fine to name a system by it’s lowest possible encapsulated unit of software (kernel). In my case, this is Linux.
With the caveat that I haven't looked at gcc since I can't judge it, I can deny he's a "genius" when it comes to software and systems. I think he's a bit like me, a scientist type who's very good in these fields (and better than I). But compared to the true genius types in these fields, such as Guy Steele and David Moon, well, we qualitatively aren't at that level.
After all, he's going to go down in history first and foremost as the founder of the modern open source movement, that's not a technical thing per se.
I see a lot of shock at the negative comments about RMS here. Those who are appalled at the lack of respect here need to understand that there are a lot of people within the tech world that have developed very complicated feelings about RMS over the course of the past 20-30 years.
I mean, sure, a lot of people who don't know a whole lot about him or haven't had to deal with him over the course of decades might have shallow knee-jerk opinions on him: they hate him, they love him, or they barely know who he is. But I suspect a lot of the anti-RMS sentiment that you might see on someplace like HN comes from a much deeper place than that.
I don't hate the guy, personally, and I do think that the good he's done has outweighed the bad. I also agree with him on quite a few fronts, to a degree. However, he has alienated a LOT of people over the years for no good reason other than his own personality issues and a seeming complete lack of a reflective nature or an innate sense of perspective or empathy.
I feel sorry for him more than anything else, because I think he's a deeply troubled guy who unfortunately ended up in a life path that sort of rewarded him for staying in his deeply troubled state. He's always had lots of admirers and supporters, not to mention grants and speaking gigs. As a result, he never had any external forces that might compel him to grow up beyond a certain point, intellectually or emotionally.
I think a lot of the more nuanced, deep, and well-fermented RMS hate you might see stems not so much from total disagreement, but rather disappointment from wasted potential. He's somebody who's had a lot of great ideas from which so many great things have sprouted, but he's a terrible steward for those ideas. He ends up making it about him somehow, or takes so many things to such ridiculous extremes, or justifies his ideas for all the wrong reasons, or intentionally alienates the people that he should be trying to build bridges to, that he ends up discrediting the kernels of brilliant truth that are at the heart of much of his philosophy.
So, there are a ton of people who at one time or another were inspired by RMS in their larval stages to value freedom and sharing and openness, but grew to see him as an impediment to those very ideals. I'm one of those people and I so wish that it didn't have to be this way. I don't think you're seeing people criticizing his views on ties, so much as you're seeing disillusionment at a much deeper level with RMS' personal and intellectual failings, which are pretty broadly on display even when he's writing about trivial things like ties or hobbies or cell phones.
I'd add a few more things, at least from the 70s/80s (I left the relevant social circle in the 90s when I left the Boston area):
A near complete lack of personal security and safety awareness and savvy, which wouldn't matter so much to others except:
No respect for others' relationships with SOs; the ham-handed way he'd hit on your girlfriend was mostly a bit annoying, best avoided by having your girlfriend's other SO on the other side of her and you both going into "alpha male don't fsck with us" physical projection mode ^_^ ... BUT: it put him and some fellow diners in jeopardy when he hit on a gangster's moll in the late night Boston Chinatown restaurant the circle frequented (as related to me by a reliable 1st hand witness).
It was said, albeit denied, that RMS took a technical disagreement with Dan Weinreb to the point of purging MIT-AI backup tapes, and this was why Dan left for LLL and the S-1 project. Now, as I note Dan denied this, but the very fact it was credible during the period Dan was absent tells you how abrasive he can be in technical matters.
Somewhat troubled, yes (it doesn't make my deeply troubled threshold, at worst we're talking the personality disorder level of mental illness and to my knowledge and observation it didn't rise to that level though the '80s), and note most of these observations are from before he became really famous.
He's just a guy with his own opinions; obviously we won't all agree. The main disapproval I see (sometimes dressed as disappointment) is that he isn't at all conventional (and that includes living up to some kind of societal expectation around leadership).
