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RMS vs. ESR 71

Posted by CmdrTaco from the battle-of-the-century dept.
Steven Borrelli writes "AT&T as the mother of open source software? Here is a nice examination of the positions that the FSF and OSI have taken on O'Reilly's site. Whence the Source: Untangling the Open Source/Free Software Debate "
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RMS vs. ESR More

RMS vs. ESR

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  • Well, I only read parts it since I already knew where it was headed (it's on opensource.oreilly.com for goodness sake). I felt that they misrepresented GNU, FSF and Mr. Stallman.

    It's about freedom. The writer missed that major point.

    Some of "us" are still hackers and not business people. Some of "us" still like free software...

    I've felt that ESR's tried to downplay the importance of the GNU/FSF and what RMS has done. I like GCC and emacs a little more than fetchmail. Sorry ESR.

    And ESR didn't create any movement. It was (free software was) already alive and well long before he pushed himself into the scene.
  • This article is a repeat. But I'm glad Taco brought up the Big Lie repeated in this article, namely that AT&T/Berkeley represents the true origins of free software. I first saw this stated by Eric Raymond in a Salon article sometime back. It is wrong and needs to be corrected before people start believing it.

    I'm reposting my message on this from the previous thread here:

    This article repeats the Big Lie (one that I've seen Raymond repeat, BTW) that somehow the free software movement pre-dates Richard Stallman. Stallman gets a lot of his legitimacy from having started the FSF back in 1983, and from his claims that he represents the original free software philosophy. I see these (false) statements about how free software is somehow pre-Stallman as nothing more than a blatant, explicit attempt by Stallman's critics to de-ligitimize his views by re-writing history so that he no longer represents the origins of free software. The people propagating this want to substitute in the Berkeley traditions as the origin of free software because those are much more friendly to the proprietary software developers these people are sucking up to.

    Facts:

    -- Stallman started at the MIT AI Lab in 1971, long before BSD. [ The first version of Unix was written in 1970 but was never released. ]

    -- The MIT AI Lab is widely recognized as the birthplace of hackerdom and the earliest free software traditions. This dates back to the 60's and even the 50's TMRC at MIT. Stallman is a direct heir to and participant in these earliest of traditions. The AI lab traditions pre-date Unix.

    -- The original "Emacs commune" license pre-dates the UCB license. (The Emacs commune license was an early form of copyleft). Actually, I can't swear that this is accurate, but I believe that it is. (Stallman wrote the original Emacs in 1975, which was before the first BSD release I believe (I think that was 79 or something)).

  • I think you'd have difficulty finding a place with free software traditions that both pre-dated MIT, and which continue to have an effect today. Other schools certainly made contributions to the culture, but MIT is generally considered the most prominent. The traditions of Stanford and CMU (for example) are also reasonably close to those of MIT as far as I can tell. (Though I'm no expert here).

    Whatever the history, it is certain that AT&T and Berkeley were not the birthplace of free software in any way, shape, or form. And it is completely false to say that BSD pre-dates Stallman, which Eric Raymond did.
  • Raymond said, "important strains of it [free software] (such as the BSD Unix tradition) predated him [RMS] and remain both technically and ideologically independent of his Free Software Foundation." (emphasis added)

    See:

    http://www.salonm agazine.com/21st/feature/1998/09/11feature2.html [salonmagazine.com].
  • Whether you would describe them as "right wing" or not, Eric Raymond has very extremist political views. He supports the abolition of government, among other things.

  • Eh? (Score:1)

    by gavinhall ( 33 )
    Posted by JoeyRamone:

    Yup. Minor glitch ? :)
  • While I agree that some software was free before Stallman created the FSF. RMS was the first person to come up with a method to LEGALLY protect free software from becoming proprietary software.

  • Near the end of the transcript of the "forum" at the expo, ESR says "Without Stallman, none of us would be here right now" and got a standing ovation.

    I like that. Maybe ESR can be that explicit a little more often and a little more openly. Because the impression I got from the O'Reilly article (and some recent flamewars and articles on /.) was:

    ESR: "We had to kill Free Software in order to save it."

    ORA: "Agreed."

    Whatever your opinions about RMS, his stances and the GPL at least provide a reference point or litmus test for software freedom. If we allow him to be FUD-ded out of the picture, it creates a vacuum in which anything (bad) can happen.

    --

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • or he just plain doesn't read the articles that have already been posted to slashdot. ;)

    We've already had the flamewars over this article, I don't really need the deja vu!

    BTW, something is really weird in that if I post a top level comment, I have a login name, but in replies I'm an AC? How does that work? Or not work, as the case may be ...
  • Without the Freedom the software will suck, which is one of the major reasons we want free software, so we can improve it when we want/need to.

    If the software is not good no one will use it. Free software that sits on a shelf unused is not helping anyone, free software that people use to get things done is.

