4 ms·

It hasn't won yet, but relatively few people would agree that the FSF approach results in the end-user benefits that the FSF claims it does. A large group of pe

by mwfunk 7y ago

It hasn't won yet, but relatively few people would agree that the FSF approach results in the end-user benefits that the FSF claims it does. A large group of people for sure, but it's a long way off from being a consensus view. The FSF tends to drive away more people than it draws, even among those who are naturally drawn to a lot of what they advocate. Which is a roundabout way of saying that Free Software is "a" movement around end-user benefit, with a very specific perspective about what that means and how to accomplish it that may or may not make sense to a lot of people, but it is not "the" movement around end-user benefit. I'm certain that the FSF and RMS see themselves as "the" movement, but that's actually their #1 problem in a nutshell IMO.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Fair. Maybe I should've worded this differently. While their philosophies and practices are to a large extent overlapping, of the two movements, Open Source is primarily focused on programmer benefits. while Free Software is focused on end-user benefits. FSF is not the movement around end-user benefit, but it's definitely the most known, most visible and most organized - and that does count for something.
- simonh 7y ago
  I don’t really understand how that is so. The main FSF Libre software benefits they tout ‘for users’ are only actually accessible by developers. Specifically freedoms 1 and 3, to study and modify and improve the code and share those improvements. The other two freedoms, to run it for any purpose and redistribute it aren’t in any way unique to Libre software. They’re important sure, but are really just free beer benefits. Users can benefit from access to better software, but only as an incidental or indirect benefit if developers happen to release it or if they pay developers to do so. In the latter case now you’re in a commercial relationship and arguably a closed model can give users more rights and control they might want, for example exclusivity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - skybrian 7y ago
    Part of it is that Free Software dates back to a time when most users were also programmers. If you look beyond licensing issues, Unix scripting, Emacs, Smalltalk, BASIC interpreters, and HyperCard were other early attempts at helping users become programmers, though spreadsheets turned out to be far more successful. But if you want to help everybody, even the most nontechnical, even spreadsheets are sort of beside the point and not really what they want. Instead, making things easier to use (as Apple does) is closer to the mark.
    - scroot 7y ago
      > But if you want to help everybody, even the most nontechnical, even spreadsheets are sort of beside the point and not really what they want. Instead, making things easier to use (as Apple does) is closer to the mark. A counter to this is that in the process of "making things easier to use," companies like Apple have in fact taken the "computing" out of the medium. Today Apple provides tools that allow very snappy and intuitive imitations of things that already existed: music, movies, etc., along with some basic tools to organize these things. Spreadsheets and Hypercard are examples of media that are unique to computing -- they allow users to do things they literally cannot without having a computing device. This is not true for many of the things consumers use personal computers for today: as a phone, as a messaging system, as a radio, etc, etc. Computing today is almost myopically focused on making more convenient and efficient copies of things that already exist. It might be true that Hypercard and spreadsheets are "not really what people want." But what if tools like those are exactly what people need? I have come across innumerable situations where regular office people need to go just one step further than their shrinkwrapped desktop applications allow them to. At that point they have two options: either find some software that also does the very specific thing you need to do, or learn an entire general programming language and all the low level (and immediately irrelevant) information that goes with it. There is no longer anything viable in between those two extremes. As technologists we have really failed these people.

by mwfunk 7y ago

TeMPOraL 7y ago

Fair. Maybe I should've worded this differently. While their philosophies and practices are to a large extent overlapping, of the two movements, Open Source is primarily focused on programmer benefits. while Free Software is focused on end-user benefits. FSF is not the movement around end-user benefit, but it's definitely the most known, most visible and most organized - and that does count for something.

simonh 7y ago
I don’t really understand how that is so. The main FSF Libre software benefits they tout ‘for users’ are only actually accessible by developers. Specifically freedoms 1 and 3, to study and modify and improve the code and share those improvements. The other two freedoms, to run it for any purpose and redistribute it aren’t in any way unique to Libre software. They’re important sure, but are really just free beer benefits. Users can benefit from access to better software, but only as an incidental or indirect benefit if developers happen to release it or if they pay developers to do so. In the latter case now you’re in a commercial relationship and arguably a closed model can give users more rights and control they might want, for example exclusivity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- skybrian 7y ago
  Part of it is that Free Software dates back to a time when most users were also programmers. If you look beyond licensing issues, Unix scripting, Emacs, Smalltalk, BASIC interpreters, and HyperCard were other early attempts at helping users become programmers, though spreadsheets turned out to be far more successful. But if you want to help everybody, even the most nontechnical, even spreadsheets are sort of beside the point and not really what they want. Instead, making things easier to use (as Apple does) is closer to the mark.
  - scroot 7y ago
    > But if you want to help everybody, even the most nontechnical, even spreadsheets are sort of beside the point and not really what they want. Instead, making things easier to use (as Apple does) is closer to the mark. A counter to this is that in the process of "making things easier to use," companies like Apple have in fact taken the "computing" out of the medium. Today Apple provides tools that allow very snappy and intuitive imitations of things that already existed: music, movies, etc., along with some basic tools to organize these things. Spreadsheets and Hypercard are examples of media that are unique to computing -- they allow users to do things they literally cannot without having a computing device. This is not true for many of the things consumers use personal computers for today: as a phone, as a messaging system, as a radio, etc, etc. Computing today is almost myopically focused on making more convenient and efficient copies of things that already exist. It might be true that Hypercard and spreadsheets are "not really what people want." But what if tools like those are exactly what people need? I have come across innumerable situations where regular office people need to go just one step further than their shrinkwrapped desktop applications allow them to. At that point they have two options: either find some software that also does the very specific thing you need to do, or learn an entire general programming language and all the low level (and immediately irrelevant) information that goes with it. There is no longer anything viable in between those two extremes. As technologists we have really failed these people.