7 ms·

Or, why Free Software misses the point of Open Source :) Open Source is about the developers. Free Software is about the end users (or, it's supposed to be).

by hasenj 16y ago

Or, why Free Software misses the point of Open Source :) Open Source is about the developers. Free Software is about the end users (or, it's supposed to be). In reality, Free Software ends up being useful only for programmers, hackers, technical people, and well, institutions which require programmers, hackers and technical people to run and grow their infrastructure (such as Universities and Governments). Free Software (as an ideology) offers nothing to the typical end user of, say, the iPhone. It offers a lot to Apple (the iPhone makers).

cschwarm 16y ago
I personally think, the user/developer distinction is misleading. I agree with Stallman that Open Source is about different goals and values: * Open Source supporters say "Some software should be..." * Free Software supporters say "All software should be..." In this regard, you're right: Free Software misses the point of Open Source, namely that the goals and values of Free Software are simply wrong.
code_duck 16y ago
You make it sound as if universities and governments (and Apple?) do not offer services which benefit people who do not directly use the software themselves.
SwellJoe 16y ago
"Open Source is about the developers. Free Software is about the end users (or, it's supposed to be)." In an ideal world, the user and the developer are one in the same. I don't mean everyone who uses a piece of software should have to know the code intimately; merely that they should have the freedom to see it, modify it and learn from it, should the need or desire arise. The power of the Free Software movement is that it created an entire generation of users who are also developers. Most of the people here at HN have Free and Open Source software to thank for their programming skills. You're mostly too young to remember the world in which code was closed, by default, and you had to learn without the benefit of an infinite variety of examples to peruse. "Free Software (as an ideology) offers nothing to the typical end user of, say, the iPhone." Which is why it is important to educate the next generation of the importance of Free Software (or Open Source, though having an ideology to back it might not be such a bad things), so that the rate of software advancement and innovation continues to accelerate, and so that the gap between the technology haves and have nots does not grow further and faster. To dismiss the ideology, I think, is to dismiss the importance of a free software culture; our Internet exists as it does today thanks to free software. Note that I'm not discussing licenses here, but the general culture of software. If we have a culture of sharing, which RMS and the FSF has been instrumental in creating (and the GPL was merely a part of that), we have a culture in which young programmers can learn from the experienced, and a culture in which barriers to entry are not as economic in nature. I think it's worth teaching kids the value of a free software culture, and working to keep that culture thriving going forward, despite the fact that many major corporations have a vested interest in seeing free software contained to the world of nerds and hackers.
- brudgers 16y ago
  >"In an ideal world, the user and the developer are one in the same." My vision of utopia does not include helping my mother debug her cell phone - explaining gmail is bad enough.
  - SwellJoe 16y ago
    You've taken that quote out of context, as the next sentence dispels your fear of having to help your mother debug her cell phone. But, to answer that particular argument: It can't help the previous generation in any notable way. That ship has sailed. But, the next generation can be more capable than the current one, assuming we pass on the tools they need and a culture of learning and sharing discoveries. So, don't bother teaching your mother to code, unless she actually wants to learn. Teach your kids and give them the tools they need (which includes a huge variety of source to learn from).
    - EGreg 16y ago
      I think that in the future, I wouldn't expect everyone's kids to be know enough to provide patches for software they use. Rather, there has to be a responsive community of developers around the product, with a good TOOL (like a bug tracker) which the kids could use to report a bug and anther TOOL to capture the bug in the app and send the extra info. While everyone would have the freedom to contribute patches, most people aren't going to be educated along this line, or know the product very well. It is the tools that we must improve, although the principles of software freedom enforced in the GPL help protect people.
      - SwellJoe 16y ago
        It's the difference between "may" and "must". You think I'm saying "must", but I intended to express "may".
        dwc 16y ago
        That's much better. May be a developer. May engage the services of a developer. May benefit from unknown developers somewhere halfway across the world.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
noibl 16y ago
As he admits, "Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement." A comparison of the two is apples-to-oranges.
sp332 16y ago
In the Free Software model, there's no such thing as an end-user. Everyone gets to be a developer (for themselves or their friends). That's why it's so developer-friendly.
- moron4hire 16y ago
  unfortunately, when you build your software on "everyone gets to be a developer", more often than not it comes out as "everyone has to be a developer".
- tbrownaw 16y ago
  Yes, egcs and xemacs (and at least partly clang/llvm I think) are shining examples of the FSF's developer-friendliness.
mvalle 16y ago
"In reality, Free Software ends up being useful only for programmers, hackers, technical people," That is like saying that freedom of speech is only useful for journalists. You don't have to exercise a freedom to benefit from it. You benefit from others exercising it too. Whether a journalist exposes government corruption, or a security experts independently audits OpenSSL, everyone benefits of the relevant freedom being exercised. You don't have to be a programmer for benefiting from DeCSS. You don't have to be a hacker to benefit from Apache. You don't have to be a technical person to benefit from WordPress. The same applies to the reversed, you don't have to be a programmer to suffer from DRM, vendor lock-in, or nag-ware.
- rick888 16y ago
  "The same applies to the reversed, you don't have to be a programmer to suffer from DRM, vendor lock-in, or nag-ware." ahh, so you don't want software to be commercial, is that it?
ErrantX 16y ago
>Open Source is about the developers. Free Software is about the end users (or, it's supposed to be). Yes, this. This might be an unpopular view but "free software" (in the sense talked about here) is unencumbered for the users only. For developers it is encumbered (via the GPL). Open Source makes a different trade-off for the same gain. This is the thing Stallman consistently misses; that Open Source and Free Software are simply two different solutions to a similar issue. Free Software sacrifices the freedom of developers when reusing the code. Open Source sacrifices a developers future porential ability to keep all uses of the code freely available. He throws out the word ethical, I think, because it makes FS sound better. But the bottom line is that both ideals have underlying issues and problems; the brilliant thing is that there is a choice between the two, and we are free to pick the one that makes the trade-off we prefer. The really great thing is that the real world is not as black and white as FS & OS; we can mix and match various aspects for our own preference :) That is the point of freedom. I suppose I can't fault Stallman for promoting his personal choice as best he is able.