> they hate him, they love him, or they barely know who he is
I would suspect that for the majority of people, both the ones who hate and the ones who love him, barely know who he is.
I don't know him at all, but I would guess that if I did get to know him, I would find that he's just another human being - and being a human is often hard and weird, so we all cope differently.
Wasted potential?? Compared to who? Gosling, Jobs, Gates all pretty much look like posers by comparison. Everyone's entitled to their opinions and objections, and no individual can withstand comparison to some theoretical saint, but RMS has certainly earned his spot. I'd be thrilled to accomplish one percent as much good before I go.
The comments here, are for the most part, incredibly disappointing. I don't understand the point of bashing a guy, however public, for merely stating his preferences: I'm sure people could find some of everyone's preferences equally curious.
Whatever the intent in submitting this to Hacker News was, it's turning into pointless bullying and should probably just be killed.
That's a stretch. If he's allowed to post his opinions, we're allowed to post ours. The strength of HN is in the dialectic.
He has some clearly strange habits - I wouldn't call him extreme, radical or militant per se, but he obviously doesn't carry himself like most people.
I don't think the majority of us are trying to diminish his contributions to the internet community. Rather, we're commenting on how odd he is. That's okay, it's just humorous in a nutty way.
RMS takes the cynical beliefs people often think when they hear Christmas music and hate it, and takes it to actually doing it (to provide one example).
"Ugh, fuck the holidays. I hate always having to spend money on people I pretend to like."
^Most of us get over it. RMS has the anti-social (I don't mean that in a DSM or pejorative sense) solidarity to actually stop celebrating holidays. It's admirable, just weird.
Many of the statements he makes in this are implicit value judgments. For example, his closing statement:
> When I wait for my baggage in an airport, I always do one of these two. And I notice the people around me, feeling anxious and getting nothing done. What a waste.
Even with the benefit of the doubt that he didn't mean this as snarky( I do not know RMS personally, so I cannot judge too much), he imposes his lifestyle decisions (working all the time) as a sort of absolute truth.
>None of my shirts carry messages (such as words or symbols). That practice strikes me as lacking dignity, so I won't wear clothing with symbols, not even for causes I support. This is not a matter of ethical disapproval, so I don't mind selling hats and shirts with free software slogans on behalf of the FSF; but I choose not to wear them myself.
I get not wanting to have messages on your shirt. Loads of people are like that. But to simultaneously say that it lacks dignity but then act as if this isn't a value judgement is a bit contrarian.
I think this is more one of those things that are more annoying than somehow "fundamentally" wrong but the fact that he "doesn't mind" using other people's cell phones or rewards cards is reminiscent of a lot of annoying people I've known in my life.
Your personal preferences stop being immune from criticism when they end up imposing things on others.
Genius or not, is he a misanthrope? Yes, he has a splendid list of cool things he's done, and he's a luminary.
But why compile a list of things that basically says, "I generally don't like people, the things most people do or have, or the silly rituals most people enjoy."
I can respect his opinions, but he comes across as very condescending...
That said, I do admire how much of a diehard he is about his beliefs. Not many people actually "walk the walk" when it comes to not owning a cell phone in today's age...
I assume you haven't read many biographies of famous people. The only thing that strikes me as uncommon is that RMS writes it on a website in condensed form rather than having it written by a biographer for a physical book. Many historical famous people had extreme opinions, and was very dismissal of "silly rituals", newspapers, cats, workers, and street music to name a few.
I try reading this while assuming the benefit of the doubt. I don't think he's doing it on purpose (it feels like he isn't even aware that he's doing it). It makes the entire thing easier to read.
This kind of thinking did happen to me when I tried to generate a consistent world view.
At this point, there are just too many contradictions, I'd rather forget and simply accept the absurd.
