6 ms·

I suppose this is part of the new generation of people getting into software (not saying Ariadna is one of them, but it wouldn't surprise me). She is right that

by the_af 5y ago

I suppose this is part of the new generation of people getting into software (not saying Ariadna is one of them, but it wouldn't surprise me). She is right that in the Spanish world (and in Latin America in particular) RMS and the FSF are well-respected, with little of the controversy that sparked in the English-speaking world -- thankfully! The article raises interesting points, but the whole rant against GNU and FSF is weird. GNU (yes, and Linux) and FSF is why many of us are in this business. They played a huge role in the career and passions of many of us -- I feel entitled to say "us" just like the author of TFA carelessly speaks about "we" -- and misunderstanding the history of how we got there doesn't help. To me it feels as if a new generation of tech minded people have started taking things for granted, "why do we even need all those movements fighting for users' freedom, if I am free now?". It's a bit depressing. The different approaches and goals of Linus Torvalds and RMS are both valid, and only in hindsight can we say one triumphed and the other didn't, but the article makes it look as if one of the two was obviously wrongheaded. So some interesting points, but it could do without the whole rant against GNU and the FSF, and without the accusations of cultishness.

paxcoder 5y ago
Only - we're not free. You have a point about young people not being to appreciate not having freedoms perhaps. But our generation has already dropped the ball. We're non-free when it comes to most hardware, web services, mobile software. This is because people don't really care about their freedoms. They settle for "pragmatic" benefits of open source software. People enjoy freedoms themselves, mind you, but they the problem is that they think that anything beyond that there be conspiracy theorists or something. Along with Stallman's social awkwardness, the culprit is Linus' siding with TiVoization and against GPLv3 in my opinion. Anyway, It's not over, and knowing how markets tend to monopolies, we'll be fighting forever. Which won't be a problem once numbers are on our side. Right now we're in a stale mate with much of the front being taken by proprietary software. That is not likely to change until the free software community gets a better face, but agenda-pushing codes of conduct won't do that. We need a serious discussion about software freedoms
zekrioca 5y ago
The well regards for GNU and RMS in the Latin world is due to the strong philosophy against closed software, specially from MS. During most of the 90's and beginnings of 2000's, M$ would force their expensive licenses in governmental systems and would make everything to avoid interoperability, even within versions of their own systems. End result was that countries would spend millions just to be able to share documents across agencies. Things started changing when KDE/Slackware, Ubuntu, Firefox, OpenOffice and other software systems started to become user-friendly, with nicer and intuitive interfaces. From this point on, governments started teaching GNU/Linux in schools and universities, explaining the benefits, the rights, etc, and then switching to open-sourced and free-software systems.
- the_af 5y ago
  Agreed that we in Latin America saw these upsides of switching to FOSS and are therefore friendlier to its philosophy.
djur 5y ago
I'm in the English-speaking world and I wasn't aware of any particular controversy with the FSF other than issues regarding RMS himself and his personal conduct. Is that what you're referring to?
- the_af 5y ago
  Mostly yes. But also the feeling that FSF is "out of touch" or that RMS is a weirdo is much less prevalent in Latin America, where (in general, the people/organizations I know of at least) view them with more admiration than in the English-speaking world.
- jabl 5y ago
  There is certainly controversy around RMS, as you say. But I think more generally, wrt FSF there's not so much controversy [1] as disappointment in the FSF failing to stay relevant. Copyleft was a solution to the 80/90'ies software world. The FSF tried with the AGPL to answer the 'threat' of SaaS, but largely the world has shunned it except as a poison pill license to upsell a proprietary version. Similarly with the GPLv3 the FSF tried to answer to the threat of Tivoization, but again, largely failed to gain adherents in the low level components, like the Linux kernel, where this would have mattered. [1] Well, the FSF taking RMS back on its board did produce a tsunami of corporate (financial) contributors leaving ship.
  - the_af 5y ago
    The "failure to stay relevant" is an odd comment that I have indeed read many times (mostly from English-speakers; as I said, in Latin America the FSF is admired). It's odd because it's worded in a way that sounds as if the FSF wasn't necessary now (or maybe even never), instead of thinking that the FSF is needed more than ever, now that there's a war against general purpose computing and against privacy and users' rights, and that if the GPL3 and AGPL didn't work -- which is possible! -- then how do we fix that? Instead it's either apathy and even scorn against the FSF, which is alarming to me.
    - type0 5y ago
matheusmoreira 5y ago
> To me it feels as if a new generation of tech minded people have started taking things for granted Indeed. Most fundamentally, they take their computing freedom for granted. There are powerful forces who want to take it away from us. There are powerful and rich people out there who think it's too dangerous for mere citizens to have access to unrestricted computers. People focus on Stallman's software licenses as if that's what he's all about. They barely matter. People ignore the big picture: computing freedom. It's not just important, it's fundamental. Without this freedom, there is no hacking as we know it. There is no way to write and run our own software. What good is free software if a corporation or government signature is required to run it? Stallman saw this coming before most if not all of us.
- jabl 5y ago
  > Most fundamentally, they take their computing freedom for granted. There are powerful forces who want to take it away from us. There are powerful and rich people out there who think it's too dangerous for mere citizens to have access to unrestricted computers. To an extent, I agree. I wonder whether the general move in the open source community will turn out to be a Faustian bargain. Are open source developers just a bunch of suckers being taken advantage of to provide building blocks for various proprietary business models? OTOH I'm thinking that more open source code out there is a public good, and we should rejoice in that regardless of 'proprietary free riders'. > People ignore the big picture: computing freedom. It's not just important, it's fundamental. No. What's fundamental is freedom for people. Computing freedom matters only as a means to that end.
  - the_af 5y ago
    > What's fundamental is freedom for people. Computing freedom matters only as a means to that end. I agree, and I'm going to guess the person you're replying to also agrees. In fact, RMS would also agree. It's just that we are narrowly focusing on a single aspect of freedom in this conversation, but yes: freedom to live, to work, to education, to health, are all more important :)
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago

