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Weekly Ad#inTheNews {min-height:20px;} Advanced Search Advanced Search X include all of these words: include any of these words: include this exact phrase: exclude: Select a date range this week past 30 days past 3 months past year Create a custom date range From: To: TechnologyThe business and culture of our digital lives, from the L.A. TimesRichard Stallman's dissenting view on Steve JobsOctober 8, 2011 | 9:32pm
One can always depend on Richard M. Stallman for a provocative take on technology issues, and his response to the death of Steve Jobs delivers. Founder of the free software (or open source) movement and the very model of the modern major iconoclast, Stallman wrote the following eulogy to Jobs on his personal blog on Oct. 6 (it’s worth reading in its entirety):
As one can surmise from that sendoff, Stallman’s and Jobs’ views on software as a business are diametrically opposed. A computer science pioneer and unpaid researcher at MIT, Stallman has militated against software patents and the anti-privacy features that are deeply embedded in today’s most popular mobile devices, Apple’s iPhone and iPad prominent among them. Apple’s sedulous control over the apps it markets to its customers similarly goes against the Stallman grain.
Steve Jobs: 1955-2011
Stallman's remarks have prompted an outpouring of indignation among the high-tech punditocracy, as though they were shocked at the rudeness of this famously outspoken activist's refusal to join the mass adoration of Apple's co-founder.
Yet Stallman's critique of Jobs' business model has merit. For all Jobs' focus on user-friendly devices, Apple's buttoned-down approach to its software and apps, along with the way its mobile devices facilitate violations of their users' privacy, should be the subject of much broader concern. Stallman's eulogy may get wide distribution because of its tone, but his underlying point about the digital world deserves to be heeded.
RELATED:
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Steve Jobs' virtual DNA to be fostered in Apple University
Steve Jobs dead at 56: Influenced computers, tech and culture
--Michael Hiltzik
Photo: Flowers, photos and apples make up a memorial in front of the home of Steve Jobs in Palo Alto on Saturday. Credit: Jim Gensheimer/San Jose Mercury News/MCT
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