4 ms·

I think RMS can be about as crazy as David Moore, yet I can see the method in the madness. So I'm in my mid-30s and I still really believe in the GNU GPL. I ev

I think RMS can be about as crazy as David Moore, yet I can see the method in the madness. So I'm in my mid-30s and I still really believe in the GNU GPL. I even license my own stuff as GPLv3 (except for some libraries I released under Apache). I still really believe in the GPL and that model of OSS. I feel like I'm in the minority; that people my age and younger who give a shit about things like this, prefer BSD/MIT/Apache style licenses.

craftyguy 8y ago
I'm slightly younger than you and feel the same way. We can be in the minority together!
pasabagi 8y ago
I think I'm pretty left-wing, and I agree with software freedom as a general rule - but I don't really understand the venom over the subject. We live in a world where people of all ages regularly die because basic necessities are non-free. Software freedom is nice, but compared to every other political problem, kind of boring. In the end, the entire development of computers has been underwritten by massive corporations, the military-industrial complex, and to a large extent, the surveilance/telecoms hybrid that spawned companies like AT&T. I don't really see where being extremely punctilious about software freedom wins you in this context. There's no such thing as a free computer - the concept is borderline absurd, and even if it was possible, you're still using a free computer in a world that's largely characterized by tyranny, which is also absurd.
- mnm1 8y ago
  Software freedom, as defined here and used by RMS has nothing whatsoever to do with the cost of software. It refers to the four freedoms of software (https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/basics/4freedoms.en.html https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/basics/4freedoms.en.html). The right to basic necessities is actually a freedom everyone in the US outside those convicted has. The fact that those necessities cost money is tangential in a discussion of freedom just like the cost of developing software is mostly tangential. This isn't a discussion about cost. Or as fsf puts it, free as in freedom not free as in beer. There is indeed such thing as a free computer running free software that respects the four freedoms above. They are getting harder to find but they do exist and one could easily build and run one. It will cost money however, but as I said that's tangential almost to the point of being irrelevant in a discussion of software freedom.
  - pasabagi 8y ago
    I understand they mean free as in freedom. I also think that if you exclude the 'fact that ... necessities cost money' from the concept of freedom, you end up with a pretty poor concept. But that's not really the issue at hand here. The issue is, if you have a 'free' device in a society that is largely based upon the absence of freedom, it's ultimately a fetish - in the magical-thinking sense. And honestly, if we were in a society that was substantially free, the FSF would never have been needed in the first place.
    - quadrangle 8y ago
      I think you're getting at utilitarianism versus some idea like Kant's categorical imperative. From an idealistic standpoint, RMS's views are consistent and sensible, honorable even. But from a utilitarian view (which I support incidentally), we evaluate the actual real-world consequences of each decision. In that light, RMS's overall concerns still hold up completely but his emphasis on each person individually rejecting all non-free software uncompromisingly is non-utilitarian.
      - pasabagi 8y ago
        I guess consequentialist v deonotological would be another way of framing it. That all said, my suspicion is that most people that go hard deontological essentially do so because they care more about their own moral purity than the state of the world. And, if you want to look at what happens when deonotological ethics are the norm, just look at medieval europe.
        quadrangle 8y ago
        In the case of RMS, I find it extremely clear that he cares exponentially more about the state of the world than about his own moral purity.
greyman 8y ago
> I feel like I'm in the minority; that people my age and younger who give a shit about things like this, prefer BSD/MIT/Apache style licenses. I am of older age but I too prefer MIT over GPL. The logic is like this: time is precious and if I devote it to developing an open-source library, I want it to be used by as many people as possible. I see no reason whatsoever why I would exclude closed-source software from adopting it.
- quadrangle 8y ago
  You may not care enough, but at least you could see a reason: to assure that those who use your work respect the freedom of their users. You could even disagree with prioritizing this. But it's not like there's no reason to be seen. There are cases where someone wants to build something with your work, period. And if you require that it stay free software, it will be free for the end-users where it wouldn't be otherwise.
  - greyman 8y ago
    But I don't recognize that definition of "freedom of their users". It's an artificial construct made by RMS. There are various reasons why some people or companies don't open their source code. That choice should be respected. I also write a lot of closed source, because it was decided the source should be closed.
    - quadrangle 8y ago
      If you want to disagree with the value, that's one thing. Not being able to recognize it is an intellectual failing (literally re-cognize, i.e. understand a concept, whether or not you think it's valid or important). Let me help you out: if I have a computer and there exists software that I could privately run for my own purposes and the computer is set up to not allow me to run that software I want to run, then I am lacking some freedom to use my own computer fully. Or say I want to copy some software from one computer to another but someone has legally or technically put barriers to my ability to do that. These are not an artificial constructs, they are as plain as any concept of freedom can be.

