The news that Steve Jobs has died reached all the world some days ago. Richard Stallman declared, on his blog:
"Nobody deserves to have to die - not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing.Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective."
Immediately, some people complained, saying that it's orrible to speak this way about a dead person.
Personally, I think Stallman is doing right. In fact, also if a person's death is always a bad news, we can't forget what this person did. I hate that hypocritical practice to make someone saint just because it's dead. For me, you can't complain about a person while it's alive, and start saying it was the most beautiful human in the world after its death.
For this reason I think Stallman is absolutely right: he has always pointed out that Stave Jobs and Apple were the main oppositors to software freedom, and there is no reason to change idea now.
And please, stop saying Jobs was a genius: he was a great business man, that was able to understand the weaknesses of the "public" and exploit them to sell things. But he was not a brilliant hacker: the AppleII has been built by Steve Wozniak, and the GUI of MacOS has been bought from the Xerox guys.
Apple has been one of the most dangerous companies for the freedom of users. Neither Microsoft have had such a bad behavior.
I usually say that Apple is the "black widow" of free software: they copied everything they could take (don't forget that tecnically MacOSX is a GNU/Linux distribution) and then they try to kill other Free Open Source project that could compete with them (Apple continuously tries to suit Android project and there could be also some troubles with MeeGo).
Personally, I think Stallman is doing right. In fact, also if a person's death is always a bad news, we can't forget what this person did. I hate that hypocritical practice to make someone saint just because it's dead. For me, you can't complain about a person while it's alive, and start saying it was the most beautiful human in the world after its death.
For this reason I think Stallman is absolutely right: he has always pointed out that Stave Jobs and Apple were the main oppositors to software freedom, and there is no reason to change idea now.
And please, stop saying Jobs was a genius: he was a great business man, that was able to understand the weaknesses of the "public" and exploit them to sell things. But he was not a brilliant hacker: the AppleII has been built by Steve Wozniak, and the GUI of MacOS has been bought from the Xerox guys.
Apple has been one of the most dangerous companies for the freedom of users. Neither Microsoft have had such a bad behavior.
I usually say that Apple is the "black widow" of free software: they copied everything they could take (don't forget that tecnically MacOSX is a GNU/Linux distribution) and then they try to kill other Free Open Source project that could compete with them (Apple continuously tries to suit Android project and there could be also some troubles with MeeGo).
So, concluding, I won't be happy because Steve Jobs is dead, as I won't be happy (for example) because Osama Bin Laden is dead. I will be happy because I hope that what Jobs represented (an unfree world) will be dead.
Post Scriptum: Keep going, Richard!
For other informations please read (http://stallman.org/archives/2011-jul-oct.html#06_October_2011_%28Steve_Jobs%29).
Signed.
ReplyDeleteThe comment by RMS was one of the best in my opinion, not hypocritical like all the terrible stories in the media, but serious, rational and humanistic.