Please do be specific about how Stallman is "too divisive" and somehow responsible for what you see as problems. Your claims are so vague it's hard to know if you are attacking the messenger instead of conveying that you understand what is being spoken about in the differences between the free software and open source movements. Quotes and references to published material would help you in what appears to be a vastly overrated post.

It seems reasonable to me to expect that any proprietor who wants to withhold software freedom from users give up that power when the program enters the public domain; code escrow as Stallman describes sounds like a viable solution to me and a perfectly fair exchange for the public. What's not reasonable is the status quo which is endless power over the user.

for most real world software houses, this doesn't happen anymore

Source? Evidence? Cygnus didn't seem to have trouble finding customers for GCC support.

As a compromise, the company I work for publishes all of our data formats (at least in my division) and nearly everything exports to XML. That means competitors and free software can create their own implementation, and people have. [...]

I don't know if that's supposed to mean the program is free software or not. If the software is nonfree, then there's no compromise that is a substitute for software freedom. Getting data out of the program won't give users an idea of what's going on when the program runs. If the program is nonfree, malware may be running. Or maybe features the users want aren't implementable by people they trust.

In the recent Clang thread, you seemed to say quality of software either isn't important to you, or at least is less important than the software being free software.

I'm not sure what post of Stallman's you're referring to because you linked to nothing and quoted nothing. Your statement is without a clear basis in anything he said, and therefore seems specious. I'll assume you're referring to his post on the GCC mailing list in which he says:

For GCC to be replaced by another technically superior compiler that defended freedom equally well would cause me some personal regret, but I would rejoice for the community's advance.

So when you follow up with:

As someone who writes software for a living, this seemed like a "jump the shark" moment. (But maybe you jumped this particular shark long ago.)

you seem to have no serious issue to raise, just name-calling. What part of what he said to the GCC list convinces you that Stallman "seemed to say quality of software [...] isn't important" as if that was to be a seriously considered alternative? For many years, GNU programs have been known as considerably powerful, GCC being one of them. Given the totality of what Stallman has been saying since 1984 it seems so much more reasonable to conclude that Stallman believes software freedom is more important than technical superiority that I suspect you're trolling.

Code quality is an achievement won with hard work, to be sure, but the fight for securing software freedom has historically taken considerable time in addition to any technical improvements needed. When people's attention is diverted away from ethics, the community suffers. This is true in every field of endeavor, software development is no exception. As the open source movement was designed to not talk about how people treat each other (1, 2), we need a careful and thorough rejection of the notion that programmers can afford to ply their talents without regard for how helping proprietors hurts our community. The free software movement gives us that ethics-based critique and it also gives us practical software with which to further improve our community.

However, your computer's BIOS, while in the past was usually impossible to change, can today be upgraded easily. That's why we now have Coreboot.

You make it sound as if technical difficulty in changing BIOS software is the issue, and I'm not sure if you realize that is not so. Software freedom has to do with an ethically based argument about giving permission to legally inspect, share, and modify published software (and, ideally, securing those freedoms to make sure nobody takes them away later). With BIOS code, as with any proprietary software, the distinction is not technical capability. The distinction centers on who is legally allowed to do what.

BIOSes prior to the arrival of Coreboot weren't all "impossible to change". BIOS distributors demonstrated that by making BIOS changes and distributing new proprietary BIOS software packages. Users were offered proprietary binaries that they could run—an ordinary installer program that allows non-technical users to easily install a new BIOS on the system.

But users were not given a copy of BIOS source code, users were not given permission to distribute the BIOS, and users were not given permission to modify the BIOS software. These users were subjugated to the BIOS developer's rule so long as they ran that BIOS code: users had no freedom to help themselves or their community. Coreboot changes this because Coreboot respects a user's software freedom, but the difference here is one of licensing. With Coreboot any user willing to learn what Coreboot does may inspect, share, and modify Coreboot; freedoms those same users don't have with a proprietary BIOS.

RMS isn't in this for popularity, he's pushing to get society to respect user's software freedom because that's what's ethical. Besides, relative to ethical observations and considered ethical thought, systemd is a minor technical change. Software changes come along from time to time and will continue to do so even replacing systemd. For all we know GNU/Hurd will offer something comparably suitable for everyday use.

