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Google and Facebook would never exist the way they do today without the free software movement. Both of them rely on a huge stack of open-source technology. Sta

by thurn 15y ago

Google and Facebook would never exist the way they do today without the free software movement. Both of them rely on a huge stack of open-source technology. Stallman's ideas are what makes it possible for a college kid to run a web startup today essentially for free.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
lazerwalker 15y ago
I think sek's post was more along the lines of "but what has he done for me lately?" Right now, for every piece of open software that has enabled all kinds of world-changing good things, there's a dozen situations where open software is not a viable solution when compared to the closed alternatives for a wide variety of reasons, unless you're explicitly choosing to use only open software as a show of support for an ideological cause. What frustrates me about Stallman is that he spends his time lecturing people about why they're bad people for not using open software, instead of actively working to make open software a more appealing solution more of the time.
- ebiester 15y ago
  Someone needs to set the edge of the Overton window.
- tikhonj 15y ago
  Have you ever listened to his talks? I have read a bunch of what he has written (mostly transcripts of talks) and did not get that impression. His main point is not that you are a "bad person" for using proprietary software--rather, it's more like you are the victim. Now, he does believe you should not use proprietary software, but because it's abusive and takes away your rights. Finally, I could see getting the impression that people publishing proprietary software are "bad", but that's a different story altogether. Also, we're mostly developers here. Barring a few fields (things like .NET and iOS), free software is the best option for development. So while an artist using exclusively free software may be making a sacrifice, I have actually been much more productive on Linux/Emacs than I ever was on OS X or Windows. It's really a win-win situation.
pooriaazimi 15y ago
But... (open source != FSF) Stallman's ideas are what makes it possible for a college kid to run a web startup today essentially for free. With lots and lots of limitations the GPL license imposes on him... I think the world would be a better place with less GPL and more BSD/Apache/... - He did great things, but many of his ideas are old and frankly, ridiculous. I submitted this link a while back that has a great discussion about what people think of GPS's limitations: 'Why you should use a BSD style license for your Open Source Project' http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3402346 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3402346
- dalke 15y ago
  What limitations does the GPL license place on a web startup? AGPL, yes, but GPL?
  - xorglorb 15y ago
    If you ever license a product to another company (ie. GitHub FI), you have to be GPL compliant.
    - pquerna 15y ago
      And during an acquisition GPL'ed software dependencies is at the very least a yellow flag to be fully investigated....
  - pooriaazimi 15y ago
    Read the linked HN discussion (and also the original FreeBSD.org article). As an example, You can't (technically) use GPL'd code inside your iOS application. GPL is not the greatest license, that's why they created LGPL (to remove some of its stupid restrictions) and even that wasn't enough...
    - nknight 15y ago
      > You can't (technically) use GPL'd code inside your iOS application. Web startups don't generally build iOS apps, they build web apps. > GPL is not the greatest license, that's why they created LGPL (to remove some of its stupid restrictions) and even that wasn't enough... Enough for whom? Microsoft? I know it's hard to believe, but some people do not have "allow companies to benefit from my work without giving back anything in return" as their top priority.
dalke 15y ago
As the FSF would point out, the free software movement is different from open source. If there was no free software movement, or a prohibition on GPL'ed software, then Google could have used other open source tools (eg, *BSD) instead. One serious concern in the FSF seems to be that a large, programmer-centric company like Google could rewrite most free software, should the license not be compatible with the business model. Eg, the recent brouhaha on a non-GPL replacement for BusyBox and a comment about Google's goal of "reducing the amount of GPL software in user-space for Android devices."
- natesm 15y ago
  > As the FSF would point out, the free software movement is different from open source. They point this out and it's philosophically true, but are there actually any licenses that meet the definition of "open source" but not the definition of "free software" (or vise versa)? All of the ones that people actually use (GPL, LGPL, BSD, MIT, ISC, and Apache, I think that basically covers it) appear to pass both DFSG and OSI definitions.
  - dalke 15y ago
    Going through the list of licenses which the FSF considers not-free but which are listed on opensource.org as "open source": NASA Open Source Agreement 1.3 (NASA 1.3), Reciprocal Public License (RPL 1.5). I'm hard pressed to think of something which can be considered free software but not open source. My point though is that you commingled the free software movement with open source efforts. Google etc. could have implemented what they needed from various open source projects which existed at the time but were not part of the free software development. The major exception, of course, being gcc. It's only now with LLVM that gcc has a serious open source alternative. (I assign that term carefully; LLVM is not part of the free software movement.)
    - Shamanmuni 15y ago
      Your distinctions in reality are pretty meaningless, you can be an open source guy using the GPL (look at Linus) or a free software guy using BSD. Both movements overlap enourmously, and the differences between them are very small compared to the rest of the software ecosystem. I wish we could stop all the silly infighting and see that we are all heading in the same direction.

