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Apocryphal, but funny story about Calvin Coolidge: After returning from church one day, his wife is supposed to have asked him, “What did the preacher talk abo

Apocryphal, but funny story about Calvin Coolidge: After returning from church one day, his wife is supposed to have asked him, “What did the preacher talk about?” Mr. Coolidge is reported to have tersely replied, “Sin.” Still insistent, Mrs. Coolidge probed, “Well, what did he say about sin?” That is when Silent Cal responded, “He was agin’ it.” What did the FSF talk about? Proprietary software. What did they have to say about it? They're agin' it. And like the sorts of preachers who love to talk about sin, there's never room for subtlety or tradeoffs.

thristian 13y ago
You can't talk about tradeoffs without a firm understand of the two (or more) things you're trading off. There are a million PR agencies evangelising benefits of proprietary software and the drawbacks of Free software, and that viewpoint has been vehemently expressed for over 35 years (Bill Gates' "Open Letter to Hobbyists" was written in 1976, 37 years ago), so that side of the equation is very well understood. Meanwhile, the benefits of Free software and the drawbacks of proprietary software are much less frequently expressed. Sure, if you're a Linux user or subscribe to the nerdier-end of tech-news sites like HN, you've probably heard it all before, but that's still a small percentage of the IT industry, let alone the huge number of people considering updating to the iPhone 5S. There's room enough for blog-posts and multi-page articles debating where the author wants to draw their personal line between proprietary and Free; we shouldn't complain about the FSF trying to fit their message into a soundbite for their target audience.
- Karunamon 13y ago
  I had a friend bring this exact thread up over dinner. The reaction of pretty much everyone else at the table, myself included, was "Okay, and? How is this different from what the FSF does every day? Are they planning on releasing some silly PR flack every time a company comes out with a new device?" Meanwhile, the benefits of proprietary software are more immediately obvious (the professional content creation market, for instance, is completely unserved on Linux last I checked), while the benefits of free/open source software are much more subtle and more ideological than functional. The recent NSA shenanigans have (rightly, IMO) elevated the priority of that ideological fight, but it still is what it is. (Note that I believe the FSF is fighting a good fight, but their organization and leadership appears to be dogmatic and often unrealistic)

thristian 13y ago

You can't talk about tradeoffs without a firm understand of the two (or more) things you're trading off. There are a million PR agencies evangelising benefits of proprietary software and the drawbacks of Free software, and that viewpoint has been vehemently expressed for over 35 years (Bill Gates' "Open Letter to Hobbyists" was written in 1976, 37 years ago), so that side of the equation is very well understood. Meanwhile, the benefits of Free software and the drawbacks of proprietary software are much less frequently expressed. Sure, if you're a Linux user or subscribe to the nerdier-end of tech-news sites like HN, you've probably heard it all before, but that's still a small percentage of the IT industry, let alone the huge number of people considering updating to the iPhone 5S. There's room enough for blog-posts and multi-page articles debating where the author wants to draw their personal line between proprietary and Free; we shouldn't complain about the FSF trying to fit their message into a soundbite for their target audience.

Karunamon 13y ago
I had a friend bring this exact thread up over dinner. The reaction of pretty much everyone else at the table, myself included, was "Okay, and? How is this different from what the FSF does every day? Are they planning on releasing some silly PR flack every time a company comes out with a new device?" Meanwhile, the benefits of proprietary software are more immediately obvious (the professional content creation market, for instance, is completely unserved on Linux last I checked), while the benefits of free/open source software are much more subtle and more ideological than functional. The recent NSA shenanigans have (rightly, IMO) elevated the priority of that ideological fight, but it still is what it is. (Note that I believe the FSF is fighting a good fight, but their organization and leadership appears to be dogmatic and often unrealistic)