which ones do you think I missed?

image transcription:

big collage of people captioned, “the only people I wouldn’t have minded being billionaires”
names(and a bit of info, which is not included in the collage) of people in collage(from top left, row-wise):

  • Alexandra Elbakyan, creator of Sci-Hub. perhaps the single-most important person in the scientific community regarding access to research papers.
  • Linus Torvalds, creator of linux kernel and git, courtesy of which we have GNU/Linux.
  • David Revoy, french artist famous for his pepper&carrot, a libre webcomic. inspiration for artists who are into free software movement
  • Richard Stallman, arch-hacker who started it all. founded the GNU project, free software movement, Emacs, GCC, GPL, concept of copyleft, among many other things. champions for free software to this day(is undergoing treatment for cancer at the moment).
  • Jean-Baptiste Kempf, president of VLC media player for 2 decades now
  • Ian Murdock, founder of Debian GNU/Linux and Debian manifesto. died too soon.
  • Alexis Kauffmann, creator of framasoft, a French nonprofit organisation that champions free software. known for providing alternatives to centralised services, notable one being framapad and peertube.
  • Aaron Swartz, a brilliant programmer who created RSS, markdown, creative commons, and is known for his involvement in creation of reddit. he also died too soon.
  • Bram Moolenaar, creator of vim, a charityware.

on the bottom right is the text reading, “plus the thousands of free software enthusiasts working tirelessly.”

lars,

First recognized Linus and was like where’s Aaron. [Probably saw him subconsciously but] Was super satisfied he’s there. Rest in peace, hero.

Nacktmull,
@Nacktmull@lemmy.world avatar

Nope, there should not be any! Fuck capitalism!

Potatos_are_not_friends,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/7bcc4f82-2519-4bf6-9e9d-1414de79092e.jpeg

4lan, (edited )

right, Swartz totally cared about no one else…

go suck on Musk’s toes or something

Potatos_are_not_friends,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d7bd0bc7-7e6c-438e-baa9-0edb191abb5c.jpeg

4lan,

You’ve completely changed my mind

trash,

John Gruber created Markdown but Aaron helped and tested it.

beSyl,

Aaron Swartz created markdown?!! I did not know that!

BiggestBulb,
@BiggestBulb@kbin.social avatar

I also had no idea he made RSS

YoorWeb,

Watch “The Internet’s Own Boy”, it’s a great documentary about Aaron.

squirmy_wormy,

No he didn’t. He made atx and worked closely with the guy who make markdown. He also was part of the group that made RSS and contributed to the early CC.

Apollo2323,

Oh wow Ian Murdock commit suicide :(

Kecessa,

There’s a whole bunch of people that deserve to become billionaires a lot more than people in tech and that would have a much better impact on the world if they did. I would much rather have a bunch of billionaire physicists, immunologists, virologists, pediatricians and so on.

yum_burnt_toast,
@yum_burnt_toast@reddthat.com avatar

that is a nice conundrum. almost like it is impossible to become a billonaire if the desire to benefit society is too high on your priority list.

HubertManne,
@HubertManne@kbin.social avatar

no one should be billionaires.

LesserAbe,

Reminds me of this tweet from Merman_Melville: “Being a billionaire must be insane. You can buy new teeth, new skin. All your chairs cost 20,000 dollars and weigh 2,000 pounds. Your life is just a series of your own preferences. In terms of cognitive impairment it’s probably like being kicked in the head by a horse every day” The experience itself is probably harmful and changes the person. https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/18e0c77d-e341-4343-bbeb-80a0c47c8be9.png

Bishma,
@Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Studies have shown that people change at a certain amount of money, like they cross a line in the sand. When you can buy anything everything just becomes yours by default in your mind. And anyone who can’t do that are basically sheep dogs - useful but not worth your time. These studies were done in the twenty-tens and the number then was between 20 and 30 million for most people. Imagine your view on the world if you have 100 times that amount.

blujan,

Imagine 5 thousand times that amount, like bezos or musk

Professorozone,

Whew! Dodged that bullet.

SpongyAneurism,

Lucky you!

hersh,

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple.

I don’t think he was ever a billionaire, though he’s certainly done quite well for himself. Since leaving Apple, he has founded several new companies and projects, focusing a lot on education and philanthropy. He was also involved in founding the EFF.

He’s an engineer first and foremost, and several of his projects never achieved mainstream success, partly for being, IMHO, ahead of their time – for example, a programmable universal remote in the 80s, and a GPS-based item tracker in the early 2000s.

