karl@sugar.UUCP (Karl Lehenbauer) (05/14/88)
After having carefully read through "The GNU Manifesto" a couple of times,
I wanted to share my thoughts with the reads of comp.misc, as there has
been a lot of discussion of that document in this group.
First off, I must say that the manifesto is a frustrating read. What
appears to be a reasonably empirical set of arguments is, in fact, fraught
with "straw man" arguments and other errors. For example, he says that
capiltalism is good at some things but, since there are abuses and problems,
therefore he dismisses it.
To summarize, Herr Stallman is mad because all his hacker buddies left MIT
for better paying jobs to do the same work under conditions in which the
work will be proprietary rather than in the public domain, so he wants to
create a New Social Order in which they will not be able or allowed to leave
and seems to think that this can be achieved largely by writing and giving away
a Unix-like operating system. Furthermore, he wants the concept of intellectual
property rights abolished. He apparently believes that the GNU operating
system, by virtue of the terms of its copyright, will help make this happen
and further, that GNU will put a lot of programmers out of work and lower the
overall amount of money paid to programmers, so programmers will hack and
give the code away in exchange for the adulation of others, rather than for
money as is largely done now.
With regards to getting people to stay at MIT rather than leaving for better
paying jobs, I submit that this can be achieved, without changing the world,
by getting MIT to pay more money.
As for whether GNU will have the intended results, I do not believe it will.
For one thing, from what I know of it, GNU makes its own way in many areas.
I think that, to have its intended effect, it would at least have to follow
existing standards (POSIX would be a reasonable standard for someone writing
a public domain operating system.) Further, I think a lot of people are
willing to pay for commercial software in order to get support and a stable
product. I fear that not all programmers are as competent as Mr. Stallman,
nor will they know the GNU operating system as well as he does. In the
scenario he describes, I see an enormous number of mildly to significantly
incompatible systems with bugs out the kazoo...kind of like the world today :-)
I do think the code resulting from the GNU project is and has been very useful
to many people.
I submit that the system (our country) isn't so screwed up, either.
It has worked well enough to provide us with all this wonderful computer
hardware and software and the freedom to pretty much use it as we see fit.
It has enabled people to to afford the money and time it costs to write and
give away software. Let's not kill the goose that, as they say, layed the
golden egg.
In defense of Mr. Stallman, for whatever reasons he is doing this, the
benefits to the user community have been real. Various programs that have
come out of the GNU project have been widely distributed and ported to
many computer systems. It's a gigantic job, and noble in the sense that
he has given a lot of his time to write and give away software, which in
our country, fortunately, is his right.
-karl
--
"Now here's something you're really going to like!" -- Rocket J. Squirrel
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