by the_af 5y ago

paxcoder 5y ago

Only - we're not free. You have a point about young people not being to appreciate not having freedoms perhaps. But our generation has already dropped the ball. We're non-free when it comes to most hardware, web services, mobile software. This is because people don't really care about their freedoms. They settle for "pragmatic" benefits of open source software. People enjoy freedoms themselves, mind you, but they the problem is that they think that anything beyond that there be conspiracy theorists or something. Along with Stallman's social awkwardness, the culprit is Linus' siding with TiVoization and against GPLv3 in my opinion. Anyway, It's not over, and knowing how markets tend to monopolies, we'll be fighting forever. Which won't be a problem once numbers are on our side. Right now we're in a stale mate with much of the front being taken by proprietary software. That is not likely to change until the free software community gets a better face, but agenda-pushing codes of conduct won't do that. We need a serious discussion about software freedoms

zekrioca 5y ago

The well regards for GNU and RMS in the Latin world is due to the strong philosophy against closed software, specially from MS. During most of the 90's and beginnings of 2000's, M$ would force their expensive licenses in governmental systems and would make everything to avoid interoperability, even within versions of their own systems. End result was that countries would spend millions just to be able to share documents across agencies. Things started changing when KDE/Slackware, Ubuntu, Firefox, OpenOffice and other software systems started to become user-friendly, with nicer and intuitive interfaces. From this point on, governments started teaching GNU/Linux in schools and universities, explaining the benefits, the rights, etc, and then switching to open-sourced and free-software systems.

the_af 5y ago
Agreed that we in Latin America saw these upsides of switching to FOSS and are therefore friendlier to its philosophy.

djur 5y ago

I'm in the English-speaking world and I wasn't aware of any particular controversy with the FSF other than issues regarding RMS himself and his personal conduct. Is that what you're referring to?

the_af 5y ago
Mostly yes. But also the feeling that FSF is "out of touch" or that RMS is a weirdo is much less prevalent in Latin America, where (in general, the people/organizations I know of at least) view them with more admiration than in the English-speaking world.
jabl 5y ago
There is certainly controversy around RMS, as you say. But I think more generally, wrt FSF there's not so much controversy [1] as disappointment in the FSF failing to stay relevant. Copyleft was a solution to the 80/90'ies software world. The FSF tried with the AGPL to answer the 'threat' of SaaS, but largely the world has shunned it except as a poison pill license to upsell a proprietary version. Similarly with the GPLv3 the FSF tried to answer to the threat of Tivoization, but again, largely failed to gain adherents in the low level components, like the Linux kernel, where this would have mattered. [1] Well, the FSF taking RMS back on its board did produce a tsunami of corporate (financial) contributors leaving ship.
- the_af 5y ago
  The "failure to stay relevant" is an odd comment that I have indeed read many times (mostly from English-speakers; as I said, in Latin America the FSF is admired). It's odd because it's worded in a way that sounds as if the FSF wasn't necessary now (or maybe even never), instead of thinking that the FSF is needed more than ever, now that there's a war against general purpose computing and against privacy and users' rights, and that if the GPL3 and AGPL didn't work -- which is possible! -- then how do we fix that? Instead it's either apathy and even scorn against the FSF, which is alarming to me.
  - type0 5y ago

matheusmoreira 5y ago

> To me it feels as if a new generation of tech minded people have started taking things for granted Indeed. Most fundamentally, they take their computing freedom for granted. There are powerful forces who want to take it away from us. There are powerful and rich people out there who think it's too dangerous for mere citizens to have access to unrestricted computers. People focus on Stallman's software licenses as if that's what he's all about. They barely matter. People ignore the big picture: computing freedom. It's not just important, it's fundamental. Without this freedom, there is no hacking as we know it. There is no way to write and run our own software. What good is free software if a corporation or government signature is required to run it? Stallman saw this coming before most if not all of us.

jabl 5y ago
> Most fundamentally, they take their computing freedom for granted. There are powerful forces who want to take it away from us. There are powerful and rich people out there who think it's too dangerous for mere citizens to have access to unrestricted computers. To an extent, I agree. I wonder whether the general move in the open source community will turn out to be a Faustian bargain. Are open source developers just a bunch of suckers being taken advantage of to provide building blocks for various proprietary business models? OTOH I'm thinking that more open source code out there is a public good, and we should rejoice in that regardless of 'proprietary free riders'. > People ignore the big picture: computing freedom. It's not just important, it's fundamental. No. What's fundamental is freedom for people. Computing freedom matters only as a means to that end.
- the_af 5y ago
  > What's fundamental is freedom for people. Computing freedom matters only as a means to that end. I agree, and I'm going to guess the person you're replying to also agrees. In fact, RMS would also agree. It's just that we are narrowly focusing on a single aspect of freedom in this conversation, but yes: freedom to live, to work, to education, to health, are all more important :)
- matheusmoreira 5y ago