I disagree. Stallman infuriates and disappoints just as much as he inspires. He often comes off as rambling and intransigent. Years ago I found an open letter to him that I found reasonable[1]. Near the end, the writer considers how Stallman’s way of presenting an argument is harmful to his goal:
> Dr. Stallman, I have a tremendous amount of respect for your contributions to GNU, emacs and gdb amongst others. You are a man of considerable intellect and programming ability. That said, I nor the people that I spoke with about your talk found you to be a particularly charismatic or persuasive speaker. The only people that seemed convinced by your speech were the ones who had already been leaning towards your point of view to start with. Several friends of mine who had not heard of the FSF before left half way through because they were so put off by some of conspiratorial rhetoric above.
Stallman’s reply was a single line:
> I am skeptical of advice from people who disagree with what I stand for.
Stallman isn’t a paragon or righteousness. He’s a rambling human with as many biases and unreasonable obsessions as the next person. He makes me question if he really wants to change the behaviour of the masses, or if he just wants to mock and deride what he doesn’t like. If he’s going for the former, he’s doing an awful job; you don’t convince people to change their views with aggressiveness and ridicule. If he’s going for the latter that’s his prerogative, but it’s not my belief that people like that are beneficial to the world.
In some regards, some things that seem arbitrary actually have a large amount of informed reasoning behind them. He doesn't show off, and maybe makes his arguments too simple, in simple language, but I've seen him trot out more of the logic and academic terms&references on occasion (for people who know those terms&references).
And I think this ties in with him being obstinate/uncompromising: it's wrt logic he's worked out (and some values weights specific to him). IMHO, we need some uncompromising people, to provide different perspectives, and as a check against all the rest of us (including myself) who compromise more easily.
Some other things that seem arbitrary actually might be, even if they seem counterproductive (not, e.g., a principles reason). For a simple example, I've suggested a few times that saying "free software" to people unfamiliar with the term seems to derail many discussions, or is just confusing (especially when we keep doing it after the somewhat less-confusing "libre software" term). I think probably RMS has decided saying "free software" creates an opportunity to educate someone new on what "software freedom" is (even at the cost of any other discussion that was going on). Maybe "free software" is also a wordplay that appeals to him (like "GNU" being a recursive initialism), and which he thinks others might like. But I haven't seen that seem to work well in practice, overall. (Or maybe it works better one-on-one for him than it does in larger practice by others?)
Which brings me to another theory: RMS might think a bit differently than our typical programmer, and this might also affect his advocacy. We tend to think others are like us (sometimes more than they are), and we might also use ourselves to help model others. I suspect RMS realizes that others are a bit different, but I don't know whether he doesn't understand people well enough to influence them as well as he could, or he's prioritizing differently. For example, promoting the "software freedom" idea itself takes priority over everything else, including the goals of the person he's talking with and any promotion that might immediately build on those goals. (I can't get into details, but I've also seen setbacks due to RMS/FSF being seemingly misled by people who said the right catchphrases to him/them. Usually people mainly enthusiastic, not intentional manipulators. I don't know how well he was able to read them, and maybe he could read them, but was willing to take a chance because his mission needs a lot more workers.)
I think we're blessed to have at least one "full RMS". How does shooting for 50% RMS for everyone else sound?
You touched on “things that seem arbitrary” twice, but that wasn’t part of my point at all. Neither were most of your arguments. I don’t think Stallman’s behaviour is arbitrary, I think it’s harmful to his alleged goals.
> I think we're blessed to have at least one "full RMS". How does shooting for 50% RMS for everyone else sound?
Above all, that’s what heightened my certainty you did not absorb the meaning I intended for my point. The answer to that question is the premisse of my post. “How does shooting for 50% RMS for everyone else sound?”. It sounds awful. The Stallman we already have could even drop a few points.
Again, part of my point was that Stallman is uninterested in such feedback, as demonstrated by the quoted exchange. The linked open letter did just what you suggest and was fruitless. His intransigence in such matters is why I don’t think he’s worth emulating. It’s my belief the world needs people open to challenging their own core ideas, to entertain the possibility they might be wrong and evolving their understanding of themselves, others, and the world itself. Stallman comes across as the opposite of that.
For what it's worth, I have seen him be flexible in thinking, in response to argument, including on famously firm positions. It has happened.
Of course, I'm also aware that many people have been frustrated by perceived inflexibility, and some of those times are very unfortunate.
