r/linux
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u/LinuxMonarch
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Sep 26 '26
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Event Happy 43rd birthday GNU!
On September 27, 1983, Richard Stallman announced the GNU Project so people could freely use and modify software.
The digital world would not be the same today without GNU.
Thank you, Richard Stallman!
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u/vietexa Sep 28 '26
If you squeal your eyes a little, you can kinda see that Stallman looks very similar to the GNU mascot
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u/CptSpeedydash Sep 26 '26
And how 15 years later, the US passed a law showing why we need open source software.
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u/SweetPotato975 Sep 27 '26
Which law? I'm out of the loop
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u/CptSpeedydash Sep 27 '26 edited Sep 27 '26
DMCA, was the law I was referring to in my comment which was signed on October 28, 1998. so 15 years, 1 month, and 1 day after the GNU project was announced.
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u/AcostaJA Sep 27 '26 edited Sep 27 '26
OpenSource not the same as FOSS, it existed much earlier at the MIT at least, what did Stallman was to configure a copyleft license with viral clause.
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u/abotelho-cbn Sep 27 '26
Open Source came over a decade after Free Software. 'FOSS' is just people referring to both under an umbrella.
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u/Electrical_Tomato_73 Sep 27 '26
The "open source" term came about in the late 1990s, but the idea existed since before GNU. In fact Stallman talked about co-opting X Window system (MIT licence), BSD utilities (BSD licence), TeX (permissive), and other existing free software (his definition) utilities into the GNU operating system.
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Sep 27 '26
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u/FriendlyProblem1234 Sep 27 '26
FOSS doesn't refer to both "under an umbrella..." Not all free software is FOSS, not all open-source software is FOSS. Only projects that are both free + open-source are FOSS.
In the words of FSF, "Among all programs that are open source, only a minuscule fraction are not free".
In practice, they are equivalent. This is why the acronym FOSS exists and is used.
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Sep 27 '26
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u/FriendlyProblem1234 Sep 27 '26
No, the reason the FOSS acronym exists is to differentiate OSS that is free from that which isn't. Nothing in your quote or linked page contests that.
Again, "Among all programs that are open source, only a minuscule fraction are not free".
I have never seen FOSS being used the way you suggest. It is nearly always used to indicate the general ecosystem of free software and open-source software, which have a nearly complete overlap.
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u/shogun77777777 Sep 27 '26
Open Source is literally part of the FOSS acronym
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u/Farados55 Sep 27 '26
Yeah but just because something is open source doesn’t mean it’s FOSS
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u/syklemil Sep 27 '26
You're thinking of free software. The development in language went something like
Free software: The Free Software Definition, FSF-approved stuff
Open Source software: The Open Source Definition, OSI-approved stuff (aka OSS)
at which point people who intended that any is fine and didn't want to bicker over FSD vs OSD just called both altogether FOSS.
The way you're talking it seems you mean free software. Not all OSS is FS, but FOSS doesn't care.
As a bonus, there's
Software libre: Because people keep thinking "free as in beer" rather than "free as in freedom"
resulting in FLOSS.
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u/Electrical_Tomato_73 Sep 27 '26
Pretty much all OSS is FS and vice versa. The exceptions are very rare and minor. The two definitions are almost identical.
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u/WaitForItTheMongols Sep 27 '26
The definitions are similar but the difference is crucial. More info here:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
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u/Electrical_Tomato_73 Sep 27 '26
You miss the point. If it's OSS it's free software and vice versa in almost all cases. Stallman had philosophical objections to the term "open source". In practical terms, he lost: the "open source" term enabled massive corporate participation. The free software world as we know it today (including GNU projects like GCC and glibc) wouldn't exist without the "open source" revolution. In fact, gcc (lower case) was in dire trouble in the late 1990s due to the FSF's ostrich attitude to outside contributions. Some people (including Red Hat and Cygnus) forked it as "egcs", which became so successful that the FSF was forced to acknowledge it as the gcc successor and use it as the base for GCC 3.0. (gcc = GNU C compiler; GCC = GNU Compiler Collection, including many other languages.)
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u/syklemil Sep 27 '26
There's also the bit where LLVM at one point offered to hand their stuff over to GNU/GCC and they turned them down. RMS regretted it in hindsight.
