What people would think of us if we were famous? I try to be very polite and reasonable at work but I know, for a fact, that I'm not always at my best. The alternative is easy: you start to talk like a big corp CEO or a politician. You say nothing or give pleasant lies. Your acts may be later despicable but somehow facts are open to interpretation while your words carry all the weight.
I'd argue that such things tend to happen when a mob tries their best to destroy your reputation by publicly associating you with crimes you haven't committed.
Ash put it well, to describe Stallman as stifling GNU's success. At this point, GitHub, NodeJS, and PyPI have done more for open source software than any GNU axe-grinding. As Clang grows, the FSF and GNU software shrink away. NeoVIM is on Apache. GCC still doesn't have LSP bindings, and it's due at least in part to this petty email exchange in 2015.
And that isn't even getting into these dumpster fires:
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26619440
- https://www.reddit.com/r/justneckbeardthings/comments/2vkeze... (which he was handing out as late as 2019!)
- https://thenewstack.io/why-almost-everyone-wants-richard-sta...
Except there wouldn't be GitHub and NodeJS and PyPI and certainly no GNU/Linux if not for Stallman starting the whole movement.
> This is IMO embarrassing and unprofessional behavior for an adult. Most engineering managers or architects in most jobs would be reprimanded or fired
I don't understand why I keep hearing complaints about "professional behaviour" in an open source context, where it's most likely not the "profession" of the people involved.
Please stop asking open source maintainers to behave professionally, until you are paying them a full time salary.
Just like we expect our neighbors to be respectful to us even when we don’t pay them for the privilege, there’s nothing surprising that users ask a maintainer to be respectful of their time. Yes, the users can go somewhere else, just like how we can move if we have a bad neighbor, but that’s just not a good way of going about things.
No, that's not how it works.
I'm free to publish something and completely ignore bugreports.
There is no such responsibility principle. Some people, out of goodness of their hearths, follow up on things. But they have no obligation to do so.
No we can't agree on that. There is no obligation to be polite.
Of course I wouldn't expect people to love me for that, and it's not how I personally act; but if someone felt like acting in this way, it would be fully within his/her rights to do so.
My point is that the way he chooses to behave is in the long run damaging to the community that he founded and leads.
You are somehow deciding that collaboration is needed and wanted by every maintainer.
That's your (wrong) assumption.
This entitled attitude that maintainers owe their users anything is visibly driving people away from that work.
Periodically, they usurp huge contributions from outsiders and market the success to their employers as a project success without mentioning the actual author. Then they boss around the author until he/she rage-quits.
And while they were young, they were entirely rude and unprofessional. CoCs are a political tool to protect the inner circle.
At least RMS is not a hypocrite. Neither is Torvalds.
Are you paying RMS for work rendered? If not, you have no standing to demand RMS act professionally.
Not to mention, FOSS by its own definition excludes all facets of money and is in practice primarily driven by volunteers. You can't and shouldn't demand professional behaviour from people who are not professionals.
“The skill, good judgment, and polite behavior that is expected from a person who is trained to do a job well” Merriam-Webster
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/professional
("professionally" also redirects to the above URL.)
---------------------------------
professional adjective
pro· fes· sion· al | \ prə-ˈfesh-nəl , -ˈfe-shə-nᵊl \
Definition of professional (Entry 1 of 2)
1a: of, relating to, or characteristic of a profession
b: engaged in one of the learned professions
c(1): characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession
(2): exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace
2a: participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs
a professional golfer
b: having a particular profession as a permanent career
a professional soldier
c: engaged in by persons receiving financial return
professional football 3: following a line of conduct as though it were a profession
a professional patriot
professional noun
Definition of professional (Entry 2 of 2)
: one that is professional
especially : one that engages in a pursuit or activity professionally
---------------------------------
The phrase you are looking for is perhaps "act like a gentleman", among many other ways to describe behaviour that is mature and reasonable, but in any case RMS is not a professional and thusly none of us can demand he act professionally.
A. adj.1. Relating to or marking the occasion of entrance into a religious order. Cf. profession-ring n. at profession n. Compounds. Obsolete. rare.
2. Of or relating to a profession or declaration; that is avowedly (but sometimes falsely) the thing specified; professed. Obsolete.
II. Senses relating to or derived from (the conduct of) a profession or occupation.
3.
a. Of a person or persons: that engages in a specified occupation or activity for money or as a means of earning a living, rather than as a pastime. Contrasted with amateur. Sometimes applied disparagingly to a person who makes a trade or profession of something usually associated with higher motives.
b. Of an event, activity, occupation, etc. (now esp. a sport): undertaken or engaged in for money; engaged in by professionals (as distinct from non-professionals or amateurs).
c. In humorous or derogatory use. Of a person: habitually making a feature of a particular activity or attribute, esp. one that is generally regarded with disfavour; inveterate.
