> “Well, first of all, I don't think there's anything bad about playing a game. Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it.
I get that Stallman's shtick is being as hardline as possible about free software, but it really feels like sometimes this hurts the free software movement.
Imagine trying to bring in a normal, non-technical person who plays video games as one of their hobbies (describes a lot of my friends at least), and they see this quote. Immediately, it feels bullshit and dumb to them - non-free games (which make up 99.999% of the market) are "harmful for them"? It's hard enough for me (a trusted friend) to explain the free software movement to them after seeing stuff like this, imagine a random person just stumbling upon it.
And yes, every community has their super-idealistic members that make extreme hyperbolic statements, but the problem is that Richard Stallman is one of the most influential and respected members of the movement (and the founder of it!). Sometimes I feel like we could get a lot more done for free software with a tiny bit of pragmatism - for example, in the video game space, pushing for Valve to open source the Steam client, which feels like the most likely high-impact goal to push for rather than the lost battle of trying to change the entire industry at once.
I get that Stallman's shtick is being as hardline as possible about free software, but it really feels like sometimes this hurts the free software movement.
Imagine trying to bring in a normal, non-technical person who plays video games as one of their hobbies (describes a lot of my friends at least), and they see this quote. Immediately, it feels bullshit and dumb to them - non-free games (which make up 99.999% of the market) are "harmful for them"? It's hard enough for me (a trusted friend) to explain the free software movement to them after seeing stuff like this, imagine a random person just stumbling upon it.
And yes, every community has their super-idealistic members that make extreme hyperbolic statements, but the problem is that Richard Stallman is one of the most influential and respected members of the movement (and the founder of it!). Sometimes I feel like we could get a lot more done for free software with a tiny bit of pragmatism - for example, in the video game space, pushing for Valve to open source the Steam client, which feels like the most likely high-impact goal to push for rather than the lost battle of trying to change the entire industry at once.