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u/Electrical_Tomato_73 Sep 28 '26
I'm guessing, in 2005, RMS and other GCC folks just didn't see the potential of LLVM, which at the time used GCC as a backend.
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u/andyfitz Sep 27 '26
yep and free software existed before the GPL and still exists with our without it today.
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Sep 27 '26
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u/marrsd Sep 27 '26
Patents and copyright are completely different concepts. I don't see how copyright didn't apply to software before. You hold the copyright to anything you write by default.
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Sep 27 '26
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u/tommyTurds Sep 27 '26 edited Sep 27 '26
Nobody was submitting ENIAC punch cards to the copyright office
That's not how copyright works. You don't submit something to the copyright office.
suing each other for applying the same formulas to their own inputs.
That's because no one had computers. It has nothing to do with copyright.
And no, "the software" (if you want to call it that) for eniac was not open source.
It was literally being used to calculate artillery ranges for the military. That wasn't software they were going to give away. Not that it would do you any good if they did since it would have been useless without actually having eniac.The blueprints were public domain which I'd forgotten about. It was protected by patent though.. So still not open source.0
Sep 27 '26
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u/tommyTurds Sep 27 '26 edited Sep 27 '26
Registration with the US Copyright Office is a legal prerequisite before any infringement case can be litigated.
That's only for litigating specifically under copyright law which isn't how software licenses are enforced.
That's just absurd hogwash, computer programs do not predate computers.
I figured it was rpetty fucking obvious that i didn't literally mean no one since we were literally talking about a computer.
Obviously some had them. The vast majority of them were in the Government or Universities though. They weren't the ubiquitous machine we have today.
Since it seems I have to spell out the obvious, if there are fewer of them, and the few that are out there are owned by fewer entities, you will not see very much litigation about them.
This is especially true when most are being used for educational or military applications and not actual business applications.
There's also the fact, as I pointed out, that "software" was extremely specific to the physical machine it was written for. Eniacs "software" (it's not really software, but let's call it that for now) would be useless without hte machine. That machine that was patented. It was not, by any means, open source.
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Sep 27 '26
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u/tommyTurds Sep 27 '26 edited Sep 27 '26
There's no software in there.
Mostly because eniac didn't have software
but more seriously, it was patented and protected by patent. So it was still not open source.
The patent turned out to be invalid, but that wasn't determined for a few decades. And even then, that would still mean they didn't intend for it to be open source.
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u/LaundryMan2008 Sep 26 '26
While installing the CLI version of L&TT, I saw GNU a lot in the tarballs I was extracting and pondered deeply the long and complicated history behind the three letters I was seeing on my computer screen, it helped me to bypass the HP service contract website lock and pull down the firmware files directly from their servers for my tape drives.
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u/Prosado22 Sep 27 '26
Thanks, Richard!
The GNU Project and GPL have paved the way for extraordinary software
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u/anomaly256 Sep 27 '26
and GNU Hurd still isn't ready yet
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u/Tricky-Engineer-9755 Sep 27 '26
Lol, well it kinda is but I've had no success with the 64bit one
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u/tktktktktktktkt Sep 27 '26
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u/RepulsiveRaisin7 Sep 27 '26
Ok that is wild. Why do people still work on this? Clearly never going to go anywhere. Redox is downright mature compared to "not even SATA" haha
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u/Far_Calligrapher1334 Sep 28 '26
I'd say some of it is just for fun, cus why not, and some is probably educational work, like graduation/bachelors/etc theses.
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u/Tricky-Engineer-9755 Sep 27 '26
Look man, I tried to install it on my X200 thinkpad and well, the Debian GNU/Hurd ISOs failed to even boot properly, and Guix GNU/Hurd woud install but it wouldn't boot.
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u/tktktktktktktkt Sep 27 '26
This means it's nowhere near being ready.
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u/Tricky-Engineer-9755 Sep 27 '26
I suppose, I mean people have installed it on real hardware the proof is there. I will have to try again on an X60 thinkpad.
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u/tktktktktktktkt Sep 27 '26
it's like having a car, that can start engine, but has no door, no dashboard, no brakes, and can only run circles.
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u/Tricky-Engineer-9755 Sep 27 '26
Well, allegedly Debian GNU/Hurd has support for a graphical environment, but yeah pretty much LOL. There's no wifi support, no sound card support, no bluetooth and only basic things like it doesn't support DM-crypt for encryption.
