5 ms·

The FSF/GNU ideology is silly, and we'd be better off without it

12 points by jmngomes 11y ago

andrewclunn 11y ago
Ah, the old "competition is bad because it wastes resources," argument (because choice is for "loser." You hear me? LOSERS!) Oh I'm sorry, was putting arbitrary words in quotes and having a snarking dismissive tone unwelcome or unproductive? Well I was just matching the tone of this article.
Karunamon 11y ago
tl;dr: Here's why the FSF's opinion is wrong, and my opinion is right. The FSF engages in some shenanigans, no doubt (off the top of my head: making GCC less interoperable on purpose so those evil proprietary people can't do something with it - what was that about freedom and choice again?) ..and I personally find the politics inscrutable, the principles under those politics unrealistic, the license impractical, and their figurehead unlikeable. None of which is all that important at the end of the day. The FSF's influence on the world, for all its nits to pick, is still a net positive, and we're better off for having had their influence.
jrochkind1 11y ago
> Well, I do agree that having so many closed computer systems would suck, and open alternatives would be much more preferable. But, FFS, desire is no basis for something being a right, a "freedom". Well, okay, on terminology. But desire is certainly a basis for taking collective action with others who share your desires, to make your desires so, is it not? And isn't that actually a true freedom, the freedom to take collective action through legal and voluntary means to make your desires so? Which is just what FSF/GNU is doing? And I say this as someone who actually is NOT really a fan of FSF/GNU restrictive licensing. (Because that's really what it is, "viral" licenses like GNU are actually MORE restrictive than a do-what-you-like MIT-style license. A fact that is probably not controversial; GNU as a license is intentionally more confining towards developers, to try and accomplish FSF/GNU aims which they believe will be less confining for end-users). I'm actually not a huge fan of FSF/GNU in practice... but the OP's arguments are still silly.
wmf 11y ago
I suspect the KDE/GNOME and GCC/LLVM splits would have still happened for technical reasons even if there weren't licensing/political concerns. There's nothing stopping most GCC developers from picking up and working on LLVM, but they're not, probably because of the massive inertia behind GCC.
ewzimm 11y ago
This is a classic strawman fallacy. The main issue here is misunderstanding John Sullivan when he says the FSF is one of the most important social movements. Bruno M takes it to mean it's more important than gay rights, women's rights, free speech, etc. It actually means the opposite. If you take a look at stallman.org, for example, you will find only a little bit of it is dedicated to software. Most of it is about other political issues like those listed here. The big FSF supporters believe that free software is important because it enables free speech. Software is how most people work and communicate. When that software only allows you to use it with certain restrictions, you might not be able to say something that isn't approved by the powers that be.
mark_l_watson 11y ago
When I was a kid my Mom used to tell me "if you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all." While I usually follow her advice, I won't here: I don't like this article. Why be judgemental on someone's else's work and philosophy? Yeah, I am being judgemental here also. It is a wide world of information technology and diversity is a healthy thing, even in the case of the FSF who 'wish' that the world would go their way and have less diversity. Yeah, I see the contradiction. With their strident philosophy, I feel like the FSF does good work and I am grateful for their work.
makecheck 11y ago
Software projects can be hard work, sometimes spanning decades. It's perfectly reasonable that a project should want to remain open, and not want companies to be able to make millions after contributing almost nothing to development. The difference between LLVM and GCC is also not purely ideological. By LLVM's own comparison page [1], while licensing is a difference, there are far more significant advantages to LLVM such as the fact that it is easier to integrate with things and build new tools for. And while it may be unfortunate if two similar, large projects emerge, is this really unique to open software? How many decades of pointless rework have occurred across dozens of projects due to the Microsoft Office file formats, for example? Something like that could have used a lot more GNU ideology in the beginning, frankly, and the world would have been a lot better off with a totally open document platform attached to a "viral" license. [1] http://clang.llvm.org/comparison.html#gcc http://clang.llvm.org/comparison.html#gcc
stcredzero 11y ago
What a subverted justification! The FSF people basically masquerade their own personal interests and values to some sort of ethical principle that should be of importance to the whole of society. Basically, almost all political movements, including most activism, falls prey to this sort of distortion in some subset of its population. I really like that the FSF exists, and that there is a choice to use Free (Libre) software. I also think it's right and proper for people to try to convince me to use free software. What I don't like, is when convince crosses the line into coerce. A product should live or die by its utility, not by peer pressure and denigration of those who do not use it. If Apple is bad for using social pressure, arbitrary lock-in, and legal bludgeons to distort the marketplace in its own interests, then so is the FSF when it does the same. How about software and computing that stands on the merits of its utility? EDIT: Furthermore, for the purposes of granting usage rights, even if we considered software to be different from physical objects (because software is information and can be replicated at no cost) - then why doesn't the Free software ideology apply equally to other information works: books, music, movies, etc? Why shouldn't all those be Free too? Why should copyright law apply in any different way to software, than to other information works? Someone explain this inconsistency to me... I like the analogy with overflights. https://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity https://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_stran... It used to be that property rights extended from the boundaries of someone's land, indefinitely upwards. That used to make sense in the days when flying was an impossibility. But when people first started flying airplanes, that interpretation of property rights would've resulted in every landholder charging every airplane for overflight. Rights have a pragmatic component, and they change along with technological change. Copyright made sense when copying information had a significant cost. Nowadays, copyright needs to change in the same way property rights changed.

