Richard Stallman spoke at Microsoft Research this week (opens in new tab)

Stallman is very much like the saints of old: striving at all times to be coherent with his beliefs, walking the walk, preaching - and getting publicly celebrated and then mostly ignored or selectively quoted by “followers”.

Like with saints, we often need extremists like him to keep the Overton pushed wide towards the needs of humanity at large, as opposed to private profit. We can’t all wear sackcloth and give our life to $divinity to translate Arabic copies of Greek manuscripts, but we’ll always need someone who will.

The thing that surprises people is not that Stallman went to Microsoft but that Microsoft invited him to talk. Back in the day Bill Gates would make signs to ward against evil if Richard "communist cancer" Stallman was anywhere near Redmond.

How times have changed.

    >  Sainthood in the Church of Emacs requires living a life of purity—but in the Church of Emacs, this does not require celibacy (a sigh of relief is heard).

Now there's a quote that didn't age well... That whole page is just... strange...

Agree strongly with the last two requests, but not so much the first one (but I guess it's to be expected for RMS.)

dang / sctb could you please change the link to the English one? Thanks.

He has a point. Why would he want his "performance" to be featured on proprietary video formats or platforms? Even ignoring the proprietary part, he'd basically provide exclusive content to yt without compensation.

Speaking of which, maybe he could address Github blocking indie search crawlers.

I don't understand this reference, can someone explain it to me? (The Javascript part)

Telling them to use GNU/Linux.

Giving a talk at MS Research, it says in French in the piece.

Looks like the standard Free Software presentation. The article says RMS requested no video taken using Javascript.

I attended a talk given by ESR in the 90s at Microsoft. It was entirely reasonable on all accounts for all parties (except for a single audience member who nearly got boo'd). Even then, the mood was one of conciliatory agreement, like easy to get day passes to cross the Berlin Wall.

I continue to be utterly amazed at the OSS transformation that Microsoft has pulled off.

RMS's dedication to human expression via computers has given us all such wonderful things.

>* At one point he did state "Sometimes there is a use for windows."

Did hell just freeze over?

I always see pictures of him in exotic locations/nature on his laptop, I wonder if he's actually doing stuff or if its just for the photo-op.

Not according to the Ziff-Davis article they haven't:

- Microsoft's Mark Russinovich presumably heard what Stallman said at his talk (which was said to be a "mostly standard talk"). Stallman's talk usually includes a clear description of how the free software movement he started predates the open source development methodology by over a decade and stands philosophically distinct as well. Yet Russinovich claims Stallman's talk is "OSS-related" which is right in line with why the open source development methodology was started: corporate cooption of a social movement that was posing a real threat to proprietary software.

- ZDNet's article continues on this theme at the top and bottom of the article (as to be expected of corporate news which makes up the majority of computer news coverage and repeater/pointer sites like this one): "Each time Microsoft makes another open-source-related move these days, there are still always folks on Twitter or in comments on blog posts who caution that Microsoft hasn't really changed and never will be a true friend of open source. This change in Microsoft didn't happen overnight, but the momentum is growing.". Microsoft like "open source" instead of "free software" because open source doesn't question proprietary software, and thus doesn't question delivering proprietary software to OSes that respect a user's software freedom (the freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software). The same opposition is as it was before, only the PR campaign has changed from namecalling ("Linux [sic] is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches") to appearing warmly welcoming ("Microsoft [heart symbol] Linux [sic]"). They dare not call a complete OS GNU/Linux (which it most likely is in both quotes) because that might bring software freedom to mind (I'll bet Stallman mentioned this as this too is part of every talk he's given for many years).

What Ziff-Davis calls Stallman's "distaste for Microsoft" is clearly-explained and principled objections based in the facts of how computers work and an ethical examination of how we ought to treat each other with computers. But in corporate media it's necessary to downplay principled examination and explication in order to diminish the severity of the objection.