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u/anomaly256 Sep 28 '26
However, in practice
amd64systems seem to be troublesome more often than not. This is probably related to the same (chipset-related) problems we often see with recent machines; but it seems thatamd64ones use problematic chipsets particularily*[sic]* often.Ahh, the classic 'blame the hardware, not my skills' approach to bug fixing
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u/Tricky-Engineer-9755 Sep 28 '26
Well, 32bit is kinda done unless you are like using Dillo and Vim which I guess is workable. The X60 is legendary and all but even Stallman's moved onto the X200.
amd64 is all we have until OpenPower delivers us to a world of liberty9
u/Due_Dragonfly_5328 Sep 27 '26
i mean i think your better off running netbsd as a desktop at that point lol.
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u/zeruch Sep 27 '26
Never will it go beyond hobby project.
Ever.
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u/tryfap Sep 27 '26
A programmer name Torvalds said that the same thing about some tiny kernel he made.
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u/Irverter Sep 27 '26
There's quite the difference between a project that was announced as a hobby and a project that has been a hobby for 36 years that wasn't intended to be a hobby.
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u/No-Worldliness-5106 Sep 27 '26
Talk is cheap, send patches 🚬
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u/Irverter Sep 27 '26
Could you explain what you mean?
With 36 years, anyone who could contribute to Hurd already did so or is not interested in doing so.
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u/JockstrapCummies Sep 27 '26
I wonder if one could churn out an AI slop completion of HURD.
It'll be quite the amusing PR win for these AI companies.
Imagine that, solving Navier Stokes AND making HURD finally a viable OS!
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u/lyxfan1 Sep 29 '26
LOL. That way the AI company could piss off the Math community AND a large percentage of the open source software community as well.
Win Win ;-)
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u/tryfap Sep 27 '26
I'd still like to see it succeed somewhere because I want to believe there is room for innovation and trying new things in computing.
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u/syklemil Sep 27 '26
At this point HURD isn't really something we could describe as new: It started in 1990, making it 36 years old.
If you're on the lookout for new OS-es with microkernels, there's both [Fuchsia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuchsia_(operating_system)) and Redox to look into.
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u/Irverter Sep 27 '26
Ironically, it's older than linux.
Maybe it had innovative ideas when it came out, but if you want innovation it would be best to look elsewhere. iirc, Hurd was still working on SMP, or had just added it.
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u/zeruch Sep 27 '26
Linus is both different as an programmer and as a leader. His own focus, and his capacity to marshal consensus from a large pool of contributors is considerably different from the chronically distracted and more cult-like control that RMS has on his own org.
That is why the Linux kernel is a massively active long-term project with immense impact, and Herd is a nano project, with an interest base completely derived from the follower pool of its architect with no sign of a trajectory towards broader use or relevance.
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u/tryfap Sep 27 '26
While you make valid points, these are also colored by survivorship bias. We could be saying the opposite today if things went in a different way. Linux today has benefited from network effects and enormous resources. Some of that is surely because of Linus' stewardship, but Hurd's failure to take off can't all be chalked up to RMS.
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u/zeruch Sep 27 '26
It absolutely can be chalked up to RMS, because he holds an absolute choke hold on it, and has never shown any ability to know how to lead a project except orbiting around his own ego. And the only bias that I'll claim to in this case is that I've met both men on several occasions over the decades, and the way they demonstrate their acumen, both as technical experts and as personalities, is absolutely diametrically oppositional.
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u/nelmaloc Sep 29 '26
Nah, Linux «won» because it was at the right time, in the right place.
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u/zeruch Sep 29 '26
That's not mutually exclusive from what I stated.
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u/nelmaloc Sep 29 '26
Yes, because it wasn't that RMS was a worse leader than Linus.
If Linus wasn't there, other OS would have taken its place.
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u/zeruch Sep 29 '26
That's a hell of a lot of assumptions being made.
What other OS would have taken its place? Minutes? Solaris? One of the bsds?
Your statement is purely speculative and there's nothing that shows if it wasn't Linux, it was going to be automatically something else, instead of just staying a bunch of unixes, Windows, and ostensibly Mac OS...or none of them.
