although it has been in the sixties, but Richard Stallman (Richard Stallman) obviously failed to do "ear". At any time and on any occasion, he will unquestionable tone, free software and opinions disagree. "Free software is not equal to open source software. You are totally mistaken." In an interview with Sina Technology, he made the opening remarks.
in a later speech, he expressed the same dissatisfaction with an admiring fan and asked the other to cover the "open source" of T - shirt with a sticker marked with "Free Software". Stallman, who was born in
1953, has long been successful. He studied at Harvard University in the early years and entered the MIT artificial intelligence laboratory to become a programmer. He and his colleagues built a software sharing community to share code and communicate with programmers and technologists inside and outside the circle and to develop the software together.
, but since 1980s, the tide of business has swept across the IT industry, and IBM, Microsoft and apple have risen. Most of Stallman's colleagues gave up their original minds and wrote "non free software". The spirit of hackers also began to alienate, from the initial freedom, sharing and cooperation to attack, destroy and invade.
and stman chose solitude, start the GNU free operating system project, develop the core software such as the text editor Emacs, and gradually become the spiritual leader of the free software movement. He is also known as "father of free software" and has gained a lot of prestige, including the Macarthur prize, frontline foundation vanguard award and so on. He is elected as the academician of the National Academy of engineering, and is an honorary chair at many universities around the world.
however, his notoriety did not bring much revenue and lofty status to stman. Until now, he still needs to make money from flying speeches all over the world, far less than the new generation of Silicon Valley idols such as the Apple Corp Tim Cook, the Tesla car, CEO Elon Musk, and so on.
compared with the angry horses, Cook, musk, and others who came to China, stelman walked on the streets of Beijing, and almost no one could recognize the famous free software preacher. He had a short stature and a big belly, not far away and breathless; his gray hair was about one foot long and the length of the beard was the same; with two black travel bags and an unknown brand of light casual wear, there was not much difference from any American tourist.
as a free man who has nothing to do with the enterprise, Stallman expressed his mind in an interview without any businessman's hesitation and slippery manner. He slammed the big companies, attacked the American government, attacked the educational system, and even attacked all those who did not agree with his views with his sharp words and words.
in the view of stman, "free software" is king's paradise, and the rest are heresy. "Freedom, not free" is his favorite expression and his brief summary of the spirit of "free software".
free software is a life attitude
Stallman's office equipment is an old netbook, the screen is only 10 inches in size, and CPU is a non mainstream dragon core processor.
to stantman, "free software" is not only a metaphysical science and technology, moral and philosophical proposition, but also an extension to the form of a life attitude.
what kind of standard should a software meet? Can it be regarded as "free software"? Stamman gives four standards: users can run software freely; they can rewrite software according to their wishes and cooperate with others to redevelop software; be able to freely spread and distribute software; and can freely spread and distribute the revised version of the software.
"free software" not only means that the developer needs to open the source code to the people in need, but also means that the software can not be used by the subsequent iterated developers or enterprises for proprietary purposes, that is, "non liberalisation". This is inconsistent with the mainstream concept of intellectual property, while stman does not even acknowledge the existence of intellectual property and considers it a deception.
Stallman believes that if a software fails to meet the above standards, it is "non free software", which is characterized by software control users and software owners to control software. He claims that this is an "injustice power" and belongs to "digital colonization".
however, at the moment of big company leading software development, the real "free" operating systems and applications are scarce, and are largely limited to the GNU/Linux platform and related applications. Of course, Stallman refused to choose "non free software", which led to his little choice and fell into a paradox of freedom.
his office equipment is an old netbook, the screen is only 10 inches in size, and CPU is the non mainstream Godson processor. Because the hardware configuration is far behind the times, the performance of this device is very low, and even the speed of opening web pages is much slower than that of mainstream notebooks.
but when asked why not to replace ThinkPad or MacBook, Stallman was disdained: first, the performance of the computer had been able to meet his needs; secondly, it was able to use free software in BIOS, hardware drivers, operating systems, and application levels, which were all other notebooks. You can't do it.
he doesn't use a smartphone. In fact, he doesn't even like to see people using iPhone with a closed system in front of him, and Android phones are barely acceptable. When he needs to call, either use a fixed phone or borrow someone else's cell phone, because "the old brother does not know who is on the phone or where I am."
