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I think the impractical goal of free software at any cost has hurt Linux. It's radical and it's a type of gatekeeping around here. There is always a post about

I think the impractical goal of free software at any cost has hurt Linux. It's radical and it's a type of gatekeeping around here. There is always a post about Linux tech / adoption that deserves praise and some Stallman acolyte will chime in to remind us it's not a real accomplishment. This is turning into a rant but has anyone checked out the approved distros on FSF? Many popular distros do not make the cut not because they include nonfree software but make it a little too easy to acquire nonfree software.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
syshum 7y ago
I am sure you will consider me a "Stallman acolyte" even though i am not Having said that, I think the compromises the "Open Source" community has given to commercial companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Oracle have done much much much more harm to the community and goals than " Stallman acolytes" ever have. Nor do i believe the goals of Free Software were impractical and as we move into a more connected world where privacy, censorship, and security are more important than ever due to automation, IoT and the normalization of technology the fact that more or less 4 corporations control the underlying fabric of that technology to the point were even the "open standards" are bought and paid for by them should be terrifying to everyone. Of course I am just fear mongering Stallman acolyte right....
- _red 7y ago
  >"Open Source" community has given to commercial companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Oracle What are some examples of these 'compromises'. From what I have seen, all these companies publish source code and abide by copyright law for any open-source code they use in their products. Or are you simply against the principle of for-profit companies making money from open-source?
  - syshum 7y ago
    Open Source vs Free Software is very simple The Open Source community only cares about the Source Code, they are generally developer centrist, and generally work with "open sourcing" tools, libraries, languages and components used to build applications. Looks on github's open source projects, what is the ratio of Full Applications, compared to libraries, tools, and components? Probably over 100 libraries, tools, and components for every 1 application Open Source community has become a purely developer community that does not give 2 shits about the freedom of users or consumers. Most of the devs in open source today are building SaaS, PaaS and IaaS services that are closed source or non-source distributed "open source" services meaning that is perfectly legal to incorporate open source in to a SaaS product and not release the source code. Free Software however believe all users of the software have a equal right to the source code as the developers. The recent Nest development of them closing their API is a clear example of the difference, if it was a Free Software based API I would have the ability to run my own Nest API server, but while Nest uses many open source libraries the service itself is Closed Source. That is main compromise and divergence that happened between Free Software and Open Source. As to making money off Free Software, I have no problems with that, it is not part of this issue. Open Source advocates like to bring that up as a red herring to divert the conversation from the primary debate. Often claiming that if they can not close their final product "they can not make any money" as an excuse why they do not support Free (Libre) software
    - _red 7y ago
      >The recent Nest development of them closing their API is a clear example of the difference, if it was a Free Software based API I would have the ability to run my own Nest API server. What changes in GPL / FSF licensing would enforce the changes that you want to achieve?
      - DenseComet 7y ago
        There is no change in licensing that could achieve those changes. Companies will just use other software/rewrite the libraries, and blacklist the license. https://opensource.google.com/docs/using/agpl-policy/ https://opensource.google.com/docs/using/agpl-policy/
- dqybh 7y ago
  >Having said that, I think the compromises the "Open Source" community has given to commercial companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Oracle have done much much much more harm to the community and goals than " Stallman acolytes" ever have. So what? First, when you develop software you get to choose the best licence for you. Open source means that big companies can use your software. If you open the source under a permissive licence then it's because you wanted that to happen and didn't expect anything in exchange. Second, users have the choice of what software they run, and they aren't going the way of Stallman acolytes. Why? Well, we all have our reasons. But all in all everybody wins.
  - syshum 7y ago
    I guess that depends on your definition of "wins" which I am sure differs greatly from mine. >Second, users have the choice of what software they run, and they aren't going the way of Stallman acolytes. Why? yes they do have a choice, as it is given they are manipulated by marketing and ignorance of the topic. As recent as 2017 survey's showed most people (like 80% of the population) where still classified as technologically illiterate. Companies with m/billions of dollars for marketing generally win the consumer race, it has nothing to do with the technology. >So what? Do I really need to lay out all the issues that have already resulted from the undue influence of google has over the IETF and W3C, or the issues Orcale has caused due to their influence over java and their lawsuits against google, or Entire history of Microsoft and their anti-competitive practices? Do I need to layout the dystopia that is on the horizon?
    - nvrspyx 7y ago
