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> having a bunch of other people come in who fundamentally do not understand why those distinctions exist or why they matter The "fields on endeavor" clause is

by erezsh 5y ago

> having a bunch of other people come in who fundamentally do not understand why those distinctions exist or why they matter The "fields on endeavor" clause is a disputed clause. It wasn't a widely-accepted tenet when the term "free software" started out. It was added later when "open-source" started to gain popularity. It's true that the main proponents of "fields of endeavor", namely the OSI, have a much stronger voice than the rest of us. Does it mean they get to define what is free software? They would like to think so, but I'm not sure that being the mainstream, or having a budget due to corporate backing, means they have a monopoly over a movement that started by individuals long before the OSI started. There are also plenty of voices, right now, within the OSI, talking about removing the "fields of endeavor" clause. There was a big internal "controversy" over it only a few months ago. Having a discussion about the term "free software" and about the "fields of endeavor" clause, without mentioning any of these facts, is more propaganda, than an attempt to argue in good faith. If they want to push their own brand of "free software", that's fine. But they should at least be honest about what they're doing. Not argue that they don't care about the "fields of endeavor" clause, but just trying to correct some philosophical/technical inaccuracy. FTA: > Isn't prohibiting the usage of some artefacts for commercial purpose good for free artefacts? Maybe it is. May be it is not. That is irrelevant while deciding whether a license is considered free or not. No, it's not irrelevant. The better philosophy should win, not the one with the most corporate backing.

danShumway 5y ago
> have a much stronger voice than the rest of us. Does it mean they get to define what is free software? Well, when we're talking about culture, word definitions are descriptive of current usage, not prescriptive. So yes, absent rigorous technical definitions, the people with the strongest and most mainstream voices do get to define what words mean, because definitions describe usage. When we're talking about Open Source, both the rigorous technical definitions and the mainstream common understandings of the words reject NC licenses as Free/Libre. Is it possible that might change in the future? Sure. But it hasn't changed yet. > is more propaganda, than an attempt to argue in good faith. Let's be honest about what's happening here, both of us are making propaganda, because that's the only thing we can talk about. There is no natural law of the world that defines what any word should mean, when we have these conversations we are necessarily making moral/value arguments about what the definition of Free/Libre should be. Nevertheless, the "controversy" about Fields of Endeavor that you're highlighting is not as big of a deal or as big of a controversy as you're making it out to be -- in general the support for keeping Fields of Endeavor is a lot larger than the movement to remove it. Not that it would matter anyway, because NC licenses also violate clauses 1 (Free Redistribution) and 9 (License Must Not Restrict Other Software). So even if clause 6 did go away, it's still going to be a while before NC licenses can be considered valid under the OSI definitions. > The better philosophy should win What if we find out that the best way to fund Open Source is by restricting source access to approved people and by restricting people's ability to distribute modifications? Does that mean we should consider software that restricts that stuff to be Free/Libre? Saying the better philosophy should win is in some ways exactly what I mean by not understanding what the philosophies are -- it's predicated on this idea that the real definition of Free/Libre is "whatever works", rather than treating Free/Libre as a theory about what might work. "The better philosophy should win" is the kind of thing we properly say when discussing Free/Libre vs Proprietary software, or Communism vs Capitalism, or Veganism vs Vegetarianism, or any number of competing ideologies about the world. The effects of those philosophies in the real world are what we're trying to determine, not the definition of what those philosophies are. It may well be that the best way to guarantee free artefacts is by distributing Non-Free software. If that's the case, it doesn't make that software Free/Libre, it means that the proprietary model is better. It may well be that eating honey is better for the environment than abstaining from honey. That doesn't make honey Vegan. Free/Libre is a philosophy that (among other things) states that having a shared, collective commons of software that everyone uses and contributes to will be better than having a proprietary model in which people are forced to get permission before they're allowed to inspect/modify or distribute modifications to the programs that they build. That philosophy might be wrong, or it might be right. That's a different conversation than what the philosophy is. The idea that clauses like 1, 6, and 9 are just corporate quirks of the OSI definition of Free/Libre, rather than serious philosophical statements about what Free means -- that is what I mean by people not understanding the philosophy behind what they're critiquing. "Fields of Endeavor" doesn't exist just for corporate interests, it's intended to be a general prohibition against license restrictions like "don't be evil", "don't use for any cause I dislike", and "don't make money." People who argue against that clause ought to have better philosophical arguments than "corporations like it, so it must be evil." There's a very real effort to portray clause 6 as merely a quirk of history, and to avoid putting in the effort to dissect what the implications of clause 6 actually are, what purpose it serves, and what the implications of removing it actually would be and what removing it would change about the nature of Free/Libre software. But... again, clause 6 is not the only part of the OSI definition that NC licenses violate. NC licenses would have violated even most early definitions of Free/Libre before clause 6 had been added and before Open Source had become popular.
- erezsh 5y ago
  Thanks for the stimulating conversation. I'm almost out of juice, so I'll just reply to a few things -- > both of us are making propaganda That may be. As long as we're being honest about it, I think that's fine. I feel like the article wasn't being honest about being propaganda. > It may well be that the best way to guarantee free artefacts is by distributing Non-Free software I don't really follow. If charging 1$ from everyone ends up being the best outcome for free software (we're talking about free as in speech, right?), then yeah, I think that makes it free. Just not as in beer. I don't see how it can be otherwise. > The idea that clauses like 1, 6, and 9 are just corporate quirks I'm not saying any of them are quirks. I'm saying that they are not axioms. If you write an article trying to defend them, you should try to actually defend them, rather than say "this is how it's always been" or "this is the mainstream, just accept it." It's very likely that if we argued about the actual free/open-source licenses, I would end up agreeing with most of what you say. But I still believe the article in question was written in bad faith, and you didn't convince me otherwise.

