Stallman Crashes Talk, Fights 'War On Sharing' 309
schliz writes "Free software activist Richard Stallman has called for the end of the 'war on sharing' at the World Computer Congress in Brisbane, Australia. He criticized surveillance, censorship, restrictive data formats, and software-as-a-service in a keynote presentation, and asserted that digital society had to be 'free' in order to be a benefit, and not an attack. Earlier in the conference, Stallman had briefly interrupted a European Patent Office presentation with a placard that said: 'Don't get caught in software patent thickets.' He told journalists that the Patent Office was 'here to campaign in favor of software patents in Australia,' arguing that 'there's no problem that requires a solution with anything like software patents.'"
I don't care what anyone says (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd prefer Stallman's outspoken extremism vs the quiet extremism that corporations would place us under if no one spoke up.
Go Stallman (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:He's LOSING it man !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:4, Insightful)
Your post assumes that only the black and white extremes exist - nothing could be further from the truth, luckily. There is a whole world in between the two.
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:5, Insightful)
the printing press (Score:5, Insightful)
bought about the creation of the middle class, modern democracy, and the death of the feudal system and the aristocracy
it took awhile. the feudal system and the aristocracy in their time were just no brainer common sense, and the idea of challenging them was either something to be laughed at or you must be crazy to believe they could ever end or to doubt their validity
the internet means the death of the entire concept of intellectual property
it will take awhile. in our time some people just take the idea of intellectual property as just no brainer common sense, and the idea of challenging it is either something to be laughed at or you must be crazy to believe it could ever end or to doubt its validity
in today's age, stallman is but a distant voice in the wilderness, but he's actually 100% correct, just way ahead of his time, too far ahead, to gain any traction
the simple truth is that intellectual property is a completely flawed concept. it made sense before the internet when media had to be physically printed and physically distributed. much as the feudal system made sense when only a few could afford book knowledge
all that intellectual property has going for it now is legal and cultural inertia. it is of course completely philosophically untenable when media can be shared at zero cost at great distances with millions instantaneously. it will take time, but intellectual property is going down the tubes. the intartubes
let us work hard to hasten its demise
Good for him. (Score:5, Insightful)
I recall when I went through a rather lengthy discussion with the UK government about software patents, and the state of the law. It became very clear that regarding patent law, the UK government and the UK patent office is very heavily influenced by advisors who are, almost to a man, commercial patent lawyers. The remaining industry spokesmen are from big business.
It doesn't take a huge amount of understanding or research to see that SME innovation has more or less been destroyed by the existing patent processes. Entry into big success is done through innovation still - but not so much via the patent route. I would contend that companies like Facebook was successful, NOT because of whatever patents they may have held, (or bought), but because they were able to identify a market demand and react to it faster or more successfully than existing big industry was able.
Re:GNU/Stallman (Score:3, Insightful)
President Susanna Luchenko to Sheridan, Rising Star, Babylon 5
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a difference. Patent advocates are in the business of conspiring against the public to line their own pockets. The FSF represents public interests and has nothing to hide.
Not saying I'm for or against software patents, but you do realize that "patent advocates" are citizens of the public, too, right? And that owners of corporations are citizens? They have exactly as much right as the FSF to argue what the interests of the public are.
Please stop abusing the term "sharing." (Score:4, Insightful)
Copying other people's stuff and giving it away isn't "sharing."
If you want to share, create your own work and give it away for free.
In the past (and present) this is precisely what Richard Stallman did with GNU. He wanted software to be free. Instead of bootlegging copies of Windows (or MS-DOS) he created his OWN stuff and gave it away for free. Now Linux is a force to be reckoned with. If he had simply pirated other peoples' work, this innovation would have never happened.
Re:GNU/Stallman (Score:5, Insightful)
Shouting, running, making a fool out of himself. I think if only he would do the sort of things he does without calling a ruckus, then people might take him more seriously.
May be he doesn't care about being taken seriously. May be he just wants people to be serious about defending their own right to free expression. And I am sorry for people who are turned away from his lucid arguments because they think that non-violent protests against economic oppression and political censorship are "extremism": can people be any more docile?
And the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the number of corporate shills who show up at F/OSS conventions peddling things like, "'you people' need to get over software patents" or "sometimes you just can't just hand the source over to the client, its just good for business" or "I'm not calling you people communist -or even traitors, but you have to wonder about someone who doesn't genuinely care about the shareholder's position", I have no problem with Stallman shitting in their yard. Good for him.
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:5, Insightful)
The notion of "extremism" is based on the notion that majority always represent somewhat "middle", "balanced" or "common-sensical" or "best" or etc. position, while in fact majority always represents just the most marketed, the most advertised, the most imposed position. That is for situations when wide public is involved.
