Real men don't attack straw men

[Richard Stallman]

    You *can't relicense* code under your choice without the author consent
    period!

That BSD license gives permission for almost any kind of use,
including distributing the code under other licenses.  The only
requirement is not to remove the BSD license statement itself.

Another message raised the question of what relicensing means and
whether that involves changes to the code.  When I say "relicensing" I
mean distributing the code with another license applied.  That doesn't
mean deleting the old license.

The concept of relicensing does not imply changing or adding code, and
the legality of relicensing doesn't depend on changing or adding code.
However, I would urge people to relicense only if they make very big
changes.  If they make lesser changes, it is better to contribute them
to the original project, and if they make no changes, relicensing is
just silly (in most cases).

[Richard Stallman]

    >  In
    > other words, a society in which non-free software more or less doesn't
    > exist.

    And there you go denying non-free software, by your definition, the
    very right to exist. How free is that?

It is much freer than a world in which non-free programs entice many
people into surrendering their freedom.

[Richard Stallman]

    This philosophy disturbs me, and reminds me of the rationale for  
    censorship in dictatorships and police states. Admitting the  
    existence of something.... even referencing it.... does not give it  
    legitimacy. Should we remove any reference to nazi germany from our  
    history books in order to avoid legitimizing the nazi point of view?

They're not the same kind of question.  Talking non-free software as a
phenomenon is different from telling people about specific non-free programs
they might want to use.

Having recipes for non-free programs in the ports system is more like
including present-day neofascist web sites in the list of "interesting
links" in your web site.  I am against censorship, so I do not believe
in closing down those neofascist web sites.  But I won't refer people
to them.

[Richard Stallman]

    | I don't recommend Torvalds' version of Linux.  The versions of Linux
    | in Ututo and gNewSense, which I recommend, do not have the blobs.

    Interesting, these linux distributions.

They are GNU/Linux distributions.  (See
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html.)

                                            They seem to be pretty new,
    what did you recommend before these came onto the scene ? None of
    these seemed to exist 8 years ago.

Nothing!  For many years there was no system distribution I
could recommend to the public, and that is what I said.

    You are, however, being asked to explain how you combine these views
    with the support for several non-free OS'es within the copyleft
    software packages of emacs and gcc.

Yes, after one person brought this up, many others repeated it (as if
sheer volume of namecalling meant something).  My message about this
issue will go out in the same batch as this message.

One person asked why it was "hard" for me to answer this question.
It wasn't hard for me to respond, but it would have been impossible
to respond quickly.  I have to sleep, you know.  And since I review
my messages before actually sending them, I don't send mail quickly.

It usually takes 12 to 24 hours from when a message is sent to when I
send a response.  Plenty of opportunity--for those who seek one--to
claim that my silence proves I have no comeback.

[Richard Stallman]

    So have you sent these types of "unrecommendations" to other OS'
    mailing lists or just OpenBSD's?

I generally don't raise the issue, and I did not raise it this time.
I did not start this discussion.  I posted on this list because people
were making inaccurate statements about my views.

[Richard Stallman]

    If he really hated what we do, he should stop using OpenSSH.  He says
    he uses it.  He should not.  We are horrible people; he should not use
    our software.

I don't hate what you do.  I don't hate OpenBSD.  I have a specific
criticism of one point about OpenBSD, but that is not hatred.  I
appreciate many of the good things that OpenBSD does for free
software.

I don't think that you are horrible.  You are behaving rather badly to
me, but that's just a small part of what you are as a person; I would
not judge you overall based on that.  (I also would not reject a free
program because of personal disapproval of its developer.)

It looks like you really believe I hate you and really believe I think
the OpenBSD developers are horrible.  But that does not come from me.
I wish you could see that.

[Richard Stallman]

    Why is it so hard for you to answer that question...

To answer the question was not hard.  To answer it before I saw it
would have been very hard.

    You failed to answer these several times already,

When you said that, it was 21:00 here.  At that time I had not even
seen any of those messages; they were not in my computer.  They
arrived in my next mail transfer, today at 12:00.  Subsequently I saw
them and wrote an answer.  You will get the answer in my next
transfer, which is likely to be at 22:00.  That will be 25 hours after
the first of those messages was sent.  I regret the delay, but it is
inevitable.