For example, being an atheist, I don't particularly believe in holidays myself. I do enjoy myself with my family even if it mean a few capitalists make a little more money during the season. On the whole, a meaningless event makes the whole world happy.
I'm of a fairly open religion (Hinduism). So, there aren't ardent rules you need to waste time with.
From Wikipedia: "Misanthropy is the general hatred, mistrust or disdain of the human species or human nature"
Nah, just a "difficult" person, at least based on our interactions in the '80s. He wasn't that bad a person to be around as long as you're not in one of his "bad" categories, i.e. there was a big change in our interactions where I started to work for "Software Hoarder" UniPress after previously working at e.g. Lisp Machine Inc.
"...I do use airline frequent flier numbers because the airlines demand to know my identity anyway."
"...However, I absolutely refuse to take Amtrak trains because they check passengers ID (sometimes, not all the time)."
Are these two statements contradictory, or is there something special about what Amtrak do that threatens privacy more than the disclosure of identity to an airline? This is a genuine question, I have never visited the US.
(In the UK, you can still walk into a railway station and buy a ticket for cash without showing ID anywhere within the mainland. You will not be asked for anything other than the ticket on the train unless you are using a Student or Senior Citizen's railcard to claim the discount.)
The more I think about the nature of software, the more I find Stallman's views about software freedom compelling.
Is that really what he means though? Most people use the word "breakfast" to refer to the first meal of the day (or lack thereof) eaten within a few hours of waking up.
Also the type of food. If you sleep in on a Saturday until noon, you'll probably tend to want breakfast food when you first wake up.
The time of day is far behind those two factors for what constitutes breakfast in popular usage.
Readit News
This reminds me of a story my friend told me. Back in the early 90's(?) my friend had his lunch eaten by RMS, several times. I don't think it was malicious--it was more like if RMS was hungry, would just be happy that someone was kind enough to leave him something to eat in the AI lab fridge.
It was kind of considered an honor--after all, what were you going to do, complain, get him angry, and delay the release of Hurd?
If someone doesn't like him asking for a phone or lunch or whatever, then I assume it would be up to that someone to reject his request. It's not like Stallman goes around grabbing people's phones or lunches without asking first.
BTW, on second reading, the lunch story came off harsher in my telling than I intended--it was really supposed to be a story of one of his cute eccentricities--"this dude doesn't think like your average person". Which is probably why he's able to contribute so much more to society than the average person. I would totally make lunch for RMS every day, given the opportunity. If he would only tell us what his favorite food was.
Lets say you believe killing someone is evil. Then would you think it is OK to ask some else to kill someone for you ?
There is a reason people may not object to Stallman's request. Whatever that reason is it helps promote the surveillence mechanism that Stallman believes to be cellphones.
Anyway, one can buy a throwaway cell phone in cash, and power it down when not in use, I thought. Like drug dealers do.
Still surveillable, but no more than any borrowed phone.
I politely told them that the only reason I was in their shop was because it was an emergency, and I hoped that they enjoyed their future career packing boxes for internet retail, at least until they were replaced by robots. Harsh, but I never said I was a nice person.
you can not do it in many countries like Spain where you have to provide your ID (because of terrorism).
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029_3-6140191.html
Thats just don't make any sense. The fridge thing do, but after the first sentence in your comment I have a small distrust regarding if you are giving the whole context here. Maybe the fridge is used for shared purchases of drinks/food/snacks that everyone could take when needed. How did other people use the fridge, and what was the initial purpose when the fridge was bought?
Nope, that was not the argument.
> I have a small distrust
Ha. At best this is a friend-of-a-friend story from 20 years ago, posted on the internet. If there's any consequence to you trusting this story, I'd highly recommend against it.
I think it's interesting for that reason though, because it doesn't say as much about his actual lifestyle as it does what he thinks about other people. For instance:
> As a matter of principle, I refuse to own a tie.
