The reasoning in this short message seems very unlike anything else I've heard from Stallman. Has he changed a lot since 2001? From what I've read I'd gander that Stallman has become markedly less pragmatic (or more radical?) since this was written.
Listening to him speak in 2009 was surreal, especially during the Q&A session. I can't recall any specific quotes but he was ready to burn ten bridges for an ounce of symbolic freedom. The whole time I kept thinking of this John McCarthy (coined the term AI, "discovered" lisp) quote:
"He's a man of principle. He'd cut his mother's throat for a principle."
Stallman has been viewed as "radical" his whole career. Certainly there was nothing more "pragmatic" about him in 2001.
The important distinction is that the things (you don't list specifics, so I'm just assuming) that Stallman finds "important" seem like senseless distractions to his audience. It's hard to remember now, but in 2001 the idea of patent-encumbered algorithms being a threat to free software was not nearly as well-understood as it is now. Most people in the community were happy to download and build LAME (or whatever), and just shrugged when the Linux distros turned out not to be able to ship it.
Stallman was right (and to be clear: he'd been screaming about patents for a decade already in 2001). We were wrong. This has been a pattern his whole career.
So, again without actual evidence, I'm just going to guess that within a decade that stuff you heard in 2009 that sounded so "radical" is going to seem a lot more clear in hindsight.
> Listening to him speak in 2009 was surreal, especially during the Q&A session. I can't recall any specific quotes but he was ready to burn ten bridges for an ounce of symbolic freedom.
Was that when RPI ACM brought him in to speak? I recall he spent a while complaining about Linus letting binary blobs into the kernel. Then in the Q&A, he got trolled by someone claiming a music sample business was being undercut by CC-licensed competitors. RMS didn't handle that well.
In my opinion, RMS is actually very pragmatic, meaning he's willing to do almost anything to further the goal. He only appears radical because he has uncommon ideas about what the goal is and what furthers it. His radicality varies according to pragmatic considerations. He'll give his blessing to BSD-style licenses in a case like this, and he'll hold out against GCC plugins for years when he thinks that furthers freedom.
From a purely principled point of view, Free Software advocates might want to weaken copyright for software. RMS hasn't put much effort into that, because it would weaken the GPL. It would also be harder for Free software to compete if all software could be distributed free and legally. So he rarely attacks copyright in general, for pragmatic reasons.
"However, if you're going to use these games, you're better off using them on GNU/Linux rather than on Microsoft Windows. At least you avoid the harm to your freedom that Windows would do.
Thus, in direct practical terms, this development can do both harm and good. It might encourage GNU/Linux users to install these games, and it might encourage users of the games to replace Windows with GNU/Linux. My guess is that the direct good effect will be bigger than the direct harm. But there is also an indirect effect: what does the use of these games teach people in our community?"
He's both pragmatic and radical. He feels that using free software is morally superior to using proprietary software -- and is unwilling to concede that point. But it's not a binary distinction between the righteousness of free software and the sin and damnation of proprietary software. There are gradients of freedom that can be climbed; so Stallman will defend the use of non-GPL or proprietary software in situations where there are no other options, and said use gets more people to use free software. For example, a port of a widely-used proprietary CAD system to (GNU/)Linux would be viewed as a good move by him, but only as a precursor to the development of just-as-good free CAD systems.
The reasoning in this short message has been a consistent part of RMS' talk and actions since the very beginning of the GNU project. Earlier than Ogg Vorbis, the very existence of the LGPL is an example of similar reasoning, applied.
You wrote: "I can't recall any specific quotes but he was ready to burn ten bridges"
I think you might have been conditioned to expect RMS to be that kind of self-defeating extremist because many people who are opposed to him, including some who pretend otherwise, describe him that way.
I think it's not that Stallman has become more radical it's more that the mainstream of the free software community has shifted away from Stallman making him seem more radical and more fundamentalist. Really he should have stepped out of the discussion about 10 years ago to make way for someone more pragmatic.
The reality of the situation is that for the foreseeable future software patents are here to stay and the sooner the free software organizations get themselves involved in the committees that define things like media standards and start playing up the advantages of a "free" (as in software) implementations for everybody involved the sooner the damaging effects of software patents in these areas will be mitigated.