It must be quite common that a person doesn't answer in 2 hours.  You
may not know the details of how I transfer mail; but there are many
other reasons why someone may not answer so fast.  He might be
sleeping, which many people do for 8 hours at a stretch.  He might be
checking some facts before before responding.  These are things you
know about.

So what does it indicate, that just 2 hours after the subject was
first raised, you said I had "failed to answer", as if it were proof
that I am bad, disregarding what you know?

I think it indicates that you are looking for excuses to put me in the
wrong.  If something happens which you can interpret as putting me in
a bad light, you seize on that interpretation, ignoring the other
possibilities.

Such an attitude can be seen in many of the messages on this list.
It is not one you should want to adopt into your heart.

[Richard Stallman]

    An anthology contains the actual licensed material of the books. The ports
    tree only contains urls of these pieces of software you object to.

You're right, but I don't think that difference matters for this
issue.  Giving just the URLs for non-free software is referring people
to them.

[Richard Stallman]

    > running non-GPL-covered software?  Not I.  I frequently run OpenSSH,
    > whose license is not the GNU GPL, and is incompatible with the GPL (if
    > my memory serves).

    Richard,
    please stop spreading lies (or looking like a fool) by not doing research.

    The license of OpenSSH is here:
    http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/ssh/LICENCE?rev=HEAD
    According to
    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html
    this is GPL-compatible (modified BSD license or better).

Thanks for correcting me about that point.  I was not sure about it,
which is why I said "(if my memory serves)" in the text you quoted.

What puzzles me is why you think this mistake was a lie, or that it
might make me "look like a fool".  People normally don't call someone
a liar, or a fool, because of a little (and tangential) mistake like
this.

[Theo de Raadt]

>     Since both emacs and gcc contain code inside them which permit them to
>     compile and run on commercial operating systems which are non-free,
>     you are a slimy hypocrite.
>
> I see you are being your usual friendly self ;-}.

Yes, and you are being the usual slimy hypocritical asshole.

> There is a big practical difference between making a free system
> suggest a non-free package, and making a free package run on a
> non-free system.  We treat the two issues differently because they are
> different.

You treat them different because it is convenient for your agenda of
hatred against groups of people who, with a lot less donation money,
actually suceed at making full operating systems.

You treat these issues different because you are a hypocrite.

> People already know about non-free systems such as Windows, so it is
> unlikely that the mention of them in a free package will tell them
> about a system and they will then switch to it.  Also, switching
> operating systems is a big deal.  People are unlikely to switch to a
> non-free operating system merely because a free program runs on it.

Oh, so this is like thought crime?

> Thus, the risk of leading people to use a non-free system by making a
> free program run on it is small.  However, it is our practice when
> doing this to remind people that the non-free system is unethical and
> bad for your freedom.  If the pages about the Emacs binaries for Windows
> don't say this, I'll make sure to add it.

It is unethical for you to come attacking our efforts.

I am going to ask some of the ports people to make the ports system
point at a few more proprietary and non-free pieces of software.

In honour of your hypocrisy.

> By contrast, many non-free applications are not well known, and
> installing one is much easier--it does not require changing everything
> else you do.  Thus, even telling people about a non-free application
> could very well lead them to install it.

How convenient for your hypocrisy.

> I've published both of these positions before, but in this discussion
> I only mentioned the one that is relevant to my views about OpenBSD.
> Is that hypocrisy?  Is that lying?  No, just sticking to the point.
> But now that people have raised the other issue, here is my position
> on it.

It is lying, and it is hypocrisy.

You are a slime who changes his position as he needs.

You may have had value ten years ago, but people will see that you don't
anymore.

[Theo de Raadt]

>     > I should more precisely have said that the OpenBSD ports system
>     > includes instructions for fetching, building and installing specific
>     > non-free programs.
>
>     Yes, that would be the truth.  What you did say, however,
>     is not the truth.
>
> What I said was the same thing, in different words.
>
> When the ports system contains a recipe to build and install P, it's
> natural to say that P is "included in the ports system".  You are
> interpreting the word "included" in a very literal sense, but that's
> not the only normal usage of the word.

The gcc and emacs distributions contain enough information inside them
to let a person compile those distributions on non-free systems.

