Disagreement with Richard Stallman about Free Software | James Gosling and Lex Fridman

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[lurgreen]

Lex should invite Stallman, that would be a great episode :)

[zondar]

Stallman doesn't say all information must be free. You got it all wrong (again).

[Kenbomp]

Stalman means it should be free to it's users rights not cost zero free. This is a big misconception. Hard to believe lex didn't clarify that. Otherwise they're totally off.

[martinkunev]

0:48 strawman
3:54 "open source"

When making a statement, one should understand the opposing view point. James Gosling does not seem to.

[AkshayKumar-kzzh]

I hope you interview Richard Stallman as well.

[TheEndOfMadness]

Nice misinfo. Stallmann does not mean gratis with free. He means free of spyware and tracking.

[RobertBelcher]

Here's the deal with Richard Stallman... He always gets proven right in the end. Whether it be by leading software & hardware companies who abandon software & devices or by Ed Snowden. Hardly a day goes by when I don't see an example of "Stallman was right again" when it comes to his views on software and data.

[jdogg]

I just discovered Stallman videos and within 3 videos I've seen him clearly state that free software does not have to cost nothing.

[mockingbird]

*Free software as in Freedom*, You got it really wrong. He *didn't* mention that software should be *Free of cost* and Information is totally different from a free software. I disagree.

[keesrem]

Information must be free? I really thought Richard Stallman statement was about making Software free. Information or any form of Art are something different. Stallman is actually against information being free as he is extremely concerned with privacy issues. Saying we need to use closed source software from mega corporations like Oracle because they have our back covered if something goes wrong doesn't make any sense.

[mikhail]

"Free as in freedom of speech, not free beer" as described by Stallman himself. You two should know better.

[KivySchool]

This guy has no idea about what Richard Stallman believes and what FREE software is. It is not "gratis software", it is FREE software, as in freedom.

[Siissioe]

There’s two possible outcome with arguing with Stallman. 1: you are right and he quickly realizes that and corrects himself. 2: he’s right.

[IslandPonder]

He’s wrong on two counts:
1. There are people who’ve produced things like movies, music, or software who’ve done very well for themselves financially. Everything from Jonathan Coulton releasing DRM free MP3s back in the day to George Hotz producing openpilot for self driving cars.
2. Saying “but I can’t make any money off of this” is like saying “I have a cotton farm and it’s unprofitable without slavery.” Not that I’m comparing slavery with not releasing your source code, but the structure of the argument is the same.

[TheLwner]

stallman always distinguishes free libre, from free gratis. free as in speech, not lunch.

[jezzamobile]

Anyone is free to build their software from scratch & sell it. Point is, most who contribute to Free Software (as well as those who don't) have benefited & built upon the canon of work contributed by the pioneers before. Many will happily give a little back & pay it forward, which is cool.

Without the GPL, corporations would long since have claimed ownership of it all, releasing & selling from time to time only what benefits them & makes for 'good customers' - i.e., dependents, forever denied the means of production & the ability to compete. The same corporate 'ethic' that sells poor farmers sterile patented GMO seeds.

Any competent software engineer will be able to feed his family with or without 'intellectual property' law tailored around his preferences (& against the next young 'upstart'..)

[tastenheber]

"Free Software" means that the software is not intertwined with corporate or national interests. It's not necessarily about getting the software for free (without paying money).

For example, with Microsoft Windows, Microsoft has an interest to hide the source code and hide issues. If there's an error, Microsoft will only reveal as minimal information as possible and provide a patch, we usually don't really know what exactly it's doing. Or if another application or driver software running on Windows doesn't work right, both parties will try to pass the buck to each other, while the user doesn't know who is to blame, since both parties have no interest of sharing their source code and/or details of how their programs work exactly.

When Microsoft presents a new version of Windows, they will usually tell us, that everything is new and better and faster. But with access to the source code, people could compare, what is actually different and find out, that probably only 10% of the code has actually changed and most of the stuff is exactly the same as before. With other products, like cars or washing machines, this is easier to compare, by simply taking them apart, but not with software.

Also, if something is inefficient or bugged, it usually will only be fixed, if enough people complain publicly. Otherwise, most companies are not interested in improving or repairing their software, until it really hurts their profits. If the users don't complain and pay, there isn't a real incentive, to improve anything further.

[liminal]

Dear know-it-alls, both Lex and Mr. Gosling are aware of the distinction between free (libre) and free (gratis) [...like what are the chances they don't lmao]. The contention here is with rms' staunch viewpoint about who ultimately owns the rights to inspect, modify, re-distribute, license and support the *source code* for a program. These are critically important sources of revenue for software companies -- or an evil, greedy system of control...depending on how you look at it. See: The music industry.

[ReagueOfRegends]

"I'm not wildly rich... I can feed my children, you know" LMAO hasn't this guy been a Fellow at Oracle and now Google for like 25+ years? That's probably at a salary/equity package pushing over $1mm/yr.

[JD-imwu]

James Gosling twisted the true meaning of Free Software and Lex didn't push back as he did towards Ye.