3 ms·

One point I think the article missed was the advent of the web, which has rendered a lot of these debates moot - when everything is X-as-a-Service then the only

by na85 8y ago

One point I think the article missed was the advent of the web, which has rendered a lot of these debates moot - when everything is X-as-a-Service then the only thing running on my machine is some bloated javascript written by someone who thinks they're an engineer because they graduated a boot camp. I mention this because ultimately, and this is the point I think is missing from the article, whether $serverside_framework is libre or proprietary makes no difference - the company is going to get rich selling my personal data either way. That is to say, to a lot of people for whom computing is synonymous with the web, the distinction between free software/open-source software and proprietary is blurred because less and less code runs on our devices now. The stale, tired lecture that Stallman's been giving for the last 15 years about ethics isn't persuasive any more because the really odious code isn't running on my machine. Whether facebook's codebase respects their engineering team's collective freedoms or not simply has no bearing on my experience as a user. I'm getting exploited either way.

Jedd 8y ago
You are conflating two very distinct problems. But Eben Moglen and rms have been warning about both problems since before you evidently noticed the second one.
- na85 8y ago
  >But Eben Moglen and rms have been warning about both problems since before you evidently noticed the second one. Much like your snide reply, I think Free Software suffers from a public relations problem. A toenail-eating kook giving the same lecture about the four freedoms for 15 years doesn't persuade many people as you noted in the quote above, otherwise they'd have achieved something with all that "warning" they've been doing.
  - Jedd 8y ago
    I think you may be projecting wrt any snide. I understand that you think the FSF has a public relations problem, and that's okay. As TFA pointed out, plenty of people don't understand the history of 'free software' or even 'open source', despite the latter's stated intent was to remove the ambiguity of the former. Eben and Richard put a lot of thought into the development of GPLv3, specifically around its applicability to SaaS. Your earlier comment suggested you believe they did not - though there's plenty of interviews with, and comments from, Eben around precisely these considerations back in 2007 when GPLv3 was released. Other licences - the Affero GPL variants are the obvious examples - can be applied to software where the author(s) wish to prevent SaaS (mis)use, but for various reasons these are not as widely utilised. Affero v2 was released, not by coincidence, shortly after GPLv3. You have conflated ethics with code, misheard rms & Eben's repeated warnings (the famous 'you get some php doodads and spying for free all the time' for example), made some ad hominem attacks on person(s) who've expressed laudable and consistent ethical position for over three decades, and failed to comprehend that Facebook (etc) are only in control of your personal data because you have provided it to them.
    - na85 8y ago
      >You have conflated ethics with code, misheard rms & Eben's repeated warnings (the famous 'you get some php doodads and spying for free all the time' for example), made some ad hominem attacks on person(s) who've expressed laudable and consistent ethical position for over three decades, and failed to comprehend that Facebook (etc) are only in control of your personal data because you have provided it to them. I must be consistently misinterpreting you, because this part comes off very smug and superior. I'll say the following for other readers and then I'm not going to argue any further with an obvious troll. 1) I see little value to society in "maintaining a laudable and consistent ethical position" for any length of time if such a position does not help in actually advancing your cause. Proprietary software is stronger than ever in part because non-Affero licenses do not require SaaS vendors to contribute code back to the community. 2) Don't tell me what I failed or didn't fail to comprehend - facebook builds shadow profiles on people who don't have accounts, irrespective of whether or not they voluntarily provide information.
      - Jedd 8y ago
        > I see little value to society in "maintaining a laudable and consistent ethical position" for any length of time if such a position does not help in actually advancing your cause. There's some implicit logical fallacies in there. There's a hint that if your cause isn't immediately advanced, then you should abandon your ethical position. There's the suggestion that your outside (and seemingly somewhat biased or under-informed) evaluation should be sufficient to convince others to abandon those positions. Then there's this claim that could best be described as asserting facts not in evidence: > Proprietary software is stronger than ever in part because non-Affero licenses do not require SaaS vendors to contribute code back to the community. As to: > Don't tell me what I failed or didn't fail to comprehend - facebook builds shadow profiles on people who don't have accounts, irrespective of whether or not they voluntarily provide information. Do you have a Facebook account?
steveklabnik 8y ago
I think you'll like the follow-up post. As I said, my goal here was not to discuss if these movements achieved their goals or not; it was to describe the history. So, yes, I'm not talking about any of that, it was explicitly off-topic.
pjmlp 8y ago
That already existed before the Web got widespread. Mainframes, X Windows terminals, Netware, ....

