I’ve tried using my incredible (british) brain using Google to see if these open source titans ever engaged in a battle of “friendly conversation” with one another.
I was always interested what Stallman thought of the angry but smart finnish man who gave us the robust penguin kernel that breathes life into older machines and powers supercomputers for the weather.
The same with Torvalds thoughts on Stallmans GNU involvement and him as a person.
This is because you sometimes had different organisations in the FOSS and OSS community that take on different meanings so I wanted a better idea if these chaps ever spoke in an interview together.
TLDR : Does finnish man like bearded GNU jesus man and the same vice versa
I’m picturing Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny swapping hunting signs on a tree… “Linux season!” “GNU season!”, back and forth. The rest of us just watching like Elmer Fud.
Stallman’s attempt to rename Linux to incorporate the GNU name not happening was frustrating on his end it seems. Everytime someone calls their system a Linux based OS and not GNU/Linux based OS downplays the work he put in. However, Linus’s kernel was more elaborate than GNU Hurd, so it was incorporated. It’s said Stallman is a visionary, while Linus is a programist. While there’s never been any display of tension in a back and forth between them online, it’s always seemed to me they appreciate and also despise various aspects of each another.
However, Linus’s kernel was more elaborate than GNU Hurd, so it was incorporated.
Quite the opposite.
GNU Hurd was a microkernel, using lots of cutting edge research, and necessitating a lot of additional complexity in userspace. This complexity also made it very difficult to get good performance.
Linux, on the other hand, was just a bog standard Unix monolithic kernel. Once they got a libc working on it, most existing Unix userspace, including the GNU userspace, was easy to port.
Linux won because it was simple, not elaborate.
Ok, interesting, thanks for the correction. Do you think rephrasing my statement and stating Linus’s kernel is more adaptive would be more accurate?
Maybe.
Linux won because it worked. Hurd was stuck in research and development hell. They never were able to catch up.
Everytime someone calls their system a Linux based OS and not GNU/Linux based OS downplays the work he put in.
Absolutely, and the fact that people didn’t adopt it creates confusion, some people claim Android is also Linux, which you can argue, but it’s definitely NOT GNU/Linux, and it’s definitely NOT a free desktop OS as defined by freedesktop.org either. There’s a huge difference.
Especially since Android generally means Android with Google apps, and not AOSP. AOSP is open source, but Android with Google apps is not.I actually believe that “GNU / Linux” creates the confusion, even the Android problem you cite.
If we all just said “Linux” to mean Linux distribution and the software ecosystem that implies, almost everybody would agree what that meant. All this “actually what you are calling Linux is actually” and “Linux is just the kernel” stuff confuses people. If Linux is just the kernel then Android and Ubuntu are equally Linux. Most people do not even know what a kernel is until you start “educating” people that “Linux” is not Linux.
An Operating System is defined by the applications that it runs natively. Alpine Linux and Ubuntu run the same software and services. Chimera Linux runs all the same stuff even though it comes without any GNU software by default ( BSD utils, Clang compiler, MUSL ). They are all “Linux”. None of them are Android or ChromeOS. They are not the embedded OS in my thermostat or body worn camera. Of course, all these things use the Linux kernel but they are not all “Linux” operating systems.
There are many examples of the kernel not defining the Operating System. iOS and macOS are not the same thing. Windows and Xbox are not the same thing. Yes, us geeks know the common infrastructure they share.
And if an operating system is defined by its applications, is “GNU” a good label? My distro of choice offers 80,000 packages of which maybe 200 are managed by the GNU Project. Go to gnu.org and look at the list of packages that are actually GNU for real. It may shock you how short the list is.
There are other single sources that contribute more software. In terms of code and base architecture, Red Hat is probably the largest contributor ( and no, I do not use Red Hat — RHEL has fewer than 3000 packages for one thing ). I do not want to call my distribution “Red Hat” Linux but frankly it makes more sense than GNU.