by hasenj 16y ago

cschwarm 16y ago

I personally think, the user/developer distinction is misleading. I agree with Stallman that Open Source is about different goals and values: * Open Source supporters say "Some software should be..." * Free Software supporters say "All software should be..." In this regard, you're right: Free Software misses the point of Open Source, namely that the goals and values of Free Software are simply wrong.

code_duck 16y ago

You make it sound as if universities and governments (and Apple?) do not offer services which benefit people who do not directly use the software themselves.

SwellJoe 16y ago

"Open Source is about the developers. Free Software is about the end users (or, it's supposed to be)." In an ideal world, the user and the developer are one in the same. I don't mean everyone who uses a piece of software should have to know the code intimately; merely that they should have the freedom to see it, modify it and learn from it, should the need or desire arise. The power of the Free Software movement is that it created an entire generation of users who are also developers. Most of the people here at HN have Free and Open Source software to thank for their programming skills. You're mostly too young to remember the world in which code was closed, by default, and you had to learn without the benefit of an infinite variety of examples to peruse. "Free Software (as an ideology) offers nothing to the typical end user of, say, the iPhone." Which is why it is important to educate the next generation of the importance of Free Software (or Open Source, though having an ideology to back it might not be such a bad things), so that the rate of software advancement and innovation continues to accelerate, and so that the gap between the technology haves and have nots does not grow further and faster. To dismiss the ideology, I think, is to dismiss the importance of a free software culture; our Internet exists as it does today thanks to free software. Note that I'm not discussing licenses here, but the general culture of software. If we have a culture of sharing, which RMS and the FSF has been instrumental in creating (and the GPL was merely a part of that), we have a culture in which young programmers can learn from the experienced, and a culture in which barriers to entry are not as economic in nature. I think it's worth teaching kids the value of a free software culture, and working to keep that culture thriving going forward, despite the fact that many major corporations have a vested interest in seeing free software contained to the world of nerds and hackers.