4. Of, belonging to, or proper to a profession.
a. Relating to, connected with, or befitting a (particular) profession or calling; preliminary or necessary to the practice of a profession. professional examination.
b. Engaged in a profession, esp. one requiring special skill or training; belonging to the professional classes.
c. Characteristic of or suitable for a professional person; (now esp. of equipment) of a type used by professionals.
d. That has or displays the skill, knowledge, experience, standards, or expertise of a professional; competent, efficient.
5. That has knowledge of the theoretical or scientific parts of a trade or occupation, as distinct from its practical or mechanical aspects; that raises a trade to a learned profession. Now rare except as merged with senses at A. 4.
6. Physiology. Designating or relating to a cell which is specialized for the ingestion of particles by phagocytosis, such as a macrophage or neutrophil (as distinct from a cell capable of occasional phagocytosis).
III. Senses related to the office of professor.
7. = professorial adj.Now rare.
B. n. 1. a. A person who engages in a specified activity, especially a sport, as a paid occupation. Frequently opposed to amateur.
b. Chiefly colloquial. A prostitute.
2. A person engaged in a profession, esp. one requiring special skill or training; a professional person, or a member of the professional classes.
3. Scottish University slang. Short for ‘professional examination’
4. A person who does something with a high level of competence, commitment, or expertise.
-----
So the use in this case can be construed to be entirely correct, c.f. Sense II §4 and Sense III §2 and §4
I think when you get down to debating definitions you’ve probably lost some of that professionalism.
As a manager I probably would be reprimanding people debating definitions like this. We should be asking: “do we understand each other?”
The point of this entire argument is Stallman isn’t paid, dedicates his life to this work, probably is overworked and runs his org and does so completely openly (ie you’re likely to see lots of good and some bad). He’s not a professional; he’s a passionate, often crazed and zealous leader of an organization with an extreme position (free software being the exception not the rule).
I frankly wouldn’t expect anything from Stallman. Manners, personal relationship, etc.
I posted this to highlight the absurdity of the original posting of another definition. I perhaps could have been more explicit, but I thought that my tongue being in my cheek was established by making the point that the original excerpt was taken from an American-English dictionary. Should've started with "Akshually..."
Yes, perhaps this pattern of behavior is to be expected from someone who's staked out such an uncompromising position and stuck to it for ~30 years.
But it's also really sad that, in acting this way, he undermines his own goals.
Not so. This is partly where the "Cathedral" nomenclature came from.
OED really goes all the way into their words
"workplace" is defined as "a place (such as a shop or factory) where work is done"[1].
"work" in the context of "workplace" is defined[2] as follows under definition 1:
---------------------
1a: to perform work or fulfill duties regularly for wages or salary
works in publishing
b: to perform or carry through a task requiring sustained effort or continuous repeated operations
worked all day over a hot stove
c: to exert oneself physically or mentally especially in sustained effort for a purpose or under compulsion or necessity
---------------------
Definition 1a is a direct reference to monetary payment for work rendered. Definition 1b describes the act of working itself. Definition 1c loosely refers to some sort of goal or need, which may or may not include money, as a motivator for working.
So in a very, very liberal context you can pedantically use "professional" in a non-monetary sense, but there are much more accurate ways to describe what you want to convey such that you wouldn't need to be liberal with your choice of words.
RMS isn't a professional, so he can't be demanded to act professionally.
The way I used the words "behave professionally" is very common in American English. You could use this phrase to describe a student, a volunteer, or even a dog at a dog show.
However, slang is slang. Officially, the definition of a professional is whether you make money for work rendered. The slang usage of "professional" is incorrect.
The slang usage might get added to the dictionary and become correct some day, language evolves, but as far as I'm aware today is not yet that day.
That's not the definition in question here. This is:
> exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace
(though those who already act professionally already knew it ;) while other people will grasp at straws and try to find technicalities to justify their bad attitude )
Why were you stunned? The guy signs his emails "Dr. Richard Stallman" whilst only having an honorary doctorate. Clearly there are issues. It's as insane as signing emails "Dr. Bill Gates", "Dr. Clint Eastwood" and "Dr. Billy Joel" (all having honorary degrees).
One of my professors used to talk about the difference between a Masters degree and a PhD:
"To get a Masters degree you have to learn something. To get a PhD the world has to learn something."