by thurn 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

lazerwalker 15y ago

I think sek's post was more along the lines of "but what has he done for me lately?" Right now, for every piece of open software that has enabled all kinds of world-changing good things, there's a dozen situations where open software is not a viable solution when compared to the closed alternatives for a wide variety of reasons, unless you're explicitly choosing to use only open software as a show of support for an ideological cause. What frustrates me about Stallman is that he spends his time lecturing people about why they're bad people for not using open software, instead of actively working to make open software a more appealing solution more of the time.

ebiester 15y ago
Someone needs to set the edge of the Overton window.
tikhonj 15y ago
Have you ever listened to his talks? I have read a bunch of what he has written (mostly transcripts of talks) and did not get that impression. His main point is not that you are a "bad person" for using proprietary software--rather, it's more like you are the victim. Now, he does believe you should not use proprietary software, but because it's abusive and takes away your rights. Finally, I could see getting the impression that people publishing proprietary software are "bad", but that's a different story altogether. Also, we're mostly developers here. Barring a few fields (things like .NET and iOS), free software is the best option for development. So while an artist using exclusively free software may be making a sacrifice, I have actually been much more productive on Linux/Emacs than I ever was on OS X or Windows. It's really a win-win situation.

pooriaazimi 15y ago

But... (open source != FSF) Stallman's ideas are what makes it possible for a college kid to run a web startup today essentially for free. With lots and lots of limitations the GPL license imposes on him... I think the world would be a better place with less GPL and more BSD/Apache/... - He did great things, but many of his ideas are old and frankly, ridiculous. I submitted this link a while back that has a great discussion about what people think of GPS's limitations: 'Why you should use a BSD style license for your Open Source Project' http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3402346 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3402346

dalke 15y ago
What limitations does the GPL license place on a web startup? AGPL, yes, but GPL?
- xorglorb 15y ago
  If you ever license a product to another company (ie. GitHub FI), you have to be GPL compliant.
  - pquerna 15y ago
    And during an acquisition GPL'ed software dependencies is at the very least a yellow flag to be fully investigated....
- pooriaazimi 15y ago
  Read the linked HN discussion (and also the original FreeBSD.org article). As an example, You can't (technically) use GPL'd code inside your iOS application. GPL is not the greatest license, that's why they created LGPL (to remove some of its stupid restrictions) and even that wasn't enough...
  - nknight 15y ago
    > You can't (technically) use GPL'd code inside your iOS application. Web startups don't generally build iOS apps, they build web apps. > GPL is not the greatest license, that's why they created LGPL (to remove some of its stupid restrictions) and even that wasn't enough... Enough for whom? Microsoft? I know it's hard to believe, but some people do not have "allow companies to benefit from my work without giving back anything in return" as their top priority.

dalke 15y ago

As the FSF would point out, the free software movement is different from open source. If there was no free software movement, or a prohibition on GPL'ed software, then Google could have used other open source tools (eg, *BSD) instead. One serious concern in the FSF seems to be that a large, programmer-centric company like Google could rewrite most free software, should the license not be compatible with the business model. Eg, the recent brouhaha on a non-GPL replacement for BusyBox and a comment about Google's goal of "reducing the amount of GPL software in user-space for Android devices."

natesm 15y ago
> As the FSF would point out, the free software movement is different from open source. They point this out and it's philosophically true, but are there actually any licenses that meet the definition of "open source" but not the definition of "free software" (or vise versa)? All of the ones that people actually use (GPL, LGPL, BSD, MIT, ISC, and Apache, I think that basically covers it) appear to pass both DFSG and OSI definitions.
- dalke 15y ago
  Going through the list of licenses which the FSF considers not-free but which are listed on opensource.org as "open source": NASA Open Source Agreement 1.3 (NASA 1.3), Reciprocal Public License (RPL 1.5). I'm hard pressed to think of something which can be considered free software but not open source. My point though is that you commingled the free software movement with open source efforts. Google etc. could have implemented what they needed from various open source projects which existed at the time but were not part of the free software development. The major exception, of course, being gcc. It's only now with LLVM that gcc has a serious open source alternative. (I assign that term carefully; LLVM is not part of the free software movement.)
  - Shamanmuni 15y ago
    Your distinctions in reality are pretty meaningless, you can be an open source guy using the GPL (look at Linus) or a free software guy using BSD. Both movements overlap enourmously, and the differences between them are very small compared to the rest of the software ecosystem. I wish we could stop all the silly infighting and see that we are all heading in the same direction.