Yes, I’m getting back to this subject. I’ve already wrote about the piece Stallman wrote on Gates leaving MS and that he shouldn’t be talking about proprietary software like that. Well, Matt Maroon writes Free & Proprietary and I agree with him at 100%.
Stallman, upon any research at all, appears to be the tech-industry equivalent of a communist. He thinks that proprietary software (software whose source code is not freely available) is essentially evil, and free software has become religion to him. He evangelizes it at every opportunity, demonizes anyone working toward a dissimilar goal (as in the Gates piece) and seems to be immune to any evidence that there might even be an opposing argument, let alone one that holds any truth.
I have already written about my view on proprietary vs opensource software, but they can both co-exist. I don’t believe that all website should be free, in fact many great opensource companies (like RedHat or MySQL) have used a community/opensource version and also a commercial proprietary version that has all the cutting-edge technologies that will eventually be available in the opensource version. Are they also evil? I don’t think. Oh, and Microsoft also has OpenSource software available ( IronPython, IronRuby and lot of stuff in CodePlex)
That, rather than insults, should be the Free Software Foundation’s approach. Don’t argue that Bill Gates was unethical for promoting proprietary software. Argue that he would have better served Microsoft shareholders (that was his job) by building and promoting open ones instead, because proprietary software is a bad idea. Raise awareness for your cause, but do it without vilification.
The problem is, Stallman clearly can’t win that argument. It’s hard to argue that the man who was the world’s richest for decades could have somehow done better for himself or his shareholders, or the world at large. It’s obvious that up to this point, proprietary software has created a vibrant ecosystem and immense profits that probably would not have existed were all software open source. It’s driven the computer revolution, which is the most significant shift in technology and user behavior in living memory. It may be that the tide is turning, and it’s becoming easier every day to make money from open technologies as well. But Bill totally won round 1.
So rather than trying to pose a logical argument, which cannot be done, like any religious man Stallman resorts to insults and vilification. Bill Gates isn’t a tech and business genius rolled into one (something incredibly rare) but instead he’s an enslaving, monopolistic, unethical software super-villain, whose only purpose in life has been to ensure that you cannot do what you want with your computer. He’s a very narrowly-focused Satan, the Beelzebub of the Free Software Religion, and therefore anything he does, including being by far the greatest philanthropist in the history of the world, is, by definition, evil.