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I think that all extremists should be killed to ensure that the debate remains moderate! Oh, wait ...
It's also worth mentioning that if you immediately dismiss all extremists, you limit the debate to those ideas which the powers that be have deemed "mainstream" and acceptable. Extremists are the ones that change what is considered mainstream.
Crashes? (Score:4, Insightful)
The headline says "crashes".
The article says "interrupted", but gives no details.
The article has two pictures (#18 and #19).
#19 looks like Stallman posing after the event for the benefit of the camera.
#18 is probably the interruption.
All you can see from the picture is that Stallman (and friend) stood at the front of a conference room holding poster-board signs.
It looks like Stallman has a sheaf of papers in his hand, so maybe he said something.
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as those "citizens" have only as much right to put forth their views as Stallman, and not, say, a couple of dozen legislators in their pockets, I might just agree there.
Considering, however, that they tend to spam the entire argument, and then use undue influence to enact measures that are only in their own selfish interests, and detrimental to the general common good, I give them much less benefit of the doubt.
Re:GNU/Stallman (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:GNU/Stallman (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:the printing press (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:5, Insightful)
What some people would like to characterize here as "extremism" is merely a slightly older form of the status quo.
If RMS could be declared an "extremist" at all in this situation is merely a reflection that most people are entirely ignorant and apathetic on this subject.
This is one argument where RMS is not an extremist at all.
Re:Please stop abusing the term "sharing." (Score:3, Insightful)
Copying someone else's work and distributing it without permission or license for free, thus depriving the creator of income counts as theft in my book.
This is not what the FOSS movement is about and it's a shame that so many pirates hide behind the skirts of the Open Source movement to justify their actions. Even worse that so many FOSS supporters turn a blind eye to the practice rather than deal with it directly.
Free software is good for the economy (Score:4, Insightful)
I would tell the corporate world that free software is good for the economy, and good for their business.
There are plenty of vendors out there who have built products on top of Linux, Apache, etc.
If Linux, Apache, etc. were not available for free, these vendors either would not have been able to launch their products, or would have paid huge licensing fees for crap like the Microsoft web server, driving up their prices.
If it weren't for these kinds of public software projects, everything would be more expensive, from consumer electronics to enterprise appliances.
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:5, Insightful)
So THAT'S why moderate muslims don't denounce the crazies. I get it now thanks.
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:the printing press (Score:3, Insightful)
To paraphrase Stallman, there is no such thing as Intellectual Property. There are patents, copyrights and trademarks. Anything else is someone trying to get over on you.
Re:Worse Than Software Patents (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the Internet's fate is sealed, in it's current form. It was always under the control of a single government, so it's only a matter of time. We need to go to darknets or replace the infrastructure with something community-run - probably a bit of both.
I wrote about this before:
http://search.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1634334&cid=32019410 [slashdot.org]
Re:Please stop abusing the term "sharing." (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, one side really wants to use the word "stealing" to be used, because of the emotional baggage of associated with it (it's wrong, it's bad, no one honest would do it,
But in an intellectually honest debate, both sides would willingly back off from contentious terminology, and use neutral terms and focus on the particulars. Regardless of whether distributing digital copies is "sharing" or "stealing" (or both, or neither), we should debate whether said distribution is a net gain for society. We should debate whether said distribution violates a party's basic rights. And then from those points, we should debate what law would be both fair and socially-helpful.
I fully acknowledge that words have meaning, and we should try to be precise with language. But this is exactly why an honest debate should not invoke terms with an intent to capitalize on ambiguity. My main point is not to let debate get derailed by terminology concerns. Focus on the nature and consequences of the activity being debated, rather than ambiguous labels or partial analogies.
In the case of copyright, it becomes very difficult to argue for the social necessity, and intrinsic justness, of very long-term and rigidly-enforced copyright when you can no longer draw a false analogy to stealing of physical property. Conversely, it becomes difficult to argue that copyright infringement is completely without harm once you remove the sharing rhetoric and focus on the incentive/social-contract aspect of copyright law. In other words, I believe a socially-constructive compromise is more likely to arise from that kind of honest debate (yes, I know how unrealistic it is to expect that kind of debate to actually happen).
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:4, Insightful)
Uncompromising, sure. Idealist, hell yes, but extremist ? How so ? Does he advocate violence ? Does he say we must break laws ? Come one... I like RMS in that he doesn't care about what is reasonable, what is consensual, he cares about his point and defends it.