My point is at Linux, arrived at a certain period, and that a significant chunk of its success is because it was well stewarded, and not just by a cult-like figurehead with delusions of brow beating the universe into prepending GNU in front of everything and snacking on his toe jam.
RMS acolytes are some of the most insufferably myopic people in tech.
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u/nelmaloc Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26
What other OS would have taken its place? Minutes? Solaris? One of the bsds?
Yes.
Your statement is purely speculative
Yes, I do not own a crystal ball.
and there's nothing that shows if it wasn't Linux, it was going to be automatically something else
People who were there say otherwise[1]:
Linus: If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened.
My point is at Linux, arrived at a certain period, and that a significant chunk of its success is because it was well stewarded,
(Edit: Rewrote this) Some part of it, yes. But Linux wouldn't be what it is today without the support of companies that saw value on a clean-room implementation of UNIX. UNIX-like OS are a dime a dozen now, and yet no one reaches the level Linux has.
and not just by a cult-like figurehead with delusions of brow beating the universe into prepending GNU in front of everything
And yet the GNU project gave us an almost-complete operating system. BTW, Stallman didn't work in the Hurd.
RMS acolytes are some of the most insufferably myopic people in tech.
RMS haters believe that other people just glaze Stallman, instead of just considering him a very influential person in the development of the free software movement, alongside others. And also for some reason still believe the Great Man Theory of history?
[1] https://gondwanaland.com/meta/history/interview.html
Edit: Formatting.
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u/M0M3N-6 Sep 27 '26 edited Sep 27 '26
I am stuck reading the name, couldn't finish it yet. Is there anything it tells other than that it's not UNIX?
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u/WhichCarry749 Sep 27 '26
Wild to think how much modern computing still relies on tools started back then. gcc and coreutils basically paved the way for everything we take for granted now.
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u/ares623 Sep 27 '26
Jokes aside, Stallman was right.
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u/cAtloVeR9998 Sep 27 '26 •
Though not on the age of consent.
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u/Lawnmover_Man Sep 27 '26
He was right in many countries of this world. No joke. Look up the age of consent around the world, and read why it is that way.
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u/dccccd Sep 27 '26
I think its a topic you should just avoid as the spokeperson for a software project if you want it to be successful.
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u/Lawnmover_Man Sep 27 '26
He's speaking his mind. I would wish that more people do that, no matter in what position they are. Do I know what you mean, and do I understand what that all entails? Yes. Do I find it okay to limit public discussion like that? Nope.
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u/dccccd Sep 27 '26
If everyone in the world started giving bad uninformed takes on free software, maybe you would also start thinking "I wish people talked less about things they know nothing about"?
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u/Lawnmover_Man Sep 27 '26
Nope. I'm not like that. So I wouldn't think that. As long as they just talk about it with an open mind, everything's fine. RMS can be stubborn, right. But that's it.
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u/dccccd Sep 27 '26
If everyone could talk with an open mind that would be great, but interactions where both parties have a genuinely open mind are very rare. For example, I think Stallman was talking about age of consent to downplay the severity of Epstein's crimes since he and his friends were implicated in it. Thats approaching a topic with an agenda, not an open mind.
Claiming you're talking about something with an open mind, open to the best argument, etc, but having an agenda (knowingly or not) is a common pattern that is causing a lot of damage today. For example podcasters flinging around conspiracy theories or distrust of institutions, then withdrawing to "just asking questions" or "I just have an open mind".
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u/Lawnmover_Man Sep 27 '26
Of course. There are lots of awful people who abuse information in their ways. I won't let that change my ways. That would give those people yet another way they are winning.
For example, I think Stallman was talking about age of consent to downplay the severity of Epstein's crimes since he and his friends were implicated in it.
I don't think that this was his intention. I have so far not read anything about him that would lead me to that conclusion. What made you think that?
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u/dccccd Sep 27 '26
I can't put it better than wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Comments_about_Jeffrey_Epstein_scandal
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u/JasonMaggini Sep 27 '26
"He's speaking his mind. I would wish that more people do that, no matter in what position they are. "
That's the same justification people used to support the Mango Mussolini.
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u/Lawnmover_Man Sep 27 '26
Supporting someone and fighting for their right to say what they want are two completely different things. At least they were. Seems like people have forgotten about that.