      > Do I need to layout the dystopia that is on the horizon? Yes. Not because I disagree, but because I’m not seeing it as potentially being a part of that 80%
      - fartcannon 7y ago
        For starters, consider that Stallman, and his kind set the goal posts far enough away that the field we get to play on is very large. Without them, there wouldnt be a field or anything to play with. We would be paying a subscription to watch it at home and it would probably have commercials.
- sonnyblarney 7y ago
  From a certain perspective it's not compromise at all.
overgard 7y ago
Possibly. I do admire the way they put their foot down, but admittedly sometimes I just want a binary GPU driver without a lot of hassle. There's certainly an argument that getting most of the benefit of free software is better than "all-or-nothing" if that mostly results in "nothing". Especially if growing the user base of free software would give the all-or-nothing crowd more leverage with corporations in the future.
- MegaDeKay 7y ago
  > I just want a binary GPU driver without a lot of hassle Unfortunately, those two things tend to be incompatible. Kernel interfaces that a GPU driver might need to hook into can change from release to release. A solid GPU driver that is part of the kernel is what you _really_ want. The AMDGPU driver in the kernel is very good and gets better every release, and it is there substantially because AMD opened up their docs so such a driver could be developed. That's why I went with Team Red on my last GPU purchase and why I will on my next one. See also Intel.
  - zeusk 7y ago
    I forgot where I read it, but from Microsoft's analytics it was found that majority of crashes were result of a driver bug (often) in the Graphics stack which was a decision driver for them to move the graphics stack into the userspace. The drivers still do have a kernel mode component but it is much smaller than it was in the XP days and the results show how (relatively) stable things have gotten since.
- addicted 7y ago
  I’d question how well supported and stable the binary driver would be if the hardware company behind it isn’t willing to take basic steps to be acceptable to the wider community.
derefr 7y ago
I don’t know about radical; if you’re talking about the same sorts of Linux environments I’m thinking of (e.g. a desktop running GNOME, using FOSS GUI apps), then, ignoring the kernel itself [which is a special case in many ways], their developers are—by volume of commits—mostly community contributors. Would you expect that said community contributors would have any contribution/engagement at all, if the product they were contributing to wasn’t 1. sitting there with its source available on GitHub, in a state where you can compile and run your own copy of it from said source, and 2. accepting PRs from all comers, with project direction mostly up to either “the guy who wrote the code originally”, or “the whims of the people who do the most PRs”, such that 3. you gain in decision-making power in the project to the degree you contribute? Once you have those three properties, you’ve essentially got FOSS. It doesn’t really matter if you charge for the binary distro (like e.g. RedHat does) if the developers behind the source code are essentially their own little monastery/guild, run by the will of the people who write the code, that can just up and strike if the product’s corporate owner does something stupid. If it isn’t FOSS, it’ll be forked or re-built from the ground up by said developers to be FOSS; not out of principle, but in order to put “the people writing the code” in power over the code project’s direction. (See e.g. LibreOffice.) I wouldn’t say that making a specifically-FOSS piece of software was ever a “goal” of any of these projects, outside of Stallman’s GNU itself; rather, these projects being FOSS is just a sort of emergent property from the “anthropic principle of community-driven software engineering”: for software to exist, people—a lot of people—have to have had a hand in making it; and, unless they all worked for the same company, there has to have been some legal infrastructure in place to make many different parties able to push the project forward. That legal infrastructure is a license like the GPL or BSD. The projects that had that infrastructure thrived; the projects that didn’t have it—and there are many—stagnated or died. (This effect only applies above a certain level of complexity, mind you; there are small software packages that are “free” but where nobody but their author has ever contributed to them. Compression libraries like zlib, and format libraries like libpng, tend to be like this; as do smaller library-ecosystem packages like your average NPM package is. In those cases, there isn’t much to grow, so stagnation is just fine. But, don’t be confused, stagnating still is what those packages are doing.)
- kpU8efre7r 7y ago
AsyncAwait 7y ago
> I think the impractical goal of free software at any cost has hurt Linux. It's radical and it's a type of gatekeeping around here. Completely disagree. The fact is, if you want to innact real change you need to be quite 'radical', because various pressure groups will inevitably weaken whatever gets done. So you starting position cannot be a mild/moderate one, otherwise you won't get anything done. There's already plenty to choose from if the free software vision does not suit you. I don't need Linux to just be another Windows/macOS. I can just go straight for them if that's what I want, or go for one of the BSDs if I want a free as in cost option with no concern for software freedom. But in the world, there's room (and need) for uniqueness. If everything would be the same, just with a different badge, you would not like to live in that world, you'd strive for diversity of opinions, foods, colors, books etc. Why should software be any different? Proprietary software has a strong base, backed by some of the largest corporations on this planet. I think free software having a little corner for itself, one that is not under constant pressure to become just like the others, is warranted.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

