Talk:Richard Stallman/Archive 3

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Assigning copyright to the FSF

it's not true that assigning the copyrights to the FSF gives RMS control over the running of the project. Assigning copyrights is a legal strategy so that the copyrights can be fought by the FSF legal team if a problem comes up, instead of having to contact each individual contributer in the case of a problem. There are hundreds of GNU projects and RMS does not "control" all of them.

Secondly, RMS is quite clear that his main goal is software freedom, not making a technically superior piece of software at any cost. If there's a choice between software freedom and technical superiority, RMS will take freedom and I congratulate him for that. If that gets him a reputation as "uncompromising", then that reputation is coming from the people who are choosing technical superiority. If that's what they value, then perhaps they need their own project (which i suspect is the case with XEmacs)

because of these reasons, and others, I think that instead of the "criticism" section, it should say that RMS is uncompromising in his choice of freedom over technical superiority when the two are at odds. It seems to me that pretty much every complaint about RMS' software management stems from some guy who wants to go the other way and choose technical merit over freedom, and is pissed that RMS won't compromise freedom. It's back to "Free Software" vs. "Open Source" again, and I think it has less to do with RMS personally and more to do with conflicting values. --Doviende 17:06, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

RMS controls the FSF, the FSF controls the copyrights, therefore RMS controls the copyrights. He can and has historically exerted direct control over Emacs, gcc and other projects using this power, that is incontestable fact. Your ideological, POV and emotion-based argument doesn't belong on Wikipedia. The fact still remains that it's a criticism of RMS and you can't exclude criticisms just because you disagree with them. It's not "free software" vs. "open source" issue as it's not a licensing conflict and it shouldn't go on those pages. There is nothing in the licenses that forbids these additions to the software. It is only RMS' executive decision that prevents them, thus it specifically belongs here. --Nathan J. Yoder 05:08, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

RMS is president of FSF. As an organization, FSF has a charter that it is legally bound by (this is not available online), and it has a board of directors. When someone assigns copyright, they and someone in FSF sign a contract. The FSF is also legally bound by these contracts. Also, the ability for people who disagree with him to fork his projects is a social limit on his ability to use his influence. Those are facts. It sounds like you've mixed assumptions and speculation, and come to an over-simplified and incorrect conclusion. --Gronky 20:07, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

How does that contradict any of what I said? You yourself said he's president. Denying his influence over the FSF would be naive. Has there ever been a case where RMS said that certain code shouldn't be included in a GNU project, but it was included against his wishes anyway? Let's be honest: if RMS gives a command about control over the project, that's the way it will go. What cases of defiance have there been from within the FSF? --Nathan J. Yoder 20:12, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Our statements contradict because you said that RMS controls the FSF copyrights, and I informed you that FSF (including RMS) are bound by a charter, a board of directors, a contract with each GNU contributor, and the social limit that everyone is free to walk away from FSF and take a copy of the source code with them. --Gronky 13:11, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

And that doesn't contradict what I said. All of the people within the FSF obey RMS, that includes the board of directors. It doesn't matter if technically the board has to vote on matters if they're going to automatically side with whatever RMS says. I asked you to provide me with an instance that those within the FSF have contradicted RMS and you haven't been able to provide a single case, which only reinforces my point- that his word there is that of God. The "social limit" you discuss is typically meaningless, as I've discussed before, because it requires a massive undertaking in an independently maintained fork. You're approaching this from a purely theoretical, idealistic perspective that completely and utterly ignores the reality of the situation. That's another common criticism of RMS that you carry, an inability to see past idealism and look at the actual empirical evidence instead of hypotheticals (e.g. that maintinence of a very large forked project is NOT easy). --Nathan J. Yoder 17:52, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I battle to figure out what your point is each time you post. Please try to be concise (trimming the insults would be a good start). FSF's three largest software projects (GNU Emacs, GNU Libc, and GCC) have all been forked. The size of the effort doesn't have to be debated - the facts are that it's possible, and it's happened. Also, if we skip the debate of whether RMS has human- or God-like power, can you say what problems he's caused with his power? (more than just "some scientist's patch was rejected, even though it was big and super") --Gronky 21:03, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I HAVE been very concise about rejected contributions. Go back and read my previous comments and if you want a starting point, go read the mono mailing list and read other posts here and here and here and here just from a quick search). It seems you haven't been following many of the other mailing lists regarding development of new front ends and back ends and there has been a LOT of this going on, especially by university students and hobbyists over the past few years.