brudgers 16y ago
>"In an ideal world, the user and the developer are one in the same." My vision of utopia does not include helping my mother debug her cell phone - explaining gmail is bad enough.
- SwellJoe 16y ago
  You've taken that quote out of context, as the next sentence dispels your fear of having to help your mother debug her cell phone. But, to answer that particular argument: It can't help the previous generation in any notable way. That ship has sailed. But, the next generation can be more capable than the current one, assuming we pass on the tools they need and a culture of learning and sharing discoveries. So, don't bother teaching your mother to code, unless she actually wants to learn. Teach your kids and give them the tools they need (which includes a huge variety of source to learn from).
  - EGreg 16y ago
    I think that in the future, I wouldn't expect everyone's kids to be know enough to provide patches for software they use. Rather, there has to be a responsive community of developers around the product, with a good TOOL (like a bug tracker) which the kids could use to report a bug and anther TOOL to capture the bug in the app and send the extra info. While everyone would have the freedom to contribute patches, most people aren't going to be educated along this line, or know the product very well. It is the tools that we must improve, although the principles of software freedom enforced in the GPL help protect people.
    - SwellJoe 16y ago
      It's the difference between "may" and "must". You think I'm saying "must", but I intended to express "may".
      - dwc 16y ago
        That's much better. May be a developer. May engage the services of a developer. May benefit from unknown developers somewhere halfway across the world.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

noibl 16y ago

As he admits, "Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement." A comparison of the two is apples-to-oranges.

sp332 16y ago

In the Free Software model, there's no such thing as an end-user. Everyone gets to be a developer (for themselves or their friends). That's why it's so developer-friendly.

moron4hire 16y ago
unfortunately, when you build your software on "everyone gets to be a developer", more often than not it comes out as "everyone has to be a developer".
tbrownaw 16y ago
Yes, egcs and xemacs (and at least partly clang/llvm I think) are shining examples of the FSF's developer-friendliness.

mvalle 16y ago

"In reality, Free Software ends up being useful only for programmers, hackers, technical people," That is like saying that freedom of speech is only useful for journalists. You don't have to exercise a freedom to benefit from it. You benefit from others exercising it too. Whether a journalist exposes government corruption, or a security experts independently audits OpenSSL, everyone benefits of the relevant freedom being exercised. You don't have to be a programmer for benefiting from DeCSS. You don't have to be a hacker to benefit from Apache. You don't have to be a technical person to benefit from WordPress. The same applies to the reversed, you don't have to be a programmer to suffer from DRM, vendor lock-in, or nag-ware.

rick888 16y ago
"The same applies to the reversed, you don't have to be a programmer to suffer from DRM, vendor lock-in, or nag-ware." ahh, so you don't want software to be commercial, is that it?

ErrantX 16y ago

>Open Source is about the developers. Free Software is about the end users (or, it's supposed to be). Yes, this. This might be an unpopular view but "free software" (in the sense talked about here) is unencumbered for the users only. For developers it is encumbered (via the GPL). Open Source makes a different trade-off for the same gain. This is the thing Stallman consistently misses; that Open Source and Free Software are simply two different solutions to a similar issue. Free Software sacrifices the freedom of developers when reusing the code. Open Source sacrifices a developers future porential ability to keep all uses of the code freely available. He throws out the word ethical, I think, because it makes FS sound better. But the bottom line is that both ideals have underlying issues and problems; the brilliant thing is that there is a choice between the two, and we are free to pick the one that makes the trade-off we prefer. The really great thing is that the real world is not as black and white as FS & OS; we can mix and match various aspects for our own preference :) That is the point of freedom. I suppose I can't fault Stallman for promoting his personal choice as best he is able.