The world has learned a great deal from RMS. Regardless of what one thinks of him as a person, he's probably been more influential on how the world thinks about software than the vast majority of PhDs.
Of course, he took that as license to just do whatever he wanted to do. Personally I wouldn't even consider adopting any kind of title in the first place, but if I was of that bent, I would at least have the decency to append the "(h.c.)".
I do believe that RMS's contributions to the world have been significant, but, to me, at least, a doctorate is something you get after completing a doctoral program. If you don't do that, you should call yourself a "doctor, honoris causa" -- because that's what you are! -- not a "doctor".
But what do I know, I only completed a bachelor's degree, and even then only barely.
[0] https://stallman.org/articles/dr-stallman.html
[1] I learned something new today!
So, regardless of your personal opinion, he is allowed to call himself Dr.
This is character assassination, leave it alone.
So it doesn't bother me if any of them signs Dr. Bill Gates, Dr. Billy Joel or Dr. Clint Eastwood as they, in all likelihood, are important in their fields, much more than I was when I submitted my thesis.
Granted, these are mostly (or even all?) people who received their doctorates in the past 10 or 15 years, and as such are a good 30 years younger than Stallman, so perhaps there is a generational thing at play here too, where the respect/desirability of titles like that has been dropping over time.
To give another data point: in France I remember the university having to ask the local profs. to put their titles (Dr, Prof, etc) in their mail signature as otherwise students thought that french teachers were much less competent than e.g. teachers from germany who would have three layers of Dr. Eng. prepended
One common situation is introducing an invited speaker at a conference. After the first mention, you refer to the speaker using a mix of pronouns and names. Full name or last name would sound weird. Using first name works if the speaker is your friend and many people in the audience also know them as a person. Otherwise "Dr. Lastname" is a reasonable choice.
Academic websites are full of short biographies of speakers, lecturers, PIs, and so on. They are often written in third person. Again, "Dr. Lastname" is often the form of reference that sounds least weird.
Academic spam is often addressed to "Dr. Lastname", especially if the sender is asking the recipient to do something. Using "doctor" as a title is a safe default choice. It sounds respectful, it's very likely to be correct, and it saves the sender from guessing the gender (and possibly marital status) of the recipient.
A PhD has earned their title "Dr".
Many people use it, and they should. They paid for it with their mental health.
I apply the title to everyone I know with a PhD.
Perhaps the PhD holders don't want to be associated with the hubris that most medical doctors exude. For reference, google "endometriosis suffer" or spend some time researching medical malpractice.
It also is possible that a lot of kids coming out of the 80s got a bum deal on their education - or at least feel they did. Like, "it was too easy to get this degree" - from the standpoint of applying themselves, not the overall workload of getting a PhD. Medical Doctors who are board certified, that did all their rotations, and whatever else required, there's only one other doctorate that requires more workload, and that's psychiatry.
What should maybe be questioned is why someone needs a doctorate for "the world to learn from them."
Let's not even talk about medical doctors everywhere, or formal engineering qualifications, both are very often used in letters.
The argument is that they make a direct difference to the perception of the individuals competence (and I know that for medical doctors there is a direct effect on earnings). While I don't think it would make a difference for RMS corresponding with software engineers he might be thinking it does make a difference because of his interaction with other stakeholders. Not really defending it, just offering a different perspective.
They also omit the "med", which is much like omitting "h.c.". And they are very keen on using the title in general.
I think it does make a difference: many software developers might take him less seriously because of it. And that has nothing to do with the fact that his doctorates are honorary; same goes for someone who has completed a PhD program.
Expat living in Germany here. You’re absolutely correct according to my experience. In fact, I’ve seen people with PhD put “Dr.” on the mailbox in front of their home.
As he should. He earned it
Still, it is a fact that he has a doctorate. I don't think he's wrong to call himself a doctor. A little formal, perhaps?
This is false and insulting to people who earned real degrees.
He has an honorary doctorate. Which is about as worthless as if someone had the local trophy shoppe mint you a plaque that said "World's Greatest Hacker".
No, but at least in the US, they're often given out for things other than achievement in a particular field, like as unofficial quid-pro-quo for large donations to the university.
Perhaps that doesn't damn the practice entirely, as many are awarded for extraordinary contributions, but it does add an unfortunate extra step, having to ask the question, "did this person get this honor because they did amazing things, or because they paid amazing sums?"
A honorary doctorate is to a doctorate as a honorary citizenship is to a citizenship. It does not imply any rights or qualifications and trying to pass it of as the real deal may be (and in some places is quite explicitly) considered fraud.
