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I agree in substance, but I find arguments from moral principles mostly unconvincing, so I prefer to formulate it in different ways. * Proprietary software mak

by mbrock 10y ago

I agree in substance, but I find arguments from moral principles mostly unconvincing, so I prefer to formulate it in different ways. * Proprietary software makes me dependent on the whims of a business. If the business shuts down, stops updating its products, or changes their products in ways I dislike, I have to discard the investment I've made (time, money, learning, etc). * Proprietary software makes it complicated to share my work tools with friends and even family. * Proprietary ecosystems prevent me from learning. On the other hand, I am profoundly grateful for the learning opportunities given to me by the free software community ever since I was a teenager. * Proprietary tools are hard to integrate with. For example, whenever a new version of Apple's mail program is released, the makers of the GPG plugin have to reverse engineer the changes before they (hopefully) can update their software. * Proprietary tools often use proprietary formats, which prevents collaboration and contributes to the problem of digital rot. And so on...

gravypod 10y ago
Those are all the basis of the moral arguments. If you watch Stalman speak on this topic he usually refers to this fact: If the users do not control the program, the program controls the users. If we do not have the right to maintain, update, and distribute our programs on our machines and to run them in any fasion we would like then the programs control us, we don't control them. What could this mean? Well they could do something malicious (which they quite often do), they could allow something malicious to happen out of ignorance of the original programers and we'd have no way to fix these issues (think all the window's 0-days), they could even just revoke licenses of software that is in use for critical systems (think medical records). A worse side effect then all of these is the one that is most egregious: It prevents younger generations who are starting to learn about computers from understanding how the lower part of the stack works. That's why, in my opinion, many older people have no problem delving into lower level systems code and many younger people today have a very hard time doing such. They've been robbed of the experiance of hacking their OS/Machine to shreds and loving every minute of it. Hardware, software, and even documentation is under lockdown and it's an assult on not only our principles but also our youth and self interests.
- mbrock 10y ago
  I agree with Stallman too, and he's a great explainer of these issues. Stallman's default assumption that proprietary software is malware rings true to me, too... if not now, it will be in the next update. Rhetorically, I think Stallman's ethical strength contributes to the integrity of the Free Software movement, but also tends to alienate people who do not already agree. As I see it, this is a common dilemma for good causes. For example, I think animal rights rhetoric tends to alienate people who don't already strongly agree that animals have rights. I'm influenced in my thinking by reading things like Alisdair MacIntyre's book "After Virtue", especially the second chapter, which begins: "The most striking feature of contemporary moral utterance is that so much of it is used to express disagreements; and the most striking feature of the debates in which these disagreements are expressed is their interminable character. I do not mean by this just that such debates go on and on -- although they do -- but also that they apparently can find no terminus. There seems to be no rational way of securing moral agreement in our culture." Another source informing my approach is Richard Rorty's "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity". I see free software as way to actualize solidarity, and yet I'm skeptical about the possibility of convincing people that proprietary software is "wrong" or "evil".
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  "This fact: If the users do not control the program, the program controls the users." That's not a fact, that's rhetoric. The fact is that there is no system - absolutely none - which doesn't define how users interact with it, and set limits on what users can and cannot do with it. FOSS doesn't solve this problem. At best it allows a tiny subset of technologically expert users some limited opportunities to make incremental changes and adaptations. But it also creates some unfortunate side effects, including a perpetual ferment of hobby-quality unprofessional tinkerer code that doesn't have to deal with end user feedback because "Issue closed because I don't understand your problem and don't care about it anyway." There's certainly an argument to be made for making software more open, but FOSS more or less nets out to a break even on the whole. It's certainly good to have around, but the suggestion that it's The Only Way Forward is more dogmatic than fact-based - not least because there's nothing in FOSS that selects for quality of user experience over quantity of development effort.
midnitewarrior 10y ago
Points 1,2 and 4 also apply to open source. 1. Open Source makes me dependent on the whims of a particular community. If the group has infighting or lack of activity, enjoy your abandonware. Yes, you could resurrect the project yourself, but that is a ridiculous burden for most situations. 2. It's often complicated sharing Open Source apps. They often require loads of tinkering, are poorly documented, and require specialized knowledge. Unless all of your friends and family are free software enthusiasts too, this isn't always simple. 4. Open source tools can also be hard to integrate with. You exchange licensing being a barrier for integration with lack of resources for designing good integration schemes. The larger projects can have significant resources to get around this.
- the_af 10y ago
  I agree with you that the overall point of "it's FOSS, so you can change the software" is flawed. Most of us don't have the time, knowledge or inclination to change the software. However, even though it's flawed it's not totally incorrect. You sometimes can change something -- maybe look at the internals and write some trivial patch to solve an immediate problem; maybe change some scripting bit -- and sometimes if there is infighting in the official community, a fork can happen. Not saying forks are not messy or even always possible, but the possibility is there and it happens. There is a huge difference between "it takes too much time/knowledge to change this piece of software" and "it's illegal to change it".
  - mbrock 10y ago
    It's kind of like democracy. Sure, it's hard to elect a new leader or pass a new law, but it's possible, and that possibility is very valuable. It's also kind of like open knowledge, like science and math. Sure, it's hard to learn algebra or biology, but with hard work you can master it and contribute.
    - Skunkleton 10y ago
      Yeah, but sometimes the leader I voted for doesn't win, so we should go back to being a monarchy.

