megane-kun

Sure, it’s sad for the families, but I find that my empathy is better off being spent elsewhere.

Even if some employee got caught in this CEO’s whims, that employee already sold his life away upon embarking on a sub made by a company whose head thinks “safety just is pure waste.”

What’s a waste is this CEO not surviving to regret his very words.

So, they made their seabed and now lie on it?

It’s hard to find empathy for those guys.

Yes! For example, his “no javascript please” stance, which is unfortunately nearly impossible to follow if you’re to have any semblance of normalcy in browsing the internet, I take as an “ideal to aspire for”. If anything, his warnings against Javascript reminds me to be ever mindful of the code I invite to run in my machine.

I’m aware that Richard Stallman had some questionable or inadequate behaviours. I’m not defending those nor the man himself. I’m not defending blindly following that particular human (nor any particular human). I’m defending a philosophy, not the philosopher. I claim that his historical vision and his original ideas are still adequate today. Maybe more than ever.

This is really an important note. I’ve always maintained that while not every little one of Stallman’s ideas are gold, his ideas on things he’s got expertise on (especially open-source software) are pretty much on point—even if his ideas are a bit too idealistic and are seen as aspirational ideals rather than calls for action and the fact that a lot of them are painful for ordinary people to follow.