Ok, you've coughed up some links:

1. [1]This developer agrees with stallman!
2. [2]On this long page, searching for "Stallman", "RMS", "moral", "politial", and "Richard" finds no complaints
3. [3]Someone says: "i read somewhere that there was a ANDF producer for gcc but RMS had a problem with it and asked the creator to take it of his web site I don't know if he did but the problem is that I can't find the page again. but if there is one then we could use that" - RMS was never criticized, and RMS's reasons aren't even discussed
4. [4]This article contains no (zero) criticisms of RMS! The mail is written by someone who disagrees with RMS, and it has a section about RMS, and still it doesn't criticize him - not even a silly joke or a snide

Final score: a flabbergasting Zero. I'm dumbstruck.

I even followed links on those above pages in an effort to find something to back you up, and all I found was this thread: [5] - where people debate the technical effectiveness of Stallman's request to not include a Java virtual machine in GCC. The thread includes 6 people, and most agree that Stallman's request is not a sure way to prevent proprietary exploitation of GCC, but no one says "we should include it" or "what a rotten waste" or "I think critically of RMS". Also, Stallman was not in the discussion, and no one concluded with "lets ask Stallman to reconsider" or "lets explain this to Stallman" or "lets rebel".

It seems you are basing your comments on imagined criticisms. Similarly, your criticisms of me are imagined. You've claimed that I want the article to be criticism-free, but if you read this page you'll see that I've said that real criticisms should be included, and they should be placed in the appropriate section. --Gronky 23:58, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

None of those developers actually agreed with stallman. Dupont was confused as to the LEGALITY of what he was doing (and potential illegal,GPL-violating use), so he changed his code simply to comply (see here and here). That doesn't mean he believes ideologically that gcc shouldn't have that functionality, quite the contrary, the fact that he added the functionality in the first place seems to indicate the opposite. If you read the links, they clearly outline RMS' refusal to include extensions of that kind in gcc, that was the point. The links also make it clear that some people think that those extensions should exist.

Dupont says in the mail you linked to: "the fsf is worried that such an interface could be used to write non-free backends on the gcc. Last month I met with Stallman about this issue, I understand his concerns and am trying to figure out the best way to proceed" Gronky 12:53, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

If you read further in the thread, you'll note someone correcting Dupont in that very thread and disagreeing with RMS on the matter.

Here's even more, pay attention to quotes like this: "Well, in case you haven't noticed. Most of us are not of the opinion of RMS on this topic..." source. They clearly indicate that these things SHOULD be included with gcc. Even the links I pasted to you before indicate that too, which makes me wonder about your motives in flatly denying that.

Yes, I saw that quote, it's about whether or not removing functionality from GCC is an effective way to prevent proprietary abuse. RMS thinks it is worthwhile, and sender or that email thinks it's not. The sender doesn't go on to say that RMS is causing harm. It's just a technical debate with no one offering a conclusion. --Gronky 12:53, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

And really, you've demonstrated you completely inability to be honest here. You even admit the last developer disagrees with RMS, and yet strong, analytical disagreement is somehow not a criticism? Please look up the definition of 'criticism.' I'm not sure why people need to use loaded language like "lets rebel" for it to be criticism.

The last developer generally disagrees with Stallman's insistence on the name "GNU/Linux", and on emphasizing freedom. He does not disagree with Stallman in the link you gave. --Gronky 12:53, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

It also appears you didn't really understand the link you pasted there. It wasn't a JVM that RMS was taking issue with at all. The specific issue was not the existence of a JVM (which he didn't actually write- you don't include a JVM inside of a compiler, that wouldn't make sense), but rather Java bytecode backend to gcc (other discussions involve a front end). Trent Waddington very explicitly disagreed with RMS, as did Gerald Pfeifer (a developer of TenDRA, mind you). They believed that he should have allowed the patches to be integrated into the main branch and that his fears regarding use of java bytecode as an intermediate language were unfounded, that sounds like a criticism of his behavior to me.