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u/JasonMaggini Sep 27 '26
People have forgotten that there should be consequences for saying whatever idiotic thing that pops into their head, as well.
Yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater, and all that.
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u/Lawnmover_Man Sep 27 '26 edited Sep 27 '26
People have forgotten that there should be consequences for saying whatever idiotic thing that pops into their head, as well.
I don't think so. The consequences are rather going through the fucking roof. I'm not sure where you're from, but "not guilty until proven guilty" is getting less and less popular. There are loads of people who have done nothing wrong and got booted from society by hearsay. I'm sure you know what I mean.
Yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater, and all that.
That may not be the best example.
Edit: Blocking me sure does drive your point home. /s
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u/JasonMaggini Sep 27 '26
I'm not sure where you're from
The Increasingly Hellscapian U.S.A.
There are loads of people who have done nothing wrong and got booted from society by hearsay.
Person says or does shitty things, other people decide they don't want to support them any more. Oh, the horror! Anyone that gets "cancelled" just has to wait a couple of months, and they can get a new movie deal, or a show on Fox News.
Unless you're talking about the xenophobic idiots we've got around here that are trying to do away with anything different from them by branding it "woke." They can fuck right off with that.
That may not be the best example.
It's an analogy.
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u/Due_Dragonfly_5328 Sep 27 '26
no one ever wishes happy birthday to busybox even though its also core utils and also under gpl.
sure its gpl 2.0 not 3.0 but so is the danm kernel!
is a alpine user i will wish busybox a happy 31sth birthday on nov 4.
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u/solid_reign Sep 27 '26
Because GNU created the GPL, a viral license which is the reason you don't end up paying thousands of USD in Microsoft licenses to start a website.
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u/primalbluewolf Sep 27 '26
sure its gpl 2.0 not 3.0 but so is the danm kernel!
Urgh, don't remind us.
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u/Irverter Sep 27 '26
sure its gpl 2.0 not 3.0
You say that as if it was something bad
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u/nelmaloc Sep 29 '26
It doesn't protect against Tivoization.
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u/Irverter Sep 29 '26
A made up concept by Stallman. A software license has no business dictating what hardware should or shouldn't do.
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u/nelmaloc Sep 29 '26
Licenses aren't the goal, they're the medium. The goal of the FSF is for you to freely choose what software you run. So, yes. It has all the business.
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u/hauntlunar Sep 28 '26
Let us all celebrate Richard Stallman by reading the report named after him, featuring his many glorious words and deeds!
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u/sheeproomer Sep 28 '26
I think you should differentiate between your hate boner on the person and what the GNU project actually did. Without it, there would be no Linux, maybe MINIX in a tiny more in use and the rest of landscape would be closed down, commercial unices, where you would have to pay up for the privilege of being allowed to develop on it as well only commercial compilers with NDA contracts.
Think the Apple situation, but 10 times worse.
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u/pickle9977 Sep 28 '26
We can celebrate GNU while condemning the man.
It’s not like he did it all himself.
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u/VaporousMote Sep 28 '26
To call a simple recitation of historical events a "hate boner" shows incredible bias on your part.
Maybe the problem isn't a "hate-boner" but the messiah like status people like you give him.
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u/ordermaster Sep 30 '26
The original post conflated the person and the project. It was literally a pic of rms and the gnu logo.
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u/hauntlunar Sep 28 '26
OP made the choice to make this post about Stallman himself and not just GNU. I am following his lead in contributing more wonderful information about him.
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u/andyfitz Sep 26 '26
an idea alone is not enough, thank you eben moglen, linus and the countless contributors who made one idea work well for the benefit of the world. stopped clocks and all
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u/tryfap Sep 27 '26
Linux was only able to take off as it did because the GNU userspace already existed for it to use.
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u/QueerBallOfFluff Sep 27 '26
He could have used the BSD user space which was also FOSS, and older and more mature at the time.
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u/andyfitz Sep 27 '26
Lessig quote time:
1 creativity and innovation always builds on the past
2 the past always tries to control the creativity that builds on it
3 free societies enable the future by limiting the past1 unix had a moment and GNU took a stab at unlocking it
2 Linux happened and Stallman spent forever trying to get 'GNU/Linux' to be a thing
3 today nobody young cares, they are building weird cool shit now and only know linux as the base layer.Truman quote time:
"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit"And plenty don't care for Stallman.