Microsoft wants users to run a GNU/Linux system as a VM on top of Microsoft's system as that helps Microsoft collect payments (licensing or rent, depending on the details of hosting) and, perhaps more importantly, spy on literally every bit of data that the user's OS deals with. Spying is big business and directly tied to proprietary control over the user. Microsoft offers a service to help users host their VM on Microsoft-owned hardware (so-called "cloud computing") too. Just to show the stark difference: Stallman, by comparison, explains what "cloud computing" actually means in https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#CloudComp... and why you should only run VMs on free software systems you own and control.

No, Microsoft hasn't changed. In fact, nothing of substance has changed because ethics are too deeply rooted for any change and computing has only really altered in that more people are being offered computing services more than ever before. Software proprietors are still unmotivated by the same principles that software freedom activists are. Microsoft's change is quite superficial and PR-related: Microsoft has shifted their campaign from more honest but harsh terminology to more deceptive terminology which appears friendlier. The social harm of proprietary software continues apace.

Contrary to what you seem imply, this is not some sort of vindication for Microsoft.

Anyone can invite rms to speak, and given some minor conditions, he will come. He will come and talk because he believes that everyone deserves Free Software.

This is not monumental in any sort of "MS and the FSF coming closer together" sense.

It was very nice of Microsoft to invite him though, but not more impressive than, say, a University or hackfest.

His rider isn't really that bad, it's common sense stuff for someone who travels and does a lot of speaking engagements. All he really asks for at the event is some supplies to make tea and possibly 2 Pepsi's, which isn't exactly over-the-top

I would assume that most organizers of talks want to discuss the topic of the talk with the speaker (first requirement), while many speakers prefer to write their own talks rather than have one handed to them (second requirement).

The only unusual requirement in that document that I could see is that he won't touch, be associated with or have the recordings of himself being used in proprietary software, which is kind of his thing and the basis for the work he does and did.

Was it something else you were thinking about?

> If Microsoft hadn't embraced open source around the time Satya Nadella took over

Microsoft were already well down the road to "embracing" open source before Nadella took over as CEO. The movement inside the company began around 2006 with folks like Scott Guthrie, Scott Hanselman, Phil Haack, Rob Conery and others pushing for more openness. Two open source licenses were created by Microsoft to accommodate such works (MS-PL and MS-RL[0]). When ASP.NET MVC was released in 2009 it was open-sourced and shipped with the MS-PL license.

As with any large organisation it takes some time to build up the momentum to change their behaviour and strategy.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Initiative#Micro...

What do you mean?

Mike: Lenny, officially, the Church will not take any position on the religious implications of these phenomena. Personally, Lenny, I think it's a sign from God. But don't quote me on that.<br> Peter Venkman: I think that's a smart move, Mike.<br> Mayor Lenny: Now, I'm not gonna call a press conference and tell everyone to start praying.<br> Winston Zeddemore: I'm, uh, Winston Zeddemore, Your Honor. I've only been with the company for a couple of weeks, but I gotta tell you: these things are real. Since I joined these men, I have seen shit that'll turn you white!<br> Peter Venkman: Well, you can believe Mr. Pecker...<br> Walter Peck: My name is "Peck."<br> Peter Venkman: ...or you could accept the fact that this city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.<br> Mayor Lenny: What do you mean, "biblical"?<br> Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor. Real Wrath-of-God type stuff!<br> Peter Venkman: Exactly.<br> Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!<br> Egon Spengler: 40 years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes!<br> Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!<br> Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!

Agreed, he took a lot of those position when they were immensely unpopular, and remained consistent without overclaiming when they became popular. I still think he is right about GPL, walled gardens, hardware, etc. despite now again losing the popularity contest.

If you make a public repo, Github literally shows you a little chart that shows you how "Complete" your repo is. And if you don't have a License, Contributing, and Readme files, then that chart never shows as completed. What about that is Github encouraging developers to ignore software licenses?