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Who is the other side of the conversation you mention in your first paragraph? It seems incredibly reductive to state that using proprietary software, in any w
by tobz 11y ago
Who is the other side of the conversation you mention in your first paragraph?
It seems incredibly reductive to state that using proprietary software, in any way, somehow makes a FOSS project send an implicit message that it... I don't know what you meant, but, disrespects its users?
Did I disrespect the users of FOSS projects I worked on by using Windows / Visual Studio?
- davexunit 11y ago>Did I disrespect the users of FOSS projects I worked on by using Windows / Visual Studio? No, what you do on your own computer is your business. No one else has to use your proprietary setup. Other people do have to use your Slack channels to talk to you, which is an endorsement and enticement to run proprietary software.
- saj1th 11y agoBy the same token, would you consider https://github.com/Debian https://github.com/Debian an endorsement and enticement to run proprietary software ?
- mmanfrin 11y agoSo if one opensourced a windows program, you would consider this bad because others would have to use the proprietary Windows to run it?
- mikegerwitz 11y agoIf that program only worked on Windows, then you should not recommend its use unless that person were already using Windows. If there are Free alternatives, you should recommend them instead; you'd otherwise be forcing users to use proprietary software to communicate with you. In the case of IRC, it doesn't matter if there's a Free Windows client, because there are plenty of alternatives.
- tobz 11y agoSo, for the sake of argument: - I'm an author of some FOSS software - I use Slack as the communication platform for said project for XYZ reasons How do you suggest I word the README for my project? Do I tell/advise people to try other, less functional software if that software is subjectively more "open" than mine? Would my project somehow be "better" if I run all of my own infrastructure for it -- chat, bug tracking, etc -- using only FOSS software on FOSS hardware in my basement? I mean, the logical conclusion here is that no FOSS project is really a FOSS project unless Richard Stallman could look at it and say "sure, morally, I have no problem using that project", right? (This is off the path of the blog post in question, but I'm really interested in this sub-conversation.)
- cyphar 11y agoIf there is no way to contact you without using free software, I would probably just make a fork of your project. If you can't just sit in an IRC channel on freenode or just post an email I can use, then I don't understand why you are a maintainer of a free software project. Sure, use Slack if you wish, but don't force me to use it if I want to contact you.
- cdcarter 11y agoI imagine that many maintainers who don't necessarily feel as dogmatic about free software hold the belief that "if you wish to contact me, you will use the tool I say." I've certainly "maintained" projects that are free software that I had no real desire of spending much time on, so if someone had a question it better come the way that I want, otherwise I can just ignore it. It's not a very kind or classy position, but I think a lot of people feel this way.
- cyphar 11y agoHow many maintainers won't accept patchsets by email?
- mikegerwitz 11y ago
- cyphar 11y agoWhile free software for Windows is better than proprietary software for Windows (because it could conceivably be ported to free software on other platforms), it is not (in of itself) practically free because you need to use proprietary software (Windows and system libraries) to use it.