by na85 8y ago

Jedd 8y ago

You are conflating two very distinct problems. But Eben Moglen and rms have been warning about both problems since before you evidently noticed the second one.

na85 8y ago
>But Eben Moglen and rms have been warning about both problems since before you evidently noticed the second one. Much like your snide reply, I think Free Software suffers from a public relations problem. A toenail-eating kook giving the same lecture about the four freedoms for 15 years doesn't persuade many people as you noted in the quote above, otherwise they'd have achieved something with all that "warning" they've been doing.
- Jedd 8y ago
  I think you may be projecting wrt any snide. I understand that you think the FSF has a public relations problem, and that's okay. As TFA pointed out, plenty of people don't understand the history of 'free software' or even 'open source', despite the latter's stated intent was to remove the ambiguity of the former. Eben and Richard put a lot of thought into the development of GPLv3, specifically around its applicability to SaaS. Your earlier comment suggested you believe they did not - though there's plenty of interviews with, and comments from, Eben around precisely these considerations back in 2007 when GPLv3 was released. Other licences - the Affero GPL variants are the obvious examples - can be applied to software where the author(s) wish to prevent SaaS (mis)use, but for various reasons these are not as widely utilised. Affero v2 was released, not by coincidence, shortly after GPLv3. You have conflated ethics with code, misheard rms & Eben's repeated warnings (the famous 'you get some php doodads and spying for free all the time' for example), made some ad hominem attacks on person(s) who've expressed laudable and consistent ethical position for over three decades, and failed to comprehend that Facebook (etc) are only in control of your personal data because you have provided it to them.
  - na85 8y ago
    >You have conflated ethics with code, misheard rms & Eben's repeated warnings (the famous 'you get some php doodads and spying for free all the time' for example), made some ad hominem attacks on person(s) who've expressed laudable and consistent ethical position for over three decades, and failed to comprehend that Facebook (etc) are only in control of your personal data because you have provided it to them. I must be consistently misinterpreting you, because this part comes off very smug and superior. I'll say the following for other readers and then I'm not going to argue any further with an obvious troll. 1) I see little value to society in "maintaining a laudable and consistent ethical position" for any length of time if such a position does not help in actually advancing your cause. Proprietary software is stronger than ever in part because non-Affero licenses do not require SaaS vendors to contribute code back to the community. 2) Don't tell me what I failed or didn't fail to comprehend - facebook builds shadow profiles on people who don't have accounts, irrespective of whether or not they voluntarily provide information.
    - Jedd 8y ago
      > I see little value to society in "maintaining a laudable and consistent ethical position" for any length of time if such a position does not help in actually advancing your cause. There's some implicit logical fallacies in there. There's a hint that if your cause isn't immediately advanced, then you should abandon your ethical position. There's the suggestion that your outside (and seemingly somewhat biased or under-informed) evaluation should be sufficient to convince others to abandon those positions. Then there's this claim that could best be described as asserting facts not in evidence: > Proprietary software is stronger than ever in part because non-Affero licenses do not require SaaS vendors to contribute code back to the community. As to: > Don't tell me what I failed or didn't fail to comprehend - facebook builds shadow profiles on people who don't have accounts, irrespective of whether or not they voluntarily provide information. Do you have a Facebook account?

steveklabnik 8y ago

I think you'll like the follow-up post. As I said, my goal here was not to discuss if these movements achieved their goals or not; it was to describe the history. So, yes, I'm not talking about any of that, it was explicitly off-topic.

pjmlp 8y ago

That already existed before the Web got widespread. Mainframes, X Windows terminals, Netware, ....