[orangebeet]

I was pretty excited about Guix because I find Guile more fun and less academic than Haskell (which Nix uses). Then I stumbled upon some of the extremist propaganda by one of the main Guile developers and promptly decided that it isn't for me.

[rottingchris]

Nix doesn't use Haskell. Nix uses its own language (the Nix expression language): https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Nix_Expression_Language

[smitty1e]

I can't figure out from Wikipedia if NixOS is a systemd user or, like Guix, has a custom services facility.

[jbboehr]

NixOS uses systemd, although wrapped in their own DSL, example:

https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/24903b5de2e07cc7b65eae...

[yjftsjthsd-h]

It currently uses systemd quite heavily. There at least was some conversation about making it more service manager agnostic so that others could be used, but I'm not aware of that having gotten anywhere. I haven't checked in a while though.

[opan]

NixOS uses systemd.

[mistrial9]

FUD much? really, show links or go away Please!

[orangebeet]

You can read about it on his blood red marxist blog, twitter etc:

https://wingolog.org/archives/2021/03/25/here-we-go-again

http://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and-...

https://twitter.com/andywingo/status/1215946242225790983

[bitwize]

Wingo's politics are mainstream for an open source developer in the 2020s. He's right about Stallman, he's right that GNU needs new, collective leadership, and he does a damn fine job maintaining Guile.

[orangetuba]

A lot of people disagree with that.

https://rms-support-letter.github.io/

If you think it's alright to join an organization and then go out of your way to backstab its founder because his social skills are lacking, then you're free to do that.

[kaba0]

How is calling out someone’s truly toxic behavior actively harming the foundation back-stabbing? If I were to found anything and later on I become a hindrance to it, I very much want to be called out for that.

[3836293648]

Rightfully criticising RMS for his objectively horrible behaviour is extremist propaganda now?

[orangetuba]

Objective according to you?

https://rms-support-letter.github.io/

[Brian_K_White]

I confess I do not understand.

[mistrial9]

honestly, thank you for the links. I believe that evidence-based discussion on social topics is useful, and you have contributed to that.

regarding "bloody marxist" or whatever.. I like the a-political, personal emphasis of GNU .. that means, I can sit next to a Real Bloody Marxist, and drink coffee and debug $lspci output.. seriously, I am OK with that, it supports a worldview of 'tolerance'.. similarly for people with serious depression, people who have had trouble with food addictions, people who SMOKE TOBACCO ! all of that.. its part of a "plural society" which I personally support everyday.

back to lspci output here

[cowtools]

Even as a moderate-libertarian myself, it is not really surprising that a lot of free-software users and contributors are communists. RMS himself seems to be pretty left-leaning.

It is encouraging that most free-software users/contributors can see past political squabbles and work on tech that improves society more objectively.

[ParetoOptimal]

> most free-software users/contributors can see past political squabbles and work on tech that improves society more objectively.

The problem is apolitical can easily be or become amoral, so I can't agree this is a virtue without further clarification. Some differents can and should be tolerated, but in the spirit of the paradox of tolerance others should not.

How would you feel if you released software under an MIT license that helped a neo-Nazi resurgence for instance?

[cowtools]

I don't think free software is apolitical, but it is often non-partisan. It is not about inter-institutional power struggles. It is about giving individuals the technology to defeat and replace tyrannical institutions in the first place.

>How would you feel if you released software under an MIT license that helped a neo-Nazi resurgence for instance?

Firstly, I disapprove of permissively-licensed software.

Secondly, if you're making technology whose goal is to empower individuals, and the majority of individuals want to overthrow their free government and replace it with some fascist dictatorship, then there will be some edge cases like that in which that technology has a net-negative effect on global freedom. I have no problem with that, that's the price of individual freedom and the right to self-determination.

I think what you're trying to say here is some variation of popper's paradox, wherein freedom-enabling technology gives people the freedom to take away their own freedom. While it's true to some extent, trying to make direct use of that principle like you're doing here can lead to some pretty disastrous results, because you can basically use it to justify any authoritarian action in the name of freedom. For example, what would you do in this instance? put backdoors in the software that these neo-nazis are using? Any attempt at limiting the anti-institutional power of the technology will certainly have a net-negative impact on global freedom, because the same modes of technology will used be used more crucially against tyrannical institutions than non-tyrannical ones.

Let me say this: I don't fear any of these fascist or communist dictatorships taking over the world. I think those are merely meta-stable ideologies that are eventually toppled if you put power and knowledge in the hands of individuals. What I am worried about is when the western world develops and exports surveillance technology which enables these dictatorships to continue their miserable existence in the first place.

Communism, Fascism, Corporatism, Cronyism: these systems will always come about in one form or another because they are the emergence of mankind's worst characteristics. The only way to eliminate them completely is to remove from man that which makes him human. That is why the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time.

[orangetuba]

I am all for discussion. The crusade and their bad faith interpretation of his opinions are piggybacking on the sometimes overly eager cancel culture of today.

[pmoriarty]

What do the links you posted have to do with Marxism?

[rscho]

OMG! And a Marxist on top of that (judging by the color of his blog)! He's clearly in league with the devil! Satanas!

[froh]

Fun fact: devil is English for Diabolos which is "the slanderer", literally.

Misreprentation, FUD, discrimination, they all are literally faces of slandering, doing them is "doing the deeds of the devil" in a very literal sense.

[ElevenLathe]

Do you mean extremist in some general sense or just the usual hardline FSF free software stance?

[orangetuba]

I have nothing against the hardline stance the FSF holds, but I cannot support someone who joins an organization and then starts a crusade against its founder over his personal political views. I don't think politics belongs in open source software.

[ParetoOptimal]

> I don't think politics belongs in open source software.

Politics will always be there, even if they aren't talked about.

[branon]

I'm interested in an academic sense, what's the accusation here?

Regardless of the person's views though I think if their code is clean and they're not actively applying said views to harm other contributors, live and let live...

[orangetuba]

Agreed. Actively trying to harm other contributors (Richard Stallman) is the problem here.

[acdw]

genuinely curious here: when was the last time rms contributed anything other than bad takes or toxic behavior to the fsf?

[orangetuba]

I don't have a clear overview of the exact timeline, but at some point he created the FSF, the original GCC, Emacs, GDB, GNU Make, parts of the GNU userspace tools, the predecessor to Wikipedia, the copyleft concept and the GPL license among other things. How does it compare to your contributions?

[maleldil]

RMS can be an amazing engineer that helped shape the tech world as we know it today, and still be a horrible human being.

[mongol]

I am quite sure he is not a horrible human being. I reserve that word for people like Putin.

[kaba0]

Emacs was not originally created by him though, but Guy Steele and David Moon.

[NoThisIsMe]

Could you elaborate please?