[SNK]

Perhaps calling Jobs a corrupt, malign evil slaver the day after his death might also be construed as rude by some.

"Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.

As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, “I’m not glad he’s dead, but I’m glad he’s gone.” Nobody deserves to have to die – not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs’ malign influence on people’s computing."

[loup-vaillant]

By many, actually. But this is ridiculous anyway. If they read his post, they would have seen the rudeness just isn't there, at least when you assume (and this is not unreasonable), that the lock-in in Apple latests devices is plainly unacceptable:

(1) Stallman got his facts right. (Jobs is pioneer of the walled garden that people actually buy.)

(2) Making people accept such a lock-in can reasonably be called "malign influence" in my opinion.

(3) Stallman quite clearly stated that Jobs didn't deserve to die.

(4) The timing was probably appropriate too, as Jobs death creates a surge of interest for Apple's locked-down devices. It wouldn't do for the Free Software cause if Steve Jobs became a martyr for Proprietary Software.

[billpatrianakos]

No. I call weak sauce on that one. It's like you're trying not read the hate and pretending there is no subtext there. A computer didn't write Stallman's post on Jobs. Stallman did. He's a human and everything we say, do, and write has a subtext. Sometimes that subtext isn't very obvious but you can tell by someone's written words how they feel not by the words themselves but how they're strung together and how they fit into the larger thought behind the writing.

All 4 of your points are factually accurate (number 4 can be debated but I'll give it to you now for the sake of argument) but they miss the glaring, obvious, in-your-face subtext of that post which was:

"I Richard Stallman, am going to use the death of a high profile enemy of mine to purposely stir up controversy and get attention, despicably, by calling him evil, but not directly, then adding in this Herals Washing quote so I can have plausible deniability that my supporters will use to defend me".

The worst thing about what he said is that he purposely infused that post with words and a quote that he could use as plausible deniability.

You know, Id be mad but would definitely not think of Stallman as a coward (which that post makes him) if he were to just come right out and say what he meant which was so obviously:

"I'm glad Jobs is dead because that means the company might flounder under new leadership and fail, making my movement seem attractive. Oh, and I do hate Jobs, always have, think he guy is evil along with his product line".

Anyone denying that his post on Jobs was not full of vitriol or schadenfreude is one of the following:

* an RMS fanboy * someone who didn't read the post * a contrarian * blind (physically or otherwise) * lacks human emotion, intuition, and the like

That post was seriously just completely damning for RMS. we'd expect that out of some random Internet jerk but somehow because it's Stallman and because he laced it in his cloak of plausible deniability its become a debate. There should be no debate. The guy said he was glad Jobs was dead without having the balls to come out and say he was glad Jobs was dead.

[loup-vaillant]

You seem to assume that one can't make the separation between the deeds and the man. I know of the halo effect[1], but we can break free of it to some extent. I suppose you have read Stallman's followup[2], where he addresses this point, and the timing as well.

Also, it is quite obvious for everyone that Jobs' work is overall quite against Free Software (though it doesn't hesitate to use Open Source). That is something worth reminding, especially while everyone else is praising that very work. But how can you possibly criticise a man's life work without making it look like you want to soil the man himself? My guess is, you can't.

[1]: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Halo_effect

[2]: http://stallman.org/archives/2011-jul-oct.html?ohai#27_Octob...