I don't buy the separation of Stallman insulting Jobs' deeds versus his person being a lighter criticism. You are what you do. And I can dig irreverence, but isn't there a point where--when you are proselytizing about the evil labors of the man who died 24 hours earlier--you're kind of just an asshole?
I respect Stallman's contributions in GNU, understand his position on patents and copyleft and his political agenda and feel it's an important part of the discourse (albeit not gospel). But at the same time, he seems like kind of a small, angry man. IMHO.
"...isn't there a point where--when you are proselytizing about the evil labors of the man who died 24 hours earlier--you're kind of just an asshole?" Are you saying there is no amount of "evil labors" a man can do for which he deserves nothing but glorification for 24 hours? At risk of Godwinning, I think you and I can both name a historical figure or three for whom we'd have no qualms "proselytizing the evil labors of" less than 24 hours after they died.
The point being, your ad hominem is wrong, Stallman isn't being an asshole, he just saw Jobs as you see those historical figures. The fact that we all (yes, including me) disagree with that view of Jobs is irrelevant to and absolutely does not call for an ad hominem against Stallman.
I was not directly countering Stallmans' "Jobs is evil because he creates popular, 'closed' systems" with the fact that he is an asshole. I was merely pointing out that he is an asshole.
No ad hominem here. I don't have the time to take on the differences between practical and theoretically closed systems of which Stallman speaks.
And the implication of your Godwin reference is the height of absurdity.
So true! Linus Torvalds had the following to say about Stallman:
"I love seeing people who are really passionate about what they do, and many people have something they really care about. It’s just that when that becomes something exclusionary, it often gets ugly. It’s not passion for something, it becomes passion against something else."
I exclude stabbing myself and I don't think that's ugly. Its in the same vein that I exclude stabbing my computer with crapware from Apple and Microsoft.
> isn't there a point where--when you are proselytizing about the evil labors of the man who died 24 hours earlier--you're kind of just an asshole?
Not when all mainstream media is glorifying the man in question. It was the right thing to do, but probably not very effective. The global reaction to Jobs death has been a particularly spectacular demonstration of connivance between politicians, mass media and corporations.
> but isn't there a point where--when you are proselytizing about the evil labors of the man who died 24 hours earlier--you're kind of just an asshole?
To Stallman and many Free Software supporters, the last five years of Apple's activities have done more to detract the state of Free Software than almost anything else. From that standpoint there's nothing that can be said about his criticism being unjust.
I respect Stallman's contributions in GNU, understand his position on patents and copyleft and his political agenda and feel it's an important part of the discourse (albeit not gospel). But at the same time, he seems like kind of a small, angry man. IMHO.