Sadly with Stallman as a figurehead the Free Software community isn't in the same room as these discussions. In fact they aren't even in the same building. They are looked on as the crazy people on the streets with the "end of the world is nigh" flags. And that is the real tragedy of the whole affair.
Being less radical would diffuse his message and make it more difficult to explain to the masses.
I dont agree to with him to extent he make his points and historically he has always acted "radical", so the thing im trying to say is very arguable.
But his uncompromising stance could very well be a pragmatic approach, because there is next to no one doing it instead of him.
Regardless of how you feel about the man, it's very difficult to predict when he's willing to compromise. LGPL is another common example of unexpected (at least for me) compromise.
It is exactly the FSF's reasoning for LGPL -- to stop a non-free alternative from becoming a standard:
Using the ordinary GPL is not advantageous for every library. There are reasons that can make it better to use the Lesser GPL in certain cases. The most common case is when a free library's features are readily available for proprietary software through other alternative libraries. In that case, the library cannot give free software any particular advantage, so it is better to use the Lesser GPL for that library.
The MP3 patents have at this point largely expired, so there's comparatively little real cost in implementing them for commercial products. And actually, to the extent that the difference can be measured, Vorbis is generally considered to be a better codec.
But content rules. I have 8G of mostly-mp3 music in my Google Music account simply because that's how I got it. Players out there play mp3 because that's what is out there. Of the successful consumer platforms out there, only Android includes ogg support out of the box, and that mostly due to the whims of its developers than any real market pressure.
It's exactly that point that Stallman was talking about in 2001 -- despite having very good software available, we're now into our second decade of "free software products cannot play music by default". Maybe we should have listened to him more carefully...
The most popular portable media players in the 2000's didn't support OGG. No iPod, Creative Labs MP3 players, iTunes, Windows Media Player, portable CD player w/MP3 support, car stereo's, etc...
Around the mid-2000's, iRiver sold an OGG player, though it was $300 alongside a $300 iPod. Their interface wasn't as good, and it was clunky to use (I bought and returned one). It fell through the cracks like a zillion other iPod competitors.
Also recall DRM was a big part of digital music for a while. iTunes was dominant, and made ACC popular. I'm not even sure you can add DRM to OGG, outside of wrapping the file or watermarking. Watermarking works, but wrapping an OGG file doesn't make it OGG anymore.
So in a nutshell, OGG failed to catch on because there wasn't enough hardware or software support. On top of that, few people knew what OGG was, and didn't demand it from companies. Content owners had no reason to support it as they were focused on DRM. Apple dominated the market and standardized on MP3/ACC.
For some applications Ogg did take over. Music in videogames is often Ogg-encoded due to potential legal problems with including mp3 support.
For end users I'm actually not sure either MP3 or Ogg are dominant anymore. I would guess the iTunes Store's choice of AAC has pushed that format significantly.
I followed MP3 and Vorbis development in its early days. From my perspective as an end user myself, I thought that MP3 encoders (LAME, especially) improved by leaps and bounds in the transparency front, while Vorbis remained largely as a low-bitrate (128kbps~) alternative.
Plus, I could play MP3 on virtually any device. Vorbis support depended on iRiver releasing new firmware, or hacking an iPod to support Rockbox.
The Hydrogenaudio forums [1] are a great place to see how the formats progressed, if you're willing to dig through the archives.
One problem that slowed Ogg Vorbis early on was MP3 had integer only or fixed point decoders first, allowing music player manufacturers to do software decoding with CPUs that did not have floating point hardware.
It wasn't until around 2002 that good integer only or fixed point Ogg Vorbis decoders became available.
The key point here is the difference between copyright and patents. If someone has a copyright on something, you can create an alternative (free) implementation of it. If they have a patent, you can't.
This reminds me of a time when I emailed rms about the entire GNU/Linux naming controversy. I had said that perhaps Linux could officially be the name of the OS, and also that to solve the problem of GNU and the FSF not receiving credit, that people could be educated on who actually wrote Linux.