Re:Please stop abusing the term "sharing." (Score:3, Insightful)
I assume you're describing copying without permission, i.e. copyright infringement. Copying and giving away with permission is definitely sharing.
But I'm curious about who you think is suggesting that people should infringe copyright?
Or are you talking about Stallman's anti-software-patent position? Newly imposing software patents is the "theft"; it takes stuff that should be in the public domain, and gives the patent holder a monopoly on it.
hey, genius (Score:3, Insightful)
if you can't afford a book, you can't afford to learn. and you can't afford a book if the only ones around are scribbled by monks. and so, a dummy, who can't read and knows nothing, you go work the fields, like your serf parents before you
fact: the printing press created the middle class as we know it today. the existence of a large middle class supports the notion of a democracy being an effect political possibility
the cities have always had craftsmen and tradesmen, since before roman and even egyptian times. but they were always tiny sectors, not the vast middle class we know today. that one of those tradesmen, gutenberg, invented the printing press, thereby resulting in the explosion of the middle class: this is solid historical fact
but thank you for cherry picking small fragments of reality to support a conception of history which is patently false. pfffft
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:3, Insightful)
stallman just has balls. he has the balls to do this
I don't agree -- for doing something to require balls, you have to be risking something to do it. Oh, no! Now that Stallman's taking this gutsy stance, someone might think he's some kind of crazed free software loving hippie! Well, most people probably would think that, if they knew who he was.
That's not to say that I disagree with his viewpoint, but the man risks nothing in doing this.
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:2, Insightful)
It implies a group which has chosen to remove itself from discourse because the views were not going far enough and could not be changed via socially acceptable means. A brilliantly clear example is the Tea Party movement. They've chosen not to make a good faith effort at public debate in favor of more extreme tactics to get their way. It's not the fact that they want a more extreme party platform which makes them extremists.
A political figure other than Hitler made to look like Hitler is generally a pretty good indication that you're dealing with extremists. Although it's hardly a necessary condition.
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Please stop abusing the term "sharing." (Score:2, Insightful)
No, sharing of information implies that it is duplicated, not split.
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:5, Insightful)
An extreme view on copyright or patents would be a demand for their immediate dissolution. Software patents are a relatively recent legal phenomenon recognized in only some countries. Arguing against them is far from extreme.
Humans who own stock benefit when... (Score:2, Insightful)
How much "interest" does the janitor cleaning Microsoft's floors really have?
That depends on how much of his pay the janitor has squirreled away to buy MSFT stock.
Let Human Rights be for humans.
Humans own companies' stock, and these humans benefit when the company benefits. Humans work for companies, such as the inventors listed on every patent assigned to Microsoft.
Re:GNU/Stallman (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:clarification (Score:3, Insightful)
But independently of that particular solution, the fact that technological development makes some particular form of social institution or enterprise obsolete is not the problem. If the invention of the wheel made some forms of transportation obsolete, considerations about the preservation or future or pre-wheel forms of transportation should not be valid arguments in discussions about development and deployment of the wheel.
In other words....it doesn't matter. The problem right now is not how are we going to secure that there are incentives for people to invent stuff, but that the mechanisms that we do have in place, that were never created with that intention but also work as incentive structures, are becoming unacceptable threats to the public interest and freedom.
First we need to stop the escalation into police states that the extension of these mechanisms is bringing about, THEN we should let the people that are trying to make money inventing stuff work out how they are going to actually make any.
In other words: the "technological development" argument is moot. it is not going to happen, period. So don't use it to respond to my complaints about my lost freedoms, because i'm being monitored, censored, persecuted, fined and incarcerated NOW, and you want me to worry about the potential profit problem of some corporation in some undefined future. get your priorities right.
As a subsidiary argument, you can reconsider the reasons that were argued in its time for the implementation of IP protection. it was never "let's secure a revenue stream for the author", it was much more a thing of "let's secure the integrity of the produced media for the future, by preventing unauthorized sub-par copies to be made and distributed". That line of thought rests, however, on the direct correlation between cheap copy and low quality copy that digital media makes obsolete.
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:3, Insightful)
His uncompromising attitude on issues which cannot be resolved without compromise make him an extremist. There is no possible way we'll ever live in a world of pure free software in Stallman's lifetime. He can never win. Any reasonable outside observer can see this. The work he wants to do is the work of decades or even centuries spent readjusting attitudes and gaining mindshare. He could move things in that direction if he were willing to take small bites, make compromises here and there to advance the overall agenda, etc. He's not.
He's taken an extreme (for our society) viewpoint and refuses to give any ground. He refuses to say "Hey, that's a nice move in the right direction, we should do more of that." It's always "Well, that might be a small step in the right direction, but fix the rest of it. Now! Immediately. Make it the way I want it!"