Stan is averse to mobile phones, the root reason is that he believes that the mobile phone is bound to collect user data and provide government agencies such as the NSA, the United States National Security Agency. He said: "the baseband chip of mobile phone has a universal backdoor. When we talk about free software such as Android and other systems, we usually stay on the user's software level; but the baseband chip is not a free software, and NSA can take the data.
the greedy
Stallman of the big company said, "I won't celebrate anyone's death; but I'm glad Jobs won't be able to harm the world again."
Stallman said, "I won't celebrate anyone's death; but I'm glad Jobs can't harm the world anymore."
stman undisguised hatred for big companies. "The evil of non free software stems from the greed of big companies." Apple, Microsoft and Facebook and other companies are extremely guilty. Only Google can get into the law, but it is only "not bad".
, how do these companies do evil? Stallman thinks they transform software into "malware". "Their software will monitor or restrict users, called 'digital handcuffs'; they implant the back door and even upload the data to the censorship - the apple is the initiator, and the Microsoft is the same."
in his view, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, is a "smart and greedy businessman", and the late founder of apple, Steve Jobs, is a "evil genius." Google's two founders, Larry page and Sergio Brin, were spared because Android allowed users to install unauthorized applications.
this extreme method of character evaluation has made stonman suffer a lot of criticism. 3 years ago, when Jobs died, Stallman said on his personal website, "I will not be happy for his death, but will be happy for him to leave." The speech came out and the public opinion was in an uproar for a moment.
in an interview at the end of the weekend, Stallman explained, "I won't celebrate anyone's death; but I'm glad that Jobs can't do any more harm to the world." He thinks that Jobs is a "evil genius", who has learned how to make computers into digital prisons and make them shine and make people voluntarily "go to prison".
his "closing statement" is: "Jobs has caused permanent injury; until now, we are still trying to eliminate this injury." He also said that Apple equipment "jailbreak" is perfectly reasonable, reasonable and legal, and even legislation should prohibit the production of closed equipment.
for Google, Stallman believes that only two services are available: search engines and Gmail services that can run in a free software environment. But even for Google search, he has to use it on others' computers to prevent "Google knows what I browse and search."
away from the network: for freedom to choose
stman calls those who do not use free software as "fools", and he thinks that free software and non free software are non black and white.
stman calls those who do not use free software "stupid". He thinks that free software and non free software are incompatible.
Stallman's extreme admiration for free software has even risen to the level of good and evil. He said: "non free software is evil, and free software is part of the good in the field of IT." He also calls people who do not use free software "sucker". The concept of
gives him a strong sense of distrust of the whole Internet, and even the whole technology circle, and even to a certain extent it has fallen into the shackles of conspiracy theory. In his view, convenience is negligible compared with freedom, security and privacy.
he downloads e - mail from the Internet using an old software, then disconnects the network, writes a reply, and then reconnects to the network and sends mail in batch. He will write the mail on the flight which is unable to surf the Internet, and send it to the Internet after landing. Unlike ordinary Internet users who like to stay online, he plays most of the time on a stand-alone version.
he doesn't use Facebook because it will also cause personal data to be collected; WhatsApp and other mobile - terminal social applications are considered to be a great beast, not enough. Only Twitter got part of the approval, but he asked the user to disable the browser's Javascript before "push", because Twitter would use it to push non free software.
he doesn't understand social communication and viral marketing. He has no blog, no social networking personal homepage, nor has he opened his own channel on YouTube. His personal website is also very simple. There are only some words and hyperlinks. There can be no aesthetic considerations.