If it inspires patience, consider that RMS has been flooded for decades with arguments that are often not well-informed, or are not in good faith. And he's only human, with finite time -- some needles in the haystack will get brushed off before he's able to invest enough time to see them. I suspect most of his responses are almost on autopilot, because he'll talk with anyone, but most of the conversations have happened many thousands of times before. (And I'm sorry I just now realize I should've warned of that, before I suggested you invest in reaching out to him yourself.)
I don't go full RMS, myself, and I was thinking that the exact makeup of the proposed 50% RMS level could be cherry-picked by the individual/observer, and include overlap with good qualities they already see from some other sources. I now realize that anything that looked like a quantification or calculus of RMS's qualities or value was counterproductive to discussion. I'd like to modify it to say that I think RMS exhibits some qualities that I'd like to see more in people. (And, on later occasions, I might have time to enumerate some suggestions.)
Anyway, thank you for your patience here, and for prompting me to rethink some things.
I appreciate that Stallman is human and has had to deal with ill-intentioned people over the years, which could be the reason he’s less willing to be flexible on certain matters these days. But I see that as less of a reason to ignore said inflexibility and more of a reason to question if he’s the best person to continue to carry his message.
He may be tired of fielding the same questions over and over, but every day there is someone else hearing his message for the first time as he continues to present it. As long as he keeps on introducing his views to new people, he should be responding to their concerns as coming from individuals thinking about them for the first time (because that’s what they are), not as questions he’s tired of addressing.
If our combined hypothesis are that Stallman has a good message but he’s harming it with his delivery, he should consider passing the baton to someone with more patience, if lack of it is indeed the reason for his attitude (a word I use with neutral meaning).
> Anyway, thank you for your patience here
You as well. I feel this was a healthy and respectful way to disagree and discuss a point at length. Thank you.
For example:
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/recent-licensing-updates
> We added the Commons Clause to our list of nonfree licenses... It's particularly nasty given that the name, and the fact that it is attached to pre-existing free licenses, may make it seem as if the work is still free software.
So while RMS was undeniably a force of good, we should take his advice with grain of salt, and start discussing which freedoms we can protect, and what the price for that is.
> The “Commons Clause” is a nonfree license because it forbids selling copies of the program, and even running the program as part of implementing any commercial service. Adding insult to injury, it also twists the words “commons” and “sell.”
RMS and FSF's stance on software freedom is ultimately straightforward: they want to protect end user's freedoms, and protecting this involves removing the ability for anyone in between to take away end user's freedoms.
> They consider Commons Clause to be harmful for good reasons.
Your quote only tells that they consider the license non-free. Which is true, if you subscribe to their definition of "freedom" [0] (which I don't - YMMV). Harmful though? I don't think so.
Have you looked around lately? Has opensource software won? Where it did, it did because it helped big tech companies to "commoditize their complements". Where it didn't, it is because by itself it doesn't provide hobby developers with any incentive to keep working once the maintaining stops being fun.
> RMS and FSF's stance on software freedom is ultimately straightforward: they want to protect end user's freedoms, and protecting this involves removing the ability for anyone in between to take away end user's freedoms.
Exactly. What they are missing however is that without developers' engagement you get the situation that we have now. And that some of the freedoms are more important than others - like freedom to repair, to run for every purpose, and... to actually have a polished piece of software. Do you still think opensource "won"?
In the end it's a free world, or it should be. Also free to decide which license to use. And free from hordes of preachers falling on every mention of Commons Clause.</rant>
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition#T...
RMS/FSF goal is to protect the rights of end users. Not developers. That's the difference between copyleft and permissive licenses. Commons Clause is neither, and it seems focused on the wrong thing. The problem isn't charging for software; the problem is charging and preventing others from redistribution and access to source code.
As for losing interest in maintaining software, I don't see how Commons Clause helps.
This is simply not what Commons Clause does, you really should read it. Access to the source code is not prevented. And redistribution is not prevented either, on the condition that end users do not sell it. That is all.
> As for losing interest in maintaining software, I don't see how Commons Clause helps.
It helps by allowing someone to actually build a business around their work without fear of "unfair" competition ("unfair" is in quotes because it is legal and in line with FOSS, it just doesn't seem fair to me [0]).
[0] https://onezero.medium.com/open-source-betrayed-industry-lea...
Relevant: https://old.reddit.com/r/StallmanWasRight/
(Disclosure: RMS was a childhood hero, since I read the Steven Levy "Hackers" book, right up there with Mr. Rogers, Richard Feynman, Neil Armstrong, and Marvin Minsky. One day, RMS reached out, to ask me to sign over copyright, to the FSF, of a tiny bit of Emacs code ("Yes, sir!"). Today, I occasionally have the privilege of exchanging emails with him.)