Comments on: Richard Stallman talk

By: Androide 23

Androide 23 — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:20:08 +0000

There is a button for translation in the right-hand side
This is the English translation by google:
http://google.com/translate?langpair=es|en&u=http://androidesroqueros.blogspot.com
I am not sure how reliable that is though…
Cheers!

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:13:54 +0000

Cool, thanks. I’m afraid I can’t read Spanish, but I’m sure it’s interesting for those who can.

By: Androide 23

Androide 23 — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:01:28 +0000

I linked to your page from my Spanish entry http://androidesroqueros.blogspot.com/2008/05/richard-stallman-pregonando-en.html
[...] Blog de uno de los organizadores. [...]
Cheers!

By: Androide 23

Androide 23 — Sat, 10 May 2008 20:43:38 +0000

Thanks for this interesting post with your impressions. I also thought Richard was a bit rude at that moment you mentioned, but I didn’t think that you looked like a muppet, only that Richard wasn’t very polite and didn’t know about protocols.
I would have liked to ask if he recommends using Free Software in airplanes…

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:54:59 +0000

Server-side handling of data is bad anyway according to RMS, as you can’t modify the software which is running on the server and therefore don’t have the four basic freedoms.

By: PerfDave

PerfDave — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:13:50 +0000

I was interested to ask a question about computer games myself, actually – how a world where all software were free would deal with cheating in MMOs and FPSes where validating everything server-side is impractical.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:36:34 +0000

With the IP stuff, I’m not sure he really understood the benefits of copyright, or at least he didn’t explain them, plus of course he came at it from a US approach (I particularly dislike this in the FSF). I think when he started debating things with Sarah he started to show a lack of knowledge there, though it probably wasn’t picked up on by most people.

I also disagree with his comments about IP not being the “correct” term to use – I think he’s lost that battle (if there ever was one) in the same way as he’s lost the GNU/Linux vs Linux one, and he should move on to something more productive than telling people “you’re using the wrong word!”.

On arts vs software, is software not a form of art, and therefore is it not ethical to skip one of the freedoms – i.e. that to modify the source code – when I redistribute software? I think the main problem with his answer to computer games was that it seemed a bit flimsy – someone asked a good question and to just say “ah, well, you could just separate them” really didn’t sound convincing.

By: Lucy

Lucy — Wed, 07 May 2008 06:23:34 +0000

I’m glad you found the talk interesting. I’m curious though, in what way did you find his comments about IP off the mark? He does a whole other lecture about copyright and he’s seemed to be pretty well informed in the past. His comments about computer games were drowned out by the crowd, so I think that’s why they didn’t sound so convincing – actually the same could be said for all of his comments about copyright at the end. But the idea that a game is comprised of different elements, both art and software that should be licensed slightly differently sounds reasonable to me (at least I think that’s what he’s trying to say).