by mbrock 10y ago

gravypod 10y ago

Those are all the basis of the moral arguments. If you watch Stalman speak on this topic he usually refers to this fact: If the users do not control the program, the program controls the users. If we do not have the right to maintain, update, and distribute our programs on our machines and to run them in any fasion we would like then the programs control us, we don't control them. What could this mean? Well they could do something malicious (which they quite often do), they could allow something malicious to happen out of ignorance of the original programers and we'd have no way to fix these issues (think all the window's 0-days), they could even just revoke licenses of software that is in use for critical systems (think medical records). A worse side effect then all of these is the one that is most egregious: It prevents younger generations who are starting to learn about computers from understanding how the lower part of the stack works. That's why, in my opinion, many older people have no problem delving into lower level systems code and many younger people today have a very hard time doing such. They've been robbed of the experiance of hacking their OS/Machine to shreds and loving every minute of it. Hardware, software, and even documentation is under lockdown and it's an assult on not only our principles but also our youth and self interests.

mbrock 10y ago
I agree with Stallman too, and he's a great explainer of these issues. Stallman's default assumption that proprietary software is malware rings true to me, too... if not now, it will be in the next update. Rhetorically, I think Stallman's ethical strength contributes to the integrity of the Free Software movement, but also tends to alienate people who do not already agree. As I see it, this is a common dilemma for good causes. For example, I think animal rights rhetoric tends to alienate people who don't already strongly agree that animals have rights. I'm influenced in my thinking by reading things like Alisdair MacIntyre's book "After Virtue", especially the second chapter, which begins: "The most striking feature of contemporary moral utterance is that so much of it is used to express disagreements; and the most striking feature of the debates in which these disagreements are expressed is their interminable character. I do not mean by this just that such debates go on and on -- although they do -- but also that they apparently can find no terminus. There seems to be no rational way of securing moral agreement in our culture." Another source informing my approach is Richard Rorty's "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity". I see free software as way to actualize solidarity, and yet I'm skeptical about the possibility of convincing people that proprietary software is "wrong" or "evil".
TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
"This fact: If the users do not control the program, the program controls the users." That's not a fact, that's rhetoric. The fact is that there is no system - absolutely none - which doesn't define how users interact with it, and set limits on what users can and cannot do with it. FOSS doesn't solve this problem. At best it allows a tiny subset of technologically expert users some limited opportunities to make incremental changes and adaptations. But it also creates some unfortunate side effects, including a perpetual ferment of hobby-quality unprofessional tinkerer code that doesn't have to deal with end user feedback because "Issue closed because I don't understand your problem and don't care about it anyway." There's certainly an argument to be made for making software more open, but FOSS more or less nets out to a break even on the whole. It's certainly good to have around, but the suggestion that it's The Only Way Forward is more dogmatic than fact-based - not least because there's nothing in FOSS that selects for quality of user experience over quantity of development effort.

midnitewarrior 10y ago

Points 1,2 and 4 also apply to open source. 1. Open Source makes me dependent on the whims of a particular community. If the group has infighting or lack of activity, enjoy your abandonware. Yes, you could resurrect the project yourself, but that is a ridiculous burden for most situations. 2. It's often complicated sharing Open Source apps. They often require loads of tinkering, are poorly documented, and require specialized knowledge. Unless all of your friends and family are free software enthusiasts too, this isn't always simple. 4. Open source tools can also be hard to integrate with. You exchange licensing being a barrier for integration with lack of resources for designing good integration schemes. The larger projects can have significant resources to get around this.

the_af 10y ago
I agree with you that the overall point of "it's FOSS, so you can change the software" is flawed. Most of us don't have the time, knowledge or inclination to change the software. However, even though it's flawed it's not totally incorrect. You sometimes can change something -- maybe look at the internals and write some trivial patch to solve an immediate problem; maybe change some scripting bit -- and sometimes if there is infighting in the official community, a fork can happen. Not saying forks are not messy or even always possible, but the possibility is there and it happens. There is a huge difference between "it takes too much time/knowledge to change this piece of software" and "it's illegal to change it".
- mbrock 10y ago
  It's kind of like democracy. Sure, it's hard to elect a new leader or pass a new law, but it's possible, and that possibility is very valuable. It's also kind of like open knowledge, like science and math. Sure, it's hard to learn algebra or biology, but with hard work you can master it and contribute.
  - Skunkleton 10y ago
    Yeah, but sometimes the leader I voted for doesn't win, so we should go back to being a monarchy.