by erezsh 5y ago

danShumway 5y ago

> have a much stronger voice than the rest of us. Does it mean they get to define what is free software? Well, when we're talking about culture, word definitions are descriptive of current usage, not prescriptive. So yes, absent rigorous technical definitions, the people with the strongest and most mainstream voices do get to define what words mean, because definitions describe usage. When we're talking about Open Source, both the rigorous technical definitions and the mainstream common understandings of the words reject NC licenses as Free/Libre. Is it possible that might change in the future? Sure. But it hasn't changed yet. > is more propaganda, than an attempt to argue in good faith. Let's be honest about what's happening here, both of us are making propaganda, because that's the only thing we can talk about. There is no natural law of the world that defines what any word should mean, when we have these conversations we are necessarily making moral/value arguments about what the definition of Free/Libre should be. Nevertheless, the "controversy" about Fields of Endeavor that you're highlighting is not as big of a deal or as big of a controversy as you're making it out to be -- in general the support for keeping Fields of Endeavor is a lot larger than the movement to remove it. Not that it would matter anyway, because NC licenses also violate clauses 1 (Free Redistribution) and 9 (License Must Not Restrict Other Software). So even if clause 6 did go away, it's still going to be a while before NC licenses can be considered valid under the OSI definitions. > The better philosophy should win What if we find out that the best way to fund Open Source is by restricting source access to approved people and by restricting people's ability to distribute modifications? Does that mean we should consider software that restricts that stuff to be Free/Libre? Saying the better philosophy should win is in some ways exactly what I mean by not understanding what the philosophies are -- it's predicated on this idea that the real definition of Free/Libre is "whatever works", rather than treating Free/Libre as a theory about what might work. "The better philosophy should win" is the kind of thing we properly say when discussing Free/Libre vs Proprietary software, or Communism vs Capitalism, or Veganism vs Vegetarianism, or any number of competing ideologies about the world. The effects of those philosophies in the real world are what we're trying to determine, not the definition of what those philosophies are. It may well be that the best way to guarantee free artefacts is by distributing Non-Free software. If that's the case, it doesn't make that software Free/Libre, it means that the proprietary model is better. It may well be that eating honey is better for the environment than abstaining from honey. That doesn't make honey Vegan. Free/Libre is a philosophy that (among other things) states that having a shared, collective commons of software that everyone uses and contributes to will be better than having a proprietary model in which people are forced to get permission before they're allowed to inspect/modify or distribute modifications to the programs that they build. That philosophy might be wrong, or it might be right. That's a different conversation than what the philosophy is. The idea that clauses like 1, 6, and 9 are just corporate quirks of the OSI definition of Free/Libre, rather than serious philosophical statements about what Free means -- that is what I mean by people not understanding the philosophy behind what they're critiquing. "Fields of Endeavor" doesn't exist just for corporate interests, it's intended to be a general prohibition against license restrictions like "don't be evil", "don't use for any cause I dislike", and "don't make money." People who argue against that clause ought to have better philosophical arguments than "corporations like it, so it must be evil." There's a very real effort to portray clause 6 as merely a quirk of history, and to avoid putting in the effort to dissect what the implications of clause 6 actually are, what purpose it serves, and what the implications of removing it actually would be and what removing it would change about the nature of Free/Libre software. But... again, clause 6 is not the only part of the OSI definition that NC licenses violate. NC licenses would have violated even most early definitions of Free/Libre before clause 6 had been added and before Open Source had become popular.

erezsh 5y ago
Thanks for the stimulating conversation. I'm almost out of juice, so I'll just reply to a few things -- > both of us are making propaganda That may be. As long as we're being honest about it, I think that's fine. I feel like the article wasn't being honest about being propaganda. > It may well be that the best way to guarantee free artefacts is by distributing Non-Free software I don't really follow. If charging 1$ from everyone ends up being the best outcome for free software (we're talking about free as in speech, right?), then yeah, I think that makes it free. Just not as in beer. I don't see how it can be otherwise. > The idea that clauses like 1, 6, and 9 are just corporate quirks I'm not saying any of them are quirks. I'm saying that they are not axioms. If you write an article trying to defend them, you should try to actually defend them, rather than say "this is how it's always been" or "this is the mainstream, just accept it." It's very likely that if we argued about the actual free/open-source licenses, I would end up agreeing with most of what you say. But I still believe the article in question was written in bad faith, and you didn't convince me otherwise.