Some of the GNU / Linux folks say that the reason for the label is the C library ( Glibc ). But not all Linux distros use Glibc. For a mainstream Linux user, does it make sense to say that Alpine, Void, and Chimera are not the same kind of OS as Ubuntu or Fedora? A regular user could sit down at any of them and not only use them mostly the same but perhaps not even notice the difference. I could write a Linux app without knowing about Alpine and the it could be built for it easily. They all use the same apps and desktop environments. They all run Docker natively. Even fairly deep Linux knowledge applies equally to them all. As pointed out, freedesktop.org applies to them equally. They have the same driver and hardware support ( including the full graphics and audio stacks ). Most people would agree that all these “Linux” systems are pretty alike and quite different from macOS, Windows, and Android. They are all much more like each other than they are even to FreeBSD.
The GNU name pays homage to the historical contribution of the GNU Project that, while important, is pretty historical at this point. If the goal is to promote Free Software or even the GPL, the right branding would be the FSF. So, even that is confusing.
Clearly, in my view, GNU is a terrible brand to try to glob on to Linux. It is not explanatory. It is not even accurate. It is mostly political and frankly overstates the current contribution of the project. I talked code above. There is more code in Wayland or X11 and Mesa than in all of GNU probably. There are more lines of code licensed MIT than GPL in most distros. Most GPL software available is NOT provided by the GNU project.
Again, GNU is a hugely important project to free software and the history of Linux. That history should be celebrated and acknowledged. Distorting it and contorting it is not the way to do that. Enough with “GNU / Linux” already.
If Linux is just the kernel then Android and Ubuntu are equally Linux.
It is and they are. These are demonstrable facts.
I have no problem with referring to the family of Linux based operating systems collectively as Linux (with GNU/Linux being a subfamily of such), however, I firmly believe that the mythical concept of “real Linux” where some Linuxes aren’t really Linux is what creates the confusion. I would rather use other terms, like POSIX, Unix(like), and FreeDesktop to refer to so-called “real Linux” (with the caveat that they also include BSDs and the like - but I include these as part of the free desktop operating system spectrum, as most so-called Linux apps also run here. I don’t place special importance on the kernel because it is technically the furthest thing away from the user experience).
(Android being Linux isn’t a mere technicality - it means you can get a full terminal environment with a package manager and “Linux apps” and even run a full desktop environment if you really want)
Should have been called Lignux.
Lig deez nux
🤭
Thats the term Stallman came up with when the first distributions (esspecially Debian) started to build up. It wasnt really popular even back than so he setteled in GNU/Linux as alternative which to this day is in the name of quit a lot distributions.
It was never the plan/intend to rename the Linux kernel itsself to either of those terms.
hell they could have called it anything… seems like they couldnt get past their egos to see the value in a new designation
I thought Linus didn’t come up with the name Linux
He didn’t. He wanted freax or something dumb. Someone talked him into Linux.
His professor ig
They did not really “talk him into it”. They simply labelled it that when they uploaded it. Linus just went with the flow and it stuck.
Should we call it X/GNU/Linux as to not downplay the work the people at Xorg put in? Also possibly Systemd/X/GNU/Linux, how about Plasma/Systemd/X/GNU/Linux, and since nowadays browsers do most of the tasks I think it’s only fair Firefox/Plasma/Systemd/X/GNU/Linux, or maybe Chromium/GNOME/Dinit/Wayland/Musl/Linux, you know what these two have in common? Just the Kernel, but you would say they’re both the same OS.
I’m not saying GNU is not great nor am I saying that they didn’t contributed or that they’re worthless. But GNU is not special, X, Systemd, and other such components are just as essentials to Linux as GNU, and no one claims they should be added to the name of the OS.
Stallman’s attempt to rename Linux
There was never any “attempt to rename Linux.” Stallman simply wants to clarify which part of the operating system is “Linux” (the kernel) and which part(s) are not (many of which are his work, which Linux fans insist on also calling “Linux” even though the GNU project predates it by almost a decade).
Any “confusion” on this point is the result of Linux fans spreading mistruths (I assume only sometimes intentionally). Unfortunately at this point the myths are so firmly ingrained we have myths about the myths (like “Stallman wants to rename Linux”) and in my mind Stallman is definitely fighting a losing battle nowadays. Still, a falsehood being widely accepted does not make it true.