I'm not saying, per se, that he's wrong. It's possible that he's made more progress this way than he would of with compromise. I don't know. That's not really the point. He's taken an "extreme" position and refuses to budge in any way. That sounds like the definition of "extremist" to me. We associate violence with extremism (because most people who get violent about a matter are extremists), but not all extremists are violent.
Re:GNU/Stallman (Score:3, Insightful)
One could understand an argument of "Why Software Freedom is Important", "Apple is crap!" is too shallow for anything but simple agreement or disagreement.
"they will listen to you, agree with you, then buy Apple anyway" that's called the "nod politely and slowly back away" maneuver.
Re:Devil's Advocate (Score:2, Insightful)
But Apple didn't invent the portable MP3 player. "Research, invent, commoditise, sell" is a plausible-sounding business plan, and I'm sure it sometimes works out that way, but much more commonly, companies learn from each other's mistakes and release competing products with small improvements. Apple realised people wanted an MP3 player that was slick rather than geeky-looking, so they repackaged it. That was their innovation. And it's a good thing - I'm not knocking that kind of incremental innovation. Patents harm that way of innovating, though, because the only companies that can play the game are those with big enough patent portfolios to deter their competitors from suing.
The portfolio problem applies to blue-sky innovation too. Imagine you invented the portable MP3 player from scratch in your garage and patented it. A year later, Apple releases the iPod. What are you going to do? If you sue, they can just pull some ridiculously broad patent out of their portfolio and counter-sue until you lose everything. The best you can do is to sell your patent to one of their competitors for use in their portfolio, and good luck getting a decent price when the buyer has all the lawyers.
There is one area where patents work more or less as expected, though, and that's drug development. Drug companies have a pretty good track record of throwing money at a problem until they get a usable drug (often usable for a different problem, admittedly), patenting the drug, and recouping their investment within the lifetime of the patent. Everything would be wonderful except for two catches: the money available to pay for a drug doesn't always match its social importance (the malaria problem), and the price of the drug while it's under patent may be too high for many of the people who need it (the HIV problem).
We've tried to patch the malaria problem through charitable funding of drug development, and the HIV problem through charitable subsidisation of drug prices, but both patches exacerbate the underlying problem by putting yet more patents and yet more money into the hands of the incumbent drug developers, meaning that next time we run into similar problems they'll be even more expensive to solve. The only solution I can think of is to create a public interest exception for patent licenses, coupled with public funding of socially important research, because the private money will move to areas that aren't covered by the public interest exception. But that sounds too much like dirty commie talk for a lot of people's liking. ;-)
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:1, Insightful)
While economic processes aren't generally zero-sum, stuff surrounding intellectual property issues are significantly closer to "win-lose" than other components of capitalism, especially in the fast-moving arenas of computer technology.
It's worse than that. Software patents cause more "lose" than "win" -- imagine a company that owns a software patent covering what a lot of people want to do that stands to lose a million dollars if they do it, but that group would collectively benefit to the tune of ten million dollars by doing it. So the patent holder says "no you can't" and the economy loses 9 million dollars in benefits. (The theory software patent advocates put forth is that the patent holder could license the patent and demand at least a million dollars in license fees, but in practice this hardly ever happens because of transaction costs, imperfect information and corporate bravado, and even when it does happen the transaction costs still eat a huge chunk out of the benefits.)
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:3, Insightful)
Even under favorable conditions for a corporation, shareholders may not see much benefit. The sort of leadership that schemes for unfair advantage by encouraging uncritical reporting by the mainstream media, regulatory capture, rent seeking, tax breaks, and the like isn't going to be fair to shareholders either. With collusion from the board that they packed with "friends", they'll cheerfully pay themselves huge bonuses that come straight off the value of the stock, and brag about how deserving they are. That sort of thing devalues stock similar to the way that printing more money devalues money. The public barely notices as long as they don't get too greedy. Let just enough of any gains trickle down to the stock price to keep the company solvent and close to market norms. Helps appear more normal when everyone is doing it. I have not heard of any American company where the upper management's pay isn't outrageous. I suppose if there are any, they're the ones you don't hear about. Our corporate governance is seriously broken.
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:3, Insightful)
Be careful with your language and logic.
Consumption of information? That common expression bothers me more and more. How can information be "consumed"? Energy and food is consumed. I suppose what is really meant is that, barring forgetfulness, information is only new once. The newness is "consumed", not the information itself. But that expression is too easily misconstrued. It lays a foundation for reasoning as if information is scarce, which is not true. Stop using it!