As far as I know, he has never been involved in any notable scandals.

turbodrooler,

At Apple’s IPO, Woz gave $10 million of his stocks to Apple employees. Jobs didn’t want to give any to employees. Seems like a good guy.

possiblylinux127,

The creator of Vim is unfortunately no longer with us.

kadu,
@kadu@lemmy.world avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    nixcamic,

    IMO RMS already has the attitude of a billionaire. He’s a thoroughly weird man who says stuff he really shouldn’t then stands by it. He’s right about a lot of things when it comes to software, licensing, and open source in general but outside of that track he’s more than a little loopy.

    I think it might be because he’s had to fight society so long for things he knew he was right about that now he doesn’t know how to have people tell him “no Richard, that’s ducked up”.

    Anyhow, I don’t think him being a billionaire would be a good idea, him having enough funds to branch off into doing wherever strikes his fancy could be very bad.

    And Linus, I love Linus but look at how he’s grown as a person and listened and changed how he interacts with other kernel developers. Would he still have been as receptive if he was a billionaire? Something tells me no.

    rodolfo,

    wha?

    lemmesay, (edited )
    @lemmesay@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    you can read everything in great detail and with citations here if you have the bandwidth.

    but I’m not sure if the commenter is mixing two unrelated accusations towards him.

    stallman is known for his fixation on certain choice of words, which is the reason most people get him wrong. that’s why I shared the link to read his exact words and make up your mind by yourself.

    rodolfo,

    the man sure doesn’t know how the read the room… and when to shut up.

    lolcatnip,

    He did not. Go find his exact words if you don’t believe me.

    WldFyre,

    Why don’t you link his exact words, then?

    TheGrandNagus, (edited )

    Since the other person hasn’t (surprise), here’s Richard Stallman on paedophilia:

    “The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, ‘prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia’ also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally–but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.”

    RMS on June 28th, 2003

    "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing. "

    RMS on June 5th, 2006

    "There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.

    Granted, children may not dare say no to an older relative, or may not realize they could say no; in that case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel imposed to them. That’s not willing participation, it’s imposed participation, a different issue. "

    RMS on Jan 4th, 2013

    WldFyre,

    Yeah I’m not surprised either haha

    Thanks for the quotes, what an appalling man smh

    TheGrandNagus,

    Yeah. He had/has some great ideas when it comes to free software, but it doesn’t mean he isn’t a POS in other parts of his life.

    I’m tired of the Linux world literally worshipping him. It’s weird. Hilariously it’s no doubt the same people who would cringe at the cultish following of Steve Jobs. Another person with some good ideas but was an awful person.

    TheGrandNagus,

    Richard Stallman on paedophilia:

    “The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, ‘prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia’ also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally–but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.”

    RMS on June 28th, 2003

    "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing. "

    RMS on June 5th, 2006

    "There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.

    Granted, children may not dare say no to an older relative, or may not realize they could say no; in that case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel imposed to them. That’s not willing participation, it’s imposed participation, a different issue. "

    RMS on Jan 4th, 2013

    lemmesay,
    @lemmesay@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    I understand your point, but those weren’t the words he said. though I don’t think that’s going to make a difference.

    I like RMS for what he did(and is doing) for the free software community. I can also talk about some uncanny things about Gandhi, but that doesn’t make his contribution to the independence movement and his views on nonviolence any less relevant.

    to me, a person should be seen in his entirety. because only fictional characters are without flaws.

    natecox,
    @natecox@programming.dev avatar

    People should indeed be seen in their entirety, the failure of this is why so many people get upset about Stallman.

    The guy is routinely portrayed as a bastion of righteous good will, championing the little guy against the evil corporations. The hero worship is real.

    Some of us see Stallman as a misogynistic asshole who routinely belittles people on mailing lists when they don’t agree with him and publicly defends people who sexually abuse children.

    For some of us, it feels like we need to go out of our way to point this out because we don’t want a guy like that as the public face of something we care about.

    rodolfo, (edited )

    what did it he say about women that makes him a misogynist?

    Edit ok found this

    www.arp242.net/rms.html

    a pretty much reasonable, reasoned and merciless account on the figure of rms. I very largely agree with it - spoiler he isn’t a misogynist, just a super massive weirdo

    ReCursing,
    @ReCursing@kbin.social avatar

    just a super massive weirdo

    I once heard him described as "The smartest man to ever throw a tantrum like a 4 year old"

    rodolfo,

    this thread is terrible… people reporting "I heard of"s as proofs. eh once I read, eeeh once someone told… once sjws bite, there’s no chance they let go. and the most important thing is that 99.999999% of the people bad mouthing rms have at best fifth hand reports about him.

    to all the superior etichs white knights: I’m not defending rms.