Both are equally important for the GNU/Linux world. Torvalds is more inclined to the “tech” side and Stallman is more like a “philosopher” the man who showed us the importance of free software.They are body and soul of the GNU/Linux. Long live to them.
TLDR : Does finnish man like bearded GNU jesus man and the same vice versa
My impression is that they both have a respect for each other, although they don’t necessarily like each other.
Neither of them is exactly what I’d call easily likeable
But Linus was very likeable among the computer nerds of his own generation. These eccentricities that are criticized today have actually added a lot to his fame.
He was never likeable. He acted like a huge asshole, which naturally made other assholes look at him and go “see if he can do that so can I”
He acted like a huge asshole
Not at all. I can’t remember anything like that.
Are we pretending that his various and ubiquitous abusive rants didn’t happen, or that they weren’t him acting like an asshole?
I can only assume that you are very young.
In our times, a good rant has gotten somewhat out of fashion, and that is a sad fact. A good rant does not make you an AH (or anybody else). It is different from spreading hate (which is quite fashionable these days). You must learn the distinction.
Right, I must be “very young” if I don’t think that hurling abuse at others is OK.
Yeah, pretty much figured you were one of the people who thought his behavior wasn’t only acceptable but preferable. In other words, an asshole.
From LKML:
So I’m going to have a HARD REQUIREMENT that any compiler complaints need to be really really sane. They need to detect when people do things like this on purpose, and they need to SHUT THE ^&% UP about the fact that wrap-around happens.
Any tool that is so stupid as to complain about wrap-around in the above is a BROKEN TOOL THAT NEEDS TO BE IGNORED.
Really. This is non-negotiable.
And no, the answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT to add cognitive load on kernel developers by adding yet more random helper types and/or functions.
We already expect a lot of kernel developers. We should not add on to that burden because of your pet project.
Be the solution, not the problem.
Is he asshole?
I can’t remember having seen them debating each other, either in person or otherwise. But their positions are well known. Linus chose the GPL license from an engineering/pragmatic viewpoint, while Stallman is an idealist.
Apparently they are quite friendly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDxMJQLXmBEAnd what’s your point with posting this? My guess is that you don’t even understand it.
He is saying there is no such thing as willing participation from a child in pedophilia. Are you saying there is?Unfortunately, that is not the case. Stallman is absolutely a defender of having sex with children.
Richard Stallman on paedophilia:
“The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, ‘prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia’ also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally–but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.”
RMS on June 28th, 2003
"I think that everyone age 14 or above ought to take part in sex, though not indiscriminately. (Some people are ready earlier.)
RMS on 25th May, 2003
To be fair for that one, he doesn’t specify whether 14 or under is fine for an adult to have sex with. It’s certainly possible to interpret this as child-child relations only, but given his other comments where he says adult-child sex is fine, I decided to include this one.
“I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.”
RMS on June 5th, 2006
“There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.”
RMS on Jan 4th, 2013
I understand that Stallman has excellent views on liberty in software, and he’s made enormous contributions to FOSS. But that does not necessarily mean he’s a good person or that all of his views are good ones. People are flawed. IMO his views on the morality of having sex with children aren’t good ones, but I recognise that I agree with him in other ways.
“There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.”
But per the quote in the meme above, you can’t have willing participation, it is always coerced.
And you still don’t provide sources.
I’d say the quotes above show he absolutely believes children are capable of consent. Why else would he use phrases like
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“it’s fine so long as nobody is coerced” (as if there are any situations where an adult can have sex with a child without there being coercion)
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“willing participation in pedophilia” (children can’t consent to sex!)
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“the arguments [against having sex with children] seem to be based on cases that aren’t voluntary” (None of them are voluntary! CHILDREN CANNOT CONSENT!)
It doesn’t mean he supports it.
He explicitly said it should be legal, and also alluded that parents are just prudish if they don’t want their children to be having sex. It’s very clear he supports it.
You’ll be able to find this stuff in the articles that went around when he was pressured to resign from the FSF and from his role at MIT. It’s primarily quotes from him on his own site, stallman.org.
