Sta·lin·ism [stah-luh-niz-uhm]
noun
the principles of communism associated with Joseph Stalin, characterized especially by the extreme suppression of dissident political or ideological views, the concentration of power in one person, and an aggressive international policy.
— Dictionary.com
If you have heard of open source software, then you have most likely heard of the GNU Project. The GNU project’s stated mission is to “preserve, protect and promote the freedom to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer software, and to defend the rights of Free Software users”. To accomplish this, they have taken upon the task to create and maintain free software. The difference between “free” and “open source” is, according Richard Marx Stallman, that “free” software is written for the ideological benefits rather than the supposed technical benefits open source has. This idea has been dubbed the Free Software movement and is thus more of a political campaign than it is a software project. Heck, the Free Software Foundation even admits it!
At this point, the alarms should start chiming. People who write software based on ideologies or “ethics” are almost certainly mentally ill. It is OK (to a certain degree) to make software freely available for its technical benefits, but if you do it for ideological reasons, you should seek a doctor immediately. With that having been said, this article will be focusing on the political/ethical aspects of the Free Software movement, which makes sense since you can’t compare political movements with software projects.
Hiding the Truth
Similar to how North Korea oppresses any criticism directed towards their leadership, the GNU project, in stark contrast to the open source initiative, does not accept criticism, nor competition. If a software package is proprietary, it is evil and must be destroyed… or, in this case, hidden from the public. And there will be no compromises either, even if they, ironically, would be beneficial for the Free Software movement in the long run.
“This is bullshit,” you might think. Sadly, it is not. The Free Software movement hopes to create a society in which the concept of proprietary software is non-existent. In fact, they recently attempted this with the One Laptop Per Child project, which they hoped could be used to shield an entire population from proprietary software. Thankfully, it has failed multiple times.
The Adobe flash plug-in is non-free software, and people should not install it, or suggest installing it, or even tell people it exists. That Firefox offers to install it is a very bad thing.
— Richard Stallman on Flash Player
Why the Truth is Dangerous to Free Software
In North Korea, the truth about the outside world must be either hidden or twisted in order to keep the citizens from raising up against the regime. In the Free Software world, the truth must be hidden in order to keep computer users from using good software.
If free software really is superior from a technical viewpoint, as the various movements and initiatives out there might imply, then why do GNU and the FSF feel the need to hide it from e.g. poor children? Because it simply is not superior. Have a go for yourself: download GIMP and Photoshop, then figure out which is the best graphics editor in terms of capabilities. Oh, and let your mother try surfing the web without proprietary plugins, then explain to her why she can’t log in to her online banking account. She is going to think of you as a wacko.
In both cases, chances are that your goals will not be accomplished without the use of proprietary software. Yes, not all proprietary software is good, but using it shouldn’t bother you unless you obsess over trivial “ethical” issues. If you worry about technical issues, you could just run it in a virtual machine. The only real-world issue with proprietary software is that it’s better than free software, and is therefore a distraction to the Free Software movement. Which brings me to my next point…
Free Software Only Benefits the Nerds
The GNU project has four “essential freedoms” which must apply to a software package before it can be considered “free”:
- [The freedom] to run the program.
- … to study and change the program in source code form.
- … to redistribute exact copies.
- … to distribute modified versions.
Why does the GNU Project think that the average computer user needs to or should care about these issues (perhaps except for issue “0″)? When my high school handed out laptops to freshmen, they all had OpenOffice preinstalled. Despite OpenOffice being open source, not even I, a former mentally ill Linux nerd, have ever wanted to change its source code or redistribute it. And while I can’t really speak for others, I’m sure that this applies to every other student in my school too.
So if the nerds aren’t even taking advantage of the supposed benefits with free software, just what is the point?
Extremists in the Software World
The answer to the question above can be found on the GNU Project’s own website, in an article about what motivates people to write free software:
Hatred for Microsoft.
It is a mistake to focus our criticism narrowly on Microsoft. Indeed, Microsoft is evil, since it makes non-free software. Even worse, it implements Digital Restrictions Management in that software. But many other companies do one or both of these.
Nonetheless, it is a fact that many people utterly despise Microsoft, and some contribute to free software based on that feeling.
Yes, it is indeed a mistake to focus on Microsoft’s so-called wrongdoings. However, because the GNU website doesn’t distance itself from hatred in general, they imply that hatred is completely acceptable in the Free Software Movement. Hatred is a core value in political extremism.
The hatred amongst Free Software evangelists is so common that even Linus Torvalds had to go out and distance himself from the movement:
There are “extremists” in the free software world, but that’s one major reason why I don’t call what I do “free software” any more. I don’t want to be associated with the people for whom it’s about exclusion and hatred.
— Linus Torvalds
So there you have it. The Free Software movement is run entirely by extremist nerds and is driven by hatred… of software makers.
And the freetards wonder why no one takes them seriously?
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GNU mad?
apple is dum
H:zZuny
microsoft is dum
>implying
>implying implications
samefag
install gentoo
“‘
linus is bitch ass nigga
oh boy this. is going to be a big one
>implying RMS isn’t a batshit insane hobo
>implying open source has zero advantages over proprietary
>implying nerd isn’t a term used by both children and their cartoons
>implying I don’t use both software that both does and doesn’t RESPEKT MAIH FREEDUMZ (and obtain both for free)
>implying I don’t use Linux for work and windows for home
>implying you’re not a butthurt aspire who used to use Linux but stopped cause “DURRR THIS IS TO HARD FER ME UNLIKE MAC OR WINDOAS WHICHE “JUST WERKS™”"
I might have missed something but I’m to tired to add any more
>year of the linux desktop
>using propiatery software
I seriously hope you guys don’t do this
bob is a faggot
javascript:f(zZuny)
NOOO! Not BOB
get off the computer and make your bed.
8/10
10/10 my jimmies have been rustled
GNU4LYFE, MUTHAFUCKA
‘`”zZuny
i half expected this to be a GNAA project but i cant find the logo anywhere
It’s a GNU project.
Lets kill Jimmie, he is our enemy!
9/10 laughed pretty hard
What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little proprietry bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the FSF, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Apple patents, and I have over 300 confirmed bug fixes. I am trained in Free Software Evangelizing and I’m the top code contributer for the entire GNU HURD. You are nothing to me but just another compile time error. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am building a GUI using GTK+ and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can decompile you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my Model M. Not only am I extensively trained in EMACS, but I have access to the entire arsenal of LISP functions and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit Freedom all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking debugged, kiddo.
Software freedom is a social construct. There’s one sort of software: Computer software!
We should accept all software as inherently equal. Anyone who doesn’t is a bigoted Stallman-loving GNU supremacist.
nerd
Suck a million dicks @ 4chon.net
Friend, you’ve made the mistake of basing your ENTIRE argument on conjecture and heresay.
Ironically, you stifle and ignore quite a few facts in your ridiculous hate-filled anti-hate rant. One of these facts is that FOSS software is used by EVERY major software corporation, is integrated into EVERY major OS (even Windows 7 and 8, and especially Mac OSX), and that the entire internet is built on FOSS.
Your website here looks to be WordPress-based, which is FOSS and also runs almost exclusively on Linux-based servers.
Funnily enough, centuries ago, people like you were arguing the EXACT same thing, but about knowledge in general, that it was a dangerous thing. Knowledge leads to hatred, violence, and hey, what are you going to do with knowing stuff anyway?
Try to fix your awful hypocracies, your stupid fallacies, your unsupported conjecture, and your general ignorance of the truth, and then we’ll talk. Well, I guess we won’t, because you won’t have an argument left.
>Blog owner is a raging butthurt faggot