craftyguy 8y ago

I'm slightly younger than you and feel the same way. We can be in the minority together!

pasabagi 8y ago

I think I'm pretty left-wing, and I agree with software freedom as a general rule - but I don't really understand the venom over the subject. We live in a world where people of all ages regularly die because basic necessities are non-free. Software freedom is nice, but compared to every other political problem, kind of boring. In the end, the entire development of computers has been underwritten by massive corporations, the military-industrial complex, and to a large extent, the surveilance/telecoms hybrid that spawned companies like AT&T. I don't really see where being extremely punctilious about software freedom wins you in this context. There's no such thing as a free computer - the concept is borderline absurd, and even if it was possible, you're still using a free computer in a world that's largely characterized by tyranny, which is also absurd.

mnm1 8y ago
Software freedom, as defined here and used by RMS has nothing whatsoever to do with the cost of software. It refers to the four freedoms of software (https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/basics/4freedoms.en.html https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/basics/4freedoms.en.html). The right to basic necessities is actually a freedom everyone in the US outside those convicted has. The fact that those necessities cost money is tangential in a discussion of freedom just like the cost of developing software is mostly tangential. This isn't a discussion about cost. Or as fsf puts it, free as in freedom not free as in beer. There is indeed such thing as a free computer running free software that respects the four freedoms above. They are getting harder to find but they do exist and one could easily build and run one. It will cost money however, but as I said that's tangential almost to the point of being irrelevant in a discussion of software freedom.
- pasabagi 8y ago
  I understand they mean free as in freedom. I also think that if you exclude the 'fact that ... necessities cost money' from the concept of freedom, you end up with a pretty poor concept. But that's not really the issue at hand here. The issue is, if you have a 'free' device in a society that is largely based upon the absence of freedom, it's ultimately a fetish - in the magical-thinking sense. And honestly, if we were in a society that was substantially free, the FSF would never have been needed in the first place.
  - quadrangle 8y ago
    I think you're getting at utilitarianism versus some idea like Kant's categorical imperative. From an idealistic standpoint, RMS's views are consistent and sensible, honorable even. But from a utilitarian view (which I support incidentally), we evaluate the actual real-world consequences of each decision. In that light, RMS's overall concerns still hold up completely but his emphasis on each person individually rejecting all non-free software uncompromisingly is non-utilitarian.
    - pasabagi 8y ago
      I guess consequentialist v deonotological would be another way of framing it. That all said, my suspicion is that most people that go hard deontological essentially do so because they care more about their own moral purity than the state of the world. And, if you want to look at what happens when deonotological ethics are the norm, just look at medieval europe.
      - quadrangle 8y ago
        In the case of RMS, I find it extremely clear that he cares exponentially more about the state of the world than about his own moral purity.

greyman 8y ago

> I feel like I'm in the minority; that people my age and younger who give a shit about things like this, prefer BSD/MIT/Apache style licenses. I am of older age but I too prefer MIT over GPL. The logic is like this: time is precious and if I devote it to developing an open-source library, I want it to be used by as many people as possible. I see no reason whatsoever why I would exclude closed-source software from adopting it.

quadrangle 8y ago
You may not care enough, but at least you could see a reason: to assure that those who use your work respect the freedom of their users. You could even disagree with prioritizing this. But it's not like there's no reason to be seen. There are cases where someone wants to build something with your work, period. And if you require that it stay free software, it will be free for the end-users where it wouldn't be otherwise.
- greyman 8y ago
  But I don't recognize that definition of "freedom of their users". It's an artificial construct made by RMS. There are various reasons why some people or companies don't open their source code. That choice should be respected. I also write a lot of closed source, because it was decided the source should be closed.
  - quadrangle 8y ago
    If you want to disagree with the value, that's one thing. Not being able to recognize it is an intellectual failing (literally re-cognize, i.e. understand a concept, whether or not you think it's valid or important). Let me help you out: if I have a computer and there exists software that I could privately run for my own purposes and the computer is set up to not allow me to run that software I want to run, then I am lacking some freedom to use my own computer fully. Or say I want to copy some software from one computer to another but someone has legally or technically put barriers to my ability to do that. These are not an artificial constructs, they are as plain as any concept of freedom can be.