    I’m very worried about the lynching, with proof based on I once read, i heard of, and also straight out of jealousy and envy.

    rms, like suggested in the article I posted, could very well be a neuro divergent person. I wonder how many of all of these rabid dogs biting at him preach themselves as super supportive, super inclusive, 360° hexa-dimensional full rainbow, but then aren’t able to understand the person they have in front of them. let’s start by ruining someone. there’s always time to say “I was wrong, I’d like to apologize. At the time I didn’t know. I vow to be a better person.”

    ReCursing,
    @ReCursing@kbin.social avatar

    Wrong person to post this in response to, dude

    rodolfo,

    why, i thought you’d agree

    ReCursing,
    @ReCursing@kbin.social avatar

    Your comment came across as attacking me, and also as a little bit crazed. That said I completely agree with your last sentence, being able to admit you are wrong is a very important skill and one many people could do with learning (I try, I don;t always succeed but I try)

    lemmesay,
    @lemmesay@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    I agree with your point in spirit, but again, he didn’t say any such thing. I haven’t talked to him in person, so, I can only rely on internet to validate/refute those claims.

    he is the public face of free software because others have their own terminologies(e.g.: open source championed by bruce perens and eric raymond), with which the GNU project disagrees.

    natecox,
    @natecox@programming.dev avatar

    Here you go, someone has done me the service of clearly laying out the case against Stallman here so that I don’t need to l: drewdevault.com/…/2023-11-26-RMS-on-sex.html

    kadu,
    @kadu@lemmy.world avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    lolcatnip,

    Which he did not do.

    TheGrandNagus,

    Richard Stallman on paedophilia:

    “The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, ‘prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia’ also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally–but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.”

    RMS on June 28th, 2003

    "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing. "

    RMS on June 5th, 2006

    "There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.

    Granted, children may not dare say no to an older relative, or may not realize they could say no; in that case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel imposed to them. That’s not willing participation, it’s imposed participation, a different issue. "

    RMS on Jan 4th, 2013

    Mubelotix,
    @Mubelotix@jlai.lu avatar

    Honestly I cannot see any way one could interpret his words like that

    TheGrandNagus, (edited )

    Richard Stallman on paedophilia:

    “The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, ‘prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia’ also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally–but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.”

    RMS on June 28th, 2003

    "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing. "

    RMS on June 5th, 2006

    "There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.

    Granted, children may not dare say no to an older relative, or may not realize they could say no; in that case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel imposed to them. That’s not willing participation, it’s imposed participation, a different issue. "

    RMS on Jan 4th, 2013

    TheBat,
    @TheBat@lemmy.world avatar

    Aaron Schwartz too

    web.archive.org/web/…/bits.are.notabug.com/

    I fight laws that restrict what bits I can put on my website.

    Unlike humans, computers see everything as bits (numbers). They can’t tell the difference between the random movement of a lava lamp and a copyrighted song. I believe that our technology should similarly make no distinction and that I have the right to transmit arbitrary bits.

    Here’s a list of laws that restrict this right, in order from least controvertial (i.e. most people agree this freedom shouldn’t be restricted) to most.

    …

    …

    …

    In the US, it is illegal to possess or distribute child pornography, apparently because doing so will encourage people to sexually abuse children.

    This is absurd logic. Child pornography is not necessarily abuse. Even if it was, preventing the distribution or posession of the evidence won’t make the abuse go away. We don’t arrest everyone with videotapes of murders, or make it illegal for TV stations to show people being killed.

    Rozauhtuno,
    @Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    Ian Murdock, founder of Debian GNU/Linux and Debian manifesto. died too soon.

    ACAB

    lemmesay,
    @lemmesay@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    I never heard the acronym before.
    also, you could say that in case of Aaron Swatrz too.

    Mubelotix,
    @Mubelotix@jlai.lu avatar

    What do people shout when they are hurt by police then?

    beSyl,

    Why are you saying that in relation to Ian? What do cops have to do with him?

    DavidGarcia,

    Terry A. Davis

    AllonzeeLV, (edited )

    No one should have that much power.

    I wouldn’t have trusted Fred Rogers with a billion dollars, and he’s practically the only famous stranger I could have seen trusting with my newborn alone.

    It’s a society warping level of wealth. No single, unelected, unaccountable person should possess that much uniltateral power.

    The global allowance encouragement of such an exploitative, reckless goal is why we are in our various bleak situations.

    lemmesay,
    @lemmesay@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    that’s a good point. if i get it right, you mean that since wealth is a resource, it should always be in the hands of those who are accountable(like the government)?

    AllonzeeLV, (edited )

    I mean when wealth reaches levels beyond material comfort, needs, and wants, when it becomes easy to warp society. Billionaire’s lifestyles doesn’t change AT ALL between 1 billion and 2, its about expanding power. That is what capital becomes at those levels.