Mod this one up everyone... the ONLY question out of all of these that we can't guess Stallman's answer to.

Sorry, but there's no need to guess what he'd say because he has published his thoughts on this long ago. Perhaps his position has changed, but if it had changed I'd expect an update to the aforementioned article at its current location, not an announcement of anything new on /..

How would the Swedish Pirate Party's platform affect copylefted free software? After five years, its source code would go into the public domain, and proprietary software developers would be able to include it in their programs. But what about the reverse case?

Proprietary software is restricted by EULAs, not just by copyright, and the users don't have the source code. Even if copyright permits noncommercial sharing, the EULA may forbid it. In addition, the users, not having the source code, do not control what the program does when they run it. To run such a program is to surrender your freedom and give the developer control over you.

So what would be the effect of terminating this program's copyright after 5 years? This would not require the developer to release source code, and presumably most will never do so. Users, still denied the source code, would still be unable to use the program in freedom. The program could even have a "time bomb" in it to make it stop working after 5 years, in which case the "public domain" copies would not run at all.

Thus, the Pirate Party's proposal would give proprietary software developers the use of GPL-covered source code after 5 years, but it would not give free software developers the use of proprietary source code, not after 5 years or even 50 years. The Free World would get the bad, but not the good. The difference between source code and object code and the practice of using EULAs would give proprietary software an effective exception from the general rule of 5-year copyright — one that free software does not share.

He also proposes a reasonable fix:

So I proposed that the Pirate Party platform require proprietary software's source code to be put in escrow when the binaries are released. The escrowed source code would then be released in the public domain after 5 years. Rather than making free software an official exception to the 5-year copyright rule, this would eliminate proprietary software's unofficial exception. Either way, the result is fair.

I can only guess neither you nor the original poster tried looking up keywords in a search engine (like "stallman copyright pirate party") to find the article. Also, perhaps neither of you understand that Stallman is not a member of the open source movement nor has he ever been. Thus it is not his interest to frame this issue in terms of a "closed source" anything (to use the original questioner's words). Stallman explains his position on the difference between his movement, the free software movement, and the younger proprietary-friendly open source movement in a pair of articles which have been published for many years (older article, newer article) and in just about every talk I've ever heard him give. In fact, the intro to this /. story pointed you to one of these articles.

I don't know about "Internet.org" specifically but as for using anything tied to Facebook, Instagram, and similar services: Try watching any of his recent talks, from the most recent talks to the talks dating back about a year or three. He tells you right at the top of the talk what he thinks of Facebook, Instagram, and the like—he dares to call them by their proper name: surveillance engines—and he asks users to not participate by not uploading copies of his talks and photos with him to these services. You can also read his personal website on Facebook detailing many reasons to avoid Facebook. I imagine any other service that works similarly ("Google+", for example) will receive a comparable critique.

It seems unlikely to me that any program started by these organizations will be anything other than come-ons to lose one's privacy to these data collection companies.

There are free software web browser add-ons you can install on your free software web browser: Priv3, NoScript, and various cookie editors/filters which will help you deal with the monitoring various services use when you get an offer to be tracked with a "like" button or similar thing. There's more work to be done on this ground, to be sure, but this is a good start.

I think a good speaker's charisma is a distracting issue; to frame the value of a good speaker in terms of charisma is to not spend time focusing on the veracity and importance of the message that speaker has to convey. Charisma is too often used to hide a hideous message; metaphorically candy-coating anti-social messages. Charismsa is also used by the lazy listener: why bother parsing what the speaker actually says when one can get away with superficially evaluating charisma in a 5-second sound bite?

It's easy to get around this distraction by reading a transcript of what the speaker has to say instead of hearing or watching their performance. Reading their books or papers is also very informative because that medium affords a writer the time to consider what they want to say, a luxury one doesn't have answering questions in realtime.

