Talk:Richard Stallman

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An individual covered by or significantly related to this article, Richard Stallman, has edited Wikipedia as Rmstallman (talk · contribs). This user's editing has included this article. Readers are encouraged to review Wikipedia:Autobiography for information concerning autobiographical articles on Wikipedia.

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To-do list for Richard Stallman:

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His membership to teleSur advisory committee is out of context. It should be in the honors section, or there should be an expansion on Stallman's work with the Bolivarian government of Venezuela that provides the context. --72.92.129.247 17:44, 14 October 2006 (UTC) Delete it to keep Article Size down? - Lentower 18:53, 14 October 2006 (UTC) Maybe we need a section or sub-section on "Memberships"? - Lentower 18:53, 14 October 2006 (UTC) No, I don't think a memberships section is necessary. --71.161.222.144 02:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Archives

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

[edit] Todo out of date

Many parts are ancient and it generally isn't a useful guideline to current tasks imo. Anyone really mind if I wipe this and let it grow from scratch again? Chris Cunningham 10:43, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Many parts of what are ancient? The article or the talk page? --W2bh (talk) 12:18, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, misread the message title. --W2bh (talk) 12:19, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I've removed all the well-meaning but ultimately directionless calls to scan the article for various policy issues. These can be brought up in reviews, but aren't useful in the todo box. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:18, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Technical Inaccuracy

Re:

When MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) installed a password control system in 1977, Stallman found a way to decrypt the passwords and sent users messages containing their decoded password (to demonstrate that they were not increasing security, but only hindering free access to each other's software and discouraging sharing it), with a suggestion to change it to the empty string (that is, no password) instead, to restore this free access

I see this has made it to Wikipedia...

He didn't actually do exactly this, though I've seen him on video describing it thus. I'm the guy who wrote the password control system! The passwords are hashed in a way that loses information. (Not actually encrypted). I've always figured he did one of two things -- either did things the (slightly) hard way, and searched for a password that would hash to the same thing, or simply recorded the unhashed password the user entered. He'd made it print out on the system console at one point.

To be fair, searching for the password would stand a good chance of finding the actual password the user gave.

This was never intended to be security -- no such thing on ITS anyway. The only reason for hashing them at all was so that snoopy people wouldn't discover what people used for their passwords, which often tend to be personal! So this hack was not a breakdown in security, but a rather juvenile (IMHO) mass (but small) invasion of privacy.

Note that null passwords WERE allowed, even after this hack. Lots of people just logged in as RMS...

Stahlman has publicly attributed this password facility to the "evil administrators" seeking control, and pressuring the hackers, etc... Nothing could be further from the truth. At the time, we were deluged with a huge influx of users from the network -- "unauthorized" users for lack of a better word, but they weren't unwelcome, overall, and accounts were given out freely. But there were a few people who were unwilling to be good citizens -- playing games, for example, when the system was already extremely overloaded with people trying to complete their thesis, etc. Or deleting other people's files. Remember, the system was wide open, and fragile, dependent entirely on the good behavior of all participants.

Things finally reached a point where keeping things from melting down was taking entirely too much time from many of us, myself included, and people's work was being seriously impeded. This was the minimum step we could take that would keep things from degenerating into chaos.

The password system simply allowed us to encourage people to not be anonymous (which helped to encourage more of a sense of community), and to impede (but not block) people intent on causing harm. We gave out accounts to just about all comers, including numerous kids, people just wanting to learn, etc. Some people, after having their accounts revoked for behaving badly, came back later with new identities and better behavior, which was fine with us.

RMS viewed all this through his own set of filters and his own unique set of moral absolutes, leading to major rage. Somehow people for whom the machines were being provided being able to use them didn't fit on his radar, but anybody should be allowed to connect anonymously from anywhere, and do whatever they wanted, no matter the impact on others. And anybody who disagreed was evil, to be opposed by any means at hand.

By the way, a point about copying all the features that we at Symbolics did into the MIT sources. I'd say it's more or less true. But the way the article is written makes it sound like either a superhuman feat (and thus unbelievable), or that we were a bunch of slackers at Symbolics!

Neither was true. He had several advantages -- he could take a lot of shortcuts, for example -- less complete functionality, less testing. Notably, he didn't have to spend the time thinking out how things should work! He could just copy functionality. He didn't have to discuss and agree with anyone either. That, and being both skilled and driven, he could move pretty fast. He even improved on our approach in a number of cases.

It'd be nice if the article were worded in a way that was more clear that the attempt was simultaneously quite real, somewhat imperfect, and yet impressive.

