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Yes! Thank you lukifer! Thank you for injecting a bit of reality into these pie in the sky ideals RMS fans have. We would all love to see these great ideas be p

Yes! Thank you lukifer! Thank you for injecting a bit of reality into these pie in the sky ideals RMS fans have. We would all love to see these great ideas be practiced but it isn't going to happen by Stallman's total and complete unwillingness not only to compromise but to even acknowledge that we all don't have the luxury of being able to GPL 100% of our code. And maybe he's wrong. Software is a tool. It is something we pay for because it gives us the power to get something valuable done. The majority of people don't care how the computer or it's software works. They just want to get work done. I drive a car or take a plan or ride a bus and I pay because it gets me where I need to go to often times make more money. I don't care how it works, just that it does. It seems Stallman's entire FOSS movement assumes that either everyone is or will be a coder or power user and that those who aren't want to be. The reality is that they don't. Programming is hard. Sure anyone can learn but to make anything truly worthwhile you have be smart. The being smart comment won't go down well with many but think about it, it's very true. If you apply the FOSS principles to other things like construction or car manufacturing or anything else it just falls apart. Sure, the tools are freely available but but will everyone start building their own? Will people build extras to just give away? No. You pay for convenience and happily so. Some companies do operate in ways that restrict freedom more than what we can all agree they should but I'd say we already have freedom. I like the capitalist way of software development and distribution because its survival of the best software that's right for the most users. The Stallman socialist way results in software that us programmers can use easily but will be considered hard to use and crappy by the masses. I benefit from free software all the time. Free software that I run on my proprietary, OS X running computer. I can honestly say that I benefit most from proprietary software. I use the free stuff for applications it is well suited for too and at the end of the day both FOSS and proprietary software have their merits. Honestly, if FOSS was so awesome it would have greater market share. I mean, come on, it's free!

loup-vaillant 15y ago
I agree with lukifer (assuming his first paragraph was ironic), but not with many of your points. Why do you think the majority of people don't care how a computer works? Simply because they don't want to learn, and they think mostly in the short term. (Not that I'd blame them. Short term thinking tends to be emphasised by our current western society.) Of course you can't apply FOSS principle everywhere. Buildings and cars are scarce. You can't copy them the way you copy software. You also assume that the market is efficient. It isn't. Even when doing the most ridiculous assumptions about human nature (homo economicus), the market simply isn't efficient. Therefore, the most popular product cannot be assumed to be the best, or even have the best cost/benefit ratio. And you know about Microsoft's OEM scheme. That gives them an advantage that has nothing to do with the quality of their software. You also seem to assume FOSS doesn't have such a great market share. On the desktop, sure. But on the server, it won.
- lukifer 15y ago
  I wasn't being ironic, actually. I'm not advocating for or against Coca-Cola; I'm stating how things are. There are many businesses built on secrets, whether it's source code, business practices, pricing deals, secret recipes, etc. And just as with other legacy, semi-functional market practices (stocks, patents, copyright), nobody is going to be willing to erase the value of their "ownership" overnight. And while a world in which everyone can brew and/or sell their own Coca-Cola would be cool, it would also put a lot of employees out of work. I'm neither defending nor vilifying corporations or other secrets-holders. But secrets are a big piece of the semi-functional market system that allows software engineers to draw a paycheck. If you want to talk about subverting or supplanting that market system, I'm ecstatic to have that conversation. But advocating FOSS without addressing the economic issues is pure dreaming. (Not that I'm knocking dreaming; but it's only useful as Step #0).
  - loup-vaillant 15y ago
    Thanks for the clarification. I think I still agree with you. If I had to emphasise a point though it would be that the profitability one can get from information asymmetry is hardly a genuine justification for it. > advocating FOSS without addressing the economic issues is pure dreaming. Totally agree. Now I discovered today that Stallman is probably aware of the economic issues[1]. Still, he doesn't deal with them. I don't know why, but I guess he may estimate there are other competent people working on just that (he repeatedly said that Free Software is a cause besides many others, and that he chose this one because he could). [1] http://www.harishanker.net/2009/06/richard-stallman-interview/ http://www.harishanker.net/2009/06/richard-stallman-intervie... It's not fleshed out, but I take it as evidence that Stallman at least thought about it.

loup-vaillant 15y ago

I agree with lukifer (assuming his first paragraph was ironic), but not with many of your points. Why do you think the majority of people don't care how a computer works? Simply because they don't want to learn, and they think mostly in the short term. (Not that I'd blame them. Short term thinking tends to be emphasised by our current western society.) Of course you can't apply FOSS principle everywhere. Buildings and cars are scarce. You can't copy them the way you copy software. You also assume that the market is efficient. It isn't. Even when doing the most ridiculous assumptions about human nature (homo economicus), the market simply isn't efficient. Therefore, the most popular product cannot be assumed to be the best, or even have the best cost/benefit ratio. And you know about Microsoft's OEM scheme. That gives them an advantage that has nothing to do with the quality of their software. You also seem to assume FOSS doesn't have such a great market share. On the desktop, sure. But on the server, it won.

lukifer 15y ago
I wasn't being ironic, actually. I'm not advocating for or against Coca-Cola; I'm stating how things are. There are many businesses built on secrets, whether it's source code, business practices, pricing deals, secret recipes, etc. And just as with other legacy, semi-functional market practices (stocks, patents, copyright), nobody is going to be willing to erase the value of their "ownership" overnight. And while a world in which everyone can brew and/or sell their own Coca-Cola would be cool, it would also put a lot of employees out of work. I'm neither defending nor vilifying corporations or other secrets-holders. But secrets are a big piece of the semi-functional market system that allows software engineers to draw a paycheck. If you want to talk about subverting or supplanting that market system, I'm ecstatic to have that conversation. But advocating FOSS without addressing the economic issues is pure dreaming. (Not that I'm knocking dreaming; but it's only useful as Step #0).
- loup-vaillant 15y ago
  Thanks for the clarification. I think I still agree with you. If I had to emphasise a point though it would be that the profitability one can get from information asymmetry is hardly a genuine justification for it. > advocating FOSS without addressing the economic issues is pure dreaming. Totally agree. Now I discovered today that Stallman is probably aware of the economic issues[1]. Still, he doesn't deal with them. I don't know why, but I guess he may estimate there are other competent people working on just that (he repeatedly said that Free Software is a cause besides many others, and that he chose this one because he could). [1] http://www.harishanker.net/2009/06/richard-stallman-interview/ http://www.harishanker.net/2009/06/richard-stallman-intervie... It's not fleshed out, but I take it as evidence that Stallman at least thought about it.