Linux: why I don't use it...

I've used Linux from 1995 to ca. 1999 at which time I had enough of the infantile proponents who behave like religious zealots. I also disagreed with L.Torvalds about graphics not belonging in the kernel (partially) and his argument that it would make the system unstable was a stupid non-argument as that can be applied to any hardware driver. You just need to put as much in the kernel as necessary to securely drive the graphics card, which needs not be much, so at least you can get the card back to a good state and thus a usable console, if an application (the X-server) crashes. For this alone I already had almost no respect for him. Another thing I strongly disliked which I noticed a bit later is that Torvalds is someone who posts nonsense that he knows is false. I saw him post a reply to John Dyson (architect of the FreeBSD VM system in the 1990s) for example which was simply made up. Dyson replied rather courteously for a nonsense posting, namely he said that what Torvalds said was not true, and also that Torvalds could easily verify the matter at hand. Of course he didn't reply to Dyson, typical behaviour of a usenet troll. Not long ago Torvalds admitted he likes to start flame wars. No surprise to me, I saw long ago that he is a troll. I have zero respect for that guy.

There are other issues why I don't use Linux. It has to do with the behaviour of people using it, or at least those arguing about it, which as I said is like religious zealots. Such people cannot stand any criticism of their 'Gods' Stallman and Torvalds. This was very clear in postings I made about other licences than the GPL/LGPL. I proposed a CGPL, a licence for classes, a per file licence. The ideas therein were thought by the vocal proponents of GPL to be bad (but of course they could not give arguments why!) and that I even questioned these licences and that I sent my idea to Stallman was seen as heresy by some of the local dimwits in gnu.misc.discuss (yes, the group has discuss in it, but discussing is something the people didn't like to do!). Ah, the joys of internet anonimity combined with autists and aspergers is just fantastic there! I got replies by email from people who thought my ideas were well thought out, but they didn't dare post in that news group. It's no wonder to be honest, with nutjobs like Klaus 'The GNU bullshit' Shilling and others ganging up on people who disagree with the views of church of GNU/FSF/Stallman. The ganging up showed itself for example when I told someone who made no valid arguments at all that he obviously needed a holiday, then a threesome of bullies who had made no contribution in the discussion at all, and didn't with their postings, came up with messages saying I needed a holiday. Ah, yes, the joy of internet bullies who cannot argue and therefore try to give my own argument in return, with which they failed as it was not applicable...

I suggested my licence in Netscape's newsgroup as a type of licence for the upcoming release of the Netscape source code. If you look at the MPL, then you see the stuff that I put in my licence is actually almost like the MPL, just the MPL is more in 'lawyerese'. So yes indeed, my ideas were good, my views were correct, it's just that zealots can't accept other views.

So I avoid Linux and GPL software (where possible) because the proponents I've seen are all like religious zealots: bullies, incompetent at arguing, incapable of accepting ideas that their Gods haven't provided.

I've used FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD. Comparing them would be off topic on this page, but FreeBSD worked best for various reasons in the late 1990s so at that time I decided to keep using that. As an example of typical reactions from a Linux zealot that shows twisting of facts they so often do, I will show 2 postings from slashdot.org. I have not responded to his second post there (I basically never read replies to my postings on slashdot.org about such matters as it's a waste of time; this is not troll behaviour btw because of the prevailing attitude there, I know what's going to happen!), but I'm doing it here:

The Slashdot org website: Linux minded

slashdot.org was from the start (ca. 1996) a website aimed at mostly at Linux users, made by someone using Linux. Just like on usenet, the people posting there are often like religious zealots but lately I made some postings about licences and linux there just for fun, to set the record straight.

Re:Clang/LLVM in FreeBSD (Score:0, Flamebait)

It annoys the minority of businesses who feel entitled to the free labor of strangers and don't want to give anything back. You see, some people are childish and the most visible mark of childishness is a sense of entitlement. This causes them to feel somehow cheated if you place a few conditions on code that is otherwise free, that no one is forcing them to use if the conditions don't suit them. I think phrases like "you mean I have to actually HIRE my OWN PROGRAMMERS if I really must insist that everything be done exactly the way I want?!" are often uttered with outrage during their corporate meetings.

I mean hey, launching a commercial product with most of the work already done for you, for free, is a nice racket if you can get it. But if the developers intend to allow this, they wouldn't use GPL, they would use a BSD-type license. For reasonable people, this is not a problem. Reasonable people think either "hey, this code is available for free and we have no problem complying with the license, so we can enjoy all the effort that has already been done for us and build on that", or they think "the terms of that license aren't compatible with our business model, or we're afraid of how a court may interpret them, so we can't use that code, oh well, this has not harmed us in any way so we really have no complaint".