Pre-blowback: fucking children is fine if they consent to it
Post-blowback: friends explained to me that it hurts the children and that they can’t consent
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I think the phrasing isn’t the best. I think he needs an “is what” before “hurts children” in the first paragraph.
I agree, the phrasing is bad, but that doesn’t change that if you read it carefully, the meaning is clear.
There is absolutely no reasonable basis for claiming he is defending pedophiles, when what he does is the direct opposite, by logically proving that a common defense they use is invalid, because you can never claim to know participation is voluntary. It is per definition coerced.There’s plenty of evidence that he’s pro paedophilia, which I have posted elsewhere in this submission.
I think people need to stop this hero worship.
Richard Stallman thinks paedophilia is ok or even good. It should be fine to find that view reprehensible whilst at the same time acknowledging that he has some good ideals when it comes to software, and his role in GNU was huge.
People in the Linux world treat him as a deity figure and therefore treat any words against him as blasphemy. It makes them reject and dismiss the whole bestiality/paedophilia is good aspect of him, when they really shouldn’t as that is a rejection of reality.
If you just view him as a flawed person, rather than some deity figure, then it’s easy to accept that he’s good in some areas and less good in others.
Unfortunately he’s said a lot more than that.
Richard Stallman on paedophilia:
“The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, ‘prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia’ also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally–but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.”
RMS on June 28th, 2003
"I think that everyone age 14 or above ought to take part in sex, though not indiscriminately. (Some people are ready earlier.)
RMS on May 25th 2003
“I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.”
RMS on June 5th, 2006
“There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.”
RMS on Jan 4th, 2013
People need to understand that you can be a champion of FOSS, and have some great ideas in terms of software liberty, while also having some really shitty views in other areas.
It’s why people should avoid celebrity worship. Just because an engineer/sportsperson/actor/artist/CEO does something you like, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a good person, or devoid of human flaws.
His view did evolve after being talked to later about it. On the grounds that power dynamics involved in age differences create a coercive effect of even someone who could be mature enough to logically and emotionally grasp the concepts.
He is also deeply in the libertarian mind set that illegal means enforced with guns and batons and restrictions of rights, and that puts a higher bar to what should be legal.
Though I do totally agree with you on hero worship. Nobody is perfect and that impossibility is expontetially more true if want them to have been, to be and continue to be perfect forever.
Thing is, do we believe his sudden change of heart? It only happened once his job was on the line. He U-turned on his views that sex with children is fine just 2 days before he was forced out of his role.
To me, that reads as a last-ditch attempt to save his job, as opposed to a genuine sudden change in worldview for an opinion he held and championed for decades.
You know, like when a questionable politician has racist twitter posts from 5 years ago brought up in an election campaign and they’re like *“Whaaaat? No no no I don’t believe that anymore. I’m a changed man! Vote for me pls.”
But maybe he really did change his mind 2 days before he was forced out of the FSF/MIT, and I’m just being pessimistic.
I think that it was a few months or so before the resignation, but I can’t find his post about it to really give the exact date.
Nope. 2 days.
Announcement that having sex with children is bad, actually: 14th September 2019
Resignation: 16th September 2019
E: not really sure why you’d downvote a factual statement. Go look at his blog (stallman.org) for those dates.
Please stop defending this. Raping children is a bad thing. He’s not a deity figure to be worshipped. He is human and he is fallible. Having excellent ideas when it comes to software does not mean he has excellent ideas in every aspect of his life. You don’t need to defend him on this.
People are too quick to downvote for sure
The list of Stallman shitiness has no end apparently. Fucking gross. 🤢
Why does this look and sound like the inspirational scene of a Mockumentary?
Stallman is an ass and particularly is an ass to women. Fuck that guy. There’s a reason everyone in tech has a Stallman horror story.
People downvoting you have never met Stallman face to face.
Lmao, that tldr is fucking GLORIOUS.
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28 juli 2014 — What do you think about Linus Torvalds? I met Linus and his wife briefly at a party in 1999, and haven’t crossed paths since.