Tells us more about an opinion he's made about other people. If he wanted to be more descriptive of his lifestyle, he could have said that he was aesthetically minimalist (or minimalist with accessories in general). Instead ties become a value judgement, and he sees tie-wearers as "victims" at best.
In fact, though many would describe him as minimalist in lifestyle if they had to sum it up in a sentence, he doesn't use the term. This piece is really exclusively opinions.
> When I wait for my baggage in an airport, I always do one of these two. And I notice the people around me, feeling anxious and getting nothing done. What a waste.
His reasoning in general here seems arbitrary and condescending. If I didn't know who we were reading about beforehand I'd gander they were prone to being capricious. I wonder if we should tell him that trains run non-free software, just like phones.
In general the biggest takeaway I got from this is that he seems to have a very negative view of almost all other people.
He's not a "minimalist", he is a freedom activist. He believes ties impinge on freedom.
The passenger does not run the train software. The train owner can choose what kind of software they want to use. RMS's trains (of which he has none) do not run non-free software.
RMS has thought deeply through these issues for decades, you aren't going to discredit him with 5 minutes of snark.
> he seems to have a very negative view of almost all other people.
And yet he dedicates his life to improving theirs, even though he could easily accumulate a few million dollars and retire. I'll take enemies like him over friends to make an effort to personally attack strangers for having a principled lifestlye, any day.
OTOH, religion has been pondered well longer than RMS has been alive. RMS is not going to discredit the Church with 20 years of heresy.
what an ideal nerd :)
But he has weird personal hygiene. Certainly that invalidates one or two of his moral/philosophical points!
/s
> Tells us more about an opinion he's made about other people.
This being HN, jokes have to be pointed out. So to you - This is a joke:
"The first time I visited Croatia, that country had a major PR campaign based on being the origin of the tie. ("Cravate" and "Croat" are related words.) You can imagine my distaste for this — therefore, I referred to that country as "Tieland" for a while."
Come on. It's funny, lighten up.
Someone once told me that they disliked tattoos because they didn't like the idea of getting branded like people in Auschwitz or cattle on the field.
Question one: Is that an opinion about tattoos, or about other people who wear tattoos? Should those people be offended?
Question two: What was intended by the person who said it?
Deleted Comment
But that's part of what makes his lifestyle his. I don't think you can have a lifestyle, much less live a life, without considering what you think about other people yourself. It's quite important, actually, because what you see in other people is a reflection of yourself. So, in effect, it tells us more about Stallman himself and Stallman's lifestyle than if he had just iterated some of his aesthetic preferences.
I wouldn't be surprised if he gets compensated with briefcases filled with bills...
While his strict insistence on accurate semantics, such as GNU+Linux versus Linux and "free software" vs "open source," seems annoying, pushy, and generally weird, he has valid reasons to back the insistence up.
What reasons do you have to back your criticism of him up?
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
The point you might be overlooking is that the GNU userland was established back in the 80s. Most UNIXes (there were many, and at least a dozen "common" ones) shipped with AT&T or custom or (later) BSD versions of these userland tools.
GNU was brilliant because it was portable to most of those pathologically differentiated UNIXes, and it meant that arguments and behaviors were predictable, after you installed the GNU tools.
Then along came Linux. Of course it used the GNU tools. Everyone used GNU tools. The different part was that the kernel was free and not BSD (which had recently emerged from serious political and licensing drama, and -- if the old story is to be believed -- Linus was completely unaware of).
Soon there were dozens of operating systems sharing that kernel. The important categorization of them is that they were all Linux. And yeah, they ran the GNU userland, like every other non-pathological UNIX that wasn't BSD. Any other choice would have been hugely surprising (and doomed Linux).
So yes, GNU deserves prominence. But "GNU" wasn't omitted from the common naming due to any hostility or ignorance. It was just obvious, and not new or noteworthy in that sense.
It hurt RMS's feelings, and he has been vocal about it. Everyone agrees that GNU deserves much respect, but many people are turned off by the way RMS has reacted to his feelings of disappointment.
