RMS talks about the state of the free software movement: overall situation deteriorates

RMS talks about the state of the free software movement: overall situation deteriorates

RMS talks about the state of the free software movement: overall situation deteriorates, Apple creates ‘prison’.

On April 13, Richard Stallman, the 69-year-old founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the GNU Project, gave a speech about 90 minutes on the topic “The State of the Free Software Movement .”

The FSF said that due to unforeseen technical difficulties, RMS spoke only via audio. Click here for the full speech recording .

In his speech, RMS started by thanking all those who have contributed to free software, arguing that the free software movement should benefit everyone and morally exclude no one – even if a person is punished for a crime .

If you cut off a person’s contribution to free software for this reason, you’re punishing the world, not the person who committed the crime.

He goes on to point out some good examples of the free software movement, such as the major improvements to the GNU Emacs project, the hospital management facility provided by GNU Health, and the major upgrades to GNU Jami.

At the same time, RMS also pointed out that the situation of free software is deteriorating. Because the machines supporting free software are getting older and fewer.

Both Intel and AMD’s new hardware are restricting users’ freedom, and Apple’s ecology is developing in the direction of becoming a prison, making it more and more difficult for users to install and execute software by themselves.

RMS believes this should be illegal, and it should be illegal to sell computers that prohibit users from installing software from source code themselves .

During the Q&A session, RMS discussed his views on copyright, stating that he is not 100% against copyright. He argues that it is legal for copyright to exist, which covers the commercial distribution and use of a work and covers publicly visible modifications to the work.

RMS says it hates the node-ipc package that is targeting Russian and Belarusian IPs in the name of being anti-war , because it’s not specifically targeting war criminals – it affects all Russian developers, expanding Condemnation and hatred are not a good thing.

Finally, RMS closed the talk by announcing a new book he had written: The GNU C Compiler Handbook, and said the Free Software Foundation would release it soon.

According to RMS, this manual is not a standard for explaining the C language – because it would be very complicated and very difficult to use. The purpose of this manual is to enable people to learn the C language, while also enabling them to consult the detailed meaning of C structures.