For everyone else, there is a need to demonize whatever it is that doesn't perfectly suit them even though they are under no obligation to use it. Sort of like the Puritannical types who want to shut down "offensive" shows that no one is making them watch and criminalize victimless behaviors among consenting adults that no one is forcing them to participate in. The mentality is never this direct and honest, and always covers itself up with a phony excuse, but if not for that its motto would be "it's not good enough that *I* don't do something I don't like, oh no, I have to make certain no one else can do it either!"

You are not +5 insightful but more -1 moron. (or Linux/GPL zealot)

There are reasons not to use GPL not having to do with modifying code, but simply running the code. E.g. GPL'd libraries. I haven't followed what the issue is with GPL v3 as I simply avoid any GPL code due to the zealotry of most of those who advocate it.

In the late 1990s I thought about a 'what if' scenario: Say most people run Linux with a lot of GPL'ed libraries, then I am sure some provisions in the GPL would have to be altered as it would force people to do things in a certain way for which there is no reason. So suppose GPL'd libraries are required because they are used in the system and rewriting it all would be pointless, a waste of time, but especially means having to follow all changes and reimplement them too.

A commercial company is about selling a product for a given system, not reimplementing that system.

I am sure that legal action would take place and rule some parts of the GPL invalid, IN THAT CASE.

For me, I don't care much about interaction issues, because after the late 1990s I had enough of the inane whining about GPL misuse and zealotry of Linux users. I use FreeBSD and am free of all that rubbish, and of all the different versions of lInux with their idiosyncrasies.

FreeBSD has flaws, but I'm not going back to linux...

And about the GPL licence, what annoys me a lot is the lie in the preamble, which btw. should be removed from the licence itself as it is propaganda:

    The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it.

What was not present cannot be taken away. Most commercial software is designed to do something specific, and the license is for that. When you don't get source, you don't get the ability to modify that source and modifying binaries is a lot of work. So, you never really had the freedom to change it, therefore it cannot be taken away. I guess it was meant as 'most licences are not intended to give the freedom to alter the program', but then it should be written in that way. But no, it's written in this adversarial way, and from what I read by Moglun, at least the licence section. Well, he should have objected to this and if it was not changed, not allowed use of the licence text that he used by the FSF. But perhaps he's just happy to go along with this nonsense by the FSF...

I like the idea of the GPL, but not the propaganda in the licence, nor the attitude of the proponents...

Note that this guy who says others are childish is the one who is childish, as he calls people who don't like the GPL childish (in psychology this is projection: You project onto others your own thoughts and think they are that way or think that way because you think that way). This behaviour again shows in his response to my posting.

He further says 'reasonable people say' which is another projection of 'I think this is reasonable, other things are not reasonable but childish'. This shows the lack of acknowledgement of other views, or better, a larger view. His view is limited to 'this is good because I think it's good'.

Re:Clang/LLVM in FreeBSD (Score:5, Informative)
by causality (777677) Alter Relationship on Friday January 13, @01:45AM (#38680448)
There are reasons not to use GPL not having to do with modifying code, but simply running the code. E.g. GPL'd libraries.

Libraries are generally licensed under the LGPL [wikipedia.org]. The LGPL is specifically designed to avoid the imaginary problems you bring up. From that link (emphasis mine):

The LGPL places copyleft restrictions on the program governed under it but does not apply these restrictions to other software that merely link with the program.

If you're going to be childish and call me names like "moron" and "zealot", you should least demonstrate a basic familiarity with the facts. If you feel a need to deal with things that way, it is a sure sign you are reacting emotionally and not proactively evaluating anything reasonably. Against anyone who remains reasonable, you are going to make yourself look foolish. Just for your future reference.
--
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein

This is a typical response of someone who doesn't understand the issues. Linking (even dynamic linking) may still be give derivative work despite what the intention of the licence is (and for static linking this case is much stronger tough functionally there is no real difference). The FSF has been unwilling to clarify that this does not make a derivative work, and that it will take no legal action in such cases, last I heard. So this means that, no, the LGPL is not enough. There's also the issue of bits of compilers and parts of headers getting compiled into the program. If you haven't gone through the entire source of such a compiler you won't know if the precautions taken are enough to prevent 'contamination'.

He calls my response childish, but it's not. Calling a moron a moron, or a zealot a zealot is not childish but the truth. His original posting was utter drivel (see analysis below) by someone who is not very smart, who lies about the reasons why businesses prefer not to use GPL (this has nothing to do with a 'nice racket', another childish comment from this guy) etc.