I wrote JVM instead of JBC, big deal. It was late, and my motivation for double-checking information I give you is wearing thin. Gronky 12:53, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Look, I don't know what it's like where you come from, but over where, criticism doesn't need to be of the form "you're a dumb poopy head" or "I am criticizing you right now!" --Nathan J. Yoder 00:59, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Back to the insults. Ok, lets move on to your new material... --Gronky 12:53, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Bam! I found a later follow-up post from Dupont (the guy who you said "agreed" with Stallman) and it looks like my hunch was correct, he was just confused and was complying out of what he perceived was a legal requirement. Quote: "be prepared for lots of FUD from the FSF." (That is in reference to someone else initiating a similar type of project on their own). Sounds pretty disgruntled from his interaction with RMS. --Nathan J. Yoder 01:22, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Wow, this thread is from Dupont and includes responses from various others very blatantly criticizing RMS. I don't think there's any doubt from this that Dupont was, in fact, confused and is now very critical of RMS. There are even other more general criticisms of RMS as well in that thread (from other people). They go into some detail regarding this issue and the RMS/FSF FUD. --Nathan J. Yoder 02:04, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, you've found some actual criticism. Some things to keep in perspective: the thread is reasonably informal, and it takes place before a scheduled meeting with RMS, not after, and since that 2002 discussion, there has been no outrage over the loss of the contribution the developer was discussing working on.

Also note that neither this discussion, or it's participants, were or have become widely listened-to. One guy agrees that adding the code to GCC could only produce dangerous situations. Another tells the coder to be afraid of FSF suing him, and warns that FSF will aim to outlast him in a court case. Given that FSF has never sued anyone in it's 20 years, this line of thinking is ...in Ireland we say "away with the faeries". Other parts of the thread are "that RMS hates your stuff is valuable - now you can go wade into the fray waving your "I'm a victim of RMS" banner". So, as long as it's not twisted or blown out of proportion, yes this could be added to the page, IMO. --Gronky 12:53, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

The previous threads were actual criticism too. You don't accept something as criticism until people are making MEAN COMMENTS? Look, criticism does not and has not ever required being cruel or sadistic. That's not an "insult" either, despite your dishonest mischaracterization of it as such, it's simply pointing out the fact that you're attempting to play a game of semantics to avoid what is obviously criticism. Take a look at the definition (see also: the definition of criticize), it doesn't require malice to be critism, it doesn't need to be part of a formal conversation, nor explicitly saying "I'm criticizing you", nor saying something like "I'm outraged!"

Their criticism is based on known past exchanges on the gcc mailing list and with rms directly (via his personal e-mail). RMS HAS openly taken the stance in the past that piping the output of one program to another (especially in the context of specially modified version of gcc) could still be violating the gpl and this was backed up by other people on the gcc list, so their concerns are not unwarranted. It's silly to assume that Dupont is on anything but bad terms with RMS. You previously assumed, with no valid reasoning, that he agreed with RMS, and I completely blew that reasoning out of the water with this post. Apparently RMS is going to have a sudden change of heart since previous exchanges and is going to woo Dupont into his corner...

And you have no idea how many people read that mailing list exchange, so you can't say how many people listened to it. This isn't the only exchange about it too, the past ones I pasted were about it too. Somehow, the past blatant disagreement with RMS on the matter isn't criticism only because they didn't throw out insults like "ur a meeny hed!" or use one of your loaded phrases. The people in the past exchanges obviously disagreed with RMS. The past developers of patches obviously wanted their patches integrated. You say they didn't offer a conclusion, but apparently this is some other strange semantic twist of yours: they offered a clear one: that RMS' concerns are completely unwarranted and that they should be able to integrate those patches into the main branch. Are you seriously arguing that none of the people had their own conclusions (despite the fact that they strongly voiced their stance that RMS was wrong--CONCLUSIVELY)?

I'll call a duck a duck: you're on your last rope here, you've run out of any valid arguments, so you've engaged in the last bastion of hope for a sophist--the semantic argument--criticisms aren't criticisms and conclusions aren't conclusions. --Nathan J. Yoder 21:04, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Disagreeing with a person, and criticizing them, are not the same thing. That's just fact. For example, you can reply to this post, and you can blatantly state that you disagree, but whether you also criticize me is a seperate decision. It's strange that you think ducks should be called by their right name, but you want blatant disagreement to be called criticism.

About these people that you say "obviously wanted their patches integrated". Your guess could be right, but Wikipedia is not for original research. On the thread you linked to, one list contributor told the developer that the patch could only have "dangerous" use, and the developer mentioned he would be meeting with Stallman in the future to discus this. You can't just assume that the developer didn't change his mind after the discussion, or after meeting Stallman, or after further reflection.

