RMS Controversy

RMS has been right about so much and continues to be proven right again and again. And he has written and maintained so much software that is the bedrock of the modern internet. I’m bewildered by the prevalent anti-RMS sentiment I see so frequently on “hacker” news. Is he opinionated? Definitely. Vocal and perhaps even forceful about asserting his opinions? Yep! But guess what, this is _his_ software and FSF vision we collectively decided to build so much on top of over the last several decades.

My opinion is the opposite of yours - I like RMS immensely, but believe he's no longer fit to represent free software. The article that changed my mind [1] stated that, in short, making public statements on controversial topics unrelated to free software is harmful to the FSF's mission, regardless of how correct those statements may be.[1] http://ebb.org/

I see a lot of shock at the negative comments about RMS here. Those who are appalled at the lack of respect here need to understand that there are a lot of people within the tech world that have developed very complicated feelings about RMS over the course of the past 20-30 years.I mean, sure, a lot of people who don't know a whole lot about him or haven't had to deal with him over the course of decades might have shallow knee-jerk opinions on him: they hate him, they love him, or they barely

I think it’s reasonable for people who care about free software to dislike their figurehead being the brash, toe lint eating RMS. I met him in person once and he was rude to serving staff and he stank.Does this make him a bad person, or imply he has bad technical judgement? No. I don’t think someone less opinionated could have started the free software movement like he did. I’m glad I met him and I have appreciation for the work he did.But I don’t want him to represent me or the work I do.

I don't understand why folks make such a big deal out of RMS. He's nutty, has views widely considered odd, and very rarely compromises or backs down from a confrontation on any intellectual subject (wrong or right). We know all that. RMS has never been anything but, to the best of my knowledge.Why anyone, particularly someone who claims to be "an active and vocal member of the burgeoning mobile open source community", would ever be surprised by that is baffling to me. And, yet, abo

RMS is an activist, not a party. If you were to hand him control of the house of representatives, indeed, he's be pretty damaging. That doesn't mean his ideas are wrong.I spent years in the "the FSF are unrealistic nuts standing in the way of open source" camp too. The problem, looking back on those years, is that RMS was right about pretty much everything that mattered. I give him a lot of slack these days in my personal judgements, and the occasional shouting match with a law professor

I don't think RMS is a villain. I think he's a person who helped create a lot of what we appreciate today, but if he's missing the social skills to be a good representative of the open source / free software community, then it's time for him to step aside and leave it to others.It's pretty clear that he's been willing to do whatever is necessary to further the cause of free software -- today, that would mean stepping away from the FSF and leaving it to doing

Good. RMS did nothing wrong really, and is the victim of a pile-on by people who can't tolerate others' opinions.I'm glad to see that Debian isn't caving to the ignorant masses here. The FSF under RMS's leadership has done more for computing freedom than any other organization.So what if RMS is outspoken about his beliefs? That's exactly the forthright attitude that enabled him to succeed in promoting the GPL so widely. We should all be very glad of this, and

A few points i would like to remind everyone who criticizes rms.1) rms is a radical guy. You cannot change that. He fights for what he thinks is right. He is not the kind of person you can ask to censor himself.If he thinks u.s goverment is to blame for 9/11, no matter how saying it in a lecture seems childish, he will say it.If you invite rms for a lecture, he is coming with his radicalism. That is to be expected. You cannot invite rms and expect steve jobs.2) rms is a practical guy

RMS has devoted his life to free software and has done more to promote it than anybody else on the planet combined.If some unique snowflakes with serious mental issues (how else would you describe their misrepresentations of what RMS actually said, picking-and-choosing statements out of context and repeated character assassination attempts) don't find this welcoming, the issue lies with them.