    Politicians swoon over you for “donations” (bribes), you begin to see regulations over the industry you exploit your profit from as amendable through lobbyists you can hire to represent your interests over society. Meanwhile that billionaire’s factory workers, customers concerned with product safety, our shared commons, and our communal environment have no advocates with such massive influence to counter them, when the needs of the many shouldn’t just balance the needs of the interests of the wealthy few at the top, they should far outweigh them. As it is, its the other way around. The billionaires have the resources to take care of themselves and protect themselves, most of society does not.

    No one should have enough wealth to have more influence over society than your single vote allows. If you want more power, that should come by selling your ideas to society that votes on them by putting you into a political office, with ALL of the rules and accountability that comes with that office.

    The White House and Senate often invites the billionaires of industries to be the authority on how those industries should be regulated, and it’s perverse. The Foxes advising on hen house security.

    lemmesay,
    @lemmesay@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    thanks for explaining

    Bipta,

    No one should have enough wealth to have more influence over society than your single vote allows.

    That's an implausible metric. As long as there is not communistic equality, there will always be discrepancies in influence.

    AllonzeeLV, (edited )

    Which is why the absurdity of letting someone accumulate a billion dollar plus discrepancy is so glaring.

    There won’t be because the game is already rigged, over, captured, and hoplesss, but there needs to be a maximum net worth at which point the winners of the economy’s excess wealth is siphoned away to benefit the society that provided the conditions for that success in the first place. YOU WON! Now go enjoy having enough wealth to live 100 embarrassingly gluttonous lifetimes while we use the excess millions and billions to build Schools you can send your kids to and roads you can drive your collection of multimillion dollar supercars on. I know, I know, that would be eviiil and crueeel. A real victimization amirite? /s

    Why is it a tragedy if the maximum wealth one person can hold is half a billion? Or better 100 million? They won’t want to keep “excelling” and working? Awesome, makes room for people without that kind of money to succeed.

    There’s a damn good reason in game design why you NEED to have drains and hard limits and maximums in any multiplayer economy. The game would fucking break or leave players miserable. But not here irl where there are actual stakes. Nope.

    Bipta,

    No one should have that much power.

    How do you reconcile that with government leaders having that much power?

    AllonzeeLV, (edited )

    With elections that monied interests can no longer purchase and disproportionately propagandize with their essentially limitless power/capital.

    They have politicians work against the people, then buy enough ad propaganda to convince people that was a good decision in their interests without that, politicians would rise and fall moreso on what they do in office.

    We are the weird ones in the developed world for allowing unlimited private money to pollute our politics, elections, and even buy sitting politicians though legalized political bribery superpacs. It got this way because of the influence of the wealth class being allowed in the first place using that in to expand its own power and ability to bribe, culminating in Citizens United.

    I think our eventual collapse will be tied directly to that SCOTUS decision.

    RegalPotoo,
    @RegalPotoo@lemmy.world avatar

    Because in countries with functioning democracies, political power is narrowly scoped (your electors give you a mandate to do certain things, and if you act contrary to those interests you loose your power) and fleeting (you only have power as long as your electors continue to entrust that power to you, and can remove that power if they decide you are no longer fit to wield it).

    Money, by contrast, is permanent (capital breeds capital) and unaccountable (you can choose to use the power your wealth grants without any regard for what others think - even if people disapprove, they can’t stop you spending it)

    Murdoc,

    "The government has a defect: it’s potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they’re pure tyrannies.”

    — Noam Chomsky
    (Not exactly the same, but very similar.)

    owenfromcanada,
    @owenfromcanada@lemmy.world avatar

    The only exception I can think of is Dolly Parton. I read a report that suggested she’d be among the world’s wealthiest if she weren’t consistently giving away 90%+ of her income.

    The problem is that anyone with that much wealth has already proven their selfishness by not giving away most of it. It’s the classic issue of “Anyone who can be elected should never be elected.”

    HerbalGamer,
    @HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works avatar

    Recently saw a post somewhere proposing a new style of Government, where we just give the money to Dolly Parton and just kinda let her do her thing with it.

    owenfromcanada,
    @owenfromcanada@lemmy.world avatar

    Wouldn’t be the worst option out there, but I wouldn’t wish that on the woman.

    squiblet, (edited )
    @squiblet@kbin.social avatar

    It would probably ruin them and their work though. While I have little sympathy for the plights of billionaires, it's difficult for people to not allow that level of ridiculous wealth and power to affect them. These people have found a much healthier path to success. I'm sure the living ones are all financially comfortable without the ridiculous distortion of excess wealth.

    Also though I'd object to anyone being a billionaire since it's absurd.

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