4 ms·

The question for me is probably "not enough for what"? My requirement is user-respecting. Software should respect users, be useful to society, and should not (

by jraph 4y ago

The question for me is probably "not enough for what"? My requirement is user-respecting. Software should respect users, be useful to society, and should not (be designed to) cause harm (environmentally, psychologically, should respect user's privacy - and why this is important is its whole own discussion). Free software is (arguably) a requirement for being user-respecting. A necessary condition. Because it is theoretically necessary for users (or someone they ask - most people don't have the required time / knowledge) to be able to adapt or maintain pieces of software they rely on, if its original builders ever disappear, want to take another path or simply won't fulfills the user's need. Because the users should be able to inspect their software. But indeed not sufficient. You may need guidance to understand the code and build it (documentation) [1]. You need reproducible builds (so someone can check that the shipped version does what the code says, so users don't need to build the program themselves each time to be sure). And other requirements too: like the software should not manipulate the users to make them do things that they would not have done and cause harm, or skew society in some undesirable direction. Which can be subjective. For instance, Chromium is free software, probably documented quite well, but still serves a monopoly from an ad-supported company, which is arguably "not sufficiently" user-respecting and helps it to push the entire world to an economical model that relies on user-privacy issues, manipulation caused by ads, and control from a company bigger than countries and yet not democratic at all (assuming democracy is desirable). Software should be free. And more. How exactly? I don't really know. [1] Note that I also think we can't require documentation or any extra work from people contributing free software neither. They already make a gift to the world by releasing their free software, especially if they do it in their spare time.

scarface74 4y ago
I would think Chromium is just the opposite. If you have the resources and the knowledge, you can fork it and make it your own. I doubt Microsoft’s version has any Google dependencies. Also, if I recall correctly, MS has been able to get changes pushed upstream.
- zen21 4y ago
  If you “have the resources and the knowledge” then you don’t even need the source code. You can build your own browser from scratch.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    So you think it takes the same amount of resources and knowledge to build a browser from scratch as it does to make modifications to an existing one?
    - zen21 4y ago
      No, that’s not what I said.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        > If you “have the resources and the knowledge” then you don’t even need the source code Are you not equating the resources needed to create a browser with the resources required to modify one?
        zen21 4y ago
        No. I didn’t equate those things. Edit: It’s not clear why you think I did.
        PeterisP 4y ago
        Not the parent poster, but likely because "If you “have the resources and the knowledge” then you don’t even need the source code. You can build your own browser from scratch." is true if and only if the resources required to modify the browser are equivalent to the resources required to build it from scratch - otherwise obviously most people who can do the former do not have the ability for the latter.
        4y ago
feoren 4y ago
> Free software is (arguably) a requirement for being user-respecting. Arguably indeed. I'll argue this all day. I'd argue that, for instance, Excel is mostly user-respecting, within its own limits. OneNote is, as well. (If you disable telemetry, which is a counterpoint, but could be argued is not a core part of those products.) Note for instance that you can save an Excel document to .ods format, the main format for OpenOffice and LibreOffice. On the other hand, free software is (arguably) incompatible with being developer-respecting, as TFA demonstrates. Software needs to be developer-respecting to thrive as well. > Software should be free. And more. This is not compatible with the statement "developers should be paid". As a developer who would like to make a living, I obviously strongly disagree with this. Nor is that statement compatible with any sensible intellectual property or copyright protections whatsoever, unless you really just hate software developers particularly. There's no reason why software developers shouldn't be allowed to profit from their work, but J.K. Rowling should be allowed to profit from Harry Potter, or Lin Manuel Miranda profit from sales of the Encanto soundtrack. If you truly believe no artist or creative person anywhere in the world ever deserves to be compensated for anything they do, well, I just really never want to live in the world you imagine.
- jraph 4y ago
  When I say free, I don't mean gratis. > On the other hand, free software is (arguably) incompatible with being developer-respecting If you mean developer-respecting as in "paid developer". That's not true. There are several ways of building a business around free software. Anyway, people releasing their software as free software do it willingly. That's strange to say that their software does not respect them. > This is not compatible with the statement "developers should be paid" No. As a developer, I chose to work for a company making money from free software. This company sells paid licenses for extensions (the code is free software, but people, especially enterprises, will pay for the convenience of having it built for them and installed from an easy-to-use UI), support, cloud hosting and customization. I should restrict my statement however: end-user software should be free software. Not necessarily free beer. And if a customer wants non-free customization, that's fine with me. They are the ones who pay and use the software, under terms they outline in the contract they have with the company. Though I don't enjoy writing such non-free code if it could benefit others and will try to avoid this. That's a waste of my time, I'd rather have my time be spent on stuff that's useful for more people than just a customer whose values are not, by the way, necessarily totally aligned with mine. My company too, by the way. It encourages their customers to allow it to develop customization as open source components (by making a discount, and open source components are more likely to be maintained and get improvements outside this specific customer's contract - improvements can be paid by other customers needing them). There are ways. Core WordPress and Nextcloud developers are paid too. That's true for many projects. > If you truly believe no artist or creative person anywhere in the world ever deserves to be compensated for anything they do, well, I just really never want to live in the world you imagine. There's no bad implication like people being locked up with a closed solution with non-free art. I'm not against it, though I have sympathy for people releasing art under a free license.
kkfx 4y ago
Personally i consider Chromium as not really free. Simply because of it's development model (not developed in an open community form, from the start) and codebase size (no single human can know it all). Personally i consider a software free if it born free, developed openly so to have eventually a community of different peoples with different ideas, set of interests, culture, ... have seen the code from it's early days when it was small enough to be fully understood and subsequent discussions/evolution happened in such open manner. It's not exactly a measurable thing, and it's not merely "freedom" but for me is a requirement to consider a software as a really free one: the freedom of knowing and trusting it with acceptable efforts.