Honorary doctorates are created for this cases, when the recipient is --the-- expert in the field. Is a shortcut to encourage this experts to became teachers and pass their knowledge. Win-win. Do we really think that somebody spending four years writing a these about emacs knows more than Stallman about a program that he developped since 70's?
Is abused to groom donors? Yes, Sometimes is abused, but is a perfectly legit way to became a doctor.
I suspect it's some sort of cultural thing, and that with how much computer people tend to reject typical forms of formality we're just mostly on the far opposite side of whatever cultural thing it is.
But this is not relevant here, as Dr. Stahlmann doesn't work in Tübingen.
It's also illegal to do it without actually having the title.
A doctorate is a doctorate. And if it makes him happier, why not? There's no harm or confusion (his qualifications are clear enough in any context where they matter). Unlike, say, the case of Dr. Phil.
There so many other things to have an issue with about Stallman, I don't know why this one stands out in particular.
...that said, the only time I've used the "Dr." next to my name was on obnoxious web forms which force me to choose between Mr/Ms/etc, and Dr. is the only non-gendered option.
Except Dr. Phil does have an actual PhD. Which he attended university and defended via dissertation. Unlike, say, RMS.
Well that's the point.
When RMS says he's a "Doctor", the expectation is "made a significant contribution to computer science" - which, arguably, he did.
When Dr. Phil says he's a "doctor", the expectation is "qualified and licensed to practice medicine in his field". Which he is very much not (in particular, he hasn't renewed his license).
Context matters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_A8Xe9M0NY
Call me doctor (Call me doctor)
No need to look
He's not in the book
The doctor's not an M.D.
What he does this time he does for free
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2VaMIFEQDg
>Mom, I am going to rip off your head and shit down your neck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeOBZWQEJE4
>For whatever intimidation and injustice vie with decency and honor, let the Doctors arise, and arise they must, for within every one of us, there is a Doctor, a dormant Doctor, a supreme arbitrator, who can be summoned to intervene, when crises threaten the stabilities and well-beings of our heartlands. Now let's party!
Anybody with a doctorate can decide to use the title, use it only in an ironic way, or just don't use it, as you wish. "Dr. Clint Eastwood" would not be a symptom of anything strange. Eastwood is clearly an expert in films, successful at both sides of the camera, so... why not recognize it?
While I have presented a series of arguments, which in my opinion could not be refuted logically, it was not possible to change RMS's mind about anything, so the discussion has ended with everybody keeping their original opinions, unchanged.
Nevertheless, I am immensely grateful to RMS for his past work. I am a very good programmer and i could have been able to write all the programs that I use daily, including an operating system, device drivers, compilers or a text editor.
Nevertheless that is a huge amount of work, which would have taken many years of my life. Due to the open-source movement, I was able to benefit of the work shared by countless others, thus saving an enormous amount of time.
I usually take advantage of the open-source nature of the programs to make customizations that would have been impossible when using proprietary programs. However, making various modifications to an open-source program is orders of magnitude less work than writing the program from scratch.
While the great quantity of open-source programs existing now is the work of a very large number of developers, RMS has played a critical role in catalyzing this evolution, which must not be forgotten.
I also agree with the author of the article that in general all the targets set by RMS about free software and hardware remain as valuable and important as ever, but the strategy and tactics advocated by him are no longer effective and by now it cannot be expected that he will ever change in the future.
The concept of "linking" in GPL also came from Eben Moglen. The legal theory was fairly simple, ie, would a non-technical judge see a linked program as one large single copyrighted work or two independent separate works (originally in US legal context only)? RMS initially viewed it as two works, but Eben Moglen had a different view about it, which RMS then changed his opinion to.
Using an interactive dynamic language with FFI, I can connect to a shared library at the REPL and interact with its functions, just as if I were calling programs in /usr/bin.
It is pretty normal behavior for RMS. And his fundamental reason for limiting access to the AST makes no sense.
It makes sense in the context cited in TFA.
RMS would rather go down in flames than risk having third parties "abuse" GCC.
Substantive evidence that the situation has changed since the founding of GNU is moot.
RMS's binary view is arguably unfortunate, but there it is.
He's painted into a corner by ideology. He can't get any more flexible than he already has.
"skin in the game" as taleb would say, only a little bit more subtle.
Like, no, that's not how it works! This person is a volunteer with a detailed design proposal for a prototype. You can't just ignore the proposal and demand something entirely unrelated! I was blown away.
If you don't like his way of management, you are welcome to fork the project.
Because of RMS's opposition to making gcc usable in any context other than gcc, people just moved to llvm and clang.