It's not fair, but few things in life are, and many people have difficulty sympathizing with RMS.
Interestingly enough, /g/ is obsessed with RMS and the regulars' attitude towards him is the epitome of a love-hate relationship. The sheer number of images they've produced featuring him is quite impressive.
So I really think that it is perfectly fine to name a system by it’s lowest possible encapsulated unit of software (kernel). In my case, this is Linux.
After all, he's going to go down in history first and foremost as the founder of the modern open source movement, that's not a technical thing per se.
Ouch, rms wouldn't be pleased with that statement ;) "we do not accept being mislabeled as open source supporters" -- rms
I mean, sure, a lot of people who don't know a whole lot about him or haven't had to deal with him over the course of decades might have shallow knee-jerk opinions on him: they hate him, they love him, or they barely know who he is. But I suspect a lot of the anti-RMS sentiment that you might see on someplace like HN comes from a much deeper place than that.
I don't hate the guy, personally, and I do think that the good he's done has outweighed the bad. I also agree with him on quite a few fronts, to a degree. However, he has alienated a LOT of people over the years for no good reason other than his own personality issues and a seeming complete lack of a reflective nature or an innate sense of perspective or empathy.
I feel sorry for him more than anything else, because I think he's a deeply troubled guy who unfortunately ended up in a life path that sort of rewarded him for staying in his deeply troubled state. He's always had lots of admirers and supporters, not to mention grants and speaking gigs. As a result, he never had any external forces that might compel him to grow up beyond a certain point, intellectually or emotionally.
I think a lot of the more nuanced, deep, and well-fermented RMS hate you might see stems not so much from total disagreement, but rather disappointment from wasted potential. He's somebody who's had a lot of great ideas from which so many great things have sprouted, but he's a terrible steward for those ideas. He ends up making it about him somehow, or takes so many things to such ridiculous extremes, or justifies his ideas for all the wrong reasons, or intentionally alienates the people that he should be trying to build bridges to, that he ends up discrediting the kernels of brilliant truth that are at the heart of much of his philosophy.
So, there are a ton of people who at one time or another were inspired by RMS in their larval stages to value freedom and sharing and openness, but grew to see him as an impediment to those very ideals. I'm one of those people and I so wish that it didn't have to be this way. I don't think you're seeing people criticizing his views on ties, so much as you're seeing disillusionment at a much deeper level with RMS' personal and intellectual failings, which are pretty broadly on display even when he's writing about trivial things like ties or hobbies or cell phones.
I'd add a few more things, at least from the 70s/80s (I left the relevant social circle in the 90s when I left the Boston area):
A near complete lack of personal security and safety awareness and savvy, which wouldn't matter so much to others except:
No respect for others' relationships with SOs; the ham-handed way he'd hit on your girlfriend was mostly a bit annoying, best avoided by having your girlfriend's other SO on the other side of her and you both going into "alpha male don't fsck with us" physical projection mode ^_^ ... BUT: it put him and some fellow diners in jeopardy when he hit on a gangster's moll in the late night Boston Chinatown restaurant the circle frequented (as related to me by a reliable 1st hand witness).
It was said, albeit denied, that RMS took a technical disagreement with Dan Weinreb to the point of purging MIT-AI backup tapes, and this was why Dan left for LLL and the S-1 project. Now, as I note Dan denied this, but the very fact it was credible during the period Dan was absent tells you how abrasive he can be in technical matters.
Somewhat troubled, yes (it doesn't make my deeply troubled threshold, at worst we're talking the personality disorder level of mental illness and to my knowledge and observation it didn't rise to that level though the '80s), and note most of these observations are from before he became really famous.
(See my disclaimers here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5804156)
I would suspect that for the majority of people, both the ones who hate and the ones who love him, barely know who he is.