syshum 7y ago

I am sure you will consider me a "Stallman acolyte" even though i am not Having said that, I think the compromises the "Open Source" community has given to commercial companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Oracle have done much much much more harm to the community and goals than " Stallman acolytes" ever have. Nor do i believe the goals of Free Software were impractical and as we move into a more connected world where privacy, censorship, and security are more important than ever due to automation, IoT and the normalization of technology the fact that more or less 4 corporations control the underlying fabric of that technology to the point were even the "open standards" are bought and paid for by them should be terrifying to everyone. Of course I am just fear mongering Stallman acolyte right....

_red 7y ago
>"Open Source" community has given to commercial companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Oracle What are some examples of these 'compromises'. From what I have seen, all these companies publish source code and abide by copyright law for any open-source code they use in their products. Or are you simply against the principle of for-profit companies making money from open-source?
- syshum 7y ago
  Open Source vs Free Software is very simple The Open Source community only cares about the Source Code, they are generally developer centrist, and generally work with "open sourcing" tools, libraries, languages and components used to build applications. Looks on github's open source projects, what is the ratio of Full Applications, compared to libraries, tools, and components? Probably over 100 libraries, tools, and components for every 1 application Open Source community has become a purely developer community that does not give 2 shits about the freedom of users or consumers. Most of the devs in open source today are building SaaS, PaaS and IaaS services that are closed source or non-source distributed "open source" services meaning that is perfectly legal to incorporate open source in to a SaaS product and not release the source code. Free Software however believe all users of the software have a equal right to the source code as the developers. The recent Nest development of them closing their API is a clear example of the difference, if it was a Free Software based API I would have the ability to run my own Nest API server, but while Nest uses many open source libraries the service itself is Closed Source. That is main compromise and divergence that happened between Free Software and Open Source. As to making money off Free Software, I have no problems with that, it is not part of this issue. Open Source advocates like to bring that up as a red herring to divert the conversation from the primary debate. Often claiming that if they can not close their final product "they can not make any money" as an excuse why they do not support Free (Libre) software
  - _red 7y ago
    >The recent Nest development of them closing their API is a clear example of the difference, if it was a Free Software based API I would have the ability to run my own Nest API server. What changes in GPL / FSF licensing would enforce the changes that you want to achieve?
    - DenseComet 7y ago
      There is no change in licensing that could achieve those changes. Companies will just use other software/rewrite the libraries, and blacklist the license. https://opensource.google.com/docs/using/agpl-policy/ https://opensource.google.com/docs/using/agpl-policy/
dqybh 7y ago
>Having said that, I think the compromises the "Open Source" community has given to commercial companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Oracle have done much much much more harm to the community and goals than " Stallman acolytes" ever have. So what? First, when you develop software you get to choose the best licence for you. Open source means that big companies can use your software. If you open the source under a permissive licence then it's because you wanted that to happen and didn't expect anything in exchange. Second, users have the choice of what software they run, and they aren't going the way of Stallman acolytes. Why? Well, we all have our reasons. But all in all everybody wins.
- syshum 7y ago
  I guess that depends on your definition of "wins" which I am sure differs greatly from mine. >Second, users have the choice of what software they run, and they aren't going the way of Stallman acolytes. Why? yes they do have a choice, as it is given they are manipulated by marketing and ignorance of the topic. As recent as 2017 survey's showed most people (like 80% of the population) where still classified as technologically illiterate. Companies with m/billions of dollars for marketing generally win the consumer race, it has nothing to do with the technology. >So what? Do I really need to lay out all the issues that have already resulted from the undue influence of google has over the IETF and W3C, or the issues Orcale has caused due to their influence over java and their lawsuits against google, or Entire history of Microsoft and their anti-competitive practices? Do I need to layout the dystopia that is on the horizon?
  - nvrspyx 7y ago
    > Do I need to layout the dystopia that is on the horizon? Yes. Not because I disagree, but because I’m not seeing it as potentially being a part of that 80%
    - fartcannon 7y ago
      For starters, consider that Stallman, and his kind set the goal posts far enough away that the field we get to play on is very large. Without them, there wouldnt be a field or anything to play with. We would be paying a subscription to watch it at home and it would probably have commercials.
sonnyblarney 7y ago
From a certain perspective it's not compromise at all.

overgard 7y ago

Possibly. I do admire the way they put their foot down, but admittedly sometimes I just want a binary GPU driver without a lot of hassle. There's certainly an argument that getting most of the benefit of free software is better than "all-or-nothing" if that mostly results in "nothing". Especially if growing the user base of free software would give the all-or-nothing crowd more leverage with corporations in the future.

