[oak perl] RMS Interview

Wed Mar 8 21:06:41 PST 2006

I hadn't read that interview it till now. Thank you for pointing it out. Each question/answer is separated by multiple hyphens, my comments are followed by a single hyphen:

FB: GNU/Linux (the complete OS!) is probably the most known free software project. What do you think about the fact that Linux (the kernel!) uses a proprietary program to manage its source code?

RMS: There are already free programs that do the same basic job. Linus Torvalds feels they are not convenient enough, and he values convenience more than he values standing firm for freedom. I think that is leading the community in the wrong direction.

- I think Linus does value freedom. I think he also is pragmatic, and he most certainly needs to be efficient. By using a proprietary source code management system, Linus actually set a good example of how open-source and proprietary technology can be used together. When Linus encountered a licensing problem with BitTorrent, he abandoned it and developed his own system (Git,) which is open-source and free.

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FB: What is your opinion on the fact that Linux (the kernel!) supports binary drivers without too many problems? I'll make an example: the OpenBSD project didn't support Atheros wireless chips because they require a binary HAL provided with an incompatible license for their goals and policy. They act consistently. Do you think that Linux (the kernel!) should try a similar rigorous approach?

RMS: Yes! And so should the developers of GNU/Linux distributions. This is very important.

- No! Richard isn't staying true to the concept of freedom with that statement. True freedom means giving users freedom to accept and utilize a proprietary binary driver, if they choose to do so (and there are situations where it is advantageous to do so.) Again, this is a wonderful example of Linus' flexibility and pragmatism.

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FB: Do you think that hardware manufacturers should make public all the datasheets, docs, specifications, and details about their products? Something like free (as in freedom) hardware?

RMS: If a hardware developer won't tell you how to use the hardware they sell you, don't buy it.

I am not campaigning for laws that would require all software to come with source code, but I do think that governments should require all new computer hardware that is sold commercially to come with full specifications.

FB: Would you sign and promote a petition or an initiative for free access to hardware specifications?

RMS: I'd endorse any sort of nonviolent democratic political activity to promote such a law.

-  It depends on what level of specification you're talking about, and neither of them was specific about how detailed the disclosure would be. Hardware developers, especially of video controllers, do tend to be paranoid about disclosing much of anything about the internal workings of their products; open-source operating systems have suffered because of it. There are different reasons given for the secrecy, and from the hardware manufacturer's perspective they are legitimate. This is a difficult area, and as previously mentioned Linus has taken the pragmatic approach by allowing binary drivers to operate with the kernel. Another approach is to create standard API's for different devices, like OpenGL for video cards, and continue allowing hardware manufacturers to develop binary drivers. Unfortunately, attempts at such standards, OpenGL is an example, get bogged down by politics. So, it looks like Linus' approach will be the best we have for quite some time. Sony is about to launch
 the Playstation 3, which will have the most powerful commercial microprocessor ever. The Playstation 3 will ship only with Linux, NO MICROSOFT WINDOWS, and a powerful NVidia graphics controller. The NVidia driver is most likely proprietary, but so what, progress has been made. Sony is expected to sell about 200 million Playstation 3s, which means 200 million Linux boxes in the hands of young people. FOR THE PERL MONGERS:  I believe Sony may be using lots of Perl for infrastructure and sys admin type stuff on the Playstation 3; I say this based on Sony job descriptions seen in the past.

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FB: It seems that Sun Microsystems wants to release Java source code. Do you think that a language such as Java could spread more if it were covered by the GPL?

- If Java had been GPLed when Sun approached ISO to certify Java an an International Standard, then Java would today be an ISO standard. Thank God for standards bodies.

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RMS: When we started developing the Hurd, there was no free kernel. Our motive was to get a free kernel.

Since we now have a free kernel that works, namely Linux, it's no longer essential to develop the Hurd. We are continuing to work on it for two reasons:

   1. It has a more powerful design and that will provide some advantages.
   2. It would be a GNU kernel, from the GNU Project.

Neither of these advantages applies to the idea of using Solaris.

FB: What is the status of Hurd development?

RMS: The Hurd runs, but not reliably. The developers are working on it slowly now, although one is arranging to get funds to work on it a substantial fraction of his time. The developers have concluded that Mach is unreliable as a microkernel and that they need to transplant the Hurd to L4 instead. But this requires substantial rewrites.

- Hmmm... first he says that Hurd "... has a more powerful design and that will provide some advantages." Then he says "The developers have concluded that Mach is unreliable as a microkernel and that they need to transplant the Hurd to L4 instead. But this requires substantial rewrites." So what is the "more powerful design" that will provide "some advantages"? Based on those statements, one assumes this more powerful design transcends the more mundane issues of kernel architecture.

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FB: I was looking at the operating systems market of the past few years. I think that every Mac OS X release keeps adding innovations that improve the experience of its users, but I don't see this type of improvements in any commercial (Red Hat, Mandrake, Novell/SuSE ...) GNU/Linux distribution. It seems to me that these big companies build a complete product simply putting together the result of various external projects. They take Linux (the kernel!), GCC, and other GNU utilities, XFree/X.Org, KDE/Gnome, and so on. Where are the innovations for the user?

- The interviewer is apparently unaware of some of the kernel enhancements contributed by SuSE. Also, SuSE's system administration tool Yast is quite excellent (it also isn't a free as in freedom program.) I'm not familiar with Mandrake and Red Hat, but I recall hearing about security enhancements and other enhancements contributed by those companies. The Linux community seems to be more concerned about building a strong foundation first, then adding the chrome later. An example of this is the KDE desktop environment:  the KDE team has been somewhat chaotic and fractured recently because they are in the middle of a major architectural change. They are more concerned with providing a good underlying structure that can then be used to create the types of slick applications the interviewer alludes to. Maybe they should have done this earlier, but if you look at their budget and the large percentage of volunteer effort, then their achievments are quite amazing.

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MY SYNOPSIS:

Richard Stallman is an incredibly valuable individual to the open-source community. He is a purist with extreme standards. Some of his standards will most likely remain unobtainable, but that doesn't diminish the important role he plays by insistance on those standards.

Cheers,

Adrien

This is a good time to be alive.

George Woolley <george at metaart.org> wrote: Link to Interview:
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html

I just came across an interview with Richard Stallman
that seems incredible clear to me.
It's from December 2004,
so perhaps you've already read it.

If you are interested and read it,
I'd be most interested in your comments.

George

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