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I agree. I also believe that the "Stallman or nothing" suggested by so many of his fans is a false dichotomy. You don't need to be rabidly communistic about s

I agree. I also believe that the "Stallman or nothing" suggested by so many of his fans is a false dichotomy. You don't need to be rabidly communistic about software to oppose the "imprisoning" influence of corporate software vendors, after all.

rbanffy 17y ago
No, you don't. And there are certainly some pressures not to do so, but, in the end, it's a rights issue - your right to control the tools that everyday grow more and more indispensable to participate in society and to protect your privacy. But this attitude, of sacrificing "just a little" here and there for more convenience is not healthy either. And then there is another false idea: Free Software is not about Communism. Communism is about the collective ownership of scarce resources. Free Software is the realization that software (as ideas and knowledge) are infinitely abundant.
- apotheon 16y ago
  The Stallman/FSF conception of "free software" is about communism, though. You don't need to give everything away for everything to be free. A copyfree license (BSD license, MIT/X11 license, OWL, et cetera) is just as much a "free software" license as a copyleft license, but doesn't make developers beholden to other developers and to the code itself. Rather, it makes the code beholden to developers and users, without making developers and users beholden to other developers and users. The truth of the matter is that we're probably going to continue to see an increase in corporations using the GPL and (more to the point) other mutually incompatible copyleft licenses, because copyleft licenses can be extremely valuable for those who want to maintain control of the codebase while still getting the benefits of open source software, thus providing a way to sucker competitors into supporting your software "product" while still keeping an anticompetitive advantage by way of the MySQL AB business model and other ways to combine the GPL with proprietary licensing for market domination profit. So, in summary . . . yes, it's true that "free software" in general isn't necessarily communistic or socialistic, but copyleft licensing in particular does bear a striking resemblance to various principles of communism and socialism. Just like communism and socialism, it also tends to get co-opted by market dominating monopolists and their ilk.

rbanffy 17y ago

No, you don't. And there are certainly some pressures not to do so, but, in the end, it's a rights issue - your right to control the tools that everyday grow more and more indispensable to participate in society and to protect your privacy. But this attitude, of sacrificing "just a little" here and there for more convenience is not healthy either. And then there is another false idea: Free Software is not about Communism. Communism is about the collective ownership of scarce resources. Free Software is the realization that software (as ideas and knowledge) are infinitely abundant.

apotheon 16y ago
The Stallman/FSF conception of "free software" is about communism, though. You don't need to give everything away for everything to be free. A copyfree license (BSD license, MIT/X11 license, OWL, et cetera) is just as much a "free software" license as a copyleft license, but doesn't make developers beholden to other developers and to the code itself. Rather, it makes the code beholden to developers and users, without making developers and users beholden to other developers and users. The truth of the matter is that we're probably going to continue to see an increase in corporations using the GPL and (more to the point) other mutually incompatible copyleft licenses, because copyleft licenses can be extremely valuable for those who want to maintain control of the codebase while still getting the benefits of open source software, thus providing a way to sucker competitors into supporting your software "product" while still keeping an anticompetitive advantage by way of the MySQL AB business model and other ways to combine the GPL with proprietary licensing for market domination profit. So, in summary . . . yes, it's true that "free software" in general isn't necessarily communistic or socialistic, but copyleft licensing in particular does bear a striking resemblance to various principles of communism and socialism. Just like communism and socialism, it also tends to get co-opted by market dominating monopolists and their ilk.