MegaDeKay 7y ago
> I just want a binary GPU driver without a lot of hassle Unfortunately, those two things tend to be incompatible. Kernel interfaces that a GPU driver might need to hook into can change from release to release. A solid GPU driver that is part of the kernel is what you _really_ want. The AMDGPU driver in the kernel is very good and gets better every release, and it is there substantially because AMD opened up their docs so such a driver could be developed. That's why I went with Team Red on my last GPU purchase and why I will on my next one. See also Intel.
- zeusk 7y ago
  I forgot where I read it, but from Microsoft's analytics it was found that majority of crashes were result of a driver bug (often) in the Graphics stack which was a decision driver for them to move the graphics stack into the userspace. The drivers still do have a kernel mode component but it is much smaller than it was in the XP days and the results show how (relatively) stable things have gotten since.
addicted 7y ago
I’d question how well supported and stable the binary driver would be if the hardware company behind it isn’t willing to take basic steps to be acceptable to the wider community.

derefr 7y ago

I don’t know about radical; if you’re talking about the same sorts of Linux environments I’m thinking of (e.g. a desktop running GNOME, using FOSS GUI apps), then, ignoring the kernel itself [which is a special case in many ways], their developers are—by volume of commits—mostly community contributors. Would you expect that said community contributors would have any contribution/engagement at all, if the product they were contributing to wasn’t 1. sitting there with its source available on GitHub, in a state where you can compile and run your own copy of it from said source, and 2. accepting PRs from all comers, with project direction mostly up to either “the guy who wrote the code originally”, or “the whims of the people who do the most PRs”, such that 3. you gain in decision-making power in the project to the degree you contribute? Once you have those three properties, you’ve essentially got FOSS. It doesn’t really matter if you charge for the binary distro (like e.g. RedHat does) if the developers behind the source code are essentially their own little monastery/guild, run by the will of the people who write the code, that can just up and strike if the product’s corporate owner does something stupid. If it isn’t FOSS, it’ll be forked or re-built from the ground up by said developers to be FOSS; not out of principle, but in order to put “the people writing the code” in power over the code project’s direction. (See e.g. LibreOffice.) I wouldn’t say that making a specifically-FOSS piece of software was ever a “goal” of any of these projects, outside of Stallman’s GNU itself; rather, these projects being FOSS is just a sort of emergent property from the “anthropic principle of community-driven software engineering”: for software to exist, people—a lot of people—have to have had a hand in making it; and, unless they all worked for the same company, there has to have been some legal infrastructure in place to make many different parties able to push the project forward. That legal infrastructure is a license like the GPL or BSD. The projects that had that infrastructure thrived; the projects that didn’t have it—and there are many—stagnated or died. (This effect only applies above a certain level of complexity, mind you; there are small software packages that are “free” but where nobody but their author has ever contributed to them. Compression libraries like zlib, and format libraries like libpng, tend to be like this; as do smaller library-ecosystem packages like your average NPM package is. In those cases, there isn’t much to grow, so stagnation is just fine. But, don’t be confused, stagnating still is what those packages are doing.)

kpU8efre7r 7y ago

AsyncAwait 7y ago

> I think the impractical goal of free software at any cost has hurt Linux. It's radical and it's a type of gatekeeping around here. Completely disagree. The fact is, if you want to innact real change you need to be quite 'radical', because various pressure groups will inevitably weaken whatever gets done. So you starting position cannot be a mild/moderate one, otherwise you won't get anything done. There's already plenty to choose from if the free software vision does not suit you. I don't need Linux to just be another Windows/macOS. I can just go straight for them if that's what I want, or go for one of the BSDs if I want a free as in cost option with no concern for software freedom. But in the world, there's room (and need) for uniqueness. If everything would be the same, just with a different badge, you would not like to live in that world, you'd strive for diversity of opinions, foods, colors, books etc. Why should software be any different? Proprietary software has a strong base, backed by some of the largest corporations on this planet. I think free software having a little corner for itself, one that is not under constant pressure to become just like the others, is warranted.