12 points by jmngomes 11y ago

Ah, the old "competition is bad because it wastes resources," argument (because choice is for "loser." You hear me? LOSERS!) Oh I'm sorry, was putting arbitrary words in quotes and having a snarking dismissive tone unwelcome or unproductive? Well I was just matching the tone of this article.

Karunamon 11y ago

tl;dr: Here's why the FSF's opinion is wrong, and my opinion is right. The FSF engages in some shenanigans, no doubt (off the top of my head: making GCC less interoperable on purpose so those evil proprietary people can't do something with it - what was that about freedom and choice again?) ..and I personally find the politics inscrutable, the principles under those politics unrealistic, the license impractical, and their figurehead unlikeable. None of which is all that important at the end of the day. The FSF's influence on the world, for all its nits to pick, is still a net positive, and we're better off for having had their influence.

jrochkind1 11y ago

> Well, I do agree that having so many closed computer systems would suck, and open alternatives would be much more preferable. But, FFS, desire is no basis for something being a right, a "freedom". Well, okay, on terminology. But desire is certainly a basis for taking collective action with others who share your desires, to make your desires so, is it not? And isn't that actually a true freedom, the freedom to take collective action through legal and voluntary means to make your desires so? Which is just what FSF/GNU is doing? And I say this as someone who actually is NOT really a fan of FSF/GNU restrictive licensing. (Because that's really what it is, "viral" licenses like GNU are actually MORE restrictive than a do-what-you-like MIT-style license. A fact that is probably not controversial; GNU as a license is intentionally more confining towards developers, to try and accomplish FSF/GNU aims which they believe will be less confining for end-users). I'm actually not a huge fan of FSF/GNU in practice... but the OP's arguments are still silly.

wmf 11y ago

I suspect the KDE/GNOME and GCC/LLVM splits would have still happened for technical reasons even if there weren't licensing/political concerns. There's nothing stopping most GCC developers from picking up and working on LLVM, but they're not, probably because of the massive inertia behind GCC.

ewzimm 11y ago

This is a classic strawman fallacy. The main issue here is misunderstanding John Sullivan when he says the FSF is one of the most important social movements. Bruno M takes it to mean it's more important than gay rights, women's rights, free speech, etc. It actually means the opposite. If you take a look at stallman.org, for example, you will find only a little bit of it is dedicated to software. Most of it is about other political issues like those listed here. The big FSF supporters believe that free software is important because it enables free speech. Software is how most people work and communicate. When that software only allows you to use it with certain restrictions, you might not be able to say something that isn't approved by the powers that be.

mark_l_watson 11y ago

When I was a kid my Mom used to tell me "if you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all." While I usually follow her advice, I won't here: I don't like this article. Why be judgemental on someone's else's work and philosophy? Yeah, I am being judgemental here also. It is a wide world of information technology and diversity is a healthy thing, even in the case of the FSF who 'wish' that the world would go their way and have less diversity. Yeah, I see the contradiction. With their strident philosophy, I feel like the FSF does good work and I am grateful for their work.

makecheck 11y ago

Software projects can be hard work, sometimes spanning decades. It's perfectly reasonable that a project should want to remain open, and not want companies to be able to make millions after contributing almost nothing to development. The difference between LLVM and GCC is also not purely ideological. By LLVM's own comparison page [1], while licensing is a difference, there are far more significant advantages to LLVM such as the fact that it is easier to integrate with things and build new tools for. And while it may be unfortunate if two similar, large projects emerge, is this really unique to open software? How many decades of pointless rework have occurred across dozens of projects due to the Microsoft Office file formats, for example? Something like that could have used a lot more GNU ideology in the beginning, frankly, and the world would have been a lot better off with a totally open document platform attached to a "viral" license. [1] http://clang.llvm.org/comparison.html#gcc http://clang.llvm.org/comparison.html#gcc

stcredzero 11y ago

What a subverted justification! The FSF people basically masquerade their own personal interests and values to some sort of ethical principle that should be of importance to the whole of society. Basically, almost all political movements, including most activism, falls prey to this sort of distortion in some subset of its population. I really like that the FSF exists, and that there is a choice to use Free (Libre) software. I also think it's right and proper for people to try to convince me to use free software. What I don't like, is when convince crosses the line into coerce. A product should live or die by its utility, not by peer pressure and denigration of those who do not use it. If Apple is bad for using social pressure, arbitrary lock-in, and legal bludgeons to distort the marketplace in its own interests, then so is the FSF when it does the same. How about software and computing that stands on the merits of its utility? EDIT: Furthermore, for the purposes of granting usage rights, even if we considered software to be different from physical objects (because software is information and can be replicated at no cost) - then why doesn't the Free software ideology apply equally to other information works: books, music, movies, etc? Why shouldn't all those be Free too? Why should copyright law apply in any different way to software, than to other information works? Someone explain this inconsistency to me... I like the analogy with overflights. https://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity https://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_stran... It used to be that property rights extended from the boundaries of someone's land, indefinitely upwards. That used to make sense in the days when flying was an impossibility. But when people first started flying airplanes, that interpretation of property rights would've resulted in every landholder charging every airplane for overflight. Rights have a pragmatic component, and they change along with technological change. Copyright made sense when copying information had a significant cost. Nowadays, copyright needs to change in the same way property rights changed.