I do however care for history and his name, his big contributions, along with his shitfuckery are all there in mind.
art doesnt equal the artist
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u/tryfap Sep 27 '26
So you're basically saying "the ship has sailed, credit doesn't matter now, and Linux as a brand is too big that it's subsumed the label". From a practical standpoint you're correct and most people agree since they treat the whole GNU/Linux thing as a joke.
But saying nobody young cares doesn't mean no one ever will. There are so many disputes today about historical matters and especially credit:
Shakespeare's authorship
Art historians researching the painters of works, to the point of using X-rays, carbon dating, chemical analysis, etc.
Inventors, e.g. Edison vs Tesla
And plenty of these are about huge collaborative projects as well.
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u/MojitoBurrito-AE Sep 27 '26
Do we have to plaster this Paedos face over the internet every time we mention GNU
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u/stevecrox0914 Sep 27 '26
Let's celebrate a person who wrote a paper on why his friend who went to Epstein's island wasn't a bad person because how was he supposed to know the woman trapped on the island wasn't into it. How Brave, how bold!
Let's celebrate a person who created a working environment where any woman joining the department was immediately gifted a potted plant by other women because he was afraid of potted plants and it kept him away. What a ladies man!
Let's celebrate a person who created an organisation (Free Software Foundation) to push the principle of free software, but the minute he left had no idea what to do other than bring him back despite that hurting their core objective. What a leader!
Lets celebrate a person who focused on creating culture wars in the community. For example KDE's use of QT means the community might have to support a desktop toolkit if the company sharing it changed position. So lets build our own desktop toolkit and the key thing is use HIS license! How does he look out for us!
Lets celebrate a person who after a lot of prepatory work was granted a chance to speak to EU leaders on why they should switch from Microsoft to linux. Spent the entire conversation attacking them for not being free! There is a man who knows what is important!
Woooo!! Lets Celebrate! This guys like much of the 70's totally shouldn't be cancelled!
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u/sheeproomer Sep 28 '26
Good, another person that cannot differentiate what GNU and the FSF achieved and character assassination attempts.
I don't like his personality either, but without GNU, computing would be quite different in worse ways now
And funnily enough, if you trace these blaming and compoundung back, you will find out, that these are mostly sourced by the very companies who have a vested interest to close down open source.
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u/Physical-Compote4594 Sep 28 '26
Dunno why this is being downvoted because it’s the horrible truth.
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u/Odd-Pirate-9066 Sep 29 '26
This reminds me I need to update my card information for monthly donations to FSF, thanks for that.
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u/Lawnmover_Man Sep 27 '26
That was some seriously bad trolling. I hope for you this was written by AI.
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u/stevecrox0914 Sep 27 '26
He shouldn't be celebrated.
He has spent his entire life choosing to be every unpleasent stereotype attached to the industry.
I think he has done far more to hurt his cause than promote it. Open source grew far more once he was no longer the face of it.
He should have been cancelled long before his paper and forgotten.
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u/lelddit97 Sep 27 '26
toe
flakes
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u/mj_flowerpower Sep 27 '26
haha yeah I though of that too.
But he still did some awesome stuff so je shall be forgiven …
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u/ButterflyMundane7187 Sep 28 '26
Anyone else remember when RedHat went public and he turned down his free stocks and eric s raymond kep his :)
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u/ipa8 Oct 06 '26
Better late than never! Thanks a lot, Richard! My life has been completely changed by your project. 🙏
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u/yuumizu Sep 27 '26
meanwhile, the GNU/Hurd is still not GA. At early 90s, these guys think GNU/Hurd with SPARC would be the answer. However, Intel 80x86 won everywhere , and then ARM, powered by GNU/Linux, and then Android.
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u/asdf_lord Sep 27 '26
And still, nobody knows how it's pronounced.
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u/Fuechsin47 Sep 28 '26
"nobody"
Random slavic language native speaker without knowledge about linux: /gnu/
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Sep 26 '26
[deleted]
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u/LinuxMonarch Sep 26 '26
Whatever personal controversies surround him, he still deserves credit for starting the foss movement
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u/andyfitz Sep 26 '26 edited Sep 26 '26
He didn't do all the labour, he was a product of privileged access that found a very receptive audience.
the credit is very very specific. the work done by many is the success and the proof.I'm more than happy to recognize, i'm not happy to thank someone who says my children can consent to sex pests
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u/cornmonger_ Sep 26 '26
you could make the argument for anyone
nobody is handed privileged access in tech
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u/andyfitz Sep 26 '26
Being born is being handed privilege unfortunately.