    Its not Good Software VS Freedom its Good software AND Freedom.
    --Zachary Kessin
  • Yes but Real Scientists know that they have to communicate what they have done with others if they want to continue to do it. Despite what some people here think Packaging is important. As I have said before free software that no one uses does not help anyone.
    --Zachary Kessin
  • I think you could say that while RMS did not invent the concept of "Free Software" He formalized it. If you read some of the stuff he wrote about the AI lab in the 70's he was reacting to already free software becoming non-free when he started the FSF. So it must have been around.

    The Formalizing of free software with the GPL etc is very important.
    --Zachary Kessin
  • I could be wrong, but I thought ESR was in favor of the GPL, just not for the same reason as RMS.

    Does this remind anyone else of that period in the middle ages when there were 2 popes and they both excomunicated each other from time to time.
    --Zachary Kessin
  • long words. I feel sleepy.

  • Hear! Hear! Also, wasn't the "nominal fee" for getting an AT&T UNIX license about $100,000 (not to mention inflationary adjustments) even for a university? That is hardly "Free"!

    ESR has a strange attitude about all of this. When OpenSource.Org first advertised that they wanted to hear from companies providing Linux support I wrote to him about my company. He asked why I had written. I pointed out that he had asked about companies like mine. At that point he wrote back and basically said "I meant real companies -- those with more than $10M/year in revenues".

    There is little doubt that ESR's agenda is self promotion whereas RMS's has always been software and the betterment of the world.

    Many people try to re-write history. We need to be vigilent.

  • I stand corrected!

    I was quite certain that I was right so I went out and searched on the web. Eventually I found this URL [isep.ipp.pt] where it says: The labs made the software available to academic institutions at a very small charge. For example, John Lions, a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science at the University of New South Wales, in Australia, reported that his school was able to acquire a copy of research UNIX Edition 5 for $150 ($110 Australian) in December, 1974, including tape and manuals. (See "An Interview with John Lions," in Unix Review, October, 1985, pg. 51)

  • More like $100

    Sorry!



  • This is true for some people, I suppose.

    But most of this is people picking their heroes and pitting them against each other. Mostly harmless.
  • It doesn't say very much. It's mostly just a rehash of common information. The historical perspective is an interesting one, despite the alleged inaccuracies. I think the best phrase, and the one that's most important to remember is this one:

    "Perhaps the interval of rampant Gatesian monopolism between the blossom of BSD and the advent of Linux is just another periodic lilt of the paradigm dance."

    Kuhn couldn't write his way out of a wet, brown, paper bag, but he did have some points.
  • " In any other field of endeavor, there would be no contest; the fluffy bunny of utopian daydreams would meet the oncoming diesel locomotive of commerce, and it'd be all over but for the rabbit stew. The problem is, you can't ignore Stallman."
  • Stallman Fundamentalism Vs. Raymond Utilitarianism.

    Can we add Laissez-Faire Torvaldianism to the list?


    --
    As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
  • Near the end of the transcript of the "forum" at the expo, ESR says "Without Stallman, none of us would be here right now" and got a standing ovation.

    I think this "split" is cooked up by others. ESR may have different ideas, but he speaks to a different crowd. I don't think he begrudges RMS credit for founding the whole thing.

    Also, it may be worth noting that ESR is an ultra-rightist who seems to like quoting the NRA. RMS, while probably not a Marxist, is decidedly Populist in his views on ownership and freedom. There's bound to be some differences between the two.

    (The Marxist bit is not intended to be an indictment or flamebait. That's just how I read the situation.)


    --
    As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
  • The concept behind the GPL could be traced back to 1840 and Marx, but I think RMS still deserves credit.

    I think you'll find there is no such thing as a 100% new idea.


    --
    As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
  • Ken Arnold (now at Sun) was the original author of curses at Berkeley.
  • GCC is a horrible compiler. It's development is slow, it lacks optimizations for the pentium chip, let alone the ppro, p2, or k6. To paraphrase Strustrep, it's c++ compiler isn't really a c++ compiler. It was only when pragmatists at cygnus started the egcs project that free software had a decent modern compiler with patches for the optimizations I mentioned before, and a competant c++ implementation.

    Although I also like emacs, I prefer the xemacs implementation and the jed pseudo-emacs implementation. Xemacs is far more featureful and complete than GNU/Emacs, jed is far smaller. Stallman does deserve credit for the initial development of emacs though.

    However, remember tha ESR has done more than just fetchmail. Your emacs would not compile without ncurses, which ESR is very much responsible for.
  • Free software was the standard in academia for most of the history of the computer. When computer scientists did research they released the source for free distribution. There was little money in the software business and distributing the software was just what was done in the academic world. It's no different than when someone in mathematics discovers a new theorum, they publish it.

    Free software predated the FSF by perhaps 2 or 3 decades. It just wasn't called that. It was called research. RMS was not the founder of free software, he was just someone who refused to change from the old ways when commerce found its way into an academic pursuit. Not that this is a bad thing, but he certainly did not invent the concept.
  • First of all, umm..no. I'm just a starving undergraduate like many others. If they'd like to pay me, I could use the cash.