Note that one could question whether these comments quite fit the talk page guidelines, but I hope it's worthwhile communicating it to the editors. Feel free to delete my comments when they serve no useful purpose, or possibly move them to the article on ITS if they serve a purpose there...

Bob Kerns (talk) 07:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I've made some simple changes to the sections in question to take these concerns into account. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Speeches

This is what Wikiquote is for, and it's bad form to have subsections in extlinks. Can they all be moved across? Chris Cunningham 11:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

After 20 years of public speaking, Stallman there are only four topics that he's spoken repeatedly on. So those four links are as concise as possible a summary of his whole software freedom philosophy. On Wikiquote, there are tens or more than a hundred links, which is quite different. The subsection header can be deleted, but I don't see why. --Gronky 11:55, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's a better idea: turn the "terminology" section into "public speaking", and restructure it around the speeches. Better to use them as references than just tack them on as external links. Chris Cunningham 12:07, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Except that in this case they are not references to prove some particular point, they are whole documents that explain concepts too large to describe completely in the article. --Gronky 12:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Then give them articles. That's how encyclopedias work. I dare say that they already have articles. A well-written article should not simply punt important works to some external website to explain. Chris Cunningham 13:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

The concepts probably do have articles, but this is about Stallman's personal take on the issues. His examples, his reasons, his logic, his methods. Actually, when something is relevant but is too long to go into an article, that's exactly what external links are for. --Gronky 13:22, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

This is lazy. I can't believe we've got three paragraphs about the tragic early end to his folk dancing career, but we can't actually write about the four things which actually define him as an advocate. I'm gladly nuke large parts of the article to incorporate that kind of thing. Chris Cunningham 15:26, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the speeches, if they are needed, should be included as references rather than external links. This is the type of thing that would most likely be flagged if the article ever went to Featured Article review. The article already has a rambling and anecdotal flavor, and this makes it worse. We don't need to record every single incident that happened in any of his policy-related activities. His examples, his reasons, his logic, his methods are things that people can use Google for. His speech on the issue of GPLv3, if it is needed at all, might be linked from GNU General Public License, where his arguments in favor of version 3 are discussed in the text of the article. EdJohnston 19:24, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Direct links to speeches: is everyone following the issue?

There is a small-scale edit war about some direct external links to Stallman speeches. Can someone who regularly follows this page explain things from scratch? I don't see the need for the links, personally, but a better explanation might slow down the reverting by various parties. EdJohnston 17:38, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

It's hardly an "edit war" as such: User:Gronky, as is his wont, occasionally restores sections of previously-prepared text with little apparent consideration for article history, or indeed whether the content he's adding is already included on the page in exactly the same format. When this happens, I remove the duplicate section and leave a descriptive edit comment. In this case, however, User:ViolentCrime has apparently decided that this is a content dispute. No, I don't know why either.

I expect this has already died down. Chris Cunningham 17:54, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is the problem with having a seperate section for the speeches? Why are you edit warring over this? If the duplication bbothers you, remove it from the Output section, where iti is buried. ViolentCrime 18:20, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Mayhaps, having asked me to come to the talk page, you could participate in it yourself. Nobody's edit warring; a couple of editors made good-faith reverts without bothering to check the full picture, is all. Chris Cunningham 18:24, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

What is it that you are responding to, if not my participation? You have made 5 reverts to the same section in a little over 24 hours, so you are clearly edit warring over this. In addition, you are more than a bit uncivil in your tone. If it is the duplication that bothers you, why can't we have a seprate section for the speeches, and remove the same copy in the output section? ViolentCrime 18:47, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I haven't followed this in a while. My recollection is that I argued that with four links, the article could give readers access to the most concise summary of Stallman's whole software freedom philosophy. FWIW, I still think they should be there, in the external links section, not buried. --Gronky 00:30, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contributions to ghostscript

"The Halloween Documents", Microsoft Confidential (Vinod Valloppillil, Aug 11, 1998) cites Stallman as the creator of GhostScript. The 3 major applications threatening Microsoft. according to Microsoft, were Emacs, GCC, and GhostScript. GhostScript is a key element, if not at least predecessor to CUPS. I think it is worth adding to the Emacs, GCC, and Gnu Debugger "list" in the opening paragraphs.

199.80.154.88 17:34, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I think they may just be wrong about that. The Ghostscript article and various hits[1][2] seem to suggest that Deutsch wrote/writes it, and Stallman merely convinced him to release all future versions under the GPL. --Gwern (contribs) 18:16 26 October 2007 (GMT)

Ghostscript#History. Chris Cunningham 18:42, 26 October 2007 (UTC)