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> really shows how irrelevant the GNU foundation (and even the FSF) have become I've seen several posts here in the last month about proprietary software being

by cies 3y ago

> really shows how irrelevant the GNU foundation (and even the FSF) have become I've seen several posts here in the last month about proprietary software being used to basically exploit the users: steeply increase fees, hold files ransom (upgrade for money or loose access to files), spying on users. My conclusion is very different from yours: GNU Foundation and FSF are very relevant! They seem to lack in the PR dept, which makes them look (by simply looking at the website) outdated and hence "possibly irrelevant". Looks can be deceiving though.

dale_glass 3y ago
The cause they fight for is very relevant. Now whether the organizations are actually doing a good job on that front is more questionable.
arp242 3y ago
We have Linux though, and mountains of non-GNU projects. It's not really about "proprietary vs. free software", it whether the FSF and GNU are still a driving force for Free Software. And to me this seems ... not really? They're still trying to create their anno-1985 Unix replacement. That's great and all, but also not really driving anything forward.
- cies 3y ago
  In the mean time FLOSS now also encompasses the BSD licenses and we have a much larger percentage of software that is not copy-left. I see copy-left as a form of hacker activism, and this getting less. I'm quite sure it's not a good thing. FLOSS has been commencialized. I prefer AGPL for the simple reason big corps avoid it like the plague.
Gigachad 3y ago
Open source and software freedom are relevant, the FSF is not. In an era of insane surveillance, AI technology, mass corporate insanity, the FSF is still arguing about firmware blobs on hardware vs loaded in by the OS, or advocating for switching from .docx to .odt when the world has moved on from even having document files.
- arp242 3y ago
  > switching from .docx to .odt Also, isn't the whole .docx / OOXML thing just a published standard? The process may not be as "open" as one might like (i.e. not everyone can contribute) but that seems like a detail. IIRC there was a lot of FUD simply because it came from Microsoft. That said: I don't think it's entirely irrelevant; e.g. my country's parliament publishes a lot of their files in .docx. But I can read them on my Linux machine and you don't need a byte of non-free software for it, and I had a lot more trouble with the .doc files they published 20 years ago, so...
  - josefx 3y ago
    > IIRC there was a lot of FUD simply because it came from Microsoft. It was annoying because we already had odt as open format and OOXML was reported to be more of a text dump of what Microsoft did in binary than a standard meant for interoperability. > But I can read them on my Linux machine and you don't need a byte of non-free software for it, and I had a lot more trouble with the .doc files they published 20 years ago, so. OpenOffice was already better at reading old doc files than Microsoft Word was well before OOXML was a thing. Meanwhile my last few attempts to deal with power point or excel sheets where still a gigantic mess of missing content.
    - arp242 3y ago
      > text dump of what Microsoft did in binary than a standard meant for interoperability. Isn't it all XML based? > OpenOffice was already better at reading old doc files than Microsoft Word was well before OOXML was a thing. It's been a long time, but that was certainly not my experience from what I recall; I had a lot of trouble with this. And writing files and then expecting Word users to be able to read them well was another source of problems. And look, maybe ODT would have been better; but that ship has sailed, and OOXML seems free for all intents and purposes, even though perhaps it's not 100% ideal. This is just not something that's all that important today.
      - ptx 3y ago
Nextgrid 3y ago
The way I see it: * Proprietary software allows me to get things done, sometimes with some user-hostility baked in, but in general, no software explicitly forces me to use it and I can weigh the pros of doing the thing vs the cons of user-hostility and decide whether to use it. * Free software is more interested to promote some impractical ideology, at the expense of getting things done. More effort is spent on ideology rather than useful (and usable, in terms of UX) functionality, which is why proprietary (and even extremely user-hostile) software thrives. Keep in mind that recent deviances of proprietary software with regards to privacy are more due to the effective legalization of spyware and fraud (when committed by a business as opposed to an individual) as well as an adtech/marketing and VC bubble rather than proprietary software itself. We've had commercial, paid, proprietary software back in the day that was respectful of the user and where the incentives were actually aligned - the software was as good as it could be in order to convince the user to pay for it and recommend it to others. You get the occasional annoying DRM but I'm happy to take that in exchange for a healthy ecosystem of usable software. Proprietary software doesn't have to be malicious, and its maliciousness can be fixed with legislation and regulation (enforcing the existing ones would be a good start) without getting rid of the concept of proprietary software itself. Free software doesn't just have a PR problem - there are many verticals where a free software implementation either doesn't exist, can't get off the ground (because more resources are spent on bikeshedding and furthering ideology rather than making software) or is perpetually half-baked and its backers are deluded in thinking it's a viable alternative to the proprietary competition. I'd argue they wouldn't actually need PR if they had good software/hardware, it would sell itself (if anything, merely by being free as in money compared to paid, proprietary competition).