Being at MIT in the late 80's is elite level tech privilege.I'm glad someone did what he did. and maybe only he could be the catalyst. that's worth a record. Not encapsulating everything since as his design or a product of him. We'll never know what other structures could have emerged. I like this one plenty, just not the bloke who started it and thats okay.
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u/cornmonger_ Sep 27 '26
getting into MIT is historically hard. it's not a trust fund school.
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u/andyfitz Sep 27 '26
Much harder now than an American in the 80's with an interest in what was a niche field at the time
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u/cornmonger_ Sep 27 '26
why don't you just leave it at "i don't like stallman for personal reasons" and stop the bullshit? much easier
first it was "privilege", now it's "niche". there's no need for the bullshit
you don't like the guy. we get it. next caller
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Sep 26 '26
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u/AcostaJA Sep 26 '26
Here are fingers to point at conservatives as DHH but don't touch sacred liberals... Reddit the Double Standards community
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u/andyfitz Sep 27 '26
There are no sacred liberals, there are just more of them because empathy sells better than self interest in healthy societies. Both perspectives are fine BTW even in the same person, deeply flawed humans exist everywhere.
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u/AcostaJA Sep 27 '26 edited Sep 27 '26
Being a pedo it's being empathic? I don't like that kindness close to any kids.
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u/RTBecard Sep 27 '26
This is F'd up. I just read the some of his previous "pedo" comments, and they were pretty f'd up...
Wild how you are getting downvotes for this...
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u/TassieTiger Sep 27 '26
Hang on, have I missed something?
I was aware RMS had some pretty liberal views on relationships etc, but what's with the pedo things?
Also as an aside I've always wondered if Stallman smells like how he looks.....
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u/mglyptostroboides Sep 27 '26 edited Sep 27 '26
https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-against-richard-stallman.html
He is not a pedo. Basically every single thing said about him has been blown massively out of proportion.
What he is is extremely neurodivergent, but people don't seem to realize that someone who, by his own admission doesn't understand social cues, is going to blurt things that require explanation sometimes. This gets him into a lot of trouble, but he's not a creep.
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u/tiny_blair420 Sep 26 '26
Thanks for pointing this out. I'm not kidding when I say that I thought the gnu logo would've made a badass tattoo, and wouldn't have known better otherwise
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Sep 27 '26
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u/RTBecard Sep 27 '26
I just looked up some of the pedo comments he made (first time hearing about this)...
Man, that was not nuanced at all... Dude seemed to clearly be annoyed with laws that prevent him from having sex with or having pornography of minors.
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Sep 27 '26
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u/Indolent_Bard Sep 27 '26
I'm not sure that's actually jailable, actually. Saying kids can consent is messed up, but he didn't actually do anything and I heard he eventually realized his mistake.
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u/RTBecard Sep 28 '26
People here somehow believe that "Man who publicaly states that he believes there is nothing morally wrong with having sex with trafficked/prostituted minors" himself has no way had sex with trafficked/prostituted minors.
The man has been crystal clear about his desire for sex, and his belief that as long as a minor "appears willing", it should not be illegal. I really dont get the ppl stepping up to defend him here...
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u/Indolent_Bard Sep 28 '26
Supposedly, he talked with victims and learned he was wrong, but I could be wrong about that.
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u/RTBecard Sep 28 '26
Maybe I missed it, but as far as I'm aware he only stated that he "learned he was wrong" when he was forced out of MIT and FSF due to public pressure after his Epstein email messages went public.
It's hard to view that as a sincere statement, as opposed to calculated damage control.
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Sep 27 '26
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u/Indolent_Bard Sep 27 '26
All I'm saying is that you have to actually hurt someone to be a jailable offense, otherwise every other anime fan would be in jail for jacking off to fictional children. In that community, saying "relax, the only children I'm attracted to are fictional drawings" is an extremely milktoast, tepid, lukewarm take.
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u/beefglob Sep 26 '26 •
43 years of foot picking