🚀 go-pugleaf

Richard Stallman (rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu) wrote:
: Reportedly Wolfram Research has decided not to support Mathematica on
: GNU/Linux systems, because users would be able to change the kernel to
: work around certain deliberately inserted bugs designed to make
: Mathematica crash in some circumstances.

[...]

: There are two ways a person with special knowledge can handle it:
: either teach other people, to help them, or withhold it, to gain power
: over them.

The owners of Mathematica are more interested in getting money
from you then power over you.

: One is the paradigm of good; the other, of evil.  A
: person's actions are usually a mixture of the two; but events
: sometimes reveal that a person has chosen one or the other as his
: priority.  We see Wolfram's choice.

The world would be a lot simpler and far less interesting if the
distinction between good and evil was so simple. Power and the desire
for power can be good or bad depending on what purpose it is used for.

: Hoarders can get power over you by making programs proprietary because
: you feeling that you need the programs.  The more you get used to
: feeling you need them, the harder it is to refuse demands.  That's why
: using proprietary programs like Mathematica is not good for you: it
: trains you to a habit of helplessness.

Oh come on! Good proprietary tools can empower you. To gather the
resources for a large project requires money and power. Many useful
things can only be created if one is able to marshal substantial
resources. GNU provides great software. Linux is a great operating
system. However the resources devoted to those tools are minute
compared to the total effort devoted to software development. They
play an important and valuable role in software but it is a small
role. I want to see that role expanded but it will only happen if
good proprietary tools are ported to free operating systems.

There issues of hoarding knowledge and proprietary control
over it are enormously important at this point in history.
There is no simple or ideal solution to the problem of providing
incentives for intellectual work and at the same time making the
fruits of that work widely and publicly available. If we see
all efforts at proprietary software as inherently evil we will
be far less effective at contributing to creative workable solutions
to these problems.

Paul Budnik