You say "It's silly to assume that Dupont is on anything but bad terms with RMS", but I've never heard of this Dupont guy before, I only know what you've pointed to, and that has Dupont saying "the FSF is worried that such an interface could be used to write non-free backends on the gcc. Last month I met with Stallman about this issue, I understand his concerns and am trying to figure out the best way to proceed". (which seems to back up my above note that patch developers are capable of changing their mind.)

Now, maybe Dupont hates Stallman, maybe he always has and always will and is boiling over with criticism for the man - but I'm just going on your evidence. You can't give evidence which contradicts you, and then criticize me for believing it. --Gronky 23:13, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

It's pretty clear that when someone says something like: "he's not interested in the backend for the jvm which I wrote 18 months ago (and doesn't think anyone else should be)" and " At the time I was instructed that it would be impossible to get the copyright on the backend assigned to the FSF." (that is from a link you yourself pasted), that they want be able to work with it on the official gcc project. Why would Trent Waddington bother voicing his concerns if he weren't? Why try to get copyright assigned to the FSF?

So far your track record is miserable. So far you lied about Dupont agreeing, he never actually said he agreed in that mailing. Now you've forced me to re-look up (it was already linked to) even more specific quotes about another individual, and it turns out you were completely wrong about that too.

The "blatant disagreement" has continually been raised in the context of specific patches and their integration into gcc and consequently, RMS' refusal to allow them. Yes, they specifically brought up the fact that RMS didn't want them integrated or for them to exist for that matter. Analytical disagreement IS criticism. Criticizing someone's behavior and especially their reasoning for that specific behavior is the same as criticizing them. --Nathan J. Yoder 00:08, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[The Short History of GCC development] includes details, various quotations (from developers and other commentators) and information on the gcc/egcs fork. If you don't consider that criticism of RMS' control over gcc, then I don't know what to say... Oh and I'm aware that *eventually* RMS merged the branches years later, after he realized his error, but it still goes to the point about his control-complex creating all that needless added effort for those years. --Nathan J. Yoder 06:24, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

How many gcc forks have actually survived historically? I'll give you a hint: they have this big tendency to rot off and die. Forking a project adds copious amounts of efforts needed just to maintain the seperate forked version and most of the time LARGE forked projects die off. This is actually a pretty well known principle to anyone who has followed OSS/Free software projects in general and has had to watch the shame of watching otherwise coo-operative projects split apart. --Nathan J. Yoder 22:30, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, you could assume that all forks of GNU died because forking is difficult, but lack of interest (i.e. Stallman not being problematic) is an equally possible reason. Gronky 23:58, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

How is that equally probable? These aren't exactly the easiest extensions to write to begin with, so people have a vested personal interest from the beginning. To attribute it to a simple lack of interest as being on equal grounding with a greatly increased amount of maintenance (work) required is silly. It's as if you have no programming experience at all. --Nathan J. Yoder 00:59, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Also, it seems that you're insistent on excluding criticism on the basis of whether or not you personally think it's valid. That's not how Wikipedia works. If something is a common criticism of him, it should be included. This isn't a pulpit for you to espouse your pro-RMS POV. If, for example, it is the popular view that he's stubborn and unwilling to concede, that must be included, regardless of how true you think it is. This whole thing is a whitewash on your part. --Nathan J. Yoder 20:17, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

If you're claim is just that RMS is stubborn, you'll have a hard time finding someone to argue with you.

But, if you're claiming that RMS being stubborn harms GNU projects, then you'll have to back up your claim. Keep in mind that the goal of GNU projects is not popularity, it's to give people freedom, and protect that freedom. --Gronky 13:11, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I've already backed them up. I've already given specific areas in which his stubbornness has inhibited the development of specific projects. You're just being disingenuous now. I don't care whether or not the purpose of GNU projects is to maintain popularity, that's a complete non-issue when it comes to including criticisms. Your constant bombardment of this talk page with red herrings is getting irritating. The goal of this talk page isn't to argue over whether or not you think the criticisms are meritorious, just whether or not they are popular. And as I've already clearly demonstrated they ARE specific (to the point) and if necessary I or someone else can dig through newsgroups and mailing lists to show those specific criticisms are also popular in addition to being specific.