The core issue is that these are people who care about FSF, GNU, gcc, etc running headlong into RMS who is forcing design decisions based on a threat that does not exist, leading to the gradual erosion of there relevance.
Take gcc as in the example thread: RMS intentionally hobbling gcc means that gcc is simply not involved in any significant amount of compiler and language research any more. Why bother? it's intentionally designed to make the kind of things that compiler researchers would want to do hard, to "stop it being used in non-free software", similar happens for new languages: why bother messing around gcc where by design your only real option is "compiling" your code to C, which comes with _many_ costs.
These are people who _want_ to use gcc, who _want_ to use gpl, gnu, fsf, etc software, but cannot because functionally RMS does not allow it.
Those people who you speak of that have a romantic attachment towards GCC, are creating their own issues by being inflexible. However, I fail to see how their attachment should be of any serious concern to anybody. Surely, the mature way of dealing with this is for them to learn to let go and vote with their feet sort of speak.
Free Software is not about governance; it's pretty much a complete antithesis to such power structures. Communities voluntarily coalesce around software projects with a core developer group. Don't like the group, fork the code; don't attempt a takeover/coup and if you do, or agitate for one, then you've revealed your true colours and that community will now see you as a hostile threat to their project.
Like it or not, FSF has governance and power structures. The GNU project power structure is very top heavy, effectively a dictatorship. I believe dictatorships are bad so I'll continue advocating for GNU to change.
Interestingly the approach to cooperation you're describing (if you don't like it, fork it) is actually the same as OG crypto Bitcoin people. IMO it's not conducive to good outcomes and most of the crypto world has embraced processes that lead to consensus building and more inclusivity (although clearly not perfect yet).
I think you should be more a bit subtle in your analysis and weight the pros and cons. Especially in the context of software projects where nobody gets killed or detained :)
Not saying that dictatorship is the only good way to lead software projects but there are enough highly successful dictator led software projects that it's worth not rejecting this type of governance as just "bad".
> Emacs is not an independent project, and it isn't governed by its contributors. I'm the head of the GNU Project, and that includes Emacs. > > You, as a contributor, can advocate a certain decision, which means you present arguments why I should approve it. I don't need to advocate a decision in that sense. > > I leave most technical decisions up to the contributors, including you, because for most of the questions I don't have any special preference of my own. For those questions, I'm happy with whatever works, and I know the contributors can figure out what works.
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2018-03/msg00...
I don't see that as 'playing the governance card'; I see that as him rejecting the attempt by others.
What do you mean?
Who says that RMS is not telling what the truth is from his perspective?
RMS has a towering reputation in the computer science field based on very significant accomplisments, that is undeniable. Any random person on a forum is welcome to challenge that reputation, but they'll need to do it properly, not just sling mud.
He doesn't know operator overloading exists. Then when he's told and given an example he claims it doesn't interact with type deduction in a way that is not true in C++. Then when given a simple example with auto he claims that the method overload resolution is equivalent to finding the right return type, ignoring multiple overloads and the possibility of type conversion after the function returns.
All these mistakes are acceptable, but when they were pointed out to him, he reacted by claiming blanket bad faith on everyone who was trying to justify using the full AST. He then said he wouldn't listen to them and instead would talk to "people he trusts".
This is of course technically feasible, but a huge amount of effort, and will constantly have to be updated / changed. When people are effectively arguing “it’s a much more forward-compatible and scalable approach to let tools use the AST directly”, he rejects that as changing the discussion, not a concrete example, and/or pressuring.
This is super ironic coming from someone who made an editor entirely based on LISP, which is successful precisely because it is completely transparent and anything can be changed / inspected / done.
Given the success of LSP in the recent years, it’s super evident that RMS was wrong on this matter. It has created an ecosystem for LSP around clang, and the integration with emacs is great.
But the LSP doesn't expose the AST. It just expose what the editor needs. That looks like the kind of interface RMS was asking for.
You're right, too, though: this exact argument is part of why LSP and clang won. When people showed up (in _2015_!) to try to start on support for this sort of thing in emacs and gcc, the dictator at the top could not be convinced this was worthwhile. And now the world uses Clang and LSP and the GNU counterparts get dustier and dustier.
But yes it’s a good point that LSPs are actually an API for editors instead of exposing the AST to the editors directly, but from the discussion I’m fairly convinced that RMS lacked the imagination of all the possibilities LSPs could create.
And it’s also quite ironic that he resisted opening up the compiler to support these kind of tools, and it ended up being a for-profit corporation that spearheaded this whole open standard / ecosystem of LSPs.