[ramanujan]

Look, all respect to Stallman for writing Emacs and the GNU toolchain. Among technologists he's clearly one of the few figures on par with Jobs. Indeed, he's also personally a difficult figure and a bit of a totalitarian about his craft, much like Jobs himself. [Though I don't think Jobs would ever publicly emit something like Stallman's "eulogy".]

Where Stallman falls short is in supposing that open, hackable systems are an unmitigated good. "Just works" and "highly configurable" are often antonyms, rather than synonyms.

Should open, hackable systems always exist or be developed as a check on Tivoization? Yes. Are they ever going to get a dominant market share, in the sense that the masses making voluntary decisions will choose Free software/hardware? No.

  more of a setback for the free software movement than 
  anything Microsoft ever did.

No.

iOS exists because it can make tons of money to pay back its development costs. Android exists for the same reason.

And at some point, a true mobile/touch Linux (perhaps a fork of Android) will also exist, and the free knockoff will owe a great deal to the hundreds of billions in dollars in capital plant installed worldwide by the for-profit, closed originals.

Indeed, Linux itself exists because of the fact that AT&T could make a profit off Unix, and that IBM could make money off selling computers.

So: iOS is not a setback for the free software movement. In the long term it's a massive boost in the arm.

[masklinn]

> Where Stallman falls short is in supposing that open, hackable systems are an unmitigated good. "Just works" and "highly configurable" are often antonyms, rather than synonyms.

It's not really about "good". As far as Stallman is concerned, potential user freedom simply trumps everything else, including the ability to actually use a device of piece of software due to technical incompetence.

And I respect the man, not necessarily because I agree with him but because he's never (as far as I know) hurt anything but feelings (you've got to admit the guy is not exactly diplomat material) and he actually walks the walk (how many "open-source rha rha" zealots do you see trying their damnest to use open-source and free everything — including hardware — even if it limits their choices and the intrinsic quality of what they end up with? RMS does)

> So: iOS is not a setback for the free software movement. In the long term it's a massive boost in the arm.

You're doing yourself a disservice by thinking Stallman cares about software that much. Non-free hardware is just as big (if not even bigger) a deal for him, and on that point Apple is an even bigger sticking point than on software: non-serviceable, non-replaceable devices galore (the Mac side has gotten better but the devices side has not), non-free everything, generally in support of more semi-proprietary to proprietary (and freedom-restricting, such as DRM and "trusted") technologies, ...

The iPhone and iPad, and their popularity, only make things worse as far as RMS is concerned, as they flood the world with devices neither free in hardware nor in software and beholden to the "mothership". Likewise, I don't think RMS sees anything cloud with a teary eye for any reason than the loss of user freedom it translates into for him.

[bluekeybox]

    more of a setback for the free software movement than 
    anything Microsoft ever did.

Of course RMS would say something like this. Microsoft's business practices gave RMS followers; Steve Jobs took them away. As any RMS-style self-proclaimed bearded prophet/politician/priest/father-figure knows, it's never been about making things but about gaining followers. The beard is not ironic.

[prodigal_erik]

Stallman has never left any room for doubt that his motives are genuine. It's not about followers. There's no shortage of people telling him how to moderate his message to attract more, yet he won't do it. I think this is another thing people are going to grudgingly acknowledge he was right about, after a decade or two—but that might have happened more quickly if not for the harsh delivery.

[steviesteveo65]

In this situation it's not as much a question of personal ideology as it is basic interpersonal skills. You generally avoid telling the world you're happy someone's gone immediately following their death. It's completely arbitrary, and no one's going to throw you in jail if you do it but it's just one of these things.

How you think software should be developed doesn't really come into at this level. It's just a question of how you deal with people and that's where Stallman's fallen short here.