    Second of all where's the fear, uncertainty or doubt in what I said. Free software has been in existence since the first software was wirtten. It was a tried and proven method in academia back when Stallman was in diapers. It has proven the test of time, and shown itself, again and again to be a strong development model. Hell, Stallman started the FSF when he was working at MIT. It's just the way everyone was done at the universities, and at many is still the way much is done. Just because I state factually that RMS didn't invent free software doens't make me a FUD-spreader.
  • The person didn't comment upon the fact that GCC was free, he said he liked it.

    Furthermore, just because something compiles on gcc doesn't mean it will compile elsewhere. This is especially true with c++, where gcc does not comply with accepted ISO standards on the language. As for the C world, ever try compiling the linux kernel with and compiler other than gcc-2.7 (including gcc 2.8 and egcs), and then say starting X. No, well it's because you can't without modifying the source. Linux-2.0 had bug for bug compatability with gcc-2.7. Linux-2.2 corrected this flaw.
  • I would not be horribly suprised if egcs merged back into gcc in the future, assuming gcc gets some developers who actually want to develop a compiler, rather than just sitting on one.

    Xemacs and GNU?Emacs will probably never merge. Xemeacs development has just progressed too far, and xemacs developers, past and present have too much of a dislike of Stallman and his brood. Witness why-cooperation-with-rms-is-impossible.au of JWZ's web page (which is of course Stallman's rediculaous "join us now and share the software" song. I don't see a lot more possitive attitude amongst more recent xeamcs developers towards Stallaman.

    The reason I think Raymod makes a better spokesman for OSS, is that he is far less arogant, obnoxious and fanatic than Stallman. Stallman tends to drive people away from himself.
  • Oh please. Yes, there was neat stuff going on at MIT in the 60's and 70's, but there was plenty of neat things going on in lots of *other* universities as well.

    Free software in no way started with MIT, Stallman or BSD, although all three certainly have contributed to it. There is no "Big Lie" -- only different perspectives. If your first exposure to UNIX was through Linux, then Stallman and the FSF seem really important. If your first exposure to UNIX was some form of BSD, then that seems really important.

    BTW: Don't confuse BSD UNIX with AT&T UNIX. BSD only had a cost because it still had some AT&T code in it, and so an AT&T source license was needed.
  • Yes, MIT is *considered* the most prominent because they are the most self-promoting -- hardly surprising that it was the home of both ESR and RMS isn't it?

    Can find the exact quote from ESR that says that BSD pre-dates Stallman? If he said free software predates Stallman, well that's true (And Stallman admits it -- he started the FSF to *preserve* free software traditions). If ESR said BSD predates the FSF, again a true statement.

    I'm not a big ESR fan myself. Certainly the amount of code he's written is less than RMS' ut both ESR and RMS seem to be spending more time talking than working these days
  • Isn't it about time?
  • Actually, most people are still cool and helpful.

    --

  • Hmmmm... no. I can't remember back that far. I must have been really young ;)
    .
  • What does Bruce Perens say?

    (No, I can't tell if I'm kidding or not, either)
  • Well:

    afc@orion:~/src/perl$ ldd `type -p xemacs`
    libXm.so.3 => /lib/libXm.so.3
    libXpm.so.4.7 => /usr/openwin/lib/libXpm.so.4.7
    libDtSvc.so.1 => /usr/dt/lib/libDtSvc.so.1
    libtt.so.2 => /usr/dt/lib/libtt.so.2
    libXmu.so.4 => /lib/libXmu.so.4
    libXt.so.4 => /lib/libXt.so.4
    libXext.so.0 => /lib/libXext.so.0
    libX11.so.4 => /lib/libX11.so.4
    libSM.so.6 => /lib/libSM.so.6
    libICE.so.6 => /lib/libICE.so.6
    libkvm.so.1 => /lib/libkvm.so.1
    libkstat.so.1 => lib/libkstat.so.1
    libm.so.1 => /lib/libm.so.1
    libsocket.so.1 => /lib/libsocket.so.1
    libnsl.so.1 => /lib/libnsl.so.1
    libelf.so.1 => /lib/libelf.so.1
    libdl.so.1 => /lib/libdl.so.1
    libc.so.1 => /lib/libc.so.1
    libmp.so.2 => /lib/libmp.so.2

    I see no curses here, do you?
    Also: this yada-yada about egcs is somewhat off mark. Egcs is to gcc, as XEmacs is to GNU Emacs. They share a lot of source code, and it's not unlikely that they'll merge again in the future.

    It is absolutely laughable to compare Stallman's deeds with those of Raymond. Just read up your history, buddy.
  • Why can no one write simply anymore? Why must every noun be covered in adjectives? "hip-gunning cowboy capitalists" "high-minded utopians" "the fluffy bunny of utopian daydreams" ?!? After the lawyers, we kill the pundits.
  • He's very fond of guns, it's true, but I think
    his social and political views tend toward moderate-libertarian.

    -------

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