Stallman’s “traitor” outburst alienates
September 23, 2009 in News by Alastair Otter
Richard Stallman is the godfather of free and open source software. His Free Software Foundation, the GPL licensing matrix and his countless code contributions make him a giant of a man in the fight for free software. But he is also a difficult man, know for his uncompromising line and an unwillingness to bend his own standards even the slightest. Which is why he has garnered so much respect over the many years he has led the FSF. Many may not like him or his opinions, but they could always respect a man that stuck to his guns.
Stallman’s most recent outburst, however, in which he labels Miguel De Icaza a “traitor”, may have been a step too far. De Icaza is, among considerable other achievements, the founder of Gnome as well as of Mono, a GPL-licensed implementation of Microsoft’s .Net framework. De Icaza also recently joined the board of the newly-formed CodePlex Foundation, a not-for profit organisation created by Microsoft to promote open source collaboration.
It may have been this CodePlex board position, or Mono’s close working relationship with Microsoft, that was the final straw for Stallman but he lashed out over the weekend saying De Icaza was “basically a traitor to the Free Software community” and calling the Mono founder “Microsoft apologist”. The real reason, perhaps, is that De Icaza has made a decision to work on interoperability between the free software and proprietary worlds, something that Stallman finds hard to reconcile.
ZDNet’s Jason Perlow points out that without De Icaza, so much of the free software world as we now know it would either not be or would be radically different. Perlow describes the outburst as the “FOSS community equivalent of sending Leon Trotsky into exile during the Russian Revolution. Trotsky called himself a ‘non-factional social democrat’.”
Stallman’s rigid politicking has always been an asset in the free software movement, but attacks like this may well do more damage to the cause of FOSS than good.
Well…
Stallman is not Stalin in the political analogy – for that he’d have to be a tyrant of a powerful monolithic apparatus, riding on past glories to get more control; had had to have made a pact with a known opponent of the doctrine he (supposedly?) stands for and at the expense of those around him while disposing of anyone who openly criticizes him. Stallman, in that analogy, *is* the would-be critic of such behavior i.e. Trotsky. Miguel, on the other hand…
Fortunately, there are no Great Fearless Leaders in FOSS, it is not monolithic and people are welcome to make up their own minds otherwise someone would rise to that position of leadership and surely exile Stallman for his uncompromising idealism that stands in the way of “progress”.
Here’s another angle on that ZDNet article form [Groklaw](http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090927151401988). Pretty well rebukes Perlow right from the get-go (in fact, the entire article was misplaced since Perlow failed to comprehend the text that he was referring to) and goes a long and meticulous way in proving *de facto* that Stallman is justified in calling Miguel out. And on a number of levels.
Stallman’s word is not law. The law is GPL.
Icaza is not exiled by Stallman. Each person in the comunity individually chooses who to collaborate with and why.
Stallman himself obeys the principles of GPL and GPL2 so why does anybody else get to be an exception for pragmatic reasons – whatever they may be?
I have to agree. I also think that fundamentally there is simply a factual truth support for what Stallman said. I wrote this in a comment on Miguels own blog as well – it’s just a fact.
Once upon a time, Miguel was as hard-lined as Stallman, he won the FSF’s greatest award, he started gnome for no other reason than that QT was not free enough – he was a hero. Now he proclaims against those very values he once believed in. He says he is “pragmatic” – which has become a pretty-word for “ignoring ethics”.
Free Software people do not want a mixed environment, we want truly free, completely free operating systems and software. The so-called pragmatists talk about mixing open-source and closed-source and using the best tool for the job. The free software people thinks that anything proprietory isn’t even in the running, it’s not a tool at all – we’ll choose the best FREE tool for the job, or do a different job (or if all else fails – we’ll write one).
That is what De Icaza once proclaimed, now he proclaims the opposite. Fair enough – everyone has the right to change their minds, but then you cannot continue to want to be backed by the people who have not changed theirs. He has betrayed the free software ideals. Whether you agree with those ideals or not does not change this fact.
The thing is, that since free software is an ethical ideology – it’s a bit black-and-white sometimes, you can’t be in the middle ground. You cannot believe in the ideology yet support the continued business models of those who act contrary to it. That is not what freedom of thought means. I believe in freedom of religion – but that doesn’t mean I support cultist who commit baby sacrifice or canibalist-religions in some ancient tribes.
The law gives the right to choose your own license, but when you choose one that intrudes on the rights of the users – I am allowed to be outraged by it and refuse to use that software. That is what the FSF ideals are all about, a peaceful protest and social change through collaboration.
A revolution that may actually work – without deteriorating into just another clone of what came before – because it’s intrinsically designed to make that impossible. In the meantime the forces that are entrenched in the exploitative model have gained great power and they will use that to try and destroy us. They found they could not do so with lies, threats and force – so now, they are trying to do it with dilution. “We’re all friends here, we can work together for better software”…
Well, I don’t care about better software, okay I do – but I care about my freedom more. If you help me make free software better – I’ll gladly accept your help, but I won’t help you make your proprietary stuff better in turn – because I’m morally opposed to it.
De Icaza has decided that he no longer is, that is why he betrayed our ideals. That is his free right, but he cannot expect to do so without facing criticism from those of us who thinks what he is now helping to support is morally wrong.
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
Somehow… I don’t think Stallman (a declared pacifist) would consider the art of war a good philosophy to live by…