I checked Slashdot earlier today and found that Richard M Stallman is under fire for comments regarding Steve Jobs. The exact comment is posted below and a short Google will provide enough commentary via a variety of websites and comment section flame wars to keep you reading for quite some time. I’ve italicised the controversial section.
“Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.
As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, “I’m not glad he’s dead, but I’m glad he’s gone.” Nobody deserves to have to die – not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs’ malign influence on people’s computing.
Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective.”
Let me be frank, I value my freedom and as such I run Linux as my main desktop O/S. I can see where RMS is coming from with regards to the whole “computer as a jail” idea, it harks back to the bad old days when when parts of the internet were walled off and proprietary, for example Compuserve. I have not bought an Apple device for some years, after buying MacOS X for my blueberry iBook and then quickly having support dropped by just about everyone, when 10.1 arrived. This left me facing a bill of over £100 to carry on using the machine, even though I was already a paying customer and the software wasn’t technically out of support! I seethed, then installed Yellow Dog Linux, gave Apple two fingers, and never looked back.
I should disclose that I have an iPhone but only as my company provides and requires it, their standard is Apple phones and that’s it, my own mobile is an Android device. So what do I see? To my eyes, iTunes is well designed, iTunesU certainly seems interesting, but the content is available elsewhere on the open Internet. Also, while Apple are accused of restrictive DRM, I can play my iTunes purchases on OpenSuSE Linux with no problems. I am however looking for an alternative to Amazon / iTunes.
Anyway, back on topic. While I can empathise with where RMS stands, I see his comments as badly timed and frankly, there was no need to say it like that. Though I will observe that in his next two sentences RMS does separate the man from his legacy, or as the Christians say “love the sinner, hate the sin”.
Steve Jobs went too early, it wasn’t a nice way to go (is there one?) and at this moment in time our thoughts should be with his family and friends. A civil discussion of his legacy as regards our freedom can wait for another day. I’ll air my own views in due course, but not yet.
