“Almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” – Steve Jobs’

I will remember the way he lived, if I manage to emulate a fraction of it I will consider it a good life.


CC

My first thoughts:

I know people are sad that SJ has died - I am as well.

For me though, the sadness is that a father and husband has died of cancer at the age of 56. Compared to that, inventing any amount of technology just seems a little... ...erm... ...small.

It's quite possible, as the Americans say, to walk and chew gum at the same time. Of course the loss of a father and husband is tragic, but there's nothing wrong with others - most of whom never met him - celebrating and remembering the other things he achieved in his time here, which were many and varied. Yes he was a father and husband, but he was also someone who wanted to "put a dent in the universe" and it's probably safe to assume he'd like to be remembered for his attempts to do that.

QTF, 56 is far too young for anyone to die these days.

RIP

Thing is - we all know him not as the father, husband, brother, but as that bloke who launched products and whose personality drove them from conception to sale. To us, that’s what he was.

BTW, I’ll point you all to this article on the BBC News website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15212406



What a task. Launching a product, trying to keep upbeat about it when your boss, friend, colleague is quite literally expiring.

RMS seems happy: I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone.

The is only one possible response to that - [LIFTED].

I said this on Twitter: Stallman increasingly reminds me of a bloke who lived in a park outside my apartment in Sydney and would shout at the traffic all day.

He displays all the geek fascist intolerance that keeps me, and the vast majority of computer users, away from "free" software. We don't care about ideology, we just want stuff to work. Stallman and his ilk may see that as "foolish"; we see it as having better things to do with our time - like talking to females and concerning ourselves with personal hygiene.

That malign influence on computing being that people want and like to use it because Jobs was all about the user experience. His vision made sure that computing reaches the masses and they can pick it up and have it make their lives easier without too much hassle. Prime example being my mother who is a complete technophobe but learned how to use her iPhone in a short amount of time. Something that hippy should pay attention to.



A freedom Stallman doesn't seem aware of. Freedom from worrying about will it work, what do I have to do to make it work etc.

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Err... no. That malign influence being, in RMS' eyes, "the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom..."


His statements elsewhere would seem to show that he's perfectly aware, but that he thinks other things are more important.

From http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/

Freedom to do what, exactly? What is the thing that his 'freedom' allows him to do that other 'non free' systems stop their users from doing? I don't know, but I'll bet a very large amount of money on one thing : it's something more than 99% of the population of the civilised world absolutely do not give a crap about.

We're not 'free' to do whatever we like on the roads, but pretty much all people are happy with that because it means we pretty much all get to arrive at our destinations in one piece. Taken in his literalist, dogmatic way civilisation itself is a restriction of freedom and should be abolished. We all give up the 'right to freedom' - the right to do what the hell we like - on the basis that it's the way we all get to live together without killing each other every day. That's what civilisation is. He's not a visionary or a great thinker, he's the technology community's equivalent of the hermit who goes and lives in a cave, has twigs in his beard and eats insects but claims he's somehow better off than anyone else because he's free to do whatever he wants.

He's an idiot and a bloody uncouth one at that, who patently has no sense of reasonable behaviour. Using someone's death from cancer as an excuse to advance an agenda. It's despicable.

Jon

That's putting it kindly.



Please do.

I read it more how one might say "No offence but...".

I can't even form a valid argument. I despised the bloke and have done from the first time I read about him.

Richard Stallman has a much nobler legacy in terms of computing than Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates. His efforts and beliefs have helped make Linux and other free software what it is today (thanks also goes out to Linus Torvalds), and there is not only a noble ideology behind free software, which benefits humanity instead of Apple or Microsoft shareholders, but it drives improvements in non-free software too.

Richard Stallman believes in the enrichment of the whole instead of his personal wealth, and on that basis he has my utmost respect.

One thing I'll give Bill Gates is that he's very philanthropic with his fortune, Steve Jobs showed no such interest.

That you choose to use closed systems is your choice, and Stallman's stance of refusing to use non-open platforms, services etc is probably unworkable for a lot of people, but the fact remains he has a valid point - closed systems do not, ultimately, benefit consumers - you are at the mercy of Apple/Microsoft/Google (all of whom have stopped support or refused to play nicely with each other's products) and thus we'd all benefit from truly open software - be it the OS, codecs, productivity suites, web services etc etc.

I've seen many people on here bemoan being at the mercy of the likes of Facebook, the very same rules apply to your webmail, operating system, office suite etc etc.

Unfortunately, open systems do not benefit my mother who has no idea how to reprogram them to do what she wants to do. They generally look unfinished/unpolished unless backed by some corporation that pays staff to do a good job, and are often not aimed at the end user to tinker around with them - i.e. it's not easy for every user to play with the insides and get it to do what they want, or even validate that is doesn't do something they don't want it to do.

Open systems are great, but the open source communities can come across as rampaging religious types, and the software is often like religion - wishy-washy around the edges...

While all of this makes for a good debate, we probably shouldn't be having it in this thread. Yes RMS may have done more good that Steve Jobs, but I still don't think a comment like that was called for, in my opinion.