Needless to say, he disagreed. Stallman is as stubborn as a boulder, and a complete extremist.
GNU/Linux is precise in the way alternatives aren't.
Linux kernel running BusyBox? Linux, but no GNU software; not GNU/Linux.
GNU utilities, BSD kernel? GNU but no Linux; not GNU/Linux.
These are things that exist: lots of routers and similar "running Linux" use BusyBox; Debian will let you install a BSD kernel.
Of course, "I am running Linux on my desktop" is accurate, and carries the expectation that you're using much of the rest of the GNU system because that's by far the most reasonable (and common) option... so people say that, because it's fewer syllables, and the FSF feels like they're not getting the credit they quite rightly deserve, and that's the situation we're in.
But changing the name of the GNU project to Linux is not a solution at all; they're still working on Herd for one thing.
The MP3 patent isn't a numerical algorithm, it's a description of using a certain algorithm to store sound (to my understanding). Yes, that seems like a silly distinction, but that's basically what patent law is.
[+] [-] simonsarris|13 years ago|reply
Listening to him speak in 2009 was surreal, especially during the Q&A session. I can't recall any specific quotes but he was ready to burn ten bridges for an ounce of symbolic freedom. The whole time I kept thinking of this John McCarthy (coined the term AI, "discovered" lisp) quote:
"He's a man of principle. He'd cut his mother's throat for a principle."
[+] [-] ajross|13 years ago|reply
The important distinction is that the things (you don't list specifics, so I'm just assuming) that Stallman finds "important" seem like senseless distractions to his audience. It's hard to remember now, but in 2001 the idea of patent-encumbered algorithms being a threat to free software was not nearly as well-understood as it is now. Most people in the community were happy to download and build LAME (or whatever), and just shrugged when the Linux distros turned out not to be able to ship it.
Stallman was right (and to be clear: he'd been screaming about patents for a decade already in 2001). We were wrong. This has been a pattern his whole career.
So, again without actual evidence, I'm just going to guess that within a decade that stuff you heard in 2009 that sounded so "radical" is going to seem a lot more clear in hindsight.
[+] [-] elwin|13 years ago|reply
Was that when RPI ACM brought him in to speak? I recall he spent a while complaining about Linus letting binary blobs into the kernel. Then in the Q&A, he got trolled by someone claiming a music sample business was being undercut by CC-licensed competitors. RMS didn't handle that well.
In my opinion, RMS is actually very pragmatic, meaning he's willing to do almost anything to further the goal. He only appears radical because he has uncommon ideas about what the goal is and what furthers it. His radicality varies according to pragmatic considerations. He'll give his blessing to BSD-style licenses in a case like this, and he'll hold out against GCC plugins for years when he thinks that furthers freedom.
From a purely principled point of view, Free Software advocates might want to weaken copyright for software. RMS hasn't put much effort into that, because it would weaken the GPL. It would also be harder for Free software to compete if all software could be distributed free and legally. So he rarely attacks copyright in general, for pragmatic reasons.
[+] [-] pavanky|13 years ago|reply
"However, if you're going to use these games, you're better off using them on GNU/Linux rather than on Microsoft Windows. At least you avoid the harm to your freedom that Windows would do.
Thus, in direct practical terms, this development can do both harm and good. It might encourage GNU/Linux users to install these games, and it might encourage users of the games to replace Windows with GNU/Linux. My guess is that the direct good effect will be bigger than the direct harm. But there is also an indirect effect: what does the use of these games teach people in our community?"
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/nonfree-games.html
He may not be as pragmatic as you would like. But he has his valid reasons and walks the talk.
It is important to not be offended when he calls you unethical for using / writing non-free software.
[+] [-] bitwize|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dasht|13 years ago|reply
You wrote: "I can't recall any specific quotes but he was ready to burn ten bridges"
I think you might have been conditioned to expect RMS to be that kind of self-defeating extremist because many people who are opposed to him, including some who pretend otherwise, describe him that way.
[+] [-] spiralpolitik|13 years ago|reply
The reality of the situation is that for the foreseeable future software patents are here to stay and the sooner the free software organizations get themselves involved in the committees that define things like media standards and start playing up the advantages of a "free" (as in software) implementations for everybody involved the sooner the damaging effects of software patents in these areas will be mitigated.