by jraph 4y ago

scarface74 4y ago

I would think Chromium is just the opposite. If you have the resources and the knowledge, you can fork it and make it your own. I doubt Microsoft’s version has any Google dependencies. Also, if I recall correctly, MS has been able to get changes pushed upstream.

zen21 4y ago
If you “have the resources and the knowledge” then you don’t even need the source code. You can build your own browser from scratch.
- scarface74 4y ago
  So you think it takes the same amount of resources and knowledge to build a browser from scratch as it does to make modifications to an existing one?
  - zen21 4y ago
    No, that’s not what I said.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      > If you “have the resources and the knowledge” then you don’t even need the source code Are you not equating the resources needed to create a browser with the resources required to modify one?
      - zen21 4y ago
        No. I didn’t equate those things. Edit: It’s not clear why you think I did.
        PeterisP 4y ago
        Not the parent poster, but likely because "If you “have the resources and the knowledge” then you don’t even need the source code. You can build your own browser from scratch." is true if and only if the resources required to modify the browser are equivalent to the resources required to build it from scratch - otherwise obviously most people who can do the former do not have the ability for the latter.
        4y ago

feoren 4y ago

> Free software is (arguably) a requirement for being user-respecting. Arguably indeed. I'll argue this all day. I'd argue that, for instance, Excel is mostly user-respecting, within its own limits. OneNote is, as well. (If you disable telemetry, which is a counterpoint, but could be argued is not a core part of those products.) Note for instance that you can save an Excel document to .ods format, the main format for OpenOffice and LibreOffice. On the other hand, free software is (arguably) incompatible with being developer-respecting, as TFA demonstrates. Software needs to be developer-respecting to thrive as well. > Software should be free. And more. This is not compatible with the statement "developers should be paid". As a developer who would like to make a living, I obviously strongly disagree with this. Nor is that statement compatible with any sensible intellectual property or copyright protections whatsoever, unless you really just hate software developers particularly. There's no reason why software developers shouldn't be allowed to profit from their work, but J.K. Rowling should be allowed to profit from Harry Potter, or Lin Manuel Miranda profit from sales of the Encanto soundtrack. If you truly believe no artist or creative person anywhere in the world ever deserves to be compensated for anything they do, well, I just really never want to live in the world you imagine.

jraph 4y ago
When I say free, I don't mean gratis. > On the other hand, free software is (arguably) incompatible with being developer-respecting If you mean developer-respecting as in "paid developer". That's not true. There are several ways of building a business around free software. Anyway, people releasing their software as free software do it willingly. That's strange to say that their software does not respect them. > This is not compatible with the statement "developers should be paid" No. As a developer, I chose to work for a company making money from free software. This company sells paid licenses for extensions (the code is free software, but people, especially enterprises, will pay for the convenience of having it built for them and installed from an easy-to-use UI), support, cloud hosting and customization. I should restrict my statement however: end-user software should be free software. Not necessarily free beer. And if a customer wants non-free customization, that's fine with me. They are the ones who pay and use the software, under terms they outline in the contract they have with the company. Though I don't enjoy writing such non-free code if it could benefit others and will try to avoid this. That's a waste of my time, I'd rather have my time be spent on stuff that's useful for more people than just a customer whose values are not, by the way, necessarily totally aligned with mine. My company too, by the way. It encourages their customers to allow it to develop customization as open source components (by making a discount, and open source components are more likely to be maintained and get improvements outside this specific customer's contract - improvements can be paid by other customers needing them). There are ways. Core WordPress and Nextcloud developers are paid too. That's true for many projects. > If you truly believe no artist or creative person anywhere in the world ever deserves to be compensated for anything they do, well, I just really never want to live in the world you imagine. There's no bad implication like people being locked up with a closed solution with non-free art. I'm not against it, though I have sympathy for people releasing art under a free license.

kkfx 4y ago

Personally i consider Chromium as not really free. Simply because of it's development model (not developed in an open community form, from the start) and codebase size (no single human can know it all). Personally i consider a software free if it born free, developed openly so to have eventually a community of different peoples with different ideas, set of interests, culture, ... have seen the code from it's early days when it was small enough to be fully understood and subsequent discussions/evolution happened in such open manner. It's not exactly a measurable thing, and it's not merely "freedom" but for me is a requirement to consider a software as a really free one: the freedom of knowing and trusting it with acceptable efforts.