There are some confusions in what you're asking. It isn't Stallman or the FSF's job to supply anyone with a business model. It's the FSF's job to lay out the ethical argument to defend their case that nonfree software is unjust and that we all deserve software freedom. Put differently, and not to equate nonfree software with slavery (slavery is more oppressive than nonfree software), but ethical arguments against slavery don't have an obligation to provide alternative labor sources to exploit. Ethical arguments against slavery have to lay out why people should be treated with human dignity as equals and not as slaves. With that, there are some approaches you should consider:

1. You can learn to be more charismatic, if you think it necessary, but plenty of speakers with important messages (including talking about issues of life and death) are not charismatic (charisma being an eminently subjective quality). Speakers including Noam Chomsky and Jeremy Scahill get large standing-room-only audiences of engaged listeners while delivering their ideas in a perfectly reasonable way because of what they have to say and write. I find this approach to be far more respectful to the audience than that of a charismatic speaker who delivers horrible messages like US President Obama who charismatically tells the world that he'll continue George W. Bush's wars against terror, or deflects serious discussion of what he does every Tuesday when he picks whom to assassinate (sometimes referred to as "Terror Tuesdays"), or when he delivers content-free acceptance speeches like he did in Grant Park spouting vague platitudes about his forthcoming presidency (as Adolph Reed Jr. pointed out on an interview with Bill Moyers, Obama gave "evocative statements" with "no real content"), and more).
2. You can learn to write other software. You can learn to do other jobs besides writing software.
3. All software needs support, regardless of user interface. There are also features businesses will pay for that need to be added to extant free software, such as directory service-related features desired for easier mass deployment within their organization. You can learn to write software that is sold based on its support; other organizations have charged large sums of money based on software they did not initially write; Cygnus which, until it was bought by Red Hat, provided GCC consulting services.
4. Apparently other people find ways to develop and distribute software via Internet download, make money, and do loads of other jobs all while not exploiting people.

Stallman is not going to address your reference to "open source" in the way you expect because he is not a representative of the open source movement, nor has he ever been. Perhaps you would have done well to read the summary /. provided on this story and the links contained therein. One of those links pointed you to a long-published article about how Stallman is not a spokesperson for "open source" and he has pointed out significant differences between his older movement—the free software movement—and the younger open source movement which focuses on development methodology (and is therefore willing to install and recommend nonfree software). That newer essay updates an older essay which has been published in print as well as online.

Also, developing and distributing free software doesn't always mean publishing GNU GPL-covered programs. There are lots of other free software licenses from which to choose depending on the details of the program and one's goals in distributing the program.

I imagine the FSF doesn't have the resources to manufacture and distribute their own hardware, and it is still true that hardware is manufactured not copied. But perhaps you were not aware that the FSF runs the "Respects Your Freedom" campaign which currently endorses the Gluglug X60 laptop computer since December 18th, 2013 along with a 3D printer and a couple of wireless adapters one can connect to a computer via USB.

Stallman has said in numerous talks that he doesn't own a cell phone because not only due to lack of respect for his software freedom but also because they are (more properly identified as) trackers. He rightly objects to handing over data to track his location, as is part of a cell phone's normal operation. As with so many of these issues, his precience in looking out for his own privacy predates the headlines—Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept report that the NSA has been using SIM cards (commonly used with cell phones) tracking data to target drone attacks: "What's more, he adds, the NSA often locates drone targets by analyzing the activity of a SIM card, rather than the actual content of the calls. Based on his experience, he has come to believe that the drone program amounts to little more than death by unreliable metadata.".

As for "openness of source", you'd do well to read the summary /. provided on this story and the links contained therein. One of those links pointed you to a long-published article about how Stallman is not a spokesperson for "open source" and he has pointed out significant differences between his older movement—the free software movement—and the younger open source movement which focuses on development methodology (and is therefore willing to install and recommend nonfree software). That newer essay updates an older essay which has been published in print as well as online.

Stallman has also long pointed out that code in unchangeable hardware (code in ROM, for example) is equivalent to hardware in that the user and the developer are facing the same hurdles to modify that code. So I'd imagine that a toaster with code in ROM would be a candidate toaster for him to own. But so many devices these days have updateable code. If the code can be changed the user and developer might not be on an equal footing with regards to who is allowed to change that code (free software grants you the freedoms nonfree software does not grant). Thus this more common occurrence raises all the issues he's been talking about, writing/publishing software for, and organizing against for decades.