Sadly with Stallman as a figurehead the Free Software community isn't in the same room as these discussions. In fact they aren't even in the same building. They are looked on as the crazy people on the streets with the "end of the world is nigh" flags. And that is the real tragedy of the whole affair.
[+] [-] rivd|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] babarock|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loumf|13 years ago|reply
Using the ordinary GPL is not advantageous for every library. There are reasons that can make it better to use the Lesser GPL in certain cases. The most common case is when a free library's features are readily available for proprietary software through other alternative libraries. In that case, the library cannot give free software any particular advantage, so it is better to use the Lesser GPL for that library.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html
[+] [-] jiggy2011|13 years ago|reply
As an end user I can't discern any difference between the two in terms of filesize or sound quality.
[+] [-] ajross|13 years ago|reply
But content rules. I have 8G of mostly-mp3 music in my Google Music account simply because that's how I got it. Players out there play mp3 because that's what is out there. Of the successful consumer platforms out there, only Android includes ogg support out of the box, and that mostly due to the whims of its developers than any real market pressure.
It's exactly that point that Stallman was talking about in 2001 -- despite having very good software available, we're now into our second decade of "free software products cannot play music by default". Maybe we should have listened to him more carefully...
[+] [-] dgallagher|13 years ago|reply
Around the mid-2000's, iRiver sold an OGG player, though it was $300 alongside a $300 iPod. Their interface wasn't as good, and it was clunky to use (I bought and returned one). It fell through the cracks like a zillion other iPod competitors.
Also recall DRM was a big part of digital music for a while. iTunes was dominant, and made ACC popular. I'm not even sure you can add DRM to OGG, outside of wrapping the file or watermarking. Watermarking works, but wrapping an OGG file doesn't make it OGG anymore.
So in a nutshell, OGG failed to catch on because there wasn't enough hardware or software support. On top of that, few people knew what OGG was, and didn't demand it from companies. Content owners had no reason to support it as they were focused on DRM. Apple dominated the market and standardized on MP3/ACC.
[+] [-] _delirium|13 years ago|reply
For end users I'm actually not sure either MP3 or Ogg are dominant anymore. I would guess the iTunes Store's choice of AAC has pushed that format significantly.
[+] [-] davidw|13 years ago|reply
"Network effects": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect
[+] [-] hackernewbie|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ValentineC|13 years ago|reply
Plus, I could play MP3 on virtually any device. Vorbis support depended on iRiver releasing new firmware, or hacking an iPod to support Rockbox.
The Hydrogenaudio forums [1] are a great place to see how the formats progressed, if you're willing to dig through the archives.
[1] http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?act=idx
[+] [-] tzs|13 years ago|reply
It wasn't until around 2002 that good integer only or fixed point Ogg Vorbis decoders became available.
[+] [-] mellis|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kunai|13 years ago|reply
Needless to say, he disagreed. Stallman is as stubborn as a boulder, and a complete extremist.
But he's also right.
[+] [-] dllthomas|13 years ago|reply
Linux kernel running BusyBox? Linux, but no GNU software; not GNU/Linux.
GNU utilities, BSD kernel? GNU but no Linux; not GNU/Linux.
These are things that exist: lots of routers and similar "running Linux" use BusyBox; Debian will let you install a BSD kernel.
Of course, "I am running Linux on my desktop" is accurate, and carries the expectation that you're using much of the rest of the GNU system because that's by far the most reasonable (and common) option... so people say that, because it's fewer syllables, and the FSF feels like they're not getting the credit they quite rightly deserve, and that's the situation we're in.
But changing the name of the GNU project to Linux is not a solution at all; they're still working on Herd for one thing.
[+] [-] Finster|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duaneb|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shamharoth|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcb0|13 years ago|reply
just name it FM4 (free music 4). is will just naturally enter the mind of everyone that hears it as a a natural replacement for MP3.
(dolbly did that, AC3 just to have the 3. mpeg-la did that, MPEG-4 after mpeg2)