On Dec 13, 2007, at 11:18 PM, David H. Lynch Jr. wrote:
<snip>
It is completely irrelevant to Stallman whether the OS he endorses is
actually useful. In his world view, his definition of free trumps
functional.
It is always possible to improve the quality of something, it is
may not
be possible to regain freedom once it is lost.
Nice work if you can get it. In a little place I call "reality" I
make a living solving problems and I need something useful. This
pretty much makes Stallman a useless fucktard in my book.
You do not have to accept his thesis. Though OpenBSD does take an
indistinguishable stance particularly on hardware and binary blobs.
No. OpenBSD is against including blobs in their code. To quote
Stallman "non-free software, and people should not install it, or
suggest installing it, or even tell people it exists." If the
difference between "We won't include a blob in base.", what the quote
from Stallman above implies, and the OpenBSD ports system is
"indistinguishable" to you then you really are a simple fucking son
of a bitch. Or a liar. Stupid would be charitable and I don't tend
towards charity.
And maybe you do not accept that he goes to fairly extreme efforts to
conform his behavior to his own principles, but I do.
No, I accept it. I know it for a fucking fact. I think both those
principles and the fact that he goes to the efforts he does to
conform to them makes him a fucktard.
None of the "distros" that Stallman is talking about are actually
USEFUL beyond the most trivial of applications. For those of us who
actually need tools to solve problems with the bullshit Commissar
Stallman spews is beyond fucking useless. If I gave two shits what he
thinks the only choice I'd have most of the time is what vendor to
buy
borken shit from. Even if I were to grant his arguments about non-
free
(which I most certainly do NOT) I don't see how anybody who isn't a
total fucking nutter could see that as better.
OpenBSD has taken a strong principled stance against binary blobs and
closed hardware - even when that results in loss of functionality.
There is absolutely no distinction between the absolutist OpenBSD
position on hardware and that of RMS on software.
No. in Stallman's world to even mention that, for example, the non-
free nvidia driver exists is a bad thing. OpenBSD takes a somewhat
more adult much less religious talk about it but don't use it. Also,
and this is the SINGLE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE, Theo and his folks are
TRYING to bridge that gap and, in point of fact, they've written code
that makes many bits of hardware work better than they do under the
blobs that they reject. When was the last time that Stallman produced
code or something useful?
Absolutely any insult you toss at him regarding his stance on software
can be reworded and lobbed back at you in the context of hardware.
No. Because this isn't about his stance on software. This is about
the fact that he made a statement that was wrong. The fact that you
can install a non-free app or two with the ports system does not meet
any real world definition of "suggests" only in a world where books
that mention such things need burning does his argument make any
sense at all. And the rest of us don't live in that world. OTOH
OpenBSD not including blobs has direct real world benefits to me by
leaving me with the sure knowledge that if I run into a bug with a
driver that I won't have to depend on a vendor to fix it and that I
won't have to worry about some vendor suddenly dropping support for
it and the fact that they encourage others to reject those blobs
would have even more direct real world benefits to me if they were to
take their advice, by increasing free and open support for even more
hardware and meaning they wouldn't have to keep reverse engineering
things to make them work. In one case good is being done in the real
world. In the other some fucktard is just blowing smoke out his ass
to no good purpose. If you would like to make your above statement
correct prove to me how pretending that non-free apps don't exist by
not talking about them at all makes my life easier. Again any clear
thinking adult will be able to see the clear difference between the
two. I really question your motives if you can't.
So, yeah, fuck Stallman. Fuck his endorsement. There is nothing good
about this fucking nutter or anything he's trying to do. Orthodoxy is
EVIL no matter what god it's in service of.
OpenBSD is an extremely religiously orthodox system. Frankly it is
a cult.
There is a zero tolerance police for binary blobs.
There is a zero tolerance policy for GPL in base and a low tolerance
elsewhere.
No other group in existance adheres to security with the same
religious
fanaticism.
If orthodoxy, zealotry and fanaticism are evil, then OpenBSD is hell.
Yeah, sure in a world where a ports system that makes it a wee bit
easier to install a non-free app than it would be otherwise is the
same as those things sure that makes sense. But I have this sinking
feeling that trying to explain the difference between that world and
reality to you would be like trying to explain red to a blind man so
I'll just make sure your words are seen by a large audience of people
who don't have your delusions so that they can be mocked.
The fundamental problem here is that Stallman has caught you in a
logic
trap against your own principles.
There are several easy ways out - but you refuse to take them.
reject non-free software, and suffer the ignomy or Stallman's
recommendation.
Accept non-free software - which makes Stallman correct in his
assessment of OpenBSD.
Accept the Linux style necescary evil argument - and again Stallman is
right.
As I see it the OpenBSD community is so full of spite that it would
rather cut off its hand than accept the possibilty that Stallman might
endorse it..
Yeah, sure, whatever. See the above about the disconnect between
whatever world you and the good Commissar live in and the reality
that the rest of us deal with.
