23 February 2013

RMS

I hear he was here last time in the mid-90ies, but that happened ages ago and very few people know it ever happened, so when Richard Stallman came to Bucharest it was quite an event for the local FOSS community, many traveled long distance to see him talking. For me it was obvious to go there, I never attended one of his talks and it was a perfect opportunity to take some photos.

stallman
I have to acknowledge my reaction wit the talk was "not impressed", indeed he is a good and experienced speaker, but maybe 2/3 of his speech I could have delivered myself (albeit in a not very good English, I can talk hours about the benefits of Free Software, its history, problems with SaaS) and the rest would not, because I find myself in disagreement with (he has the known "GNU/Everything" antics, he thinks Free Software activists are more important than developers and such). Really, there is nothing new, the biggest part of the audience already knew it any many could talk about it, the discourse is classic (and old, including the ancient Bush joke) with few minor updates (like the Obama mention). You see one, all are the same, to the Saint Ignucius part to the final auction.
stallman
From a photographer point of view, I have more reasons to be unhappy. Is not that I had to take care not to shoot them while picking his teeth and nose or yawning in front of the full audience, is he not being consistent with himself. RMS asked the audience a few things, for example not to geotag his photos (this one is stupid, since the place of the event is well known) or publish the videos in open formats (I understand that), but the worst is he asked people not to post photos of him on Facebook, because it is a "massive surveillance machine". While I agree in many ways with his views on Facebook, is still stupid and useless: say I post the pictures on Google Plus (he wasn't against that) and under a Free license (because I believe in that), then anyone can take my photos and put them on Facebook, with face tags, geolocation and everything. Forbidding that would make them non-free. Second, when talking about proprietary software, RMS told us about a dilemma: you have two evil options, break the license or not share with your friends, and recommended the lesser evil, sharing. Sharing to Facebook is also the lesser evil, since it won't let your friends down. Third, if people go to a platform like Facebook for news, not offering them the news will leave them uninformed. Is better to have people informed, even if from the wrong channel. Last, from a legal point of view, it was a public person at a public event. That is news, you can't restrict it.

16 comments:

  1. What is RMS is just let us think about the dilemma. He tells us about sharing software and stuff, and then put us in a sensitive situation for sharing photos.

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  2. he has a point of view about software freedom, but fail to see outside of this niche. which is not to blame, afterall he is just a software engineer

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  3. he has a point of view about software freedom, but fail to see outside of this niche. which is not to blame, afterall he is just a software engineer

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  4. RMS is 100% right, you guy's technically have no idea what GNU software is all about...perhaps you have no experience at all

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  5. anonymous, you are totally right! how was i so blinded before? thanks for showing me the light

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  6. the other guys talking bullshit are microsoft ambassadors, even unix servers today run GNU SOFTWARES, it gives you the freedom to control the software on the hardware and also helps you talk to hardware vendors to customize your hardware for you.
    Engineers, scientists, etc depend on GNU software, over the last 3 decades, without GNU software, the world would've been nothing!!!

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  7. ipad, iphone, android etc have a kernel which supports GNU software. Without it, ipad etc will be useless!!!

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  8. I don't think he says that for his safety. I think it's more like if you go to see him it's because you already know all that and you will do the right thing, the only interesting part is the Q&A. Also his discourse isn't old, altough it's the same, he was right 25 years ago, he is right today. People is afraid of freedom, it's not his responsability to change that

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    1. you go to see him and *some* of his claims are ridiculous, there is a good chance you will ignore other parts that are perfectly valid

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  9. you will ignore if you're ignorant

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  10. Nicu, I agree with you that he fails to see outside his niche.
    Before this conference I didn't really know much about mister Richard other than the fact he was the father of GNU. I believed he was a fellow freedom fighter , and for software he is, but he isn't for anything beyond software.

    BTW, I am the jerk in blue fighting against IMPs (Imposed Monopoly Privileges aka. Intelectual Property) who turned his Q&A session into a debate.

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  11. Thanks for the article.

    You have a pont but you miss the big picture, IMHO.

    We are totally dominated by privative software. We need radicals like him.

    He is free to ask you not to geotag or publish on facebook. It is up to you to comply or not and thats what freedom is all about.

    besides, you have a ton of social networks to post to; some of them with a tendency to freedom; diaspora comes to mind.

    i am sure that people that are interested in software freedom, wouldn't mind lookig for news outside facebook; just as we did before it... ;)

    Besides, he has come a long way; he's entitled to some excentricity.

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    1. agreed, radicals have their place, they counter some other radicals so in the end we may get a sane average. he's also useful to keep us on track when we are tempted by too much convenience.

      diaspora? indeed, i made an account there a couple of years ago, but i'm not using it since there's nobody to talk with. in the meantime people were asking me on facebook during the talk "where can we watch a summary?"

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  12. I just love when people troll as Anonymous. I wonder would they troll if their real name is shown... I use GNU/Linux since 1994, and I am involved in both open-source, free, proprietary projects since 1992... I mostly agree with RMS on many things, but I must say GNU community reminds me of Applebots (loyal Apple users) in so many ways, that I humbly believe such attitude is ruining the nice picture GNU movement deserves.

    Just take a look at posts made by Anonymous and you will understand. :)

    Finally, let me tell you my view of GNU GPL license - it is the best *commercial* license ever made! I would use it for every software project I work on if I had the decision power. It is one of the most cleverly designed licenses I have seen - it offers freedom to the end-user, and it offers business opportunities to the vendor. Brilliant.

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  13. > Nicu Buculei: afterall he is just a software engineer

    Sadest thing to hear from someone. I suppose you are not happy with your life at all. Good luck.

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    1. i have a whole life outside the computer world and i understand software is not a goal but just a tool intended to make your life better

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