Hypocrite.

[Eric Faurot-2]

RMS wrote:

> I've been trying for a couple of years to get going a modified version
> of Firefox that won't offer to install any non-free plug-ins, but we
> don't have enough people to make this work very well.  If you would
> like to help, please let me know.  It is an important project.

Hahaha!!! Oh my god, this is just so fucking funny!

<< I've been trying for a couple of years to get people to castrate
themselves so it won't be possible for them to do "bad things(tm)",
but it does not seem to be working too well... If you would like to
help, please let me know.  It is an important project. >>


Eric.

[Eric Furman-3]

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:49:22 -0500, "Richard Stallman" <rms@...>
said:
>     It's total BS. If you don't want to pay for software, fine don't, but
>     don't go on some religious crusade trying to get me to believe it's
>     unethical so I won't either.
>
> When you buy a copy of a non-free program, you pay with your money and
> with your freedom.  You apparently don't assign much value to the
> freedom that you would give up.
>
> I respect your right to your views.

I don't give up any more freedom than when I go to the grocery and
pay my money for eggs. It has already been established that you
have a very odd idea of what freedom is.
Your version of "freedom" is much like what the old Soviet's idea of
what democracy was. To them, they had a perfect Democracy.
Everybody was required to vote and they had only one person
to vote for. Great if you are part of the ruling elite. Less great
if you are one of us peons.

cc misc@ as it doesn't seem personal.

[marina-25]

Oh, and by the way, I'm not a real man.

Actually I'm not a man at all.

Not all people who are in software are men.

I've contributed in small ways to OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Linux
and Plan9.

--- Marina Brown


On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, Richard Stallman wrote:

>    An anthology contains the actual licensed material of the books. The ports
>    tree only contains urls of these pieces of software you object to.
>
> You're right, but I don't think that difference matters for this
> issue.  Giving just the URLs for non-free software is referring people
> to them.

[Eric Furman-3]

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:19:06 -0600, "Ken Ismert" <kismert@...>
said:

> So, I ask you respectfully, Richard: what is your intent in
> making your original comments, and starting this thread?
> That would be the deciding factor for me.

Self aggrandizement has been RMS's only agenda for a long time.
His 15 minutes are up and he has become irrelevant. He refuses
to accept this. This crap just makes him more goggleable.

BTW, gcc is crap and I pray everyday someone will come up
with a BSD licensed replacement (there was ipf and now there
isn't. Wish the same effort would happen for gcc) and I much
prefer vi to emacs.

[Jason Beaudoin]

> What puzzles me is why you think this mistake was a lie, or that it
> might make me "look like a fool".  People normally don't call someone
> a liar, or a fool, because of a little (and tangential) mistake like
> this.

Because someone in your position, with the influence you have,
communicating these messages, requires that the information you base
these statements on be more accurate, more of the time.. and if
anything at least more so than has been displayed in *this*
discussion.

With greater influence and power comes greater responsibility.


Kindest regards,

~Jason

[Tom Rosso]

On Dec 14, 2007 1:49 PM, Richard Stallman <rms@...> wrote:

> ...I don't
> criticize general facilities merely because someone could use them
> to do things with non-free software.
>
>
Except in the case of the OpenBSD ports system.

[BOFH-5]

On Dec 14, 2007 3:49 PM, Richard Stallman <rms@...> wrote:

> Could you tell me the name of that facility, or something else about
> it?  If it is specifically and only useful for blobs, perhaps it
> should be remove from gNewSense.  On the other hand, if it is a
> general purpose feature and blobs are merely one thing it could be
> used for, then I probably don't have anything against it.  I don't
> criticize general facilities merely because someone could use them
> to do things with non-free software.

Linux kernels allow you to load external modules.  These modules can
be GPL licensed, or have other licenses.  If non-GPL modules are
loaded, the kernel is "tainted".  You can remove the ability to
"taint" the kernel.  The first link in google for "linux kernel taint"
is Novell's page on it, the relevant piece is below.  The question for
you then becomes, if the kernel allows loading of non-free modules,
but if you can disable it, but don't disable it, is that the "right"
thing to do?  Well, not "right", but the "free" thing to do?  Is that
what free software should support?

