48 hours after someone's death is not the appropriate time to start trying to draw distinctions between their death and their absence, and declare their influence "evil".

When that's your initial reaction, there's no way you're not going to come off like a giant ass.

When is an appropriate time? How about 30 years before his death, which is about when RMS started calling Apple/Steve Jobs evil.

Yep, it's okay to criticize someone before they die (though "evil" is usually overdoing it). And it's okay to criticize someone with a reasonable buffer after they die. But taking the opportunity of their death to criticize them is just plain tacky.

yeah, but I'm saying this is about par for the course with stallman, and even if people happened to expect tact from him, why the huge fuss? Say "Not the right time for this conversation RMS" and _move on_. By attempting to refute his point about Jobs' absence, they lose whatever higher ground they might have had about timeliness of his statement.

It upset me enough that I never want to use any of RS's software again.

Are there any FSF/GPL/GNU stuff on OS X? Ubuntu? (I'm trying to think of anything I use that is GPL/FSF/GNU).

I don't use any of Microsoft's stuff anymore because generally I've found better alternatives. I think open source software is a better philosophy. I think the same thing about the GPL/FSF/RS/GNU stuff, (I think it's a bad philosophy), and I'd love to rid myself of it.

Could someone give me some pointers how I can avoid RS's stuff completely?

Thanks!

Are you, by any chance, saying that you have certain principles that outweigh things like convenience and fitness for purpose? That you are prepared to go out of your way to reject the use of certain software purely because you dislike its philosophy, and not because it’s objectively worse for you?

If so, you and Mr. Stallman have something in common.

I used to use Windows, even though I had gripes, because it was okay and there was no good alternative.

GNU/FSF/RS helped create a good alternative.

I've used their stuff, despite my gripes, because there was no good alternative.

Now there is. There's a tremendous amount of rock solid, MIT & other licensed open source software out there. And I want to switch to that. And ditch GNU/FSF/RS.

It's a free marketplace, and RS & Co. have to compete too. They got me to switch from MSFT, but now they're the ones who are behind the times IMO.

There's a ton of GNU and GPL software that you probably unknowingly use. If you don't use any MS software, and you don't plan on using any FSF/GNU/GPL software, then you're really limiting yourself.

I don't even think it's really possible to avoid it all, GNU libraries/compilers/... are used by pretty much everything that's not on Windows platform. You'd basically have to write all your software yourself.

What are these? I don't know of one program on OS X that is GNU. I'm probably wrong, just curios to know.

Well if you ever printed from OSX then you used CUPS which is a GNU tool. The shell is filled with them, if you ever used bash you used a GNU tool. You might say I never used that stuff directly but GNU libraries, shell scripts etc... are built into so many other applications that it's hard to not use any at all. Most applications written in C on the mac are probably compiled with gcc that means they have gnu code in them. I'm not 100% sure but doesn't all iOS app also get compiled with gcc? Xcode includes it as the default compiler.

Apple has done a good job hiding those things from us to build a user friendly operating system and tools on top but at the bottom there a bunch of GNU tools.

I guess it depends how gnugan you want to be. But it's probably got some GNU code in everywhere.

You would stop using software written by millions of people because of one comment made by a selfappointed spokeperson that seemed a little harsh?

Prepare yourself to abandon technology altogether, I guess.