eschaton posted:

reminder that rms didn't invent emacs in the first place, didn't come up with the idea of either extending or implementing emacs in lisp, and also didn't author the original gnu emacs himself (he started from gosmacs and then was forced by evil freedom-denying lawyers to replace all the Unipress-copyright code)

also, dan weinreb (rip) is on record as saying symbolics caught rms directly copying their code into the LMI codebase he was hacking on at the AI lab, and only started clean-room implementation after being caught

trilljester posted:

More that she stole Apple's tag line. I don't care what she looks like.

Broken Machine posted:

oh... oh man I thought you were kidding about dan weinreb, but no. I learned Java from him, and I hadn't known he was gone that's sad to hear.

eschaton posted:

reminder that rms didn't invent emacs in the first place, didn't come up with the idea of either extending or implementing emacs in lisp, and also didn't author the original gnu emacs himself (he started from gosmacs and then was forced by evil freedom-denying lawyers to replace all the Unipress-copyright code)

also, dan weinreb (rip) is on record as saying symbolics caught rms directly copying their code into the LMI codebase he was hacking on at the AI lab, and only started clean-room implementation after being caught

tom lord posted:

I first heard and read Stallman’s stories as an undergraduate at a different major university — the late 1980s. Stallman was a hot topic around campus because of GCC, GDB, Emacs and GNU and was often described disparagingly but, these stories weren’t themselves often discussed (so I assumed, then, that they were basically true).

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard the responses from other people who were there but it is nice to see a lot of those collected in one place. A truer picture is certainly painted here.

I resent the original stories because of the influence they had on important career decisions. I was an employee for the FSF a few times and often did work for the GNU project. Originally, this was motivated by a false belief in Stallman’s abilities as a hacker: that with someone of his alleged skill at the helm, the GNU software development project (to build a complete unix system with a core lisp component) could proceed in a rational, efficient way to completion. Instead, I watched over the years as the GNU project pissed away one effort after another until, ultimately, the “complete system” project has been privatized, as have most of the interesting so-called open-source projects.

If the goal of the Free Software Movement has been to free users from the control of vendors, then today’s open source systems have achieved that goal in theory only. In practice, users are utterly dependent on a small number of open source vendors and rarely have the realistic option to evade the control of those vendors by just “using the source”. Stallman changed the competitive landscape for large vendors of systems software and that’s helped lower the price of some software commodities but he so far hasn’t done much to increase the software freedoms directly experienced by all that many users.

The GNU software development project had but two organizational successes, by my accounting: First, it solicited and received contributions of small pieces of code, each implementing some set of features found on traditional unix manual pages. Second, it solicited and received contributions of translations for program messages and documentation. Those are impressive, but they hardly display the leadership prowess one would expect of a hero who can slay 10 symbolics hackers with a single all nighter. Nor did the GNU project ever manage to *package* these developments in a way that would make their utility as free software available to average users: the vendor role emerges from that.

Anyone who had had a little experience, back when I was getting started, would have seen that coming. That is, looking at the technical agenda that the GNU project laid out in support of its political agenda, the experienced eye would have said “Yeah, right,” and not been satisfied with anything less than a fairly clear plan for how all of that would get built and delivered into the hands of users in an orderly, efficient way. But, to the inexperienced eye, there’s no problem — because there’s a super-hacker at the helm. It’s just a small matter of hacking.

BobHoward posted:

did some searching, dan weinrebs blog is also rip but wayback machine has it preserved

http://web.archive.org/web/20071213...bolics-and-lmi/

there be gold in the comments. not just rms cultists squeaking about lese-majeste, but stuff like this

ChiralCondensate posted:

i was hoping the "stories" were about parrot loving or something

BobHoward posted:

did some searching, dan weinrebs blog is also rip but wayback machine has it preserved

http://web.archive.org/web/20071213...bolics-and-lmi/

there be gold in the comments. not just rms cultists squeaking about lese-majeste, but stuff like this

quote:

Paddy Murphy Says:
November 16, 2007 at 4:32 pm
“In 1980, all software was proprietary. ”

Hah. Only in November 1980 was it even decided definitively that software was copyrightABLE. Before that, it was mostly trade-secret (see: unix), and thus typically copyable, patchable, etc. once disclosed - a much better situation for software users/ computer owners. Sure, some vendors might have _tried_ to claim copyright, but it was not clear they had a leg to stand on. Until Nov. 1980, when Congress sided with the copyrightists.

The MIT/Symbolics betrayal was an effective endorsement of the new 1980s regime of software-as-a-definitively-copyrightable-entity: You guys, seeing the proposed legalisation of slavery, chose to become slave-owners, instead of trying to fight slavery.

You might have no ethical problem with copyrighting or even patenting software, but clearly plenty of people do. And I think history has already proven RMS right. The “cambrian extinction event” of microsoft would hardly have happened if disclosed software was freely shareable.

Notorious b.s.d. posted:

i have never understood the west-coast 1970s SOFTWARE YEARNS TO BE FREE poo poo. yeah copyright is a real hosed up system. i get that part. that makes sense. but software isn't special.

software shares many properties with other copyrightable content. it is more similar than different

Notorious b.s.d. posted:

i have never understood the west-coast 1970s SOFTWARE YEARNS TO BE FREE poo poo. yeah copyright is a real hosed up system. i get that part. that makes sense. but software isn't special.

software shares many properties with other copyrightable content. it is more similar than different

Notorious b.s.d. posted:

if you're insane try a tiling window manager. they're at least a cool stunt

computer toucher posted:

skipped 2000 posts and installed Fedora.

It's this year, right?

big scary monsters posted:

sorry it was last year, you missed it

this is the year of linux on the tablet

Symbolic Butt posted:

sometimes I need to compile some latex poo poo. and every time I go install the stuff I need on a new computer it feels like I have to install more packages

$ yum list installed | grep texlive | wc -l
583

Soricidus posted:

no idea how they'd have coped with the ~new ux paradigm~ circlejerk that's taken over all the fedorarchbuntus

Soricidus posted:

today I watched a non nerd explaining a linux desktop to another non nerd

Cocoa Crispies posted:

"kind of like a hip-hop operating system"

trilljester posted:

More that she stole Apple's tag line. I don't care what she looks like.

trilljester posted:

cthulhoo posted:

ah so that's why java runtime is such a bloated pos

prefect posted:

this is why i never, ever want my photograph on anything

Notorious b.s.d. posted:

don't worry, no one would judge your work output by your physical appearance.

that treatment is reserved for women jvm performance engineers.

cthulhoo posted:

ah so that's why java runtime is such a bloated pos