The only insightful post was mine, and I brought up the subject of the GPL not being enforcable any more (which is interesting at least) and the fact that the GPL contains propaganda which should be removed (which is a fact! A licence is a licence, not a book, not a novel and not something that promotes some world view. The GPL text also contains a lie, as I explained). And of course, despite not understanding the issues, on slashdot.org he gets modded +5 Informative... It's so funny that it's not funny any more ;-)

The whole moderation of my post was in fact projection by slashdot readers (you can also view it is as bullying, causing someone's posting to be invisible...). This guy was posting flamebait that people who don't want to use GPL licenced software are not reasonable, that people who don't want to use GPL software for modification are childish, that they even have the need to demonize such software. All nonsense. And yet this complete and utter garbage posting was modded as insightful. And my rebutting of some parts of this garbage was flamebait. Yeah right! It was exactly the reverse, and showed the (prevalent) attitude of the people modding on slashdot, which is if it's about a subject related to linux or GPL then as 'GPL/Linux zealots'.

To be rid of drivel like that, I stopped using Linux. No more whining about GPL violations, no more inane postings with non-arguments, bliss! I also almost never read articles on slashdot about Linux or BSD as then invariably the contents of posts drops to the level of 'moron'. Linux advocates are very often like whiny childs (they will btw. often accues BSD advocates of being whining and 'wanting to have something for free without giving back' which is nonsense), and the above poster shows this extremely well.

A more detailed analysis

I will go through it all systematically so you can seen why my original response talked about enforcability of the GPL licence, but also to see how such a zealot distorts and/or just makes things up.

A lie, it's about using your software without having to give it all up for free and/or about not getting sued...

They are not complaining about free code, but that their code that cannot be used freely (on a given system) without having to rewrite more... This is why I gave my argument of the GPL becoming unenforcable once it gets over a certain threshold. But that obviously flies high above his head!

That's not it and either he knows it, in which case he's a liar, or he hasn't even bothered to look up the reason why GPL software is not acceptable in various cases, in which case he is again making things up.

By virtue of the previous sentence he implies the view that BSD licence is good to make a product ' with most of the work already done for you, for free' and ready to be exploited. This proves he is a Linux/GPL zealot.

Exactly, this is what developers do. Developers don't go complaining about GPL software because 'they have to write software themselves', but because in various cases they cannot use/sell what they write themselves without undue burdens. So he is stating what is happening yet writing it in a way as if to imply that only reasonable people do that, and the people who prefer BSD software or require BSD software as they want to be absolutely sure there is not going to be an 'infection' from the GPL licence, are not reasonable. Nice twisting of words.

Here we come to something extremely funny: He rants about wanting to make sure others do as you do, but making sure others do as you do is exactly what the GPL does, and what the GPL was meant to do! This is another projection. Or actually a reversing of a perceived argument. Reversing arguments, accusing someone of doing something he/she does not do but which the accuser himself/herself does is what I found to be a typical trait of a sociopath. Therefore it would not surprise me in the least if this guy is a sociopath.

Funny, because I know the facts and he does not, he makes up false-facts. His original posting is full of them! Calling someone a moron or zealot (which I proved he is) is not childish, but then I suspect he barely has other words in his vocabulary than 'childish' to describe someone who disagrees with him.

Ah yes, my response was a proper (and very deep, but he just didn't understand it) response to someone who lies, makes up facts, twists arguments, and he dares say my very well argued response is emotional? Hmm, very funny again!

And note that he says I react emotionally which I don't, my arguments are clear, he is a moron and/or zealot, but then this is to be expected because when someone says another person makes an emotional argument which that person doesn't make, then that is a very strong indication that the person making that claim is a sociopath. This confirms my earlier impression...

Funny, advice from someone who lies and makes up stuff about how not to look foolish!

Conclusion

I mentioned religious zealots for a reason: There is no point in arguing with such people and the same is true for Linux-zealots. In religious terms the people who prefer BSD licence for the open source projects are like current day Christians (most of them anyway in Europe, in the USA there seem to be a lot a fruitcakes who call themselves Christians but have obviously never looked at what Christ said and have no tolerance): They have beliefs about what's good and what's best, but they have mostly the attitude of 'You choose what you want' (as you can use BSD licenced software in GPL software and commercial software which would preclude getting software changes back as BSD unless those users 'give back') and won't get irate if you criticise something about Christianity, whereas religious zealots and linux zealots are like the crusaders from the 11th-13th century and many current day groups in Islam: They are trying to convince everyone that the GPL/LGPL is the only true way and criticism is not acceptable. All of these groups fail. The crusaders used violence which Christ was opposed to (turn the other cheeck, love theigh neigbour as thyself), ditto for radicals in Islam and as for Linux, well, I explained what Linux-zealots do on this page. Zealots off all types are infantile persons who cannot stand counter arguments, don't give counter arguments themselves, make up false 'facts' and try to bully others into accepting their viewpoint. The word twisting with non-arguments that this guy 'causality (777677)' did on slashdot is a perfect example!

Actually, in his first posting this guy has produced one of the worst pieces of disinformation I have ever seen!