GNU/LINUX

What does Sup Forums think about Richard Stallman?

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gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
stopnerds.github.io/
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I think he needs to wash his feet.

Opensource is a great thing. He saw lots of software that was formerly "open" being taken over by private companies in his life. Now he might be pushing a bit too far against it though. Companies can contribute to opensource in many ways while making a profit. There might have been a viable alternative to Windows on the desktop by now if they weren't so stubborn.

He's not a proponent of Open Source. He's for Free Software. They are different things.

I met him a few times back in the day...hes kind of an ass...

Linus is/was much nicer...

I think he is waiting for free soap to have his first bath.

Free Software is Open Source though.

That's my point, what he supports is often overkill.

>supports the green party
>anti-israel
>socialist that never had a real job
>is a known pedophile
>wants to abolish Guantanamo Bay
>anti-russia

Cuck

Stallman was right. Maybe not what he specifically advocated as a solution, but his predictions regarding the problem were and are spot on.

It's free software when it adheres to the 4 freedoms of freedom 0, freedom 1, freedom 2 and then finally freedom 3. If all of these freedoms are respected, then it's free software.

>anti-Israel

Come on schlomo, did you really think you could just slip that in there?

...

I don't understand what this "open" stuff is all about. Is it anti-capitalist in nature? Like is he advocating against private ownership in the free market?

The GPL is restrictive as fuck which goes against capitalist free market principles.

commie faggot

No it doens't. You can ask money for your software. That doesn't make it free or non-free.

>4 freedoms.

gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

He'd rather see a software developers family go hungry then sell proprietary software. His way of thinking is backward. It has no place in the real world.

...

“Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Thus, “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer”. We sometimes call it “libre software,” borrowing the French or Spanish word for “free” as in freedom, to show we do not mean the software is gratis.

Open Source means the source code is available (and that you can compile your own version if nothing is missing). It doesn't necessarily mean it's like it's in the public domain though. You can't necessarily redistribute your changes (or sell them). There might be other restrictions. The source code is still owned by someone or a company and you don't own anything you derive from it. This is covered under ordinary copyright law now.

"Free software" is Open source and has less restrictions. You can redistribute your changes. And usually you can't make your changes non-free or sell them without making the source code available. That's the case for the GPL license.

The are all sorts of open source licenses with different restriction though. The BSD-like licenses allow you do to pretty much whatever with your changes, but IF you release the source code, it has to be similarly licensed (but you don't have to release it (or all of it)).

So Stallman is essentially arguing against copyright protections?

Nevermind, that's answered here

I find it all kind of funny. I mean, how can they tell if your closed source implementation was derived from their open source code? If you distribute it only in binary, then they are left guessing based on what it does/how it looks.

Yeah. Some people got caught doing it and it went to court a while back. Few people will actually try to prosecute that. I think any contributor could sue for breach of copyright. I dunno desu.

Getting caught can damage a company's reputation pretty bad though, even if they're never found guilty of anything.

And you can deduce that a binary was produced from certain bits of source code. If you compile it with the same compiler and parameters, large segments should match exactly. Less so with more aggressive (inter-module) optimizations now. And even less so if they "scramble" the source code or the resulting binary to obfuscate this.

I think the main risk is that there will be many witnesses within the company that open source code was stolen. Companies usually take a lot of precautions to avoid putting stolen code in their products. Not worth the risk. It's usually incompetent/lazy programmers doing that. If it's found afterward, it can taint the whole product. It's hard to tell what was "derived" from the stolen bits then.

stopnerds.github.io/ - for anyone who supports this spergelord

Delousing stat

He's legit insane.