From this point on if you say anything about "the goal to preserve freedom", I'll just ignore it, as that's a moot point (the criticisms disagree on that premise obviously--Wikipedia does not take an ideological position on the "goal to preserve freedom" despite what you may think) and is just a diversionary tactic to avoid inserting criticism (whitewash) the article. There are criticisms, that you disagree is not reason to exclude them and ideological arguments are NOT valid rebuttals on Wikipedia (and are in, fact, very POV) as means to exclude criticism. There are numerous articles on Wikipedia that list criticism on them based on many different, conflicting ideologies and it has never once been the policy to deny criticism simply on the basis that there are conflicting ideologies. Even the craziest religious views on Wikipedia get represented as-is, regardless of how valid they are. This is matter of de facto and de jure standard Wikipedia practice, please do not bother to argue further with me about this, it is a waste of time. --Nathan J. Yoder 17:52, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

You've backed up nothing, shouted "POV" a load of times, insulted people (or maybe just me), wrongly claimed that I've tried to avoid criticism of RMS on the page (when I actually said it should be woven into the other sections), and (IMO) drawn any dialogue in never-ending directions. I still don't know what edit you're trying to justify!

Try editing the article. (and expect peer review) --Gronky 21:03, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not justifying any particular edit in this part of the discussion. I'm trying to get you to understand that whether or not YOU PERSONALLY think a criticism is valid is not the criteria for inclusion/exclusion within a Wikipedia article. Whether or not the criticism agrees with RMS' personal ideology/philosophy is not grounds for excluding a criticism. It just needs to be a) something popular, b) something specific, c) address him as directly as possible, and d) something professional/not childish (e.g. "he's a Nazi"). For example, regardless of how great one might think the "GNU/Linux" term is, the usage of this term could even end world hunger, but one can't deny that RMS has received a lot of specific criticism regarding his endorsement of it, which makes it worthy of inclusion.

I have no interest in touching 'criticisms' sections, as I generally don't make edits to controversial parts of articles, so I use the talk page to make arguments for future editors to refer to save them the time of having to spell out existing Wikipedia standards and practices. --Nathan J. Yoder 22:30, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Consider your tutorial complete. --Gronky 23:58, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Gronky - Drowning in his own self-aggrandizement as RMS gleefully observes the minions doing his bidding.

Specific Cleanup Tasks

Here is a partial list of problems I see with the article right now. I'm going to work on these if I find the time, and will mark them as struck through when I think they are "done enough". Others should feel free to try to tackle them before I do, and strike them through. (And of course, since this is Wikipedia, if you think my definition of "done enough" is too lax, feel free to keep working on them or any other part of the article! These are just my suggestions).

• "Stallman enabled others to write free software independent of the GNU project. In 1991, one such independent project produced the Linux kernel" - I find it hard to believe that this is a fair description: the Linux kernel' was certainly more "enabled" by Andrew Tannenbaum's MINIX class. Do we have a source for this statement? (Note that the following sentences, indicating that GNU did enable Linux to be used as part of a complete operating system, are certainly accurate, and Linus has said as much.)

• "Stallman is prone to being something of a monologist. He does not take kindly to criticism or interruption.". While I certainly believe this and know it personally, we should add a citation to someone else saying this. Wikipedia is not a place for us to provide our own personal opinions.

• "Support for this term was no doubt bolstered by some influential figures' dislike of the moral philosophy of the free software movement, which came from Stallman." If it was "no doubt" bolstered by "some influential figures' dislike" then it should "no doubt" be easy to find a citation to a credible source saying this. Otherwise, this is original research.

Comments, thoughts, additions? --Nandesuka 14:14, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

On #1, Stallman wrote and published GCC, GDB, Emacs and other software development tools. This enabled others by providing the tools necessary. Linus, one example, used GCC. This is well known. On #2 I was thinking of deleting that too. It could be better said. No opinion on #3. --Gronky 14:44, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

That statement is still wrong. One can compile free software with non-free compilers, in fact, I've done that many times. Not just that, but the tool he's most famous for, gcc, just allows you to compile the software, not write it. There's nothing to suggest Linus used Emacs or gdb. Do you know that Linus didn't have access to other compilers and couldn't have done this otherwise? --Nathan J. Yoder 06:18, 7 October 2005 (UTC)