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Video with Linus giving RMS the Torvalds award in 1999 : https://youtube.com/watch?v=xnb_eFSnXFI
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(Linus leans back in his chair, a glint of amusement in his eyes, and gestures toward Richard Stallman who is seated across from him. Richard, ever the passionate advocate, is already gesturing with his hands.)
“Well, if you’re talking about the revolution in computing, you can’t forget about this fella right here, Mr. Stallman.”
(He gives Richard a playful nudge.)
“He’s the one who really gave us the framework, the ideals, the whole ‘free software’ movement.”
Richard, his eyes gleaming with conviction, jumps in.
“It’s not just about code, Linus. It’s about freedom, about users having control over their own technology. It’s about sharing, about building on each other’s work, and refusing to be locked in by proprietary systems.” (He leans forward, his voice gaining intensity.)
"We had to fight for that freedom, against the corporations who wanted to control every bit of software, every line of code. But we won, and GNU is proof that free software can not only work but thrive. "
Linus nods in agreement, a hint of respect in his voice.
“He’s right, you know. Without the GNU tools, without Richard’s vision, Linux wouldn’t be what it is today. It wouldn’t be as powerful, as flexible, as truly free.”
(He turns back to you, a mischievous glint in his eyes.)
“But don’t let them fool you, we weren’t always the best of friends. We had our disagreements, our battles over licensing, our philosophical differences. But hey, that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?”
(He grins, leaning back in his chair.)
“In the end, we were all working towards the same goal, a world where software is free for all to use, share, and improve. And that’s a goal worth fighting for, wouldn’t you say?”
This reaks of chatgpt. All the way down to the milktoast ending.
It does completely. Also, its “Milquetoast”. Milktoast is just soggy bread.
Ahh. Bone Apple Tea moment.
Omelette du fromage
Disappointed as I was hoping for some Richard Stallchan x Linus Torvaldsan fanfic
I know lemmy has a gigantic hate boner for LLMs, but if you plugged this scenario into a good one (probably not the bog standard “free” chatgpt in bing) you’ll probably get a very entertaining conversation.
“LLMs mEnTiOnEd lEt’S dOwNvOtE”
I really hate this about Lemmy sometimes…
Both are titans on whoose shoulders we stand.
Who is running herd right now? I need to know.
I tried Debian/Herd on a spare box. I think that lasted for what, a week? It was a less than complete experience, so I moved on to more fruitful experiments.
…i’m absolutely ignorant of its current state, but every time i’ve checked in on progress of GNU/hurd over the past three decades, it still hasn’t matured into a stable production-ready platform: i’m not sure if that’s an artifact of technical viability or developer interest…
I wasn’t able to get a good read on it either. I didn’t spot anything obviously wrong from a technical standpoint, but I’m not a systems developer. It just doesn’t have much that distinguishes it on a non-technical level. The design is neat, but other OS projects like Redox have shot past it in a shorter period of time. That tells me something’s broken, whether it’s technical or social.
Both, I think.
It’s built in top of Mach, which has some architectural issues that aren’t fixable without a huge amount of work.
And no one’s interested in doing that work because we already have Linux and Linux is fine.
There have been a couple of pretty good post mortems over the years. I think one of them is on gnu.org somewhere.
…NeXTstep was built on mach and, although i’m unsure if any antecedents remain in macOS, it was certainly production-ready in its day; i remember a couple of decades ago there were stopgap versions of the HURD built on top of mach instead of their own microkernel but i thought that was only ever intended as a temporary workaround…
…i presume on that basis that sustained developer interest was its greatest hurdle, no pun intended…
edit: …is this the post-mortem you mentioned?..
I haven’t seen that paper before. The ones I remember were blogposts or web pages. In fact, this may be what I was remembering: https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/faq.html Particularly the part about what happened with the port to different microkernels.
IIRC NeXT and OSX use Mach, but they don’t use it as intended. I think they’re mostly a BSD kernel with Mach functioning as an interface to userspace.
Hurd actually used Mach as a microkernel, and moved most functionality to userspace daemons. This meant that Mach’s performance issues, at least the ones related to IPC, affected the Hurd a lot more than OSX or NeXT.
And yeah, I think developer interest was the biggest thing that held it back.
Both are important.