Stallman's stubbornness makes him appear incompatible with the times, like a fossilized but useless fossil. However, he was satisfied with the multifarious programme of action, and was expected to benefit the world. "I've got rid of the non free software. But it is not enough for me to escape alone. Everyone should enjoy freedom. " He said.
he wants to teach people more about the value of "freedom": "you have to make a choice: is freedom more important, or is convenience more important?" When they get your data, they will give you some convenience, but on other occasions, they will let you unknowingly suffer losses or be restricted. "
in his opinion, free software and non free software are not "good" or "better" problems, but are neither black nor white. The two have been coexisting for decades, and will continue to exist in the foreseeable future, but Stallman's attitude is "uncompromising". "If you want freedom, there is no room for coexistence with non free software." He said.
seeks government support for
stonman calls on individual users to abandon traditional desktop operating systems and turn to GNU/Linux platforms.
stonman appealed to individual users to abandon traditional desktop OS and turn to GNU/Linux platform.
but Stallman also acknowledged that, both in China and in the United States, the development of free software is not ideal. It is limited to business - level markets such as workstations and microcomputers, as well as a small group of geeks.
he appealed to individual users to abandon the traditional desktop operating system, turn to the GNU/Linux platform, and switch to applications that would not collect user data at all. In his view, "if you allow a company to collect your data, you will expose your throat to NSA's butcher's knife."
, but can users quickly accept a strange operating system? Stallman thinks it's not a problem. He gave an example: Mako Hill, a free software activist, decided to move a school from Windows to GNU/Linux system. He reinstalled the operating system of all the computers in the school, and told everyone that it was an "operation system upgrade". Although software and graphical interfaces are different, people are quick to accept changes, and it is not difficult to use them.
stman repeatedly stressed that users are not "unable" to accept free software, but "not yet" understand and accept. Many people do not know free software, but after explaining it, they can understand this idea. "They are ignorant, not for their stupidity." He said.
but at the national level, he does not believe that the US government will publicly support free software in the near future, because it not only obtains political contributions from large enterprises such as Microsoft and apple, but also the lobbying of intellectual property and copyright protection agencies.
however, free software has been successful in South America. Supporters include Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru and other governments; they regard non free software as a threat from the United States and are a tool for espionage.
the Chinese government has also realized the danger of over reliance on non free software such as Windows XP. In April 8th of this year, Microsoft announced that it would stop XP's security update. The Ministry of industry and information subsequently announced that it wanted users to pay attention to the potential security risks of XP and to strengthen the research and development of the Linux operating system; Fang Binxing, academician of the National Academy of engineering, said that the upgrade to Win7 or Win8 was more dangerous than the continued use of XP, and the government should nurture domestic operating systems and gradually replace overseas products. Stallman praised this, saying "Windows XP is crazy."
the understanding of free software is increasing in China. In 1994, Stallman gave his first speech to China. No one knew how to make money from free software, and could not imagine cooperation for public welfare. Now, free software has been in China and has a lot of loyal fans.
, however, Stowe has a strong blood and has not yet been officially recognized by the government. Without official support, the promotion of free software in China will be very difficult.
he wants to talk to officials and deliver ideas, but he can't meet all the time. He can only talk in various colleges or universities, or take a lecture for business invitation. Compared with Cook and musk and others who came to China for the first time, Stallman came to China for the more than 10 time, but he was always wandering on the edge of various circles.
Xu Jizhe, founder of domestic free software and founder of philosophy network, is a friend of Stallman. He has repeatedly planned the latter to come to China. He does not think that free software will overwhelm non free software. He must be more calm about the development of free software in China.
"its greater role is to open people's minds, for example, whether mobile applications require a large number of permissions." He said.
stman is becoming less and less like a IT leader, but is increasingly approaching cynic critics. His personal website is full of political arguments, including "supporting the green party", "boycotting Harry Potter," and "do not do business with apples", "do not do business with the Amazon" and so on.
the unundeniable 61 year old American old man can reminiscent of many things, such as Harley moto, pistol duel, western cowboy, and Havana cigar. He is no longer young and has no creativity and imagination in his youth, but free software has become his spiritual paradise. At the end of the interview, the veteran confidently said, "I will not compromise, nor will I find an excuse to retreat."