by cies 3y ago

dale_glass 3y ago

The cause they fight for is very relevant. Now whether the organizations are actually doing a good job on that front is more questionable.

arp242 3y ago

We have Linux though, and mountains of non-GNU projects. It's not really about "proprietary vs. free software", it whether the FSF and GNU are still a driving force for Free Software. And to me this seems ... not really? They're still trying to create their anno-1985 Unix replacement. That's great and all, but also not really driving anything forward.

cies 3y ago
In the mean time FLOSS now also encompasses the BSD licenses and we have a much larger percentage of software that is not copy-left. I see copy-left as a form of hacker activism, and this getting less. I'm quite sure it's not a good thing. FLOSS has been commencialized. I prefer AGPL for the simple reason big corps avoid it like the plague.

Gigachad 3y ago

Open source and software freedom are relevant, the FSF is not. In an era of insane surveillance, AI technology, mass corporate insanity, the FSF is still arguing about firmware blobs on hardware vs loaded in by the OS, or advocating for switching from .docx to .odt when the world has moved on from even having document files.

arp242 3y ago
> switching from .docx to .odt Also, isn't the whole .docx / OOXML thing just a published standard? The process may not be as "open" as one might like (i.e. not everyone can contribute) but that seems like a detail. IIRC there was a lot of FUD simply because it came from Microsoft. That said: I don't think it's entirely irrelevant; e.g. my country's parliament publishes a lot of their files in .docx. But I can read them on my Linux machine and you don't need a byte of non-free software for it, and I had a lot more trouble with the .doc files they published 20 years ago, so...
- josefx 3y ago
  > IIRC there was a lot of FUD simply because it came from Microsoft. It was annoying because we already had odt as open format and OOXML was reported to be more of a text dump of what Microsoft did in binary than a standard meant for interoperability. > But I can read them on my Linux machine and you don't need a byte of non-free software for it, and I had a lot more trouble with the .doc files they published 20 years ago, so. OpenOffice was already better at reading old doc files than Microsoft Word was well before OOXML was a thing. Meanwhile my last few attempts to deal with power point or excel sheets where still a gigantic mess of missing content.
  - arp242 3y ago
    > text dump of what Microsoft did in binary than a standard meant for interoperability. Isn't it all XML based? > OpenOffice was already better at reading old doc files than Microsoft Word was well before OOXML was a thing. It's been a long time, but that was certainly not my experience from what I recall; I had a lot of trouble with this. And writing files and then expecting Word users to be able to read them well was another source of problems. And look, maybe ODT would have been better; but that ship has sailed, and OOXML seems free for all intents and purposes, even though perhaps it's not 100% ideal. This is just not something that's all that important today.
    - ptx 3y ago

Nextgrid 3y ago

The way I see it: * Proprietary software allows me to get things done, sometimes with some user-hostility baked in, but in general, no software explicitly forces me to use it and I can weigh the pros of doing the thing vs the cons of user-hostility and decide whether to use it. * Free software is more interested to promote some impractical ideology, at the expense of getting things done. More effort is spent on ideology rather than useful (and usable, in terms of UX) functionality, which is why proprietary (and even extremely user-hostile) software thrives. Keep in mind that recent deviances of proprietary software with regards to privacy are more due to the effective legalization of spyware and fraud (when committed by a business as opposed to an individual) as well as an adtech/marketing and VC bubble rather than proprietary software itself. We've had commercial, paid, proprietary software back in the day that was respectful of the user and where the incentives were actually aligned - the software was as good as it could be in order to convince the user to pay for it and recommend it to others. You get the occasional annoying DRM but I'm happy to take that in exchange for a healthy ecosystem of usable software. Proprietary software doesn't have to be malicious, and its maliciousness can be fixed with legislation and regulation (enforcing the existing ones would be a good start) without getting rid of the concept of proprietary software itself. Free software doesn't just have a PR problem - there are many verticals where a free software implementation either doesn't exist, can't get off the ground (because more resources are spent on bikeshedding and furthering ideology rather than making software) or is perpetually half-baked and its backers are deluded in thinking it's a viable alternative to the proprietary competition. I'd argue they wouldn't actually need PR if they had good software/hardware, it would sell itself (if anything, merely by being free as in money compared to paid, proprietary competition).