No, the GNU GPL focuses on the rights of the user. Developers and distributors (now "conveyors" in GPLv3) are restricted from exercising powers governments grant them in favor of letting users exercise their rights granted under the GPL (including section 3 aptly named "Protecting Users' Legal Rights From Anti-Circumvention Law", exercising patent powers as described in section 11, and various freedoms and responsibilites for conveying copies in sections 4 through 6).

Perhaps you are confusing the free software movement with the younger open source movement which does frame the issues it addresses in terms of a developmental methodology. The two movements aren't the same and the two movements don't always agree—sometimes reaching radically different results like when faced with powerful, reliable proprietary software.

Stallman has long stated that it is unethical to hold power over the user, and that proprietary (nonfree) software (no matter its purpose) subjugates the user to the developer's control. The free software definition itself says " The nonfree program controls the users, and the developer controls the program; this makes the program an instrument of unjust power.". As we learn of ever increasing uses of this power (many stories carried on /., the ongoing NSA scandal) we learn that software freedom is more important than ever before. Looking at these issues simply as a developmental methodology (throwing out ethical consideration as the open source movement is designed to do) simply won't fix the problem. There are other related issues involved as well, and Stallman has addressed them for years in talks. I recommend any of his talks about "A Free Digital Society". He is, as usual, way ahead of the corporate press and their repeaters on /. regarding these issues.

The FSF's comments on the Hacktivismo Enhanced-Source Software License Agreement (HESSLA) are informative here. HESSLA:

tries to put restrictions of ethical conduct on use and modification of the software. Because it restricts what jobs people can use the software for, and restricts in substantive ways what jobs modified versions of the program can do, it is not a free software license. The ironic result is that the community of people most likely to feel sympathy for the goals of the HESSLA cannot contribute to HESSLA-covered software without violating its principles.

This issue apparently comes up often enough and is important enough where the FSF has published an essay on why programs must not limit the freedom to run them which is also linked to the aforementioned HESSLA commentary.

Considering the FSF's document pointed to above dates back multiple years, I'd say RMS has long answered your question.

The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) is a strongly copylefted Free Software license which uses the word "prohibit" for multiple things. I'd hardly think an organization would put such language in their license if they objected to the use of the words as you think they do.

For example, Section 2 of the GNU GPL version 3 does what it can to clearly prohibits proprietarization: (emphasis mine)

You may make, run and propagate covered works that you do not convey, without conditions so long as your license otherwise remains in force. You may convey covered works to others for the sole purpose of having them make modifications exclusively for you, or provide you with facilities for running those works, provided that you comply with the terms of this License in conveying all material for which you do not control copyright. Those thus making or running the covered works for you must do so exclusively on your behalf, under your direction and control, on terms that prohibit them from making any copies of your copyrighted material outside their relationship with you.

This prohibition is a good thing because proprietary software subjugates the user to the developer's control; that's why proprietary software is developed and distributed. Proprietary software is often malware and thus a mechanism for spying on the user, removing programs the user wants to keep installed, and more anti-freedom activities that deny users complete control over their computer. This all happens to any user regardless of how skilled they are with computing, or how willing they are to take advantage of their software freedom.

Section 3 of the GNU GPL version 3 prevents conveyers from exercising legal power to forbid circumvention of technical measures:

When you convey a covered work, you waive any legal power to forbid circumvention of technological measures to the extent such circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work, and you disclaim any intention to limit operation or modification of the work as a means of enforcing, against the work's users, your or third parties' legal rights to forbid circumvention of technological measures.

Section 7c of the GNU GPL version 3 "prohibits" misrepresenting material from upstream conveyed copies ("Prohibiting misrepresentation of the origin of that material, or requiring that modified versions of such material be marked in reasonable ways as different from the original version").

Section 11 of the GNU GPL version 3 includes a prohibition to make sure certain patents don't lock users out of exercising the freedoms the license grants.

The details matter: To understand what's going on you have to understand what is being forbidden and prohibited, why these allowances and restrictions are necessary, which users are affected, and how and then evaluate if those causes and remedies are right and proper.