Taint flags

The taint status of the kernel not only indicates whether or not the
kernel has been tainted but also indicates what type(s) of event
caused the kernel to be marked as tainted. This information is encoded
through single-character flags in the string following "Tainted:" in a
kernel error message.

    * P: A module with a Proprietary license has been loaded, i.e. a
module that is not licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL)
or a compatible license. This may indicate that source code for this
module is not available to the Linux kernel developers or to Novell's
developers.
    * G: The opposite of 'P': the kernel has been tainted (for a
reason indicated by a different flag), but all modules loaded into it
were licensed under the GPL or a license compatible with the GPL.
    * F: A module was loaded using the Force option "-f" of insmod or
modprobe,  which caused a sanity check of the versioning information
from the module (if present) to be skipped.
    * R: A module which was in use or was not designed to be removed
has been forcefully Removed from the running kernelusing the force
option "-f" of rmmod.
    * S: The Linux kernel is running with Symmetric MultiProcessor
support (SMP), but the CPUs in the system are not designed or
certified for SMP use.
    * M: A Machine Check Exception (MCE) has been raised while the
kernel was running. MCEs are triggered by the hardware to indicate a
hardware related problem, for example the CPU's temperature exceeding
a treshold or a memory bank signaling an uncorrectable error.
    * B: A process has been found in a Bad page state, indicating a
corruption of the virtual memory subsystem, possibly caused by
malfunctioning RAM or cache memory.


--
http://www.glumbert.com/media/shift
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGvHNNOLnCk
"This officer's men seem to follow him merely out of idle curiosity."
-- Sandhurst officer cadet evaluation.
"Securing an environment of Windows platforms from abuse - external or
internal - is akin to trying to install sprinklers in a fireworks
factory where smoking on the job is permitted."  -- Gene Spafford
learn french:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1G-3laJJP0&feature=related

[Marco Peereboom]

> It is much freer than a world in which non-free programs entice many
> people into surrendering their freedom.

So how do you do it?

I mean there is no way that I am aware of that would enable you to send
this message without using some non-free code.  Do you use some sort of
special wooden internet made by the amish?

How about your house?  Do you have a microwave?  A washing machine (I do
think this one is obvious but I digress)?  How about personal
electronics?  Maybe a cell phone?  or even an old pager?  Do you drive?
Does your car predate computers too?  Do you own your house?  Are you ok
that they processed your loan with proprietary software?

[Gregg Reynolds-4]

On 12/14/07, Richard Stallman <rms@...> wrote:
...
> People already know about non-free systems such as Windows, so it is
> unlikely that the mention of them in a free package will tell them
> about a system and they will then switch to it.  Also, switching
> operating systems is a big deal.  People are unlikely to switch to a
> non-free operating system merely because a free program runs on it.

Quite right; they're more likely to stay with the non-free system,
since the kind people at the FSF have helped make such useful free
packages run on it.

> Thus, the risk of leading people to use a non-free system by making a
> free program run on it is small.  However, it is our practice when

That's one risk; the flip side is the risk of preventing people from
exploring free systems by making the non-free systems so cozy.  Is
this hard?

From where I sit, few people do more than the FSF to minimize the cost
of staying with non-free systems.  If all free software developers
were to follow the lead of emacs, nobody would have any reason to
switch from proprietary systems - everything useful would just run on
windows, or osx, so why bother switching?

> doing this to remind people that the non-free system is unethical and
> bad for your freedom.  If the pages about the Emacs binaries for Windows
> don't say this, I'll make sure to add it.

Maybe you should consider doing this sort of thing (including, say,
checking the license on SSH before declaring it GPL-incompatible - the
"as far as I know" prophylactic is weak at best and disingenuous at
worst)  before lecturing the world on ethics.  You know, physician,
heal thyself?  One might argue that is extremely unethical to declare
that System X "encourages" non-free software while presiding over an
organization that goes to such lengths to make non-free software
useful.  Sort of like campaigning for women's rights while beating
one's wife.

FWIW, I not fanatical about either side, and the ad hominem attacks
appall me; I'm just very surprised (and discouraged) by what I see as
the fundamental inconsistencies in your position, to the point where I
have to wonder what your real purpose is.

Sincerely,

gregg