Matter of perspective? Both pushing for their own interests? Neither one is right or wrong? Both are the same? No! You're trotting out false equivalences. In this, there is a good side which is for the public interest, and a bad side which for their own selfish interests however much they might claim otherwise. Can hardly have a bigger, starker difference than that. Would you argue that there was no fundamental difference between the Union and the Confederates in the US Civil War? Or between the fascists and democracies in WWII? Or the nominal communists and capitalists of the Cold War? Slavery, in addition to being brutal and cruel, was economically inferior. The system simply could not compete on production. Same with the so-called communist systems that were actually dictatorships.
Today, proprietary cannot compete with open. Open has far too many advantages. If not for the religious devotion so many display towards proprietary systems, the intense desire for there to be entities who will act in a manner proper and reassuring to those who have stakes of their own, libre software would have won by now. But they want there to be stakeholders in software, just like they are stakeholders in their own businesses. Therefore they think software must be owned in every way possible, the more the better. They trust that arrangement to be the best guarantee possible that this scary new software stuff will work, and be secure, available, maintained, and supported 24/7. The fear factor makes them much too willing to sacrifice freedoms for security, and many businesses take advantage of this. How many people do you know who derive a vague feeling of comfort from the mere mention of Microsoft? Entirely too many. They conveniently forget all the commercial failures, things like Borland, Commodore, OS/2, Netscape, and WordPerfect. And they're far too forgiving of all the lock in attempts that have been tried over the years, from MS Word's doc file format, the disaster known as OOXML, and Apple's iPod and everything else Apple to cell phone jailing, Sony's audio CDs with root kits, TurboTax's boot sector modification, and DRM schemes such as Region Encoding, CSS, and HDCP. At least some commercialism is seen as going too far, and BonziBuddy, Gator and similar ilk are pretty well universally hated.
Re:the printing press (Score:1, Insightful)
And you just had to be a dick about it
Re:Please stop abusing the term "sharing." (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's say you have a car. You lend it to your friend.
Is that sharing? Yes.
Now let's say you have the ability to magically duplicate your car, and you give your friend a duplicate so when he needs it, you're not without a car.
Is that sharing? Yes, but in a different way.
So, you are still sharing something you have. Remember those "you wouldn't steal a car" ads? They were right, I wouldn't. But if I could get an exact copy such that the owner was not deprived of his car, I sure as hell would! Who wouldn't want a nice car for free?!
And before someone says that you'd kill the auto industry by not giving them their money for cars... open-source hasn't killed closed (yet). And then there's these guys [theoscarproject.org].
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:3, Insightful)
That's actively ludicrous. If I gain money on my stocks, it's because I sold them to a willing buyer for more than I paid for them. If I don't sell them, then the daily price fluctuations are simply figures on paper. Nobody is losing money, although the person to whom I sell is certainly spending money. If your argument is that my gain is potential money lost by the person from whom I originally purchased the stocks, then I submit that my gain is my just reward for assuming a risk that the original owner didn't wish to take on.
Re:Humans who own stock benefit when... (Score:3, Insightful)
Saying "humans are part of corporations" makes about as much as sense as saving "humans are part of slave plantations" or "huans are part of prisons". While all three statements are technically true, neither the corporations nor the plantation nor the prison is representing the workers within. On the contrary these THINGS typically work to suppress the humans inside their boundaries.
The workers should be allowed to exercise their rights (voting, free speech, etc) while the corporate plantation has none whatsoever. Things don't have human rights, because things are not human.
Re:I don't care what anyone says (Score:3, Insightful)
Today, proprietary cannot compete with open. Open has far too many advantages. If not for the religious devotion so many display towards proprietary systems, the intense desire for there to be entities who will act in a manner proper and reassuring to those who have stakes of their own, libre software would have won by now.
You do understand that your comments are opinions, right? The proprietary model does have advantages as well, such as providing additional incentive to create software. Even Stallman admits that proprietary software has benefits, but that choosing Free Software is a moral imperitive. Any increased efficiency is just a byproduct of following that moral path.
It is clearly debatable whether free or proprietary software provides the most benefit for society. Its okay that you have taken a side, but don't pretend that the debate is finished.
Re:GNU/Stallman (Score:3, Insightful)
May be he doesn't care about being taken seriously. May be he just wants people to be serious about defending their own right to free expression
The problem is, by projecting the image of himself that he does - a bearded fanatic with glowing eyes frothing at the mouth - he does a great disservice to the cause he tries to represent, because it gets associated with him, and all personal negative connotations necessarily carry over.
PR is good and necessary for any cause, but it should be done by people good at it.