I don't know him at all, but I would guess that if I did get to know him, I would find that he's just another human being - and being a human is often hard and weird, so we all cope differently.
Whatever the intent in submitting this to Hacker News was, it's turning into pointless bullying and should probably just be killed.
He has some clearly strange habits - I wouldn't call him extreme, radical or militant per se, but he obviously doesn't carry himself like most people.
I don't think the majority of us are trying to diminish his contributions to the internet community. Rather, we're commenting on how odd he is. That's okay, it's just humorous in a nutty way.
RMS takes the cynical beliefs people often think when they hear Christmas music and hate it, and takes it to actually doing it (to provide one example).
"Ugh, fuck the holidays. I hate always having to spend money on people I pretend to like."
^Most of us get over it. RMS has the anti-social (I don't mean that in a DSM or pejorative sense) solidarity to actually stop celebrating holidays. It's admirable, just weird.
> When I wait for my baggage in an airport, I always do one of these two. And I notice the people around me, feeling anxious and getting nothing done. What a waste.
Even with the benefit of the doubt that he didn't mean this as snarky( I do not know RMS personally, so I cannot judge too much), he imposes his lifestyle decisions (working all the time) as a sort of absolute truth.
>None of my shirts carry messages (such as words or symbols). That practice strikes me as lacking dignity, so I won't wear clothing with symbols, not even for causes I support. This is not a matter of ethical disapproval, so I don't mind selling hats and shirts with free software slogans on behalf of the FSF; but I choose not to wear them myself.
I get not wanting to have messages on your shirt. Loads of people are like that. But to simultaneously say that it lacks dignity but then act as if this isn't a value judgement is a bit contrarian.
I think this is more one of those things that are more annoying than somehow "fundamentally" wrong but the fact that he "doesn't mind" using other people's cell phones or rewards cards is reminiscent of a lot of annoying people I've known in my life.
Your personal preferences stop being immune from criticism when they end up imposing things on others.
But why compile a list of things that basically says, "I generally don't like people, the things most people do or have, or the silly rituals most people enjoy."
I can respect his opinions, but he comes across as very condescending...
That said, I do admire how much of a diehard he is about his beliefs. Not many people actually "walk the walk" when it comes to not owning a cell phone in today's age...
At this point, there are just too many contradictions, I'd rather forget and simply accept the absurd.
For example, being an atheist, I don't particularly believe in holidays myself. I do enjoy myself with my family even if it mean a few capitalists make a little more money during the season. On the whole, a meaningless event makes the whole world happy.
I'm of a fairly open religion (Hinduism). So, there aren't ardent rules you need to waste time with.
From Wikipedia: "Misanthropy is the general hatred, mistrust or disdain of the human species or human nature"
Nah, just a "difficult" person, at least based on our interactions in the '80s. He wasn't that bad a person to be around as long as you're not in one of his "bad" categories, i.e. there was a big change in our interactions where I started to work for "Software Hoarder" UniPress after previously working at e.g. Lisp Machine Inc.
"...However, I absolutely refuse to take Amtrak trains because they check passengers ID (sometimes, not all the time)."
Are these two statements contradictory, or is there something special about what Amtrak do that threatens privacy more than the disclosure of identity to an airline? This is a genuine question, I have never visited the US.
(In the UK, you can still walk into a railway station and buy a ticket for cash without showing ID anywhere within the mainland. You will not be asked for anything other than the ticket on the train unless you are using a Student or Senior Citizen's railcard to claim the discount.)
The more I think about the nature of software, the more I find Stallman's views about software freedom compelling.
"I do not eat breakfast. Please do not ask me any questions about what I will do breakfast. Please just do not bring it up."
I really want to know what horrific experience RMS had with breakfast in the past such that you can't even mention it to him!!
Also the type of food. If you sleep in on a Saturday until noon, you'll probably tend to want breakfast food when you first wake up